What Does Jesus Say About Pride Month? It's Probably Not What You Think

Every June, Christians seem to fall into one of two camps.

Some charge into the culture war with anger and condemnation.

Others stay silent and avoid the conversation altogether.

But what did Jesus actually do?

In this video, we examine Scripture—not social media—and look directly at how Jesus engaged people who were living in sin. From the woman at the well, to the woman caught in adultery, to Zacchaeus, a clear pattern emerges:

• Jesus moved toward people.
• Jesus treated them with dignity.
• Jesus spoke truth.
• Jesus offered hope.

We'll examine Romans 1, 1 Corinthians 6, Genesis, Luke 15, John 4, John 8, Luke 19, and other key passages to answer one question:

What should a Christ-centered response to Pride Month actually look like?

Whether you're a Christian, skeptical of Christianity, or someone who has been hurt by the church, this conversation is for you.

Subscribe for more biblical truth, apologetics, culture, and faith discussions.

#PrideMonth #Jesus #Christianity #LGBTQ #BibleStudy #TruthBehindTheMike

Chapter List:
00:00 What Does Jesus Say About Pride Month?
01:36 The Two Mistakes Christians Make
05:52 What the Bible Says About Homosexuality
06:21 Romans 1 Explained
08:33 1 Corinthians 6 Explained
09:55 God's Design for Marriage
10:45 How Jesus Treated People in Sexual Sin
11:10 The Woman at the Well
13:01 The Woman Caught in Adultery
15:01 Zacchaeus and Radical Grace
16:21 A Biblical Response to Pride Month
17:34 Why Many People Don't Trust the Church
18:40 The Mission of the Church
19:04 If You've Been Hurt by Christians
20:14 Jesus Chose Neither Side
20:48 Truth Behind the Mike

Transcript

0:00

Well, every June something very predictable happens. Some Christians grab a megaphone and head straight into the culture war. Social media fills up, arguments start flying. Everybody seems ready for a fight. Other Christians go the opposite direction. They pull the blinds, stay quiet, avoid the conversation, and hope July gets here more quickly. What's interesting is that both groups believe they're being faithful to Jesus. Well, today I want to suggest that both approaches miss something really important. Not because the Bible is unclear. Because I believe God's word speaks clearly, but because somewhere along the way, we've stopped asking a very important question how did Jesus actually engage people? If you've watched the church navigate Pride Month and thought something feels off, but I'm not sure exactly what the better answer is. Well, this episodes for you. And if you've been hurt by how Christians have handled this conversation, I would ask you just to stay with me. By the end of this episode, we're going to look directly at Scripture, look directly at Jesus, and ask what a Christ-centered response actually looks like. Stick around. All right. Before we get into the Gospels, I think we need to acknowledge two traps the church often falls into. The first is the culture war trap. This is the church that treats Pride Month like an invasion that needs crushed. You know, when June arrives, these Christians become known more for what they're against than who they follow. Now, let me be really clear. Got to take a moment just to stop. Be very clear up front. Convictions matter. Truth matters. And biblical sexuality matters. But the way I see it through Scripture and what I've been studying, the problem is when the loudest thing the church communicates during Pride Month is hostility. When the primary posture is condemnation, here's what the person outside of the church hears. You're my enemy. Not. I disagree with your choices. Not I believe, something different. And I'd love to tell you why. No, you are my enemy. We get very vocal about that, and I'm. We see it all the time. And when people outside the church here only anger, they stop hearing the gospel. Listen to what

