As a young Christian man, Matthew Vines harbored the same basic hopes of many young people: to one day share his life with someone, to build a family of his own, to give and receive love. But when Vines realized he was gay, those hopes were called into question. The Bible, he’d been taught, condemned gay relationships.

Feeling the tension between his understanding of the Bible and the reality of his same-sex orientation, Vines devoted years to intensive research into what the Bible says about homosexuality.