Growthtrac Community

[Anthony]

Is sex before marriage always out? I know we like this rule for teenagers, and young people who aren't ready to have kids, of course that make sense us. But what about adults who are more mature, and are responsible? How about a christian couple who are in love with the Lord and each other? How about if the sex in done in Love and a nice positive setting? How about if it is only done occassionally and not abused? How about if it was a postive experience for both parties?

Isn't this just one of those laws of the Old Testament? We have been given lots of other good excuses for many other Old Testament laws, can't use the same excuses for this?

:rolleyes:

[danielle]

NO! Its even all through the NT that we are not to fornicate. Sex is to only be enjoyed between the married. The Bible says the Word is the same yesterday, today, and forever as well. Also, our bodies are a temple. The Lord's temple, so we are to be careful with what we indulge in. We are not to fornicate period. I don't see ANY exceptions in the Bible in respect to one's age, christian maturity, etc. God has his reasons why we are to enjoy sex only in marriage & not to defile the marriage bed. It's a VERY sacred thing. Just think, 2 are becoming 1. Do you want to become 1 with several people? Or just the person that God intended for you to marry? Not that we don't all struggle w/ sexual temptations at some point, but God does have very strict rules for sex.

Plus, if you are dating another christian, that person is your brother/sister in the Lord first, before they become anything else (your spouse). You don't want to tempt them to sin, but encourage purity.

"Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God."

1 Corinthians 6:9-10

"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. And God hath both raised up the Lord, and will also raise up us by his own power. Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? shall I then take the members of Christ, and make [them] the members of an harlot? God forbid. What? know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? for two, saith he, shall be one flesh. But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit. Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body. What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost [which is] in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?"

1 Corinthians 6:13-19

[SAM]

I'm with Danielle on this - I have several verses to look up.

There is a great book called "Intimate Deception" by R. Hillerstrom, Multnomah Press. Unfortunately, I don't now if this is in active print anymore. Also, Josh McDowell has a great book called "Why Wait?".

Some verses to look up on this subject:
1 Thes 4:3
Romans 12:1-2
These apply to committing this areas of your life to God.

Psalm 32:1-5
Psalm 51
Isaish 1:18
1 John 1:9
Romans 8:1
II Peter 1:5-9
These are about receiving God's forgiveness for all of your past sexual sin.

Galatians 5:19-21
romans 7:14-24
Realize that your flesh is weak. Admitting on your own that you will be prone to impurity and have a difficult time maintaining purity.

James 1:5-8
1 Corinth. 10:12-13
Galatians 5:22-23
Matthew 7:7-11
1 John 5:14-15
Trusting God to give you wisdom and strength to be pure.

Genesis 39:1-12
1 Corinth 6:18
How to deal with sexual temptation and flee from it.

1 Thes. 4:4-5
What ignites your passion. Understanding it and what you can do to control it before it gets lit.

Ephesians 4:19-27
Romans 14:13
Committing yourself to this honorable lifestyle.

Hebrews 1:24-25
Choose people who will be able to encourage you and provide accountability.

Luke 7:36-50
Luke 17:11-19
Phil 4:8-9
Celebrating your progress in purity to God and to each other.

Romans 13:12-14
This one pretty much sums it all up.
"So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkeness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature."

[Jujubee]

One more verse to add to the fray

Galatians 5:19-21
Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.


A little note....the definition of lasciviousness is given to or expressing lust; lecherous. Exciting sexual desires

[SAM]

That's a good one too. I think it is listed in the 3rd paragraph of verses to look up.

I know many people think purity is a very old fashioned way of thinking.

Turning away from what God truly wants for you can only bring pain. I have learned this through my daughter this past year. She is a believer and had been pure for a long, long time. Her and her fiance, after 4 years, messed up once. We have been blessed with the most beautiful little grandson, named Isaiah, but it has been a long, painful and anxious year of walking beside the two of them through all of this.

[Jujubee]

Thanks Sam I missed that

[webacus]

Webacus agrees.

Also... There are many "non-scriptural" reasons to maintain purity as well. For example, couples report that maintaining or reclaiming purity strengthened communication, improved conflict resolution and grew respect and confidence in the partner.

Sex before marriage can to be an emotional short cut in some relationships.

[Davep]

What is interesting about this question, is the question implies or assumes sex comes before marriage.

Sex is what God deemed to be the marriage. Our "marriage", is the civil ceremony componet. Sex is more binding of the two. God joins man and women together with his recipe for marriage, i.e "sex". We tend to make our marriage ceremony more important then God's process.

GE 2:24
For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.

Sex creates a partnership of the man and women. Sex joins them together.


MT 19:4
"Haven't you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator "made them male and female," and said, "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh' ? So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate."

Sex is God's method for joining man to women. Sex fuses a man to the women. Also sex is more significant than the civil marriage ceremony.

