3 Bible Passages to Encourage LGBTQ+ Christians and Allies
For many throughout our community, Scripture has been a source of spiritual refuge, grounding, and a way of connecting with God through ancient words and experiences. At the same time, this tremendous gift has often been weaponized against LGBTQ+ people, whether from those we’ve trusted most or from our institutions, communities, and leaders. We grieve the ways in which the Bible has been fashioned into a tool to argue against God’s own children rather than a means of encouragement and liberation.
Today, we take a moment to consider just a handful of passages that cultivate in us the belonging we have in God’s family.
“See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!”
John’s first epistle goes to great lengths to describe God’s love for God’s children, going even so far as to assert that God is love (4:8). Over and over again, the author exhorts his readers, reminding them that to love one another through action is to love God (4:7), that there is neither fear nor punishment in love (4:18).
The third chapter opens with John exclaiming a simple, yet profound truth: We are the children of God. John sets no preconditions on this statement, only that we are called to love. God’s love transcends emotion or a “feeling”—it is lavished upon us. Other English translations use words like “given” or “bestowed.”
John seems unconcerned about any form of purity, unlike other authors in Christian Scripture.
The call he gives us, LGBTQ+ Christian or ally, is to love.
There is no need to change who you are or to repress the core of your being. Rather, God calls you a beloved child, lavished in love. And if there’s one thing we can say about LGBTQ+ folks, it’s that we have a whole lot of love to share with the world.
“I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well.”
The Psalms are filled to the brim with deeply personal prayers, laments, and praise. Between songs of adoration and thanksgiving whose words have transcended millennia of societal change, we see these ancient writers confront not only their personal failures, but pervasive injustice throughout their communities.
In Psalm 139, David appeals to God to search his heart, to know his thoughts, and to put an end to the violence and danger that surrounds him. In the midst of this intimate and raw reflection, David offers the passage highlighted above, writing “I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”
You, beloved, share in that truth.
The very God whose presence fills the cosmos has, with intention, love, and gentle hands, formed you from the dust and called you “good.” When you doubt God’s presence in your life, when you feel shame about your body or the manner in which you experience sexuality, remember: you were created with great care, known and loved by God before you ever drew your first breath.
“Whoever loves God is known by God.”
Just as John centers love as the guiding ethic for early followers of the way of Christ, Paul makes clear that to love God is to know God. In Matthew 22:37-39, Jesus famously distills all that God asks of God’s children into a couple of simple commands: Love God with the entirety of your being, and love your neighbor just as you love yourself.
To love God is to know God. There is no systematized theology, no “correct” order of beliefs that can take you further than love. There is no amount of knowledge that will make you any more or less worthy of God’s love. There is nothing about your sexuality or gender identity that you must repress in order to experience this boundless love.
Beloved LGBTQ+ child of God: You are known and loved by God.
As you lean into what it means to be LGBTQ+ and Christian, or maybe as you learn to affirm and support LGBTQ+ people, you love God.
When you cultivate the radical belonging to which we are called as a community, you love God.
When you see yourself as a beloved child of God, wholly and completely affirmed, you love God.
To love God is to know God, and how beautiful it is that we can experience this truth together.
