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If you are an LGBTQ+ Christian, you probably learned these verses before anyone explained them to you. Someone quoted them to end a conversation — at a youth group, at a family dinner, from a pulpit. That is how they earned their name. They were not offered as scripture to be studied. They were used as a club.
If you are a pastor, you know someone in your congregation who carries that memory, whether or not they have told you. This guide is for both of you. It walks through each passage in its literary and historical setting, draws on mainstream biblical scholarship, and ends with practical help for preaching and teaching these texts in an affirming congregation.
"Clobber passages" is the name LGBTQ+ Christians gave to the handful of Bible verses most often used to condemn same-sex relationships. Most lists include six:
| Passage | How it is usually quoted | What the text is concerned with |
|---|---|---|
| Genesis 19:1–11 | God destroyed Sodom for homosexuality | A mob threatening sexual violence against strangers; the prophets name Sodom's sin as arrogance and neglect of the poor |
| Leviticus 18:22 | A man lying with a man is an abomination | Israel's Holiness Code, a boundary law set among rules most Christians have never observed |
| Leviticus 20:13 | The same act deserves death | The same code, which also prescribes death for cursing a parent |
| Romans 1:26–27 | Same-sex desire is "unnatural" | Paul describing idolatry and excess — as the setup for condemning anyone who judges others |
| 1 Corinthians 6:9–10 | "Homosexuals" will not inherit God's kingdom | Two rare Greek words whose meaning is genuinely uncertain, in a chapter about believers defrauding one another |
| 1 Timothy 1:9–10 | The same, repeated | One of the same words, placed between sexual immorality and slave trading |
Some lists add Jude 7 (discussed with Genesis 19 below) and Deuteronomy 22:5, which concerns clothing and gender expression rather than sexual orientation.
The idea of a lasting orientation — a person who is gay, straight, or bisexual as a stable part of who they are — is modern. The English word "homosexual" did not appear in any English Bible until the Revised Standard Version New Testament of 1946, which used it to translate two different Greek words in 1 Corinthians 6:9. The biblical writers addressed particular acts in particular contexts. None of them addressed two people of the same sex building a faithful, mutual, lifelong relationship, because that category was not part of their world.
The Bible has far more to say about wealth, hospitality, and the treatment of strangers than about sexuality of any kind. That does not make these six passages unimportant. It does mean that a church which treats them as the center of its moral teaching has made a choice the Bible itself did not make.
The four Gospels record no teaching from Jesus about same-sex relationships. He speaks often about money, religious hypocrisy, and the people his society pushed to the edges — and he spends his time with them.
Two angels arrive in Sodom and Lot takes them into his home. That night the men of the city surround the house and demand that Lot bring the visitors out so they can "know" them — a demand to rape the strangers. Lot offers his own daughters instead, which the story presents as a horror, not a model. The angels strike the mob blind, and the city is destroyed.
The story condemns violence against the vulnerable, not love between two people. Judges 19 tells a nearly identical story in the Israelite town of Gibeah, and no one reads that chapter as a text about sexual orientation.
The Bible's own interpretation of Sodom points the same way. Ezekiel names Sodom's guilt as pride, excess food, and prosperous ease while refusing to help the poor and needy (Ezekiel 16:49). When Jesus mentions Sodom, it is in connection with towns that refuse to welcome his disciples (Matthew 10:14–15; Luke 10:10–12). The sin of Sodom, in scripture's own telling, is inhospitality and cruelty.
About Jude 7. Jude says Sodom and Gomorrah pursued "other flesh" (Greek sarkos heteras). Many interpreters read this, alongside Jude 6, as a reference to humans pursuing angelic beings — the strangeness of the flesh involved, not the sex of the people.
These two verses belong to the Holiness Code (Leviticus 17–26), a body of law that marked ancient Israel as distinct from its neighbors. Leviticus 18:22 prohibits a man lying with a male as with a woman; Leviticus 20:13 attaches the death penalty.
Read the verses in their neighborhood. The same chapters prohibit sexual relations during menstruation (18:19), planting two kinds of seed in one field or wearing cloth woven from two materials (19:19), and trimming the edges of a beard (19:27). They prescribe death for cursing one's father or mother (20:9). Very few Christians have ever treated those laws as binding.
