Beware the Spiritual Dangers of a “Study Bible” that Misinterprets Scripture to Advance a Progressive Agenda
A few months ago, Zondervan published a study Bible edited by Preston Sprinkle, titled the Upside-Down Kingdom. The theological fidelity of Sprinkle’s writings, podcasts, and conferences have all been called into serious question in the past few years because of his teachings that same-sex attraction is not sin, and that “homosexual orientation” contains God-glorifying elements.
When I saw he was editing a study Bible, I thought it would be helpful to the church to read and critique it. I assumed that the book largely would be good, with major disagreements only coming when Sprinkle discussed gender and sexuality.
I was wrong.
He and his contributors did much more eisegesis than I expected.
Since the book is a study Bible with many entries, and many errors, this critique will be published in several parts. This first part critiques Sprinkle’s writings on “Gender and Sexuality” and Christine Thornton’s writings on “Women” in Genesis.
Preston Sprinkle on “Gender and Sexuality” Turns the Biblical Narrative of Sodom and Gomorrah Upside Down
By way of reminder, Preston Sprinkle is President of the Center for Faith, Sexuality, and Gender. I’ve dealt with his role in the “Queering of the SBC” at length in a previous article for the Center for Baptist Leadership, so my critique here will focus on the subject in this study Bible.
When discussing the history of Lot and Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19:1-11, Sprinkle writes:
“Many Christians and Jews have interpreted this incident as a condemnation of homosexuality. It is true that the Bible prohibits sexual relations between two people of the same sex (cf. Lev 18:22; Ro 1:26-27). And if the Sodomite men had raped the two angels, a certain kind of same-sex act would have taken place because the two angels appeared as men.
But this interpretation, while capturing an aspect of what’s going on, fails to consider a more holistic view of the passage. First, the passage is about attempted gang rape, which would have been an atrocity regardless of which sex the angels seemed to be (cf. Jdg 19:22-28). Second, it is doubtful that the entire male population of Sodom had a same-sex sexual orientation, which means that the story of Sodom is not about being gay or experiencing same-sex attraction. The story details something more akin to prison rape, where an otherwise straight man might dominate another man by violating him sexually. Third, whenever the story of Sodom is reflected on in Scripture, gay sex is rarely—if ever—in view (Isa 1:10-17; 3:9; Jer 23:14; La 4:6; Mt 10:5-15). In fact, the prophet Ezekiel defines the sin of Sodom this way: “She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy” (Eze 16:49).
It would be hypocritical for straight Christians to condemn gay people by citing the story of Sodom [emphasis added]. Does the Bible prohibit same-sex relationships? Yes. But there are other passages that speak to this. It is misguided to use Genesis 19 as a weapon to condemn gay people for experiencing an attraction to the same sex. According to Ezekiel, arrogant people who don’t care for the poor are the real Sodomites (31).”
There are many exegetical and theological issues here.
First, Sprinkle wrongly claims Genesis 19:1-11 is about “attempted gang rape,” but the text clearly says that it’s about attempted homosexual gang rape. The first thing the men of Sodom ask Lot for is for him to send out the men so they can “have sex with them” (Gen 19:4-5). They didn’t ask for Lot’s wife or daughters. Lot even offered his virgin daughters to the men, and they refused them. They then tried to rape Lot, and they even tried to break down the door to get the angels to rape them (who appeared as men) (Gen 19:6-9).
Second, Sprinkle says that “it is doubtful that the entire male population of Sodom had a same-sex sexual orientation, which means that the story of Sodom is not about being gay or experiencing same-sex attraction.” This is a clear example of eisegesis from Sprinkle. He has formed an opinion based on personal experience or sexual theories from the 1900s or based on taking polls of men who claim to have a “same-sex orientation,” and then he brings his conclusion to try to fit Scripture to go along with it.
But what does the text say?
The text says that every single man of Sodom, young and old, showed up at Lot’s house, and demanded that he send out, not his wife, not his virgin daughters, but the two men, so that they could have sex with them (Gen 19:4-5). This is the very definition of homosexuality according to the Bible: “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination” (Lev 18:22).
Furthermore, nowhere does the Bible speak of “experiencing same-sex attraction” or of experiencing any other evil inclination, as if we are passive participants or victims in our indwelling sin. The Bible speaks of indwelling lust, calling it sin: “And you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife. And you shall not desire your neighbor’s house, his field, or his male servant, or his female servant, his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s’” (Deut 5:21). The apostle Paul says, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin” (Rom 7:24-25). The apostle Paul is both active in serving the Law of God and is active also in serving the law of sin in his flesh. Both are Paul. He is morally culpable for both. He doesn’t merely “experience” one passively and does the other actively.
