For over 25 years, I have worked in some form of ministry, and biblical sexuality has always been at the forefront due the fact that I’ve been pastoring humans, who are sexual beings created by God and shaped for his purpose. I have served as a college pastor, singles pastor, discipleship pastor, and lead pastor. For the past seven years, I have directed a sexual risk avoidance education program for a faith-based pregnancy resource center in Austin, TX, and I have obtained the sexual risk avoidance specialist credential from Ascend, a national organization that focuses on youth delaying sexual activity until marriage.
I oversee a team of six staff educators who reach 15,000 students, in 30 schools, in 8 school districts ranging from 6th grade to high school. In the seven years I’ve been director, we have served over 100,000 students and over 1,000 parents. Though we do not specifically teach the Bible verses, all the content we provide is truth. We focus on educating, encouraging, and empowering students to make a healthy choice which includes delaying sexual activity until marriage, building healthy relationships with their parents and peers while striving to reach their goals.
My wife and I were also both sexually abstinent until we were married. We spent our wedding night and the week of our honeymoon figuring out what sex was and how to engage one another in that context because it was completely new for us. We knew we had the rest of our lives to figure it out in the safety of the committed relationship of marriage. Our commitment to one another was to be gentle, be patient, and be honest. That perspective has served us well for nearly 17 years of marriage.
FOUR PRINCIPLES FOR BIBLICAL SEXUALITY
What does the Bible say about sex and how do we apply that to our world today? The Bible was completed over 2,000 years ago, yet because it is the inspired Word of God, it remains relevant to this day.
1. God created Sex for Marriage Between a Man and Woman, and It is Good
Genesis 2:24-25 That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh. Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.
God’s original intent for sex was between a man and woman within the context of marriage. In this context, sex is good. Sex in itself is neutral. Like fire, it can add value or be destructive depending on the context. Fire in a fireplace is contained, providing warmth and beauty. But outside of the contained fireplace, it can burn an entire city down. Proverbs 25:28 says, “Like a city whose walls are broken through is a person who lacks self-control.” In this context, this verse speaks to one who chooses to engage in and indulge in sexual activity outside of the marriage context. Lives are distracted and destroyed due to sexual sin.
2. Sexual Sin is Equal in Offense, but Greater in Consequence
In 1 Corinthians 6:18-20, Paul writes, “Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body. Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.”
In Romans 3:23, Paul also reminds us that all of us sin and are falling short of God’s standard. In Romans 6:23, Paul reminds us that the payment of sin is death meaning both physical death and spiritual death. We began dying physically the day we started living because we were born into sin (Psalm 51:5). We also began dying spiritually being separated from God, meaning our intimacy or oneness with God was disrupted by sin because God cannot be in union with sin. All of this lets us know, all our sin is a offense to God and has to be paid for by ourselves if we don’t accept Christ’s sacrifice for our sins or by Jesus Christ, our savior if we do accept his sacrifice for our sins.
Though the offense of sexual sin, is the same to God as any other sin, the consequence to us is different. Paul gives the imperative of fleeing from sexual immorality because sexual sin is a sin against one’s own body which is the temple of the Holy Spirit and has been bought with the price of the blood of Christ. With that in mind, we should honor God with our bodies.
Sexual sin has the consequence of sinning against oneself. No person in their right mind would violate themselves, yet Paul is saying when we commit sexual immorality we are doing just that. If the payment for sin is death, separation from full life and intimacy with God, then the correlation leads us to understand that sexual sin separates us from oneness and intimacy with ourselves. When we sin sexually, we lose oneness with ourselves and we begin to separate from our God intended design which leads to waywardness and dysfunction in various areas of our lives.
3. Satan is Strategic When it Comes to Sex
Satan did not show up in the scriptures until Genesis 3, after Adam and Eve were together and felt no shame. He understood that humans who could be intimate with God and one another would be a detriment to his mission of separated people from God. He knew that if he could break up a marriage, he could damage a family. If he could damage a family, he could destroy a child. If he can destroy a child, he can annihilate a generation.
We see his commitment to stopping children from thriving through the mandate of Pharaoh to kill all the young males in Egypt to Herod seeing to kill all the young boys to kill Jesus, the King of Kings.
In Ephesians 6:1-4, Paul gives the imperative statements of children obeying their parents ad parents not provoking their children. In verse 10, he concludes the book and the chapter with the reminder of spiritual warfare calling us to be strong in the Lord and put on the armor of God so we can take our stand against the devil’s schemes. The Greek word for schemes literally speaks to systems and strategies. Paul reminds us that the battle is not between flesh and blood in the natural realm but rulers, authorities, powers of the dark world and spiritual forces in heavenly realms. Satan is various hierarchies of spiritual strategy to send our way based on what is needed to get us distracted, then distanced, then destroy. In John 10, Jesus lets us know that the devil comes to kill, steal, and destroy. One of his main strategies is through the lust of flesh which manifests itself in sexual sin.
Here’s an example of scheme or strategy of a sexual nature:
- Get a child molested at 5 years old.
- Hooked on porn and masturbation by 10 years old
- Sexually active by 15 years old
- Pregnant by 17 years old
- Two abortions by 22 years old
- Cohabiting by 24 years old
- Children out of wedlock by 26 years old
- Separated from father by 28 years old
- Raising kids in poverty by 32 years old
- Children growing up insecure and unstable with a new boyfriend in the home
- Child molested by 5 years old and the cycle continues.
As a human without any supernatural seeing insight or foresight, I can see this scheme so imagine all that Satan and his angels can come up with.
4. Sexual Sin is Not a Sin to Play With
In James 1:13-15, we read: “When tempted, no one should say, ‘God is tempting me.’ For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.”
From this passage, we learn that we are tempted by what we desire and what we can have. God gave us sexual desires and wants us to express them. But the choice to play with sex outside of marriage drags us away and entices us to plant a thought of sexual sin that gives birth to the action of sexual sin. As it grows, it becomes a full-grown that sin eventually becomes a stronghold where the sin has a stronger hold on us than we have on it. When this happens, we become a slave to sin (Romans 6:6) as compared to being a slave to Christ (1 Corinthians 7:22).
Sex in itself is neutral. Like fire, it can add value or be destructive depending on the context. Click To Tweet
