Hello, I've been happily married for almost 2 years now but I have a problem. The last 6 months or so I've come to know and love God a lot more. and he has been urging me to a life of purity. I've have been succeeding immensely in being obediently in all areas except for sex and this is taking a terrible toll on my conscience and is separating me from God. I try to explain to my wife that we should be celibate but she just says sex is part of life and will not give it up. I recently managed to go for 2 months without sex and then she started complaining, so I fulfilled my marital duties and had sex with her. Now again I feel disheartened and like I've spit in God's face.
Can someone offer advice on how to persuade my wife to join me living happily in chastity?
thanks in advance.
Why is not having sex purity?
I would understand that
if you weren't married but you are married and within the context of marriage sex
is purity. Pure marriage, marriage that is pure, is sexual.
My advice: Go have sex. Lot's of it. As often as you can. As diversely as you want. And stop thinking of sex as an act and start thinking of it as a pervasive part of your life, a pervasive part of marriage, a pervasive part of who and what you are in Christ. Sex is not a episode in which a penis is inserted into a vagina. Sex is just one means of connecting and expressing value for God, another, and self. Sex can be and should be worship, worshiping the Creator of sex.
Genesis 1:27
"God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them."
Both male and female reflect God's image. One sex alone does not wholly bear that image.
Ecclesiastes 4:7-12
"7Then I looked again at vanity under the sun. 8There was a certain man without a dependent, having neither a son nor a brother, yet there was no end to all his labor. Indeed, his eyes were not satisfied with riches and he never asked, “And for whom am I laboring and depriving myself of pleasure?” This too is vanity and it is a grievous task. 9Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor. 10For if either of them falls, the one will lift up his companion. But woe to the one who falls when there is not another to lift him up. 11Furthermore, if two lie down together they keep warm, but how can one be warm alone? 12And if one can overpower him who is alone, two can resist him. A cord of three strands is not quickly torn apart."
If you were married in the church then you said some vows and made some pledges. Those vows formed a covenant with four parties: your spouse, the pastor, the attendants, and most importantly
God. The priest, minister, or pastor stood there not just as an officiant,
but as the agent for God to whom the two of you pledged to love one another in sickness and health, etc., etc., until one of you died. So if you can have sex and you're not having sex then you are not fulfilling the vows made to God and therefore not pure.
So, again, I am going to ask you where you got this idea sexual abstinence was purity because wiothin the context of marriage sex is purity. I hope it wasn't 1 Corinthians 7:1 and 5. Most of the first half of 1 Corinthians 7 is Paul's personal opinions, not inspired word from God. Right at the end of verse 6 we read, "
Stop depriving one another, except by agreement for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer, and come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. But this I say by way of concession, not of command." He states right in the middle, at verse 10, "
But to the married I give instructions, not I, but the Lord..." and then two sentences later says, "
But to the rest I say, not the Lord..."
For some reason God saw fit to allow Paul's personal opinion - Paul's mistaken personal opinion - to remain in His word. Yes, I can hear the bristle of dissent all the way across the internet.
Paul was incorrect; God wants you touching your wife so well and so often that she has no doubt she is loved by God Almighty -
you are God's temporal agent for his love and affection, His value for that woman you married. Every day for the rest of your life.
We
know Paul's personal opinion is his own and not one shared by God
because the first command God ever gave to humanity was "Be fruitful, and multiply, subdue the earth and rule over it." In other words, we know Paul's teaching on marriage is flawed because he contradicts God's earlier commandment to be fruitful and multiply. Within the context of Genesis the being fruitful and multiplying is accomplished through biological progeny, not just spiritual progeny. Humans were made as sexual creatures. God made males with penises and women with vaginas and teleologically the penis was made for a vagina and the vagina for a penis. That is their divinely designed function or purpose. God did that.
And nothing God made is impure.
Genesis 1:31
"God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good."
Based on God's own divine appraisal sex is good. Very good. Yes, sex has been corrupted by sin but one of our goals as Christians is to act as redemptive agents in creation, one act at a time, one circumstance at a time, one person at a time, until the entirety of our life can be understood through the lens of redemption. God read the story of Ruth and realize Boaz does not just redeem Ruth (and Naomi), but he redeems the entire bloodline of Judah. This is the power you have as a husband, Danny.
Under the old covenant the priests abstained from sexual activity while serving as priests. That was a brief period of service and it was the exception to the rule, not the standard for marital congress. That covenant has been done away with in terms of priestly service and now, in Christ, there is no male or female and
both are royal priests in the Melchizedek order, not the Levitical order. We serve 24/7. We serve even in bed. Purely.
So if you think God told you to be abstinent then ask Him "
How long?" and consider the possibility that He wasn't heard well and as a consequence God sent your wife to you to break the fast. He does that sometimes; speak through others in the body
.