Also, it’s interesting that Sprinkle only speaks of “experiencing evil” in one’s heart, and never talks about serving God this way. He never says, “I’m experiencing love for God” or “I’m experiencing a desire to worship God,” etc. He only speaks this way about things that are contrary to God’s in one’s heart, not of things that please God in one’s heart. Why? Because he wants to act as if he is not responsible for the evil in his heart but is responsible for the good. And he forces his assumptions on Genesis 19 without any warrant from Scripture.
Third, Sprinkle wrongly claims that when Sodom and Gomorrah are discussed elsewhere in Scripture, like Isaiah 1:10-17; 3:9; Jeremiah 23:14; Lamentations 4:6; and Matthew 10:5-15, “gay sex is rarely—if ever—in view.” Sprinkle is correct about these verses not mentioning “gay sex”, but none of these texts mention “rape” either, and especially not “gang rape.”
Yet, Sprinkle also quotes Ezekiel 16:49, which says, “She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.” But, the very next verse says, “They were haughty and did an abomination before me. So I removed them, when I saw it.”
The Hebrew word for abomination is the same word used in Leviticus 18:22, referring to men having sex with men. Neither “gang rape” nor “rape” are explicitly called an abomination in Scripture (though they are of course evil sins). Thus, what “abomination” did the Sodomites do that caused God to pour out His wrath on them when He saw it?
Scripture stands contrary to Spinkle here. It wasn’t merely rape or gang rape.
It was their rampant homosexuality.
Jude shed light on this for us when he wrote, “Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire” (Jude 1:7). Jude says that Sodom and Gomorrah participated in sexual immorality and unnatural desire, having went after “strange flesh” or “other flesh,” and underwent a punishment of eternal fire as a result.
Then, Sprinkle discusses Lot’s daughters, and condemns their actions, but also says, “In some ways, their motivation is pure” (34). Lot’s daughters, because they thought there were no men left on earth, except for their father, after God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, they took different nights, got their father drunk, and had sex with him so they could have children. They both became pregnant as a result. How could they possibly have a “good motivation” for raping their father?
In summary, Sprinkle’s exegesis of the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, and the other relevant biblical passages that teach Christians how to interpret and understand the account, is severely lacking if not downright misleading. Given Sprinkle’s overall project, one has to wonder if this is intentional. His claim that “It would be hypocritical for straight Christians to condemn gay people by citing the story of Sodom” is, arguably, outright false teaching that damages the text beyond recognition.
Sprinkle engages in an exegetical sleight of hand to try and avoid how clearly and forcefully this account, and its further interpretation by divinely inspired authors of Scripture, condemn homosexuality. The honest reading of Genesis 19:1-11, Ezekiel 16:50, and Jude 1:7 teaches Christians that both homosexual desires and actions are 1) unnatural desires, 2) an abomination before the Lord, and 3) incur God’s wrath against those who do not repent of such immoral desires and/or actions.
Christine Thornton on “Women” in Genesis: Blurring the Lines Between Good and Evil
Christine Thornton, when she contributed to this study Bible, was a Christian Thought Professor and associate director of Ph.D. studies at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C. Now, she is the director of discipleship content at The Summit Church, where J.D. Greear is the Teaching Pastor. She wrote every section dealing with “Women” in Genesis through Deuteronomy for this study bible.
There are several errors worth mentioning.
First, when discussing Lot and Sodom and Gomorrah, from Genesis 19:15-18, she says, “In this passage, God expresses his high value for women in different ways—he grants mercy to Lot’s daughters while respecting the agency of Lot’s wife, who chose to disobey God’s command.”
There is nothing in the text to suggest that “God respected the agency” of anyone in Sodom and Gomorrah, including Lot, his wife, and daughters, or that God “respects” anyone’s agency anywhere in Scripture. For example, Adam and Eve did not choose to be created, nor has anyone else in all of creation. Noah did not choose to find favor in God’s eyes (Gen 6:8). Mary did not choose to become pregnant with Jesus (Luke 1:26-38). The list of examples from Scripture goes on and on.
By emphasizing that God “respected the agency of Lot’s wife,” that this is an example of God’s value of women, by permitting her to disobey Him, it logically follows that God does not respect those He does not permit to disobey Him, like the elect angels, or the elect in Heaven, or even Jesus.
By Thornton saying that God respected “the agency” of Lot’s wife, who disobeyed God and turned into a pillar of salt as a result, she brings an agenda to the Bible rather than seeking to understand the Bible. The text does not indicate or emphasize that God “respected” the agency of Lot’s wife. The concept of “God respecting people’s agency” is nowhere in the Bible.
Second, in Genesis 19, when referring to Lot offering his daughters to the men who wanted to rape the angels, she says, “In places where sin flourishes, women are devalued and dehumanized. In this way, the treatment of women can serve as a litmus test for the obedience of God’s chosen people” (33).
