This blog post is for Christians. If you aren't a Christian, you will argue everything in this post and get little or nothing from it- there is really no point to you even reading it (you can take that as a challenge if you like).
Additionally, if you aren't a Christian, I don't have a personal interest in your morality. I love you and I'd like to see you appreciate the inherent value of your body, but theres no judgement. Christians are specifically told NOT to judge people who aren't Christians, did you know that? As the apostle Paul said, "What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside." 1 Corinthians 5:12-13
This blog post is for Christians who actually want to be what Christ says a Christian is. This post is not for people who like to think that God is up in heaven making nice things happen for "good people". This isn't a post for "Christmas/Easter" Christians who show up at church on holidays. This isn't a post for "Sunday" Christians who think that by sitting in a pew once a week they have an insurance plan for their soul and can do whatever they want the other six days of the week. This is a post for Monday-through-Sunday Christians. This post is for Christians who understand that their MOST IMPORTANT objective in life is to follow Christ- before anything else. It is for Christians who are "continuing to work out their salvation with fear and trembling"(Philippians 2:12). If that does not sound like you- I love you, but you probably need to explore your faith more before you tackle the nitty gritty truth about sexual immorality.
Now, before I get into said "nitty gritty", I want to make sure my words are tempered with love. I want to make sure you know my heart. I think that sexual sin is very understandable. Considering the culture we live in, the broken homes most of us come from, how parents and the Church so often fail to teach purity, how easily we are deceived by others, and how easily we deceive ourselves; I think the circumstances that bring many into sexual sin are very understandable. Understandable, but not justifiable. And thank God! Because that means that we are meant for so much more than what we settle for.
“Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink, sex, and ambition, when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
I feel like that is what I am doing. Trying, desperately, to inspire my fellow Christians to leave the sin they seem happy to live in and grasp for the true joy of God's ideal, the perfect union of two souls in the covenant of marriage.
My heart breaks to see the pain and grief many of my friends have experienced because of sexual relationships; STD's, damaged self worth, unwanted pregnancy, abortion or the undesired responsibility of children, emotional dependence, betrayal, depression, infidelity, being dishonored and disrespected by the person who is supposed to "love" them. In order to deal with the pain, they justify the situations they find themselves in. They convince themselves that they don't deserve better; that the situations they find themselves in are "normal"; that it is unrealistic to expect better. They do this because then they don't have to acknowledge that they are guilty of disobeying their God. As unpleasant as a diminished sense of self worth is- it beats guilt and shame doesn't it? It is understandable.
That being said, I'm not going to mince words here. I'm not going to sugar coat this. I am EXHAUSTED with "Christians" who do not love Christ. How do I know they don't love him? BECAUSE THEY DON'T DO WHAT HE SAYS ("If you love me, you will keep my commandments." John 14:15). It is exhausting, frustrating, agonizing. I'm sick and tired of Christians separating the "spiritual" from the "physical".
Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.
Romans 12:1
After all my preceding blog posts, I can't imagine a fellow Christian arguing with the fact that God clearly demands that we honor Him with our bodies. That means abstaining from sexual immorality. Even "tolerant" and "forgiving" Jesus Christ Himself says that sexual immorality is a sin that "defiles" us:
Additionally, if you aren't a Christian, I don't have a personal interest in your morality. I love you and I'd like to see you appreciate the inherent value of your body, but theres no judgement. Christians are specifically told NOT to judge people who aren't Christians, did you know that? As the apostle Paul said, "What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside." 1 Corinthians 5:12-13
This blog post is for Christians who actually want to be what Christ says a Christian is. This post is not for people who like to think that God is up in heaven making nice things happen for "good people". This isn't a post for "Christmas/Easter" Christians who show up at church on holidays. This isn't a post for "Sunday" Christians who think that by sitting in a pew once a week they have an insurance plan for their soul and can do whatever they want the other six days of the week. This is a post for Monday-through-Sunday Christians. This post is for Christians who understand that their MOST IMPORTANT objective in life is to follow Christ- before anything else. It is for Christians who are "continuing to work out their salvation with fear and trembling"(Philippians 2:12). If that does not sound like you- I love you, but you probably need to explore your faith more before you tackle the nitty gritty truth about sexual immorality.
Now, before I get into said "nitty gritty", I want to make sure my words are tempered with love. I want to make sure you know my heart. I think that sexual sin is very understandable. Considering the culture we live in, the broken homes most of us come from, how parents and the Church so often fail to teach purity, how easily we are deceived by others, and how easily we deceive ourselves; I think the circumstances that bring many into sexual sin are very understandable. Understandable, but not justifiable. And thank God! Because that means that we are meant for so much more than what we settle for.
“Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink, sex, and ambition, when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
I feel like that is what I am doing. Trying, desperately, to inspire my fellow Christians to leave the sin they seem happy to live in and grasp for the true joy of God's ideal, the perfect union of two souls in the covenant of marriage.
My heart breaks to see the pain and grief many of my friends have experienced because of sexual relationships; STD's, damaged self worth, unwanted pregnancy, abortion or the undesired responsibility of children, emotional dependence, betrayal, depression, infidelity, being dishonored and disrespected by the person who is supposed to "love" them. In order to deal with the pain, they justify the situations they find themselves in. They convince themselves that they don't deserve better; that the situations they find themselves in are "normal"; that it is unrealistic to expect better. They do this because then they don't have to acknowledge that they are guilty of disobeying their God. As unpleasant as a diminished sense of self worth is- it beats guilt and shame doesn't it? It is understandable.
That being said, I'm not going to mince words here. I'm not going to sugar coat this. I am EXHAUSTED with "Christians" who do not love Christ. How do I know they don't love him? BECAUSE THEY DON'T DO WHAT HE SAYS ("If you love me, you will keep my commandments." John 14:15). It is exhausting, frustrating, agonizing. I'm sick and tired of Christians separating the "spiritual" from the "physical".
Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.
Romans 12:1
After all my preceding blog posts, I can't imagine a fellow Christian arguing with the fact that God clearly demands that we honor Him with our bodies. That means abstaining from sexual immorality. Even "tolerant" and "forgiving" Jesus Christ Himself says that sexual immorality is a sin that "defiles" us:
And Jesus said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”
Mark 7:14-23
And so, what are we supposed to do with sexual immorality? Run from it:
Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.
1 Corinthians 6:18-20
After six blog posts, I think I've made my point by now. As Christians we can agree that we need to abstain from sexual immorality, right?
So, what exactly is sexual immorality?
Sexual immorality is any kind of sexual activity that deviates from God's intention for sex (Genesis 2:18-25). God's intention for sex is that a man and woman would remain pure until they were married, then become one as the Holy Trinity is one (echad, remember?), and remain faithful and bound to each other all of their lives.
As our Savior said,
Jesus quotes God's original intention for sex as found in Genesis and then presents two options: 1) Get married before becoming one (having sex) and stay with that person all your days ,or 2) Live your life as a eunuch (someone who doesn't have genitals).
I LOVE Jesus' words here because they leave no room for argument. You remain pure and get married and become one OR you remain single and live your life like you have no genitals; end of story. Anything else is sexual immorality.
Now, all that makes me happy, but we aren't really any closer to identifying what specific acts are sexually immoral.
Lets look at the Greek word that was used in the original writings of the New Testament which is then translated into "sexual immorality" This Greek word is Porneia. Looks familiar right? Yeah, thats where the word "porn" comes from. Early English translations of the New Testament texts translated porneia into "fornication" meaning sexual intercourse before marriage. However, modern translations strive to have a more accurate word-for-word translation (as the English Standard Version does) and translate Porneia into simply "sexual immorality". It does not accurately encompass the Greek term to say that it translates directly into "fornication"; Porneia is a much broader term. Porneia is impurity. Surely this includes fornication, but it is not limited to fornication.
We don't seem to be getting any closer to the specifics of sexual immorality! Do we?
Well, that is kind of the problem. Sexual immorality isn't just sexual intercourse before marriage (fornication) or with someone other than your spouse after marriage (adultery). Sexual immorality is hard to define because it is an umbrella term. We could all sit and think of different things that dishonor and disrespect God's intentions for sex and would therefore be sexual immorality. The Hebrew text regarding purity in the Old Testament almost never refers to sexual intercourse itself. The Hebrew language in the Old Testament uses words and phrases that are translated into things like "to lie with" someone or "to know" someone or "to uncover the nakedness" of someone. Our modern culture tries to boil down the moral principle of purity so that we can do as much as possible without being "bad". So, as long as we don't have actual intercourse with someone we can pretend we are still being morally pure. This is SUCH a lie. We are commanded to treat one another as brothers and sisters with absolute purity (1 Timothy 5).
Would you look at naked pictures of your brother or sister? Would you have sexual fantasies about your brother or sister? Would you come onto them and say sexual things to them? Would you put your hands all over your brother or sister in a sexual way? Would you take your brother or sister's clothes off? Would you caress them? Would you put your mouth on them? Would you have sex and become one with them?
