Sex & Contraception & Abortion

OK, if this is your POV, how do you explain Song of Songs? Are they sinning through the whole book? Because they sure seem to want to get together for reasons besides "I want your baby". Or do we have a book of rampant sin hidden in the middle of the Bible?

Whoa what is this??? Why are you guys fighting?! This forum is meant to build up non-christians and answer their questions! Should we not be showing them what Christianity is???

Actually, it is not true that this was the only time that God gave the command to be fruitful and multiply. (See explanation below). The fact that God didn't give people any other instructions for sex does not prove that He gave it only for procreation. In fact, God didn't even mention the act of sex specifically in the creation account, except indirectly by telling Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply (since sex would have to be involved in that process) and in His reference to husband and wife becoming one flesh.

God didn't mention a lot of things in Genesis. There are no explicit instructions for sacrifices as there are in Leviticus, but people obviously offered them. God didn't mention that murder was wrong in the creation narrative, either, but He clearly considered Cain's murder of Abel a sin. The written story of Adam and Eve doesn't include everything that God said to them; we don't know what God might have said to them about sex.

I once heard the story of a Bible teacher who believed that sex was only for procreation. (He also thought that it was sinful for him to see his wife clothed in anything less than a slip.) Whenever he felt the urge for sex, he would go jogging (apparently in ignorance of the fact that exercise is supposed to increase sexual desire). Every time his students saw him jogging, they would make fun of him because they knew why he was doing it. (It was kind of dumb for him to tell them, I think.)

Anyway, if this belief were true, why did Paul write what he did in 1 Corinthians 7 about sex in marriage? I have quoted it before, but I'll quote it again:

Now, Paul did think that it would be better not to marry because unmarried people can more fully devote themselves to working for the Lord, as he explained in 1 Corinthians 7:32-35:

Jesus also suggested that it would be better for people not to marry if they wanted to commit themselves fully to working for Him, as evidenced by His words in Matthew 19:4-12:

However, Paul said that it was better to marry than to burn with passion. He makes no mention of having sex just for procreation. If married people are supposed to have sex often in order to guard themselves from temptation, how does that fit? If sex is only for procreation, the logical conclusion is that we should have sex only when we want to have babies. Thus, we should not have sex when we are pregnant or when we are not fertile or any time other than when we are trying to have a baby. This contradicts what the Bible says about refraining from sex only for a limited time, and only for prayer.

And how does having sex with our spouse help us avoid temptation? It binds us together as husband and wife; it makes us "one flesh," as God said in Genesis 2:24 and as Jesus repeated in Matthew 19:5. It provides us with a legitimate expression for our sexual desires so that we don't "burn with passion" that would lead us to commit immoral sexual acts outside of marriage. Would it really keep us from temptation if we had sex only to have babies and then only as some kind of mechanical act with no pleasure or emotion allowed because that would be sinful? That doesn't make any sense to me.

The fact that God told Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply doesn't mean that He intended that to be the only purpose for sex. In fact, God gave that directive several times--to the animals that He created on the fifth day of creation (Genesis 1:22), to Adam and Eve (Genesis 1:28), to Noah and his sons after the flood (Genesis 9:1-7), and to the animals after the flood (8:17). God told them that because the earth was new and needed to be filled up (and repopulated after the flood), not because He was saying that that was the only reason to have sex. I'm sure that He didn't tell Noah and his sons that because they had never had sex before but because the earth was empty after the flood, just as it had been after creation. His directive to be fruitful and multiply addresses only one purpose for sex and does not rule out other purposes, which are illuminated elsewhere in Scripture, most notably in Song of Songs and 1 Corinthians 7.

moved here from Questions by Non Christians

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L'Eternel est ma force
Le sujet de mes louanges
C'est Lui qui m'a sauvé
Je Le célébrerai
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Hi there. My name's Amy and I have a few thoughts on this. I would say that if you can get hold of Philip Jensen's books/ tapes on love, sex and relationships, they're a great help at breaking down what Scripture says and what that means for us as Christians today. I hope that's not an inappropriate ad!

