At its best, sex is not a sin. It’s holy and sacred and beautiful. At its worst, it is not holy or sacred or beautiful. It’s kind of like nitroglycerin: it can heal a dying heart or it can blow up a building.
A person who is hungry for food or thirsty for water is searching for survival. To know another sexually is the hunger to know another in all their humanity and to be known in all your humanity by another. Food without nutrition and water without purity doesn’t work out for too long and neither does sex without humanity. Sex isn’t salvation and those who treat it as such will face disappointment.
A person who is hungry for food or thirsty for water is searching for survival. To know another sexually is the hunger to know another in all their humanity and to be known in all your humanity by another. Food without nutrition and water without purity doesn’t work out for too long and neither does sex without humanity. Sex isn’t salvation and those who treat it as such will face disappointment.
Jesus seemed to be pretty lenient on sexual misconduct. He saved
the woman caught in adultery from having the leaders of the community throw rocks at her. He didn't tell the
woman at the well that she should go and marry the man she was
living with.
But he also had some very harsh words to say about lust: like it’s better to lose your eye than to go down the road that will lead to destruction. And he told the adulterous woman to be on her way and not to sin anymore.
Sex is sinful when physical
bodies are united but the persons inside those bodies are hungrier and thirstier and more
lonely. Sex is holy and sacred when persons and souls are even more united than the bodies.
Scholarly journals tell you one thing about sex. Hollywood another. Men’s Health writes a different story. Billions of dollars are funneled into the adult entertainment industry—an industry which sends an entirely different message.
The Bible’s message is clear and consistent. Sex is a gift. A blessing. Like humor and friendship—sex is God’s gift to us. When used as intended—there is nothing quite like it. When used as it’s not intended—well there is nothing quite like that either.
Misuse and abuse will be overwhelmed with recovery and grace. Brokenness can be healed. God has a lot of experience at turning sinners into saints. And when God does this—there is nothing quite like that either.
The best is yet to come…
Craig
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