Again, Thornton has a conclusion and then forces it on the text. Biblically, how Christians treat men, women, and children, or how they value certain races over others, serves as litmus tests as well. Treatment of women is not a special indicator of the faithfulness of God’s people, nor the treatment of men alone, or the treatment of children alone. The treatment of God is the greatest indicator of the faithfulness of God’s people, and then, how they treat their neighbors (Matt 22:37-39).
Third, in Genesis 38, Thornton believes Tamar, Judah’s daughter-in-law, acted righteously when she pretended to be a prostitute and seduced and deceived Judah. She writes:
“As with Sarah and Rebekah, God sovereignly preserves the Messianic lineage, this time through the righteous actions of Judah’s daughter-in-law, Tamar.
Judah has three sons—Er, Onan, and Shelah. Er married Tamar; the Lord killed Er because he was wicked. It was then the duty of his brother, Onan, to continue the line of his elder brother. Onan refused, which was also wicked, and the Lord killed him. At this point, Shelah was too young to father a child, and so it became Judah’s responsibility to continue his own lineage through Tamar. Judah, too, refuses to fulfill his responsibility to her and God’s promise.
Tamar, unlike Judah and his sons, acts more righteously (Gen 38:26) in a rather unexpected way. She disguises herself as a prostitute and travels to where she knows her father-in-law will be passing by. Judah doesn’t recognize Tamar and propositions her. Tamar becomes pregnant through Judah. In doing so, she preserved the lineage of the Messiah. Not only is Tamar praised for her actions by Judah, but Ruth 4:12 lauds her and Matthew 1:3 identifies her by name in the genealogy of Jesus.
While impersonating a prostitute may not be a righteous act, Tamar’s actions are motivated by her desire to carry on the lineage of her deceased husband, Er. She follows God’s pattern, insisting that a child of her family will preserve her family line, and God uses her actions to carry on Abraham’s line through Judah.
In this story, Tamar is a woman with personal agency and responsibility, which she uses in pursuit of righteousness. From Tamar, readers can see that women maintain agency to make decisions—decisions which in this case are “more righteous” than those of the men in the story. In fact, Tamar’s proactivity echoes the agency women have in the Law, which addresses this same type of marriage between and widow and her brother-in-law in Deuteronomy 25:5-10.
Tamar actively participates in the story. She is not a pawn. She maintains power to act on her own behalf throughout, even when she is wronged. The disobedience of Judah and his sons magnifies the significance of Tamar’s obedience” (59).”
To begin, Thornton claims that Tamar had a good motive for deceiving and seducing her father-in-law and that she followed “God’s pattern.” But this is not true. God’s pattern is, that when a husband dies, his brother is commanded to marry his widow and father a child for his brother’s name to continue in Israel (Deut 25:5-10). Tamar sought to go around this pattern, taking matters into her own hands, sinfully seducing her father-in-law, to have this child through incest and outside of marriage. The law explicitly condemns incest between a father and his son’s wife (Lev 18:15).
Also, Thornton claims that Tamar is lauded in Ruth 4:12, but Ruth 4:11-12 reads:
“Then all the people who were at the gate and the elders said, ‘We are witnesses. May the Lord make the woman, who is coming into your house, like Rachel and Leah, who together built up the house of Israel. May you act worthily in Ephrathah and be renowned in Bethlehem, and may your house be like the house of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah, because of the offspring that the Lord will give you by this young woman.'”
The elders and the people do not praise Tamar for what she did; they praised what God did. God gave Tamar and Judah a child, Perez. Speaking to Boaz, they hoped God would bless him with a child from Ruth, who like Tamar, was from a foreign nation, and was a widow that needed a kinsman redeemer. If God blessed Judah and Tamar despite their sin, the elders and people hoped He would bless Boaz’s and Ruth’s obedience with a child.
Additionally, Thornton implies that Tamar is praised because she is mentioned in the lineage of Jesus. But the reason she is mentioned by name is because she was not an Israelite by birth. Matthew does not mention every mother in the lineage of Jesus. And the women he does mention, he mentions because they were foreigners, pointing to God’s sovereignty in fulfilling His promises and the truth that all nations are included in the lineage of Jesus; hence, He is the Seed of Abraham who will bless all nations. Also, to say that Tamar is honored by being mentioned, Thornton must also say that Judah is honored as well.
Interestingly, on the very next page, Thornton interacts with Genesis 39, saying that Potiphar’s wife trying to seduce Joseph is unrighteous. But that “Tamar’s seduction of Judah is a “righteous” (Gen 38:26) action” (60).
She writes:
“Tamar’s seduction of Judah is a ‘righteous’ (Gen 38:26) action. However, Potiphar’s wife unrighteously attempts to seduce Joseph. While the stories contain parallels, faith in God’s promise differentiates these women’s actions. Tamar acted by faith in God’s promise. She is praised for exercising her agency according to her God-given right. Potiphar’s wife exploits her position of authority against Joseph to fulfill her own faithless desires, which results in an unjust imprisonment for Joseph.