My personal feelings are that the bible is fairly explicit when it comes to sex. I'm unmarried and don't believe in sex outside marriage. I think that sex is a wonderful gift that God has given us, that has become abused in today's society. It's a special part of that relationship of marriage, which is compared to the relationship between Christ and the Church. The relationship between Christ and Christians is one of sacrifice, love, adoration; and marriage between a man and a woman is a reflection of this in this life. Sex is a fundamental part of that.

In Genesis we read about two becoming one flesh. I believe that this is a physical, spiritual and personal metaphor; it refers to the act of two bodies coming together, two hearts coming together and two minds coming together. It's also fairly explicit in suggesting that sex is a part of marriage; Genesis 2:24 says "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh." They come together, hand in hand - they marry and then join in one flesh. I've listened to talks and led discussions too - one thing that has struck me is that those who are married emphasise the fun of sex and the importance of it as a way of bringing two people even closer together. Paul says as much in 1 Corinthians Chapter 7: "The husband should fulfil his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband...Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you." When he goes on to say, in 1 Corinthians 7:9 "But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion", personally I regard that as another explicit command that sex is for married couples only. Paul has a lot of positive things to say about sex earlier in that chapter - and Song of Songs certainly celebrates sex but I believe that the celebration of love and sex comes within the context a loving married relationship.

I would also say that, for me, Paul's writing is "God-breathed"; ie, this is God speaking through the prophet Paul and so this is God's Word to us. As 2 Timothy 3:16 says "All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness." I believe that, if you say the Bible is the Word of God, which I personally hold to, then you cannot select parts and say they are written by man alone. I also believe that, if you choose to disregard some aspect of the gospel because it isn't comfortable, or doesn't seem contemporary, then you undermine the truth of it all. Either we accept it all or we don't.

Of course, this is often easy to say until issues come close to home and I do think that compassion turns black and white to a cloudy grey sometimes and moral lines can be difficult to identify or to stand by. I also think that Christ was certainly full of compassion and a lot less reactionary than many of us who can be quick to condemn what we believe is sexual, or other, immorality. Just read the story of his encounter with the adulterous woman in John 8:1-11. He is gentle, sympathetic and fair - but he remains true to what he preaches and does not compromise; and uncomfortable, or difificult, or seemingly culturally inapproprate things were not skipped over lightly by him or avoided, or belittled. He remained true to the Father. In the same way, we are called to live as true to the Father as we can, and so this means obeying His Word in scripture.

People may argue that commands regarding sex in the bible were 'of their time' and no longer relevant in today's more free society. But if you read both the Old and the New Testament, it's clear that society is, in many ways, very much the same. There are orgies, there's adultery, there's rape, references to homosexuality show that it was practised and known of in biblical times, and the bible responds to all of these aspects. Society then and society now was permissive, immoral and needed guidance from God.

I woud like to finish by saying that I think we sometimes attach too much significance to sexual immorality or sin, - emphasis on sexual. The fact is, sin is sin. I may not have had sex but I have had impure thoughts. I have also lied, gosspied, etc and therefore I am a sinner. The nature of my sin does not put me in a position of moral superiority or inferiority in regard to anyone else; I simply need Christ to forgive me and to make me clean again. I have no moral high ground regarding sexual morality and neither does anyone else. But the Bible does give us clear moral guidance and on that basis I would say we are able to say how we and others should try to live their lives...

I believe that contraception is important in a world where sexually transmitted diseases are rife. Yes, sex is reserved for marriage, but the reality is that many many people do not practice this and if we can prevent HIVs and other STDs through sex education, and condoms, and other forms of contraception alongside the teaching of abstinence outside of marriage then I believe that's the loving and right thing to do. I don't believe contraception is unbiblical.

