Fornication - Is It Still A Sin, TODAY?

Fornication - Choose Up to 3 Statements That Describe Your Thoughts

  • Nothing wrong with sleeping with someone before marriage

  • It is a sin to sleep with someone before marriage

  • The Bible is old fashioned and does not apply to today

  • The Bible applies today as much as it did the day it was written

  • Christians should encourage abstinence

  • Abstinence is old-fashioned and not possible


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Tammy

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A young girl posted in the ETHICS section about how she would not sleep with someone before marriage and it brought many sad responses by those who call themselves Christians and non-Christians. I was going to post some more on that thread, and found this morning that the thread had been closed by the moderators.

I thought I'd reopen the subject here, but not in the GENERAL ETHICS category, so as to be able to avoid those who openly call themselves ATHEISTS....as it is very difficult to have a discussion with someone from a Bible stand point, when that person doesn't claim to believe that the Bible is the Word of God.

If you happen to believe that sleeping with someone before marriage is not a sin, and you call yourself a Christian, please provide the Scripture that you believe gives support for your thinking...
 

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Yes, absolutely abstinence prior to marriage is requisite in scripture.
Serial fornicators would argue otherwise. However, I do not believe anyone who holds to the Bibles wisdom would then argue that God in the old testament and Yeshua teaching in the new, would be able to be said to have lied now that it is the 21st century.

Would you rather have a new car? Or a beater?
Keeping ones self pure prior to marriage allows those who have come together as a couple to enter into a new avenue of discovery about each other and themselves, when they enjoy one another on their honeymoon.

I've met atheists who will say that most people who get married don't even have sex on that first night because they're either too tired, or too drunk.
Those would be the atheist couples. Because Christians don't get drunk on their wedding night, if they abide by the scriptures and live a Godly life.

I've heard atheists proclaim that their kind have the lowest divorce rates compared to Christians.
That means nothing. It certainly does not, though many atheists would imply it does, mean that Christian teachings are then proved to be a failure in keeping family together due to the divorce rate within the Christian community.

Self-respect isn't old fashioned.
 
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Cuddles333

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I think first we must understand the Gnostic influence upon Christianity when it comes to this subject. This was the belief that humanity was sinful because of carnal desires. That to deny theses desires was most noble. Before Christianity came on scene girls were married by the time they were 16 years of age and boys by the time they were 18, so premarital sex was something out of the ordinary back in that time. It was only sinful if that single person went where the pagan prostitutes (male and female harlots....fornicators) performed sex in worship to their deities. We today do not realize how prevalent the pagan temples we back then. Constantine tore them all down and was amused at how the women prostitutes looked like men and the men looked like women. The term 'fornicate' comes from the ancient Latin (Roman) word 'fornix' and it was under this that the pagan priests/priestesses practiced their religion with their male and female cliental. With the spread of the Gospel, fornication practices became less outlandish than they were described in the days of Leviticus chapters 18 & 20 (around 1446 B.C.)
 
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Water Cross

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And these behaviors by the pagan prostitutes was why it was forbidden under penalty of death to behave as the pagan's did. Homosexuality, fornication outside of being bound into marriage.


2 Timothy 2:22 So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. Jude 1:7 Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.
 
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Cuddles333

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And these behaviors by the pagan prostitutes was why it was forbidden under penalty of death to behave as the pagan's did. Homosexuality, fornication outside of being bound into marriage.


2 Timothy 2:22 So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. Jude 1:7 Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.


No, it was the Spiritual adultery against God in their worship of a pagan deity that was the sin. This was (and still is) the meaning of 'fornication' .
 
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golgotha61

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I think first we must understand the Gnostic influence upon Christianity when it comes to this subject. This was the belief that humanity was sinful because of carnal desires. That to deny theses desires was most noble. Before Christianity came on scene girls were married by the time they were 16 years of age and boys by the time they were 18, so premarital sex was something out of the ordinary back in that time. It was only sinful if that single person went where the pagan prostitutes (male and female harlots....fornicators) performed sex in worship to their deities. We today do not realize how prevalent the pagan temples we back then. Constantine tore them all down and was amused at how the women prostitutes looked like men and the men looked like women. The term 'fornicate' comes from the ancient Latin (Roman) word 'fornix' and it was under this that the pagan priests/priestesses practiced their religion with their male and female cliental. With the spread of the Gospel, fornication practices became less outlandish than they were described in the days of Leviticus chapters 18 & 20 (around 1446 B.C.)