The Hebrew word usually translated "abomination," to'evah, is a boundary word. Elsewhere it describes eating forbidden foods (Deuteronomy 14:3) and the Egyptians' refusal to eat with Hebrews (Genesis 43:32). It marks what separates one people from another more than it names a universal moral category.
Scholars continue to debate the precise scope of the prohibition. What is clear is that it addresses men only, arises in a patriarchal world where sex was bound up with status, lineage, and a man's role, and says nothing about mutual, committed relationships. The early church also settled the larger question: the Jerusalem council did not require Gentile believers to keep the law of Moses (Acts 15), after Peter learned that God does not call profane what God has made clean (Acts 10).
Romans 1:26–27 is the passage most often quoted as calling same-sex desire "unnatural," and the only one commonly read as referring to women as well as men.
Start with Paul's argument. Beginning at 1:18, he describes Gentile idolatry: people who exchanged the glory of God for images, and whom God "gave up" to the consequences. Verses 26–27 describe people consumed with passion, exchanging one kind of relation for another. A long list of vices follows — including gossip, boasting, and disobedience to parents (1:29–31).
Then Paul turns on his audience. Anyone who judges others has no excuse, he writes, because the one passing judgment does the very same things (Romans 2:1). The whole passage is a setup: Paul lets his readers nod along at the failings of outsiders, then insists that everyone stands in the same need of grace (3:22–23). Quoting 1:26–27 to condemn someone else repeats exactly the move Paul is warning against.
About "contrary to nature." Paul's phrase para physin is the same one he uses in Romans 11:24 to describe God grafting Gentiles into Israel — God acting "contrary to nature." In 1 Corinthians 11:14 he appeals to nature to argue that long hair is degrading for men. For Paul, "nature" often means social convention and expectation, not a fixed biological law.
The same-sex behavior most visible in Paul's Greco-Roman world involved pederasty, the sexual use of enslaved people, and excess among the powerful. Paul describes lust, idolatry, and exchange. He is not describing two people of the same sex who love each other faithfully.
Both passages are vice lists, and both turn on Greek words whose meaning is genuinely uncertain.
Malakoi literally means "soft." Jesus uses it for soft robes worn in royal palaces (Matthew 11:8). In ancient moral writing it describes self-indulgence, a lack of self-control, or a man judged insufficiently masculine — a judgment rooted in ancient contempt for women.
Arsenokoitai combines the Greek words for "male" and "bed." It is rare; Paul's letters contain the earliest surviving uses, and no ancient writer defines it. In 1 Timothy 1:10 it sits between the sexually immoral and slave traders, which has led many scholars to connect it with sexual or economic exploitation. Its exact meaning remains debated.
Translations show how much interpretation is involved. The King James Version rendered the two words as "effeminate" and "abusers of themselves with mankind." The 1946 Revised Standard Version collapsed both into a single modern word, "homosexuals" — a choice later editions revised.
Context matters here too. 1 Corinthians 6 opens with believers suing and defrauding one another (6:1–8), and Paul's list follows directly from that complaint. The passage ends with his point: this is what some of you used to be, but you were washed (6:11, paraphrased) — a statement about God's transforming grace in a community that had been harming its own members.
Deuteronomy 22:5, which prohibits wearing clothing belonging to the other sex, often appears on clobber lists. It concerns clothing and gender expression, not sexual orientation, and it deserves its own careful reading. See our full study: Cross-Dressing in the Bible: What Does Scripture Say?
None of the six passages is read on a Sunday in the Revised Common Lectionary. If your congregation hears them from you, it will be because you chose them. Several Sundays put you right next door, though — and those readings open the conversation on scripture's own terms.
