In a recent online discussion regarding the Bible and homosexuality, one participant brought up the fact that Jesus never directly addressed the issue of homosexuality. To my surprise, another participant claimed that Jesus most certainly did condemn homosexuality in Matthew 15.19: “For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander.” (NRSV)
This person claimed that “fornication,” or πορνεία in Greek, specifically includes homosexuality and cited Thayer’s Greek Lexicon as defining πορνεία as: “adultery, fornication, homosexuality, lesbianism, intercourse with animals etc.”