Why listen to Jesus, the Bible, for wisdom on sex?
For one, God invented sex. And two, modern sexual ethics came from Christianity!
“This ethic replaced the (wrong) Greco-Roman model of sexuality – that men of higher status, even if married, were allowed to demand sex with anyone of lower social status. The first laws vs rape and sex without consent grew from this Christian ethic… Since then, every branch of the Christian church – orthodox, Catholic, & Protestant – in every culture and in every century has taught the ethic of sexual abstinence outside of marriage.”
Tim Keller
In Matthew 19:1-9 Jesus teaches sex within strict monogamy: 1 man, 1 woman, for life.
But we’d rather listen to culture and media. If current TV series and movies are correct, strangers share a bed more casually than two good friends share a milkshake.
Yes, when it comes to sex, we have it backwards.
“This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. I wanted the storybook wedding and the hubbub that we’d never forget. I wanted the romance before the responsibility.”
Quote from The Rookie, Season 3 episode 1
Sex was not designed to be the first thing we give away! Sex was designed as so deeply a part of our selves, it is only meant to be given away when we give our whole self to another person.
Think of sex like fire and marriage like a fireplace. When fire remains in the fireplace it gives off light and warmth to the entire house, but when you take fire out of the fireplace and spread it around other places, everyone gets burned!
Dave Willis
Now, about pornography…
First, what is it? What it is not is simply nudity. So while it could involve nudity, it can also be someone fully clothed acting erotically to cause sexual excitement. That’s much more broad than we think.
According to Merriam-Webster, pornography is the depiction of erotic behavior (as in pictures or writing) intended to cause sexual excitement
Matthew 5:28
Watching scenes of a sexual nature is different from watching a show with murder, violence, robbery, other kinds of wrongdoing.
Romans 1:32
Paul is writing here at the beginning of Romans of the most vile debauchery and sexual sins, and concludes with this statement!
This Greek word translated “encourage” comes from ‘sun’ and ‘eudokeo’ and means:
to approve, applaud, encourage, delight, have pleasure
I consent, I agree, I am of one mind with, I am willing
to consent heartily, to identify with, to cooperate with, to do together
to think well of in common, i.e. assent to, feel gratified with
“Approve, encourage, and patronise them in others, and even take pleasure in their committing them. This is the highest degree of wickedness. A man may be hurried by his passions to do the thing he generally hates. But he that has pleasure in those that do evil, loves wickedness for wickedness’ sake; and thereby he encourages them in sin, and heaps the guilt of others upon his own head.”
Joseph Benson
“It is a worse thing, συνευδοκε͂ιν, to approve [of the evil]; for he, who perpetrates what is evil, is led away by his own desire…but he who, συνευδοκεῖ, or approves, with the heart and with the tongue [that which is evil], has as the fruit of wickedness, wickedness itself; he feeds upon it; he adds to the heap of his own guilt the guilt of others, and inflames others to the commission of sin.”
Bengel’s Gnomen
Why steer clear of porn
– Jesus
– Your kids
– Your spouse
– Your future spouse
Church 29:11 