| Sunday | Reading | The passage next door |
|---|---|---|
| Proper 12, Year C | Genesis 18:20–32Abraham argues with God on Sodom's behalf | Genesis 19 begins in the very next verse |
| Seventh Sunday after the Epiphany, Year A · Proper 25, Year A | Leviticus 19:1–2, 9–18 · Leviticus 19:1–2, 15–18"Love your neighbor as yourself" | The same Holiness Code as Leviticus 18 and 20 |
| Proper 4, Year A | Romans 1:16–17; 3:22b–28From Paul's thesis straight to "all have sinned" | Passes over 1:18 through 3:22a — including 2:1 |
| Second Sunday after the Epiphany, Year B | 1 Corinthians 6:12–20 | Begins one verse after the vice list ends |
| Proper 19, Year C | 1 Timothy 1:12–17Paul calls himself the foremost of sinners | Begins two verses after 1:10 |
The lectionary also carries readings that affirming congregations can preach with confidence: Philip baptizing an Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8:26–40, Fifth Sunday of Easter, Year B), the Spirit falling on Gentiles before anyone approved it (Acts 10:44–48, Sixth Sunday of Easter, Year B), and "no longer male and female" (Galatians 3:23–29, Proper 7, Year C). On Proper 15, Year A, the reading from Isaiah 56 skips verses 2–5, which include God's promise to eunuchs who hold fast to the covenant. Consider reading them.
Find each week's readings on our lectionary pages.
Somewhere in your congregation is someone who was clobbered with these verses, a parent who is afraid for their child, and a longtime member who has honest questions and has never heard them answered. A sermon that argues only with absent opponents misses all three. Name the harm these verses have done, plainly. Then let the texts be what they are.
A congregation that learns to ask who wrote this, to whom, in what setting, and what does the word actually mean can read every hard text better — not just these six. Show your work. Trust people with the Greek and Hebrew. Scholarship is a gift to your congregation, not a threat.
Sincere Christians read these passages differently, and saying so honestly builds trust. But interpretation and belonging are separate questions. People can disagree about the meaning of arsenokoitai. Whether LGBTQ+ people belong fully in the life of your church — baptized, married, ordained, welcomed at the table — is not open for a vote on any given Sunday.
Six passages are too much for one sermon. A six-week adult education series works well: an opening session on how to read scripture in context, one session each for Sodom, Leviticus, Romans, and the vice lists, and a closing session on the texts of welcome — Isaiah 56, Acts 8, Acts 10, and Galatians 3.
Maybe no one explained any of this to you. Maybe you heard these verses from people you trusted, and you have spent years wondering whether God could love all of you.
What happened to you was wrong, and it was not scripture's final word. The Bible's larger story is one of God making room — for the foreigner, the eunuch, the outsider, the one others were sure did not belong. You belong in that story, and you belong in a church that will say so out loud.
If you are looking for that community, our guide on how to find an affirming church is a good place to start. If you are an LGBTQ+ young person going through a hard time, The Trevor Project offers support around the clock.
What are the six clobber passages?
The clobber passages are Genesis 19, Leviticus 18:22, Leviticus 20:13, Romans 1:26–27, 1 Corinthians 6:9–10, and 1 Timothy 1:9–10. Some lists add Jude 7 and Deuteronomy 22:5.
Why are they called clobber passages?
LGBTQ+ Christians gave them the name because the verses were so often used to "clobber" them — quoted to end a conversation rather than read and studied in context.
Did Jesus say anything about homosexuality?
No. The Gospels record no teaching from Jesus about same-sex relationships.
What was the sin of Sodom?
Genesis 19 describes a mob threatening sexual violence against strangers. Ezekiel 16:49 names Sodom's guilt as arrogance, excess, and refusing to help the poor and needy, and Jesus connects Sodom with towns that refuse hospitality.
What does arsenokoitai mean?
No one knows for certain. The Greek word is rare, its earliest surviving uses are in Paul's letters, and no ancient writer defines it. Many scholars connect it with sexual or economic exploitation, especially because 1 Timothy 1:10 lists it next to slave traders.
When did the word "homosexual" first appear in the Bible?
The word first appeared in an English Bible in the Revised Standard Version New Testament of 1946, which used it to translate two Greek words in 1 Corinthians 6:9. Later editions revised that choice.
Can you be gay and Christian?
Yes. Many denominations, including the United Church of Christ, the Episcopal Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), affirm LGBTQ+ people fully, including in marriage and ordination.
Does the Revised Common Lectionary include the clobber passages?
No. None of the six passages is read on a Sunday or special day in the Revised Common Lectionary, though several readings sit directly beside them.
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