What is the context of Romans 1?
The context of Romans 1 is idolatrous worship of false gods—not lesbians, not gays and not homosexuality.
Paul wrote his Epistle to the Romans
from the rowdy port city of Corinth, where sexual immorality and prostitution were openly practiced. Yet Rome was even more idolatrous than Corinth. Sporting events in the Circus Maximus and fertility goddess worship in pagan temples echoed the adulation of idolatrous Romans. Rome was a city wholly given to idolatry.
Context is important
To understand the Bible, we must factor in the Biblical, cultural, doctrinal, historical, linguistic and religious context. In Romans 1:26–27, the context isn't two gay guys or two gay gals who fall in love and covenant to spend their lives together as a couple.
1. The Biblical context is Paul making an argument against idolatry by summing up the Old Testament record of pagan Gentile worship, not homosexuality, not gays and lesbians, not transsexuals.
2. The cultural context is the greatest pagan city of the ancient world, an idolatrous tableau featuring hundreds of pagan temples where multitudes worshiped false gods.
3. The doctrinal context is righteousness. God requires righteousness for salvation. We lack righteousness, as evidenced by the pagan idolatry Paul references. God provides righteousness as a free gift to everyone who wants it, including pagan idolaters.
4. The historical context is mid-first century Rome about 25 years after the resurrection of Christ, where the main problem was idolatrous worship of false gods, not gays, not lesbians and not transgendered people.
5. The linguistic context is Paul using the Greek word akatharsian in Romans 1:24 and 6:19, the same word used in the Greek Septuagint to describe idolatry and shrine prostitution.
Paul drives home his point by using the Greek word latreuō in v. 25, which we translate as served. This word, in the Greek Septuagint, always refers to serving false gods. Paul used these words with purpose, to indicate he was referring to shrine prostitutes and their unholy worship of false gods.
Paul further drives home his point by using the phrase arsenes en arsesin in v. 27 or men with men. This reminds us of arseno in Lev. 18:22 and 20:13, clear references to shrine prostitutes.
6. The religious context is Cybele, the Phrygian mother goddess who was worshiped by temple prostitutes in at least six of Cybele’s pagan temples in Rome in the mid-first century AD.
Understanding the Bible in context is not:
changing the meaning of scripture
twisting scripture
re-interpreting scripture
taking scripture out of context
reading modern views into scripture
rewriting history
advocating lawlessness
attacking biblical holiness
eisogesic manipulation
Understanding and interpreting the Bible in context is standing for the historic truth of God by obeying 2 Timothy 2:15 and “rightly dividing the word of truth.”
Think of it this way
Attempting to understand Romans without factoring in Cybele and shrine prostitution is as silly as trying to understand terrorism in New York City in September 2001 without factoring in the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.