This is a lot longer than I planned! If you read it all, bravo!!

Maybe this will help regarding the NT being written in Greek...translating from Greek to Hebrew or Hebrew to Greek...to Latin...to English changes meanings in many ways. It helps to understand the Context!


Here is a great example!

Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a Virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. (Isaiah 7:14)

This is all a misunderstanding!

The term "virgin" appears in the Greek translation (the Septuagint), but that is

not correct. The original Hebrew word, ha-almah, really just means "young

woman." The word has no meaning beyond what we find in English with

"young woman" or "maid," but it was translated into Greek with the word

parthenos, which means virgin.

The Hebrew word for that, if that is what the author had meant to say,

would have been bethulah. The phrase in which it appears, ha-alma hara,

means "the young woman is pregnant." It is worth noting here that this

phrase is in the present tense, not the future tense - rendering it an

unlikely prophecy.

<B>

In his book Orpheus, Hebrew scholar and critic, Salomon Reinach wrote that:

"As early as the second century B.C. the Jews perceived the error and pointed it out to the Greeks; but the Church knowingly persisted in the false reading, and for over fifteen centuries she has clung to her error."

</B>









http://www.libchrist.com/bible/fornication.html

I Cor 6:9 badly mistranslate "porneia" as fornication. Corinth was a wide-open port city. People there could get sex any way they wanted it. Where our English translations read 'fornication', Paul's original Greek word was 'porneia' which means to sell and refers to slaves bought and sold for cultic prostitution.

What was happening in the Temples of Corinth was farmers were visiting the temple priestesses who represented the fertility Gods. By having sex with these prostitutes they believed their fields would be more furtile. It didn't even have to do with going to prostitutes, but pagan cultic worship.

In Rome, the Latin prostitutes would hang out in small alley's and behind small L shaped walls. In Latin the shape is called FORNIX, hence the place association with acts of prostitution gave "fornicatio" Where Paul was condemning sex goddess, cultic, prostitution or trafficking in slaves for that purpose, the Latin fathers substituted 'fornicatio', which led readers to believe that Paul was condemning all forms of premarital sexual intercourse."

Some modern English Bible versions translate "porneia" as "sexual immorality", a term which is supposed to clarify the somewhat obscure and dated "fornication", but is really a catch-all term that allows interpreters, both professional and lay, to apply this passage to any sexual behavior at all, far beyond the specific practices to which Paul refers.

From "Halley's Bible Handbook" 1 Cor. 6: 9-20; "Venus was the principal Deity of Corinth. Her temple was one of the most magnificent buildings in the city. In it a thousand Priestesses, Public Prostitutes, were kept, at public expense, there always ready for Immoral Indulgence, as worship to their Goddess." The Christians continued to go to the temple for sexual indulgences with the priestesses of Venus. This was all Paul was talking about and he says nothing about loving sexual pleasure-sharing with non-goddesses'!

It does violation to the Biblical text to assume I Cor.6:9 includes pre-marital sex, especially since that is not the context of the discussion, either of that chapter or of the surrounding chapters. The context of I Cor.6 is the problems with the Temple of Aphrodite. Sex with those prostitutes was idolatrous. The argument that Paul condemns singles' sex here or anywhere else in scripture is faulty interpretation. Such a position is illogical because your assumptions are based on emotional constructs rather than on history and on hard evidence.

Nothing in the NT indicates any prohibition of singles' sexuality. It seems that if we apply Jesus' teaching of love over legalism, responsible Christian sexuality is much more an example of Christ's loving desire for us than the traditional biblical values of many wives, concubines as breeders, and capturing women in battle for soldiers' sexual pleasure!

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Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions.

It is the opium of the people.


~Karl Marx~
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Having sex outside of marriage is a sin, adultery is a sin , and practing a homosexual lifestyle is a sin .....here is a scripture that addresses all those behaviours and their consequences.....its a scripture i havent really seen up here

1 CORINTHIANS 6:9-10

Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived . Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterres , nor homosexuals , nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.