If you are single, you are to regard everyone of the opposite sex as brothers/sisters, reserving your sexual desire for your wife/husband. When you are married you are to regard everyone as brothers/sisters except for your wife/husband. This means no sexual intercourse AND no heavy petting above clothes, no manual stimulation below clothes, no mutual masturbation, no oral, no anal, etc etc. No sexual fantasies! Thats right, not only does God say any extramarital sexual acts are sinful but also any extramarital sexual thoughts (lust).
As Jesus said,
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart."
Matthew 5:27-30
Jesus wants to make it clear to us that not only does He care about the purity of our actions but He cares about the purity of our mind and our heart. This is why He separately listed sexual immorality, adultery, coveting (lusting), and sensuality as sin that defiles in Mark 7:14-23. Jesus makes it clear that there are no loop holes. We are to take every thought and make it obedient to Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5).
I'm not saying this isn't hard to do. It IS hard, and there is no one who does not struggle with these commandments Even though I am a virgin, I promise you, I struggle with sexual immorality. I am keenly and painfully aware of my failures. They are more numerous than I would like. I do not write this blog from a place of pride. I write it from a place of hope. I want to be holy. I want to be able to stretch out my hands and receive the gift of love and perfect union in marriage that God intended. I want to honor God with my body and be worthy of that gift. I want my family and friends and the man I love to feel worthy of that gift. They should. They were meant to. I feel that I understand the heart of God concerning these commandments and I have a passion for them. If I could only share this passion so that others might be inspired to live as God calls them to live…that is my hope.
Because no one grows up wanting to give themselves over and over and over to different people who use and abuse them. No one's heart is born with the pathetic expectations of love in our society today.
When ever I speak with someone about purity, I approach it this way. I ask them, if true love was real wouldn't you want it? If sex was supposed to be this magical, perfect, intimate, soul-binding act; wouldn't that be worth waiting for? Every single person, the most flippant and promiscuous I know, has said "yes, of course I would want that. Who wouldn't want that? But its not real." It IS. It IS real. You give it away; you rob yourself of it.
After six blog posts, I think I've made my point by now. As Christians we can agree that we need to abstain from sexual immorality, right?
So, what exactly is sexual immorality?
Sexual immorality is any kind of sexual activity that deviates from God's intention for sex (Genesis 2:18-25). God's intention for sex is that a man and woman would remain pure until they were married, then become one as the Holy Trinity is one (echad, remember?), and remain faithful and bound to each other all of their lives.
As our Savior said,
“Haven’t you read,” Jesus replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh (echad)’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh (echad). Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”...The disciples said to him, “If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry.” Jesus replied, “Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given. For there are eunuchs who were born that way, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others—and there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.”
Matthew 19:4-12
Jesus quotes God's original intention for sex as found in Genesis and then presents two options: 1) Get married before becoming one (having sex) and stay with that person all your days ,or 2) Live your life as a eunuch (someone who doesn't have genitals).
I LOVE Jesus' words here because they leave no room for argument. You remain pure and get married and become one OR you remain single and live your life like you have no genitals; end of story. Anything else is sexual immorality.
Now, all that makes me happy, but we aren't really any closer to identifying what specific acts are sexually immoral.
Lets look at the Greek word that was used in the original writings of the New Testament which is then translated into "sexual immorality" This Greek word is Porneia. Looks familiar right? Yeah, thats where the word "porn" comes from. Early English translations of the New Testament texts translated porneia into "fornication" meaning sexual intercourse before marriage. However, modern translations strive to have a more accurate word-for-word translation (as the English Standard Version does) and translate Porneia into simply "sexual immorality". It does not accurately encompass the Greek term to say that it translates directly into "fornication"; Porneia is a much broader term. Porneia is impurity. Surely this includes fornication, but it is not limited to fornication.
We don't seem to be getting any closer to the specifics of sexual immorality! Do we?
Well, that is kind of the problem. Sexual immorality isn't just sexual intercourse before marriage (fornication) or with someone other than your spouse after marriage (adultery). Sexual immorality is hard to define because it is an umbrella term. We could all sit and think of different things that dishonor and disrespect God's intentions for sex and would therefore be sexual immorality. The Hebrew text regarding purity in the Old Testament almost never refers to sexual intercourse itself. The Hebrew language in the Old Testament uses words and phrases that are translated into things like "to lie with" someone or "to know" someone or "to uncover the nakedness" of someone. Our modern culture tries to boil down the moral principle of purity so that we can do as much as possible without being "bad". So, as long as we don't have actual intercourse with someone we can pretend we are still being morally pure. This is SUCH a lie. We are commanded to treat one another as brothers and sisters with absolute purity (1 Timothy 5).