1 CO 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! Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.”

Love is not a requirement to form a marriage, sex fuses a man to a woman. During Biblical times, there was no "free-sex", if you had sex with a woman, you ended up having to marry her. This is why in my opinion men orginally ended up with so many wives. In those times marriage was a good housekeeping seal of approval to have sex. Marriage became a condition of continuous sex, rather than sex being a condition of Marriage.

All we have done today is added abortion, birth control, single mothers, and countless broken relationships and eliminated the requirement for additional marriages. While Polygamy is not allowed in form, in substance it is still allowed by society de facto.

The question is when do we become married in God's eyes, versus when do we become married in Man's eyes. What God saw as binding was the act of intercourse itself. The Old Testament prescribes sacred rites for the birth of a child, for determining marital unfaithfulness, even regulations for cleansing after sexual relations, but nothing for a marriage ceremony.

Sex is more than just the entertainment part. It carries other requirements.

[kelly]

Boy, there sure was alot of feedback on this one!

I must admit this is something that my husband and I struggled with. We were both fresh out of the world when we met, which made sex something normal for us. I got pregnant before we married. As we grew together in the Lord, however, we took a vow of celibacy for the rest of our time together until we could be married. This was very difficult as we had already tasted it, we were very close and in love, and we were even living together at the end of my pregnancy (so he could be closer as I was having alot of false labor and needed help with my two young children...ideally having a fellow woman staying with me would have been a better witness, but it wasn't an option at the time). I need to give a testamony here that after getting past the initial time of frustration and a few slip-ups after vowing celibacy, it was really worth it. When we were able to finally able to come together sa husband and wife the night of our marraige, it was better than we could have expected. God restored our virginity in a sense. Without getting into too much detail, it felt almost as if it was the first time all over again.

I would greatly encourage you, even if you have already opened that door, to take a vow of celibacy. This taked alot of prayer for strength and a serious commitment on both partners part, but it is well worth it on your wedding night. Look at it this way, you'll have the rest of your life!

[SAM]

Thanks for sharing Kelly, that is a pretty powerful testimony to taking the road of this world and then taking the road God wants you to take.

My husband and I were not pure before we married. What we later came to realize - we used sex to cover up many emotions. We used it to bury a lot of communication with each other. When things were not going well, we covered it up in the bedroom. I call it "stuffing". Eventually the bottle we were stuffing everything into, overflowed. It took a long time for us to work on cleaning up this mess.

At some time in a marriage, due to health reasons, it may not be possible to be intimate. That happened to us after the birth of our youngest daughter. I was sick and had 5 surgeries after she was born. That pretty much took intimacy to a different level for us for almost 7 months.

What do you do in a marriage when you can't have sex? What do you build your relationship on? Will things fall apart if this cannot be a part of your life together?

We have found that there is a level of trust we have had to build on. It is knowing through our lives both being devoted to Christ, that neither one of us is going anywhere. It is a full time commitment, day by day by day. It is a peace and assurance that we never experienced before. It is knowing, that no matter what, no matter how hard it gets, neither one of us is walking away from this marriage.

When we try to do it "our" way, when we think we "know" better than God, that's when things can get very messy. With sex before marriage, things can get very messed up for a couple. That's why God's plan is always better than our own. Its truly a matter of faith and trusting God that he knows what is best for us. We usually think we know what's best. Pretty stubborn human beings aren't we?

[michal9651]

I hope we can revive this discussion. I am 54 and my girlfriend is 49. We have been dating for a year. At the start, we discussed wanting to reserve sex for after marriage. We wanted to honor God and wanted his blessing on our relationship. We have also been working at growing together spiritually and build in bible study, devotions and prayer into our time together. We dedicated ourselves to growing the relationship slowly and try to work through any issues as we discover them.

We did well with abstinance for a time but have slipped up occasionally. Each time we recommit ourselves to abstain and are able to maintain that for a few months. When we slip, we experience disappointment, shame and a sense of failure. We repent, recommit and try again.

We want to find a way to break this pattern so that we can stabilize our relationship and remove the feelings of accusation and guilt that result. We repent and pray for protection and strength. It just seems that after a few months, we grow closer and lose our resolve.

We've discussed marriage but my girlfriend is very afraid of that commitment and needs time to grow in learning how to make a relationship work. This is her first dating relationship in many years. We pray about it. I feel guilty and responsible. What else can we do? Why aren't we able to maintain?

[SAM]

Have you each asked a trusted Christian friend to hold you accountable for your purity? Someone who will ask you how it's going and pray for you? That type of accountability in our lives can be pretty powerful because we need to honestly look someone in the eye and not lie about it.
Also, having people like this in your lives to do marriage with, is a great way to have accountablity for your marriage vows.

Purity is a struggle whether you are 19 or 79 and anywhere inbetween.
If you go back and think about the places and times you have tripped up and look at what got you there. It may mean you can no longer be alone in each other's home without anyone around. That alone time can be very tempting, or it's a look or a touch that sets off a trigger. If intimacy goes beyond simple sweet pecks on the lips, hugs or holding hands it can be very difficult to stop.

