Readings for today: 1 Corinthians 5-8
Homer’s Iliad. The poetry of Sappho and Ovid. Pindar’s Odes. Plato’s Symposium. The Sacred Band of Thebes. Horace’s Odes. Without a doubt the Greek and Roman world was a highly eroticized one. Sexuality in all its forms was celebrated and embraced. Men were encouraged to build homoerotic relationships with young protégés. Homosexuality and lesbianism was known and commonly practiced. Temple prostitution was normalized as farmers slept with high priestesses to ensure the fertility of their crops for the coming year. Sexual promiscuity and adultery were not seen as taboo. Sexuality was a widespread theme permeating art, comedy, poetry, and philosophy. Sex was even used to bond men together in some of the great militaries of the period.
By contrast, Jews and Christians practiced sexual restraint. They saw sex as a sacred act that bonded one man with one woman for a lifetime. Created to symbolize the “one flesh” God intended for man and woman to experience with each other, Jews and Christians maintained a healthy respect for its power. This is why they established strong taboos against any sexual activity outside the bonds of covenant marriage. They recognized that sex was not purely physical but bonded people emotionally and spiritually as well. To disregard the depth of the sexual experience or share it with more than one partner was to commit a sin against one’s own body which itself was a temple of the Holy Spirit. Sexual promiscuity was therefore intimately tied to ritual purity which is why transgressions took on a more serious tone.
The Apostle Paul was steeped in the Judeo-Christian world of sexual restraint. The Corinthian Christians were coming out of the Greco-Roman culture of sexual promiscuity. You can easily see where these two worlds would clash. Paul confronts the Corinthian believers with some of his strongest language yet. Calling for the excommunication of a man who slept with his father’s wife. Commanding the Corinthians not to associate with the sexually immoral. Most certainly they should not avail themselves of the temple prostitutes and local fertility cults! At the same time, husbands should not deprive their wives of sex nor should wives do the same to their husbands. Celibacy is not God’s design for marriage. I see this as Paul at his pastoral best. Applying the gospel to the complex social and cultural realities that existed in his particular part of the world.
What about us? Do these same principles hold true for us today? Absolutely. The Bible is univocal in both Old and New Testaments about the sanctity of the sexual relationship. It is to be shared between one man and one woman within the covenant of marriage over the course of a lifetime. Certainly one could point to deviations from this pattern throughout the Scriptures like the polygamy of the patriarchs. But those exceptions only serve to prove the rule. As Christians, we are called to sexual purity. We are called to sexual holiness. We are called to honor the sexual act as one of God’s great gifts and thereby exercise it under His divine authority. In our current day and age, we are witnessing one of the great moral shifts in history. Western culture is becoming increasing hyper-sexualized as it reverts back to ancient, pagan sexual norms. Sexual promiscuity has been on the rise since the so-called sexual revolution of the 1960’s. Serial divorce is rampant. Same-sex relationships are celebrated. The concept of “throuples” is quickly being embraced as definitions of marriage shift and change. The impact of all this rapid change is devastating. Sexually transmitted disease. Unplanned pregnancies. Broken relationships. The objectification of the human body. Pornography. Harassment. Abuse. Violence. Depression. Anxiety. Fear. These are a lot of the reasons the Greco-Roman world embraced the Judeo-Christian sexual ethic in the first place! They could clearly see the positive impact on families and communities who committed to practicing Biblical sexual restraint. Sadly, our world has no such examples as many Christians themselves do not seem committed to practicing sexual purity.
As our world rapidly plunges into sexual chaos, it is imperative for Christians to follow Paul’s words to the Thessalonians that we read earlier this week, “For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God...” (1 Thessalonians 4:3-5) Lust is defined biblically as those emotions/passions that drive one to behavior outside the will of God. In the area of sexuality this means any sexual activity outside the covenant of marriage between one man and one woman.
All of us, no matter what our sexual orientation may be, suffer from the same disordered loves. Sexual desire, like all desires, were originally created good and pure by God but were corrupted by the Fall. As such, our desires are now in conflict with what God has clearly revealed in His Word and the only response for the Christian is to submit our sexuality to God like we are called to do in every other area of our life.
Readings for tomorrow: None