Luke 15: 3:05

1-2 says. It says, Now the Pharisees meant that as criticism, Jesus treated it very differently. He treated it like a mission statement, but Jesus never corrected them. You realize that Jesus never corrected the Pharisees. He never said, no, no, no, you misunderstand me. He just kept doing it because as far as Jesus was concerned, welcoming sinners and eating with them. It wasn't a scandal. That was the mission. The Culture War Church has the spirit of the Pharisees. In Luke 15. They're standing at a distance from the people that Jesus walked toward. That's trap number one. The second trap is the silence trap. This is the opposite side of the spectrum. This is the church that every June goes completely quiet on anything that might cause discomfort. Maybe they pivot to a different sermon series, or maybe they post a vague, carefully worded affirmation that says everything and nothing at the same time. Maybe they just act like June is the same as every other month and hope nobody notices. And I want to be very careful here because the motive is often genuine. It comes from a real desire not to put push people away. A real concern about being associated with the cruelty of the culture war crowd. I understand that, but silence isn't neutral. Silence still communicates something when the people in your community who are wrestling with these questions genuinely wrestling in pain, wanting truth. When they look to the church and hear nothing, what they hear is we don't know what to believe, what we're too afraid to say it. And neither of those things is love. In Ezekiel

3: 5:27

18, God warns the prophet about remaining silent when the truth needs to be spoken. It says. Pretty strong words. So we've got one side that shouts. One side that says nothing. Jesus did neither of those. So I want to do something that I think the church often fails to do. When this topic comes up, I want to actually open the text scripture, not proof text it. I want to open it. I've been looking and studying about this and I want to read it in context. Let it say what it says and not make it say any more. We'll start with Romans one, chapter 26 and 27. And this is one of the most discussed passages in this conversation. The text is very clear, but so is the context. And it says, That's what Roman says. So as we read this, we have to put the context. It's Paul setting a trap for the self-righteous reader. He lists the sins of pagan culture, including same sex behavior. And then he says to the religious person, you don't get to stand over this. You're in the same boat. That's not a reason to ignore what Romans one says. It's a reason to hold it with humility rather than as a weapon. That's why if we keep reading Romans two one immediately says, I'm pointing fingers at myself as well. By the way, the Paul isn't creating a special category of sinners. He's showing that every person stands guilty before God. That's where that humility comes in. We have to recognize in ourselves that we are sinners in need of Savior. Then we come to first Corinthians six nine and ten. It says, Sometimes the church has spotlighted one sin while ignoring all the others. But then comes one of the most beautiful verses in the chapter. Verse 11 says, Friends, that's the gospel. Now let's go all the way back to Genesis first book in the Bible, chapters one and two, first chapters in the Bible. Before Scripture talks about what's broken, it establishes God's design. Marriage is presented as a covenant union between a man and a woman from the beginning of time. I believe the Bible consistently teaches that same sex sexual behavior is sin. We cannot waver on that. But the Bible also teaches that no sinner is beyond the reach of God's grace. Both truths matter. And in first Corinthians 512, Paul asks, what business is it of mine to judge those outside of the church? Are you not to judge those inside? That's a verse many Christians have forgotten. All right. I want to walk through three encounters in the gospel. These are great. Three times that Jesus comes face to face with someone in sexual sin, or someone who has been defined by it. And I want you to watch the pattern, because once you see it, you can't unsee it. I'm excited about this. And and we've heard these before. Okay. In John chapter four, Jesus meets the woman at the well. Okay. I won't go through all the detail, but read this. Read it in its entirety. Before addressing her brokenness, he engages her humanity. He asked her for a drink. He starts a conversation. He treats her with dignity. Only later does he addressed the reality of her relationships. And in verse 16 he told her, go call your husband and come back. I have no husband, she replied. Jesus said to her, you're right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you've had five husbands and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have said is quite true. Truth came, but it came through relationship. If you don't know this, here's the outcome. This woman who came alone to the well at noon because she was likely an outcast from her own community. She goes back to the town and tells everybody about Jesus. She says, come see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah? The person who had every reason to feel condemned. Becomes the first evangelist in that region, because Jesus led with dignity and told the truth at the same time. Here's another one back in John chapter eight. It's a woman caught in adultery. Verse two. At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them the teachers of the law. And the Pharisees brought a woman in, caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the law Moses commands us to stone such woman. Now what do you say? They were using this question as a trap in order to have a basis for accusing him. But Jesus bent down and started to write in the sand with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up, and he said to them, let any one of you who was without sin be the first one to cast a stone at her. Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground. And then verse nine says, at this those who heard began to go away. One at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her, woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you? Verse 11, she says, no one, sir, she said, then neither do I condemn you. Jesus declared, now go and leave your life of sin. The crowd, they want condemnation. Jesus gave grace and truth, not grace. Without truth and not truth without grace gave both. Finally, story I learned when I was very little in Sunday School had a song about it. Maybe you did too. We meet Zacchaeus in Luke chapter 19. I was is a tax collector, which in the first century Jewish culture it meant he was a traitor. He was a Jew who worked for the Roman occupation, and he was getting rich while doing it. He was despised by his own community. Written off. Done. He climbs up into a tree to see Jesus over the crowd, and Jesus stops beneath the tree and looks up and says, what does he say? Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today. Jesus doesn't wait for Zacchaeus to get his life together first. Think of the context here. He doesn't say, when you've repented and made restitution, come find me. No. Jesus invites himself over. He initiates relationship before repentance. Relationship comes first. Then transformation follows. Over and over we see the same pattern Jesus moved toward people. Jesus treated them with dignity. Jesus spoke truth. Jesus offered hope. And it should make both the Culture War Church and the silent Church deeply uncomfortable because neither of them is doing this. So what does this mean today? Not in the first century. June 2026 Pride Month. Well, it means proximity before protest. The church that shows up in people's lives in February, in September and November. Not just at a parade in June with a sign. Proximity earns the right to honesty. Cannot tell someone a hard truth from a distance. Jesus didn't. He was in people's homes, at their tables, in their neighborhoods. He was accused of being too close to the wrong people. And he took that as a compliment. If the only contact people in your life who identify as LGBTQ have with you or your church is a condemning social media post in June, you haven't earned the right to speak into their lives. You've just made noise. The church's selective spotlight on homosexuality, while essentially gnawing the rampant pornography use, the casual cohabitation and the breathtaking materialism inside our own walls is not biblical holiness. It's tribalism. And the people were supposedly trying to reach have noticed. They noticed decades ago. This is part of why they don't trust us. It means holding truth and compassion together, not one over the other. And it means remembering.