Maybe have a meeting with your pastor and ask him to pray over you than also ask him to hold you accountable. I had a friend who was really stuggling with this (in her late 30's) and when the pastor prayed over her, he put his hand on her shoulder. She told me everytime she started to think about sex, all she could feel was the pressure of his hand and God's on her shoulder and it stopped her wandering thoughts right in their tracks

I give you a great deal of credit for trying. And... if you can make it, just think about your wedding day and walking down the aisle, catching each others eyes and knowing that you've done it right - without question everything has been done out of obedience to God and His desire to design your relationship His way.

There's a great book called Dating with Pure Passion by Rob Eager and after you finish that one, please read Boundaries in Dating by Henry Cloud. I think reading Pure Passion first, then Boundaries will give you
great perspective on how your physical intimacy void can be filled up by God's love for you.

PS. - can you do your bible studies at Starbucks?

[michal9651]

We do have accountability partners. I didn't do as well with mine as she is doing with hers. Mine doesn't check up on me. I think I need to set it up as a regular appointment because, once something went wrong, I never mentioned it after the first time. I didn't want either of us to look bad. Funny how that is kind of a contradiction when I say it out loud.

I borrowed the boundaries book and have read a large portion of it. In addition to scripture, it had some great supporting reasons why waiting until marriage is best. I never thought of any of those.

Regardless, the deed has been done. Paul says, "Flee...." Should I flee from the sin, the circumstances or my dear friend? Chip Ingram shows a link between pre-marital sex and the rate of divorce. Are we doomed or can we hope to rebuild in God's way? How will we know if we have succeeded?

How does God deal with repeat offenders?

[SAM]

God is the great healer and forgiver. So if we seek his forgivness and are truly sorrowful over our actions, I believe He gives all of us a fresh start - including our purity.

My husband and I have mentored engaged couples for the past eight years and we do an evaluation with them called Prepare. For every couple who we have known to be sexually active prior to marriage, almost every one of them has low communication and conflict scores. So the issues that really need to be dealt with in the relationship are being dealt with underneath the covers and that's where they have a tendency to stay. The real things that need to be talked about and worked through never get dealt with - they just look prettier underneath the sheets. Eventually they will pop up and then they're not real pleasant to deal with.
That's what I believe adds to the chances for divorce - it's that a couple doesn't spend time working on the communication and conflict resolution skills when they're spending much of their free time in the bedroom.

God is pretty clear in scripture. No sex before marriage is found in His word - it's straight and simple from God's mouth to our ears. Sometimes we believe we know better for ourselves than He does... that's what gets us into trouble every time.

Here's some great scripture to read on God's design for purity -
It might make for an interesting date night together.

Romans 13:14
James 1:21
1 Thessalonians 4:3-6
Galatians 5:19-21
1 Corinthians 6:19-20
Ephesians 5:3
Proverbs 6:27 - this one is my favorite "Can a man scoop fire into his lap without his clothes being burned?"
Leviticus 19:2
1 Peter 1:16
James 1:27
Isaiah 51:7
1 Peter 2:11
James 1:14
Matthew 5:28
Job 31:1
Hebrews 13:4
2 Timothy 2:22
Colossians 3:5-10
Romans 8:5-6
Isaiah 50:7

Consider another accountability partner as my guess would be your desire has a greater hold on you and she is giving in to you at times so she does not lose you. I believe that is a great fear of many woman. But, I can guarantee you something - God can and will give you the strength you need to overcome this. And... if you are the stronger person, he will build a great respect for you in this woman who loves you.
She will know beyond a shadow of a doubt that she will always be able to trust you sexually because you have sacrified so much to remain pure in your relationship. It's worth more than you know.

And remember - it's all about obedience to God's word.

Some other great books -
Sex Is Not the Problem (Lust Is) : Sexual Purity in a Lust-Saturated World
by Joshua Harris
Passion and Purity: Learning to Bring Your Love Life Under Christ's Control by Elisabeth Elliot

[michal9651]

Sam,
How nice to have you show us such grace. I'm pretty discouraged right now and struggling with disapointment and doubt. I have been in prayer alot. It seems such a difficult thing to conquer. I cannot do it alone.

I didn't observe that she was participitating just to keep me but perhaps you are correct. My feeling is that I let us down. I feel like Adam in that I didn't take a stand but I made a choice to go ahead. As the man, I should be leading more appropriately. I read the boundaries book and that has given me some ideas to work with. I went to a counselor yesterday and he was encouraging too. Unfortunately, I went alone. My girlfriend and I live an hour appart so the distance is problematic. I want to meet and talk with her but I think she needs some time to work through her feelings.

I'd like to do something to bring us back together soon but I don't know what. This is the communication and conflict challenges that you spoke about, isn't it?

Please pray for us, Michael and Carol. Our relationship is about far more than the little we've shared physically. She was in my heart far before anything like that happened.

Thanks for your suggestions! You are so kind to take the time to make them.

Michael