You must understand that it's not the prophecy that determines the event, but the event which validates (and in most cases exceeds the expectations) of the prophecy. Strong's concordance points out that "there is no instance where it can be proved that this word designates a young woman who is not a virgin" (my emphasis).

The Jewish translators of the Septuagint (the Greek translation in question) thought they had reason to translate the prophecy with parthenos - virgin. Was it coincidence that they understood it this way, and that Jesus then fulfilled it this way, instead of it just being a reference to a normal (and therefore quite expectable) birth? As for the tense, some prophecies were even written in the past tense ("Behold, the Lord came..." - Jude 1:14 (NASB)). But you can see an interpretation of both contemporary and later fulfilment here: Bible Study: God with us.

I question the wisdom of quoting a website of "Christians" looking for an excuse for immorality in the Bible. I'm sure it's possible to find such "loopholes" if you work creatively enough with the meanings of words, but they make the mistake of overlooking the spirit of the message. That only leads to Biblically foreign interpretations, such as this:

"I would argue that even a one-time, for the moment sex can be shared in love...even for example...with a prostitute! A customer could still pay for good sex, but respect the sex worker as a person and spirit. Usually such relationships are simply based on lust and passion, but could also be done in an attitude of love."

Imagine that! As long as you respect the prostitute, you can call it love. But their highest ideal for sex seems to be the pleasure, not the person: "Only the very basics come naturally and are not always the most enjoyable. But when we have been taught that sex is so dirty that we must save it for marriage, and then only have one partner, how do we learn maximum pleasure sharing?". Elsewhere they state: "Love is INTIMACY." This position clearly puts them at odds with Paul and Biblical morality:

1 Corinthians 6:15
Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never!

No doubt they have a point about overly repressive attitudes towards sex, but they use it as a crutch to justify their own libertarianism.

Here are a few thoughts, concerning your query about the Christian view of sex, and related topics.
It might help to understand the Christian worldview - i.e., life, sex. etc,.. - by remembering that the reference point for all of creation, is the holiness of God! After the creation of Adam and Eve, they enjoyed with God, what is refered to as the Adamic Covenant. In the Mid-Eastern culture, covenant is an extremely serious matter. The wisest man of all time said this, "...rejoice in the wife of your youth, for she is yours by divine covenant from God..." But that was in the Old Covenant.

The Holy Apostle Paul wrote about marriage, as a way of understanding, the relationship of Jesus Christ and the Church. That union is to be pure, free from the pluralistic influence of the surrounding society. The Bride of Christ is to be "...pure and chaste...", free from all spot and wrinkle. Guess what !! Each and every believer is a part of the Bride of Christ, the Church. THerefore; we are to unto the Lord pure and spotless, free from every form of ungodliness. What, or how can asex be considered as ungodly, when as a part of His creation, it's something which has been given to us by God.
Consider what the Apostle James wrote about answered
prayer: "...Ye ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss that you may consume it upon your own lusts..." Whenever we consume any of the gifts of God, solely for our own personal lusts -i.e., desires out of controlled balance - we are wrong!
We err in an unbelievable manner whenever we say that an aspect of God's commands seem more reasonable, according to our way of understanding. All life is a gift from God, not just those cute, adorable babies who grow up never needing breathing tubes, wheelchairs, braces, crutches, or prosthesis of any kind. Contemporary counseling tells the prospective parent to consider their economical means, their maturity, their psyche, and such things when considering starting a family. None of this is necessarily wrong, unless you know that it's not what God has in mind for you.
Again: Life, marriage, and sex, comes to us from the holiness of God's own being, and as gifts of His grace. And again, as the Apostle Peter wrote, "...that we be found faithful stewards of the manifold grace of God..." This is what we each must consider, whenever approaching any matter of life, instead of accepting 'carte blanc', the ideas and mores of society!

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The Virginian
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