Just for clarity's sake; are you proposing that premarital sex was permissible during the OT and NT eras?
 
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Archie the Preacher

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The only 'argument' for looser standards of sexual purity is that of 'cultural pressure'. Just for the tally book, I do NOT agree with this argument.

The Bible and the message of God has not changed. Only 'popular opinion'. In my experience, God is far more pleased with serving His will than with chasing popular opinion.
 
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pshun2404

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I agree that it is still a sin today. However, because of our culture, and peer pressure, you would be hard pressed to find many who have never laid with a women or man before marriage.

Most men have lost their virginity by 17. Women, by 19.

In ancient times people were married by about 14-16 years old...todays sociological practices extend the adolescence to about 25 or 30...we have caused this particular sin to escalate far far beyond what could have been conceived of 2000 years ago....this is a sin about 90% of all Christians commit (I was guilty of this before I got saved so I am not judging)
 
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Cuddles333

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This is the most accurate post I have ever read concerning this subject.



The strictly legal definition of adultery (or נאף) in the biblical texts refers to the theft and/or disruption of a married man's exclusive right to sexual intercourse with his wife.

Notice that I said "a married man's exclusive right" and not a "married woman's." The husband (literally the "possessor" in Hebrew) owns his wife and has exclusive sexual rights with her. She, however, does not have exclusive sexual rights with him because she is the one possessed, not the possessor.

Strictly speaking from a biblical perspective, it is not possible for a married man to commit adultery by engaging in sexual intercourse with an unmarried woman because an unmarried woman has no husband against whom he is depriving exclusive sexual rights. He may need to pay a bride-price or make amends to the family for causing their daughter to be less valuable to a future suitor, but he has not committed adultery. This is why it is not adultery in the bible for a married man to engage in sex with concubines, or for a king to have a harem, or for a man to have multiple wives - because in none of those cases is he denying or breaking his exclusive right to sexual activity (or any other husband's).

It is, however, possible, for a married woman to commit adultery if she engages in sexual intercourse with either a married or unmarried man because she has broken her husband's exclusive right to sexual intercourse with her.

So also, an unmarried man who engages in sexual intercourse with a married woman commits adultery because he has broken her husband's exclusive right to sexual intercourse with her.

If an unmarried man engages in sexual intercourse with an unmarried woman, neither can commit adultery because there is no husband against whom exclusive sexual rights are being denied. [childofdust post #12] Biblical Definition of Adultery thread.
 
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dayhiker

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Cuddles has the definition of fornication correct. Fornication from Jerome's translation of of the Latin Vulgate Bible to the Victorian times meant prostitution. The Oxford diction area in 1600 had the definition of fornication as prostitution. So then the meaning changed.
Most of you have probably already noticed that Bible translations today don't use either prostitution or fornication but sexual immorality. So in my life times we ahve changed the meaning of the Bible for a second time.
The Greek word is inappropriate contenteia which has meant prostitution since over 200 BC till today. Which is easy to check out. Go to translate.google.com Greek to English. Type inappropriate contenteia and see what you get.
 
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Armistead14

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Actually there were several laws dictating sex before marriage in the OT. As stated, women were property and culture dictated a woman having sex before marriage harmed the property rights of the father or future husband. The punishment was simply the man had to buy the bride or the father would have to take less.

Often women were taken captive after battle, they were giving a mourning period, but then the male captors could have sex with them with the intent to take the woman as another wife or concubine. However, if they were displeased with the woman, they didn't have to take her, but they had to give the woman her freedom and couldn't make her a slave.

The truth is the men in the OT days were having sex with numerous women, wives, concubines, slaves and captives.

There's one difference than today, sex is often a game for pleasure that seeks no provision for the woman as it did in biblical times.

We do have the law of love, to do no harm. One can argue that sex is best in marriage because sex is dangerous disease wise and children can be born.

