I never had to think about being gay.  When I was in junior high and I had friends who droned on and on about a Playboy they’d managed to see, I didn’t see the big deal.  I also didn’t get as excited about trying to kiss any of the girls in our class at birthday parties during truth or dare or spin the bottle. When I was old enough to figure out why I was different, the only thing I had to accept was that my feelings for another guy were actually love (as opposed to lust).

No, like most people, I didn’t have to think about my sexuality, I just had to think about how to embrace it. My feelings have been there as long as I can remember; I just didn’t always know what they were. Some people who are not gay—most of society—have trouble accepting this. How could you just know? You would think that since they didn’t have to choose to be straight, this concept would make perfect sense.

Seriously, what do you mean “you just knew”?

As the Gospel of Luke demonstrates, Jesus also just knew his destiny: he didn’t read it in a book nor have it drilled into him by a number of different people. He wasn’t recruited nor did he choose to be someone who decided to rock the boat just because he could.

He just knew.

Luke contains the only section of the Bible devoting any space to Jesus growing up.  When Jesus was twelve, after his family’s yearly journey to Jerusalem for Passover, he stayed behind to take in teachings at the Temple, without his parent’s knowledge. After a day’s journey, the parents notice his absence and return to fetch him. After searching the city for three days, they find him in the Temple, listening to teachers, asking questions. When they ask why he freaked them out by staying behind, he responds: “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” (2:49)

They don’t understand what he’s saying to them—and there’s no mention of the conversation that follows.  He does return with them, however. Perhaps it did not occur to his parents that their son was anything but their son. After all, why would they assume they’d given birth to the son of God? (Even though they’d received an AWFUL lot of attention after he was born.) Also, why would they put stock in someone saying he just KNEW who he was, that he’d been born with the understanding of his identity?

If he’d said that he felt like he just knew he needed some spiritual info, they might have understood; after all, this is similar to someone saying he is hungry, something everyone comprehends because we’ve all felt it.  But when you convey a sense of understanding about a topic to someone who has no connection to that topic, this gets challenged.  Since they’ve never felt that, how could you?

What makes this an especially interesting section of the Bible is what it reveals: people are born with an innate understanding of who they are.  Therefore, people who balk at the notion that people are born gay, that we “somehow know” this innately, shouldn’t be all that surprised—and not just because they take for granted that they know the type of person THEY are attracted to. If they want an example of this happening, they only have to re-read this part of the Bible.  The Bib le provides so many examples which people often use to support their views on life, you’d think they’d consider the ones that seem to disprove their stance as well. That seems to be what Jesus would have done.