THE GIFT OF SEX
Yesterday, after exposing many of the ways in which we as persons find ourselves drawn to or even participating in abnormal sexual practices, I felt like the whole thing was incomplete. It's not that I wanted to add more prohibitions on to the list (though I could have), because there was plenty on there already for us to get the picture of Biblical sexuality; It was that I felt like the vast majority of us have already heard these prohibitions a lot,without hearing the encouragements. So here's what Scripture encourages in regard to sex:
1. Part of God's good creation- Sex is good. Done. After 6 days, God pronounced His creation good, and human persons very good. Part of that "very good-ness" was the sexual nature of human beings. Sex did not come after the Fall, as if before sin was in the world, storks dropped off babies at Adam and Eve's doorstep, but before. No, God said clearly, "Be fruitful and multiply." It is a gift.
2. Meant for marriage- Sex is a gift that is included with marriage. To separate sex from marriage is to put it out of place; It may work for a bit, but not the way it's designed too. Sex is designed to be an expression of intimacy and vulnerability between the marriage partners. There is no other relationship in which a person can have such intimacy, and be so vulnerable as marriage. Without these trust building elements that can only truly be found in this one sort of relationship, the people are either playing pretend, or worse, just masturbating with another person. Genesis 2:24-25 describes the perfect marriage in just this way:
Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. 25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.
3. Sex should be frequent- It's always amazing to me how many people react to this statement with shock and awe. For some reason, many people can accept the first two points, that is they agree that sex is good, and that it's meant for marriage, but then think it should only be done on high holy days or something. This is nonsense. This is a silly carryover from the medieval church and has no basis in the Scriptures at all. The fact is, Paul in 1 Corinthians 7 encourages married people to have sex all the time. Just read:
7:1 Now concerning the matters about which you wrote: “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.”
(He means here "It is good for a person not to marry because then they are freed up to just serve the Lord and not worry about familial obligations... more on this at another time)
2 But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. 3 The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. 4 For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. 5 Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.
Translation: Because you may be easily tempted to stray on your spouse in thought, word or deed, have sex all the time. This does not mean that any one of the partners in the marriage can demand sex at anytime they feel like. But it does mean that a healthy marriage will also have regular sexual activity.
So then what we know so far is the Bible encourages frequent sexual activity in marriage, and that God thinks it's good. Tomorrow, we'll go a little deeper into what if anything is off limits for the married couple sexually....
Grace and Peace,
Pastor Erick
RECEIVING FROM CHRIST...GROWING IN CHRIST....GOING WITH CHRIST....
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