I also agree, fornication has nothing to do with premarital sex biblically, it was biblically a reference to pagan prostitutes. As the church evolved, it became a more catch all word for whatever the church deemed as sexual sin.
 
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dayhiker

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Good post Armistead.

I remember studying the Geek word inappropriate contenteia and finding it meant prostitute and has from Biblical times till today in the Greek language. Fornication meant prostitution in 1600 when the KJV was written. It was in the Elizabethan period that fornication came to mean per-marital sex.

But no mater how we define words we have to love, which means do no harm and Paul also tells is it sin if we do something that's not in faith. Its nice to know there are ways to love God and people and live in faith with the sexuality God created us with.
 
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Tammy

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I'm really disappointed in a lot of these responses...as to whether or not fornication is sin. I looked up the word "fornication" in the Bible and it is used 32 times. There are two types of fornication - spiritual or physical - BUT BOTH are sin, according to the Bible. I don't need to understand anything about GNOSTIC influences to understand that fornication was a sin and is still a sin today. If you don't believe fornication is a sin, then you really should stop calling yourself a Christian, because when you call yourself a Christian, you are stating you believe the Bible - God's Word - to be true.

2Ch_21:11 Moreover he made high places in the mountains of Judah, and caused the inhabitants of Jerusalem to commit fornication, and compelled Judah thereto.
Isa_23:17 And it shall come to pass after the end of seventy years, that the LORD will visit Tyre, and she shall turn to her hire, and shall commit fornication with all the kingdoms of the world upon the face of the earth.
Eze_16:26 Thou hast also committed fornication with the Egyptians thy neighbours, great of flesh; and hast increased thy whoredoms, to provoke me to anger.
Eze_16:29 Thou hast moreover multiplied thy fornication in the land of Canaan unto Chaldea; and yet thou wast not satisfied herewith.
Mat_5:32 But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.
Mat_19:9 And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery.
Joh_8:41 Ye do the deeds of your father. Then said they to him, We be not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God.
Act_15:20 But that we write unto them, that they abstain from pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood.
Act_15:29 That ye abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication: from which if ye keep yourselves, ye shall do well. Fare ye well.
Act_21:25 As touching the Gentiles which believe, we have written and concluded that they observe no such thing, save only that they keep themselves from things offered to idols, and from blood, and from strangled, and from fornication.
Rom_1:29 Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,
1Co_5:1 It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father's wife.
1Co_6:13 Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats: but God shall destroy both it and them. Now the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body.
1Co_6:18 Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body.
1Co_7:2 Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.
1Co_10:8 Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed, and fell in one day three and twenty thousand.
2Co_12:21 And lest, when I come again, my God will humble me among you, and that I shall bewail many which have sinned already, and have not repented of the uncleanness and fornication and lasciviousness which they have committed.
Gal_5:19 Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,
Eph_5:3 But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints;
Col_3:5 Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry:
1Th_4:3 For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication:
Jud_1:7 Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.
Rev_2:14 But I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balac to cast a stumblingblock before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication.
Rev_2:20 Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols.
Rev_2:21 And I gave her space to repent of her fornication; and she repented not.
Rev_9:21 Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts.
Rev_14:8 And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.
Rev_17:2 With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication.
Rev_17:4 And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication:
Rev_18:3 For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies.
Rev_18:9 And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning,
Rev_19:2 For true and righteous are his judgments: for he hath judged the great harlot, which did corrupt the earth with her fornication, and hath avenged the blood of his servants at her hand.


As Christians, we need to stop trying to lower the standard of righteousness into the gutter, and raise the banner high above this world filled with sin.
 
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hedrick

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The fact that you don't like the answers doesn't make them wrong. Citing passages that use "fornication" doesn't help if you misunderstand what they mean.

However it's hard to see that there could be a situation in the NT Jewish community that's quite like today. It's hard to see how there could often have been two unmarried young people who were free to have sex. For the guy, yes. But any decent young woman would be under control of her family, who would be concerned about implications for marriage. Hence guys would presumably have to resort to prostitutes or some other kind of loose woman. The idea of young people not marrying until their 20s, a girl not being particularly handicapped by having had sex, and young people not being under very tight social controls, presents a different and in some ways more difficult set of ethical problems than those facing young people that Jesus and Paul were talking to.