1 Corinthians 5: 18:22

12 again it says, We cannot expect people who do not follow Christ to live by Christian convictions before they know Christ. Our mission is not behavior modification. Our mission. Our mission is introducing people to Jesus. Now, I want to speak directly to those of you who have been disappointed by the church. Maybe you've seen hypocrisy. Maybe you've seen cruelty. Maybe you've watched Christians use people as talking points, stead of loving them as human beings made in the image of God. If that's you, I understand. Please don't confuse a broken church with a broken savior. The failures of Christians are not the failures of Christ, because what you find when you go to the Gospels, what I find and what I think you'll find, is a Jesus who is nothing like the version that has been used to hurt people. A Jesus who walked toward the outsider, who led with dignity, who told the truth without cruelty, who ate with people the religious establishment had already written off, and who, by choosing them, changed them. That Jesus is not an argument for culture war, and he's not an argument for silence. What he is is an argument for something much harder and much more beautiful than either one. If you've made it to the end of this video, thank you. I think you're tired of the religious games. If you like me, tired of the weaponized Bible verses, tired of the culture war theater that passes for Christian witnesses. And you want something true? That's what this channel is about. That's why I do YouTube. Not making you feel good. Not telling you what's comfortable, but pulling back the religion and finding truth beneath it. Truth behind the mic. If you're tired of the church screaming at culture instead of engaging it, this channel is for you. If you want someone who actually will open the Bible and deal with the hard questions without flinching, would you hit subscribe? Ring that bell. Hey, and if this episode helped you think about something differently, would you share it with someone who needs to hear it? Not to win an argument just because there are people in your lives who are asking these same questions and don't know where to look. We've got a lot more to talk about here on this channel. Truth behind the mic. I'm Mike Stone and I'll see you in the next episode.