DAY 237

SEX & MARRIAGE part 1

Psalm 116, 117 & 118 and 1 Corinthians 6 & 7

Let’s talk about sex and marriage. It seems as if the 1^st Corinthians letter is just “chomping and the bit” to do so, many think that the church is obsessed with sex, and some of you may think I avoided it yesterday!

It is hard to “talk about” because of course you and I are not talking…I am writing and you are reading. There is no dialog and I am painfully aware that words can hurt. Maybe you who are reading this are divorced (I am) and just reading 1^st Corinthians 7 is painful. Maybe you who are reading this are sexually active outside of marriage and just reading 1^st Corinthians 7 makes you wonder if God loves you. Maybe you who are reading this identify yourself as gay or lesbian and the words in chapter 6 anger you. The “maybe’s” could go on, but I have said earlier that to read the “whole Bible” means we have to have the courage to look at the hard passages, so here goes.

First we, society, find that many of the behaviors people want to do are not always good for them…sex is one of those behaviors. Think about others: food, drink, money, etc. When used in the proper way and within the proper boundaries, and certainly when not turned into idols, they are fine. Sex is like that.

The challenge for us today (as it was for the Corinthians) is to identify when these behaviors are proper and when they are not. In a world that snubs its nose at the uptight past, and in a world that is fast moving with families flung far and wide, it is easy to dismiss the need for boundaries. In our day and age we have drunk deeply from the well of “I will make up my own mind.” Do not think we are somehow radically different than Corinth; just look at the questions Paul asks. He asks, “Are all things lawful for me?” (6:12). This is not a small question. Paul has ferociously argued that Law Restrictions no longer apply to Christians. He then asks, “Isn’t food for the stomach and the stomach for food?” Which we might extend to, “Isn’t the body for sex and sex for the body?”

His answers are hugely insightful, as have been his answers about the Law. In answering “Do we need to follow the Law?” I would suggest that is not the full question Paul is answering. The question is rather, “Do we need to follow the Law to “be right with God?”” That is the question Paul has always been answering when he writes about Law. His answer, the Gospel answer is, “NO, for we are right with God by and through Our Lord Jesus Christ…it is a free gift.”

He does answer about the Law exactly as he answers the questions today. Is the Law helpful? Yes is the answer, “For it shows me how we might best live, how, when we follow, we can be free from the snares of the world. Consider now his next two points, he of course, introduces them with questions.

“Are all things good for me?” The answer is of course, “No.” So while we might be “free” in the sense of doing them, it is not good to do them in certain ways. There are some obvious examples, alcohol for one. Excess alcohol produces all kinds of trouble in one’s life and the chemical dependency further works its way into our body and spirit so as to make it very difficult to get free of.

The next question is “If the body is made for food and food for the body then…” so as to imply the same for sex. Here we get a deeply theological answer, “The body is not made for food…it—you—are made for God (v.6:13).

I indicated above that some things, like alcohol, have tremendous power. We end up losing our freedom to them. Sex is even more powerful. Sexual activity can combine body-mind-emotions-imagination to create a powerful, indeed wonderful, experience. It is powerful and like many good things it is therefore to be practiced in a way that honors it and us, practiced in a way that God intended for both our pleasure and our protection…practiced within boundaries. Everything has boundaries. We don’t like to admit that, but think about it for a moment. Everything has boundaries, and when violated, havoc is let loose.

Sex has boundaries exactly because it is so powerful. To use it “willy-nilly”, to trivialize sex, is to trivialize our God given humanness. And so God has given us marriage – “Let us make humankind in our image” we read in Genesis. Male and female, joined together, is the fullest image of God we can have. This joining is a lifetime joining. Think of God’s faithfulness. God does not rotate partners. God is Trinity which is relationship. The closest experience we can have is a faithful intimate relationship between husband and wife. That is the bible’s context for sex.

Of course we fail at it. I do and you do. I wrote earlier that these topics can be painful because we “read” judgment into them. I pray as you have read my attempt to write about this subject that “I have done no harm.” Regardless of me, thanks be to God that He loves us. Let God love you. Explore the reason for his boundaries. We too quickly try and rewrite, or worse, dismiss them.

There are two more subjects in this area that I will try and tackle tomorrow. The body is the Lord’s-what does this mean? And then there is marriage. If “male-female” is the full expression of God, then why are some called to celibacy? Further, we are there so many struggling and broken marriages, how do we handle that? Lots to “talk” about with these chapters of Corinthians, stay tuned.