I read a study recently that looked at changes in sexual ethics in the US. Their conclusion is that there hasn't actually been that great an increase in the number of young people having sex before marriage. What has changed is that in the old days it was understood that if the woman got pregnant, the man would marry her. No decent girl would have sex without such an understanding (even if it was only implicit). Today the expectation is that pregnancy is the girl's problem. If this explanation is true, as a Christian I find it very troubling. An Analysis of Out-Of-Wedlock Births in the United States | Brookings Institution

Because most Christians say "don't have sex before you're married" and leave it at that, we haven't had a very widespread examination among Christians of what ethics should be among the many Christians who don't follow that advice.
 
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Tammy

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The fact that you don't like the answers doesn't make them wrong. Citing passages that use "fornication" doesn't help if you misunderstand what they mean.

However it's hard to see that there could be a situation in the NT Jewish community that's quite like today. It's hard to see how there could often have been two unmarried young people who were free to have sex. For the guy, yes. But any decent young woman would be under control of her family, who would be concerned about implications for marriage. Hence guys would presumably have to resort to prostitutes or some other kind of loose woman. The idea of young people not marrying until their 20s, a girl not being particularly handicapped by having had sex, and young people not being under very tight social controls, presents a different and in some ways more difficult set of ethical problems than those facing young people that Jesus and Paul were talking to.

I read a study recently that looked at changes in sexual ethics in the US. Their conclusion is that there hasn't actually been that great an increase in the number of young people having sex before marriage. What has changed is that in the old days it was understood that if the woman got pregnant, the man would marry her. No decent girl would have sex without such an understanding (even if it was only implicit). Today the expectation is that pregnancy is the girl's problem. If this explanation is true, as a Christian I find it very troubling. An Analysis of Out-Of-Wedlock Births in the United States | Brookings Institution

Because most Christians say "don't have sex before you're married" and leave it at that, we haven't had a very widespread examination among Christians of what ethics should be among the many Christians who don't follow that advice.
It doesn't matter what I LIKE or DON'T LIKE, Hedrick...what matters is what God says. Fornication, according to the Bible, is wrong. There is NOTHING right about fornication....it is sin.
 
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Armoured

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It doesn't matter what I LIKE or DON'T LIKE, Hedrick...what matters is what God says. Fornication, according to the Bible, is wrong. There is NOTHING right about fornication....it is sin.

So... ever thought that maybe... just maybe... what God says in the Bible may be conditional according to context? That maybe... just MAYbe... what is sin for a group of semi-nomadic pastoralist patriarchists with a cultural bloodline fixation, might not be sin for post industrialist, post contraception universal suffragists? Because wwhat is demonstrably a bad thing in one context is not at all bad in the other?

Rather than turning off your brain after "the Bible says" perhaps try to think about WHY the Bible says what it says?
 
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Armoured

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The fact that you don't like the answers doesn't make them wrong. Citing passages that use "fornication" doesn't help if you misunderstand what they mean.

However it's hard to see that there could be a situation in the NT Jewish community that's quite like today. It's hard to see how there could often have been two unmarried young people who were free to have sex. For the guy, yes. But any decent young woman would be under control of her family, who would be concerned about implications for marriage. Hence guys would presumably have to resort to prostitutes or some other kind of loose woman. The idea of young people not marrying until their 20s, a girl not being particularly handicapped by having had sex, and young people not being under very tight social controls, presents a different and in some ways more difficult set of ethical problems than those facing young people that Jesus and Paul were talking to.

I read a study recently that looked at changes in sexual ethics in the US. Their conclusion is that there hasn't actually been that great an increase in the number of young people having sex before marriage. What has changed is that in the old days it was understood that if the woman got pregnant, the man would marry her. No decent girl would have sex without such an understanding (even if it was only implicit). Today the expectation is that pregnancy is the girl's problem. If this explanation is true, as a Christian I find it very troubling. An Analysis of Out-Of-Wedlock Births in the United States | Brookings Institution

Because most Christians say "don't have sex before you're married" and leave it at that, we haven't had a very widespread examination among Christians of what ethics should be among the many Christians who don't follow that advice.
That's a really interesting article, thanks for posting.
 
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