Would you look at naked pictures of your brother or sister? Would you have sexual fantasies about your brother or sister? Would you come onto them and say sexual things to them? Would you put your hands all over your brother or sister in a sexual way? Would you take your brother or sister's clothes off? Would you caress them? Would you put your mouth on them? Would you have sex and become one with them?
If you are single, you are to regard everyone of the opposite sex as brothers/sisters, reserving your sexual desire for your wife/husband. When you are married you are to regard everyone as brothers/sisters except for your wife/husband. This means no sexual intercourse AND no heavy petting above clothes, no manual stimulation below clothes, no mutual masturbation, no oral, no anal, etc etc. No sexual fantasies! Thats right, not only does God say any extramarital sexual acts are sinful but also any extramarital sexual thoughts (lust).
As Jesus said,
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart."
Matthew 5:27-30
Jesus wants to make it clear to us that not only does He care about the purity of our actions but He cares about the purity of our mind and our heart. This is why He separately listed sexual immorality, adultery, coveting (lusting), and sensuality as sin that defiles in Mark 7:14-23. Jesus makes it clear that there are no loop holes. We are to take every thought and make it obedient to Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5).
I'm not saying this isn't hard to do. It IS hard, and there is no one who does not struggle with these commandments Even though I am a virgin, I promise you, I struggle with sexual immorality. I am keenly and painfully aware of my failures. They are more numerous than I would like. I do not write this blog from a place of pride. I write it from a place of hope. I want to be holy. I want to be able to stretch out my hands and receive the gift of love and perfect union in marriage that God intended. I want to honor God with my body and be worthy of that gift. I want my family and friends and the man I love to feel worthy of that gift. They should. They were meant to. I feel that I understand the heart of God concerning these commandments and I have a passion for them. If I could only share this passion so that others might be inspired to live as God calls them to live…that is my hope.
Because no one grows up wanting to give themselves over and over and over to different people who use and abuse them. No one's heart is born with the pathetic expectations of love in our society today.
When ever I speak with someone about purity, I approach it this way. I ask them, if true love was real wouldn't you want it? If sex was supposed to be this magical, perfect, intimate, soul-binding act; wouldn't that be worth waiting for? Every single person, the most flippant and promiscuous I know, has said "yes, of course I would want that. Who wouldn't want that? But its not real." It IS. It IS real. You give it away; you rob yourself of it.
Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many. See that no one is sexually immoral, or is godless like Esau, who for a single meal sold his inheritance rights as the oldest son. Afterward, as you know, when he wanted to inherit this blessing, he was rejected. Even though he sought the blessing with tears, he could not change what he had done.
Hebrews 12:14-17
In this passage of scripture, sexual immorality is equated with the story of Esau. You can read the story in its entirety here. Esau and Jacob were sons of Isaac (the son of Abraham). Esau was the oldest but he "despised" his birthright. He gave up his inheritance and his legacy amongst God's people just to satisfy his immediate and temporary physical desire. That is what we do when we "despise" God's perfect gift of sex within marriage to satisfy sexual urges. We give up our right to the echad oneness that reflects the glory of God. We defile ourselves and lose the perfect inheritance we are meant for. This is manifested spiritually, physically, socially, and biologically. I am working on a blog post titled "Nature's case for Sexual Monogamy" which will explain what happens in your brain when you have sexual relations with multiple partners before marriage. Sexual immorality does indeed make it very, very difficult to partake of God's design for marriage and all the blessings within it.
I believe that the verse "Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord." (which precedes the metaphor regarding Esau) is saying that unless we strive to be close to God, we won't see the manifestation of His holiness in this life. This is why those who go from one sexual relationship to another can't believe that true love is real. They have blinded themselves to it. They aren't holy so they can't see that holiness here.
I've talked enough. I will let God have the last words.
For you know what instructions we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus.
It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control your own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the pagans, who do not know God; and that in this matter no one should wrong or take advantage of a brother or sister. The Lord will punish all those who commit such sins, as we told you and warned you before. For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life. Therefore, anyone who rejects this instruction does not reject a human being but God, the very God who gives you his Holy Spirit.
1 Thessalonians 4:2-8
Are you among the 80% of Christians who have already robbed themselves of God's perfect gift in marriage?* Already deep in sexual immorality? Been there done that? Again and again and again?
The next blog is for you.
* According to statistics in the 2009 National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, source here.
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