The contrast between Tamar and Potiphar’s wife reflects how women are humanized in the Old Testament. Just like men, women have the freedom to pursue righteousness through obedience or sin through disobedience. They do not have to depend on men for their ability to act or for accountability for their actions. They are more than damsels in distress or demonic femme fatales, and they are less than feminist heroines or angelic goddesses—they are human. As humans, these women are active participants in the story of God’s redemptive purposes (60).”
If you read the text, Tamar is not praised by anyone in Scripture except for Judah, her father-in-law, who had sex with her because he thought she was a prostitute. And he does not call her “righteous,” he says that she was “more righteous” than he was (Gen 38:26). It is a statement of comparison. Compared to Judah, who refused to give his youngest son to marry Tamar in obedience to the law, Tamar was more righteous. But it is not a statement that, in her deception, seduction, incest, and adultery, that she acted righteously with a righteous motive.
Since Tamar’s and Potiphar’s wife’s stories are side-by-side, the conclusion should be that God will fulfill His promises from Genesis 3:15, to Abraham, to Christ, despite the sins of God’s people and the rest of mankind. What Judah, and Tamar to a lesser degree, meant for evil, God used for good. No amount of sin and disobedience can thwart God’s will. He will fulfill His promises.
Thornton and Sprinkle Both Fail to Biblically Understand the Relationship Between Sin and Motives
If one thing is evident throughout this Study Bible, it’s that Sprinkle and the other contributors do not understand the biblical principle that you cannot have a good motive or goal with an evil means, or an evil motive or goal with a good means. If your motive is good, your means must be good as well, and vice versa. This is why the apostle Paul speaks of the flesh and the Spirit as opposed to one another (Gal 5:16-17), and that one can walk in the flesh or the Spirit, not both in the same instance (Gal 5:16-25). A thought is not both flesh and Spirit. It is either of the flesh or of the Spirit. The same is true for an action.
This is also why James speaks of sin and death being brought by our lusts luring and enticing us (James 1:13-15). He does not say that holiness or goodness ever produces or leads to sin. Instead, he says that something God cannot do, which is tempt us to sin, is how sin always begins in our hearts: our lusts tempt us, conceive actual sin, and always grow into death. We can never say to God, “I had a good motive for the evil I did.” Or, to use the words of Thornton, “I was following your pattern when I sinned.”
This error led Sprinkle to argue that daughters getting their father drunk for the purpose of having children, can have a God-glorifying motive, like Lot’s daughters.
This error also led Thornton to argue that daughters-in-law who are widows, can act righteously in seducing their fathers-in-law for the purpose of carrying on their husband’s name, and still follow God’s pattern, like Tamar.
Interestingly, Thornton and Sprinkle disagree on Lot’s daughters. Sprinkle says they had a pure motive in some ways (34). But Thornton says they acted without faith (35). Yet, Thornton thinks Tamar acted faithfully. So, Lots daughters cannot get their father drunk and rape him with faith, but Tamar can seduce her father-in-law with faith?
Conclusion: Description is not Prescription
Finally, Genesis is a narrative, which means that history is told, warts and all, to accomplish the author’s purpose for the narrative. Moses was carried along by the Holy Spirit to write Genesis through Deuteronomy, including both the good and evil of God’s people, ultimately to point to God’s fulfillment of His promises. Not every story or example included in the history is prescriptive. Some are descriptive and not to be repeated.
Robert Plummer, Professor of Biblical Studies at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, helps us distinguish between when a text is descriptive and when it’s prescriptive when he writes, “a good general rule is that a behavior reported in the text may be considered prescriptive only when there is subsequent explicit teaching to support it.” The sins of Lot’s daughters and the sins of Tamar are not repeated anywhere else in Scripture for a reason. They are sins from root to fruit, not sins with pure roots or pure fruits. What man intends for evil, God uses for good, but men and women should not be praised for evil.
The bottom line here is that this study Bible is spiritually dangerous to its readers. Both Sprinkle and Thorton twist Scripture to advance their own pet agendas of normalizing homosexuality and feminism.
Contrary to Sprinkle’s eisegesis, the biblical narrative of Sodom and Gomorrah outright condemns homosexuality, even calling it an “abomination.” Contrary to Thornton’s eisegesis, the story of Lot’s daughters and or Judah and Tamar shows us that God fulfills His promises despite their evil actions, which are not to be commended or used as an example of “female agency.”
Proverbs 30:5-6 provides a strong warning against the work of Sprinkle and Thorton and reason enough for every true Christian, pastor, and church to reject their study Bible and steer clear from their false teachings:
“Every word of God proves true; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him. Do not add to his words, lest he rebuke you and you be found a liar.”
