Paul and Sexuality
I have some
impressions of what I might conclude if I did a more thorough study of Paul and
sexual sin, but I've never actually done it. I thought I might blog in brief on the subject.
The point of real exploration is not so much about what acts Paul considered to be inappropriate
as why he considered them to be
so. To the extent to which such perspectives are unexpressed in the
text--indeed, Paul himself may not have been completely aware of the forces on
his thinking--to that extent this is an exercise about which our conclusions
will remain somewhat uncertain even after we have explored all the evidence we
have.
Additionally, it is not clear to me that it is Paul's underlying thinking that
gives us the meaning of these texts as
Scripture. That meaning seems to me something the church discerns
from the Holy Spirit. Nevertheless, the more we know, the freer we are to make
good choices.
I might begin with 1 Thessalonians 4:3: "This
is the will of God, your sanctification, for you to abstain from porneia." The crucial question here is
what exactly Paul means by "porneia." The
meaning of porneia
for Paul was obvious to him. Perhaps it was obvious to the Thessalonians as
well. I have suggested elsewhere that Leviticus 18 perhaps gives us the best summary
of what Paul included in this word.
In 1 Thessalonians, Paul does give us the flavor of what porneia is. He equates abstaining
from porneia
to "each of you possessing your own vessel in holiness and honor"
(4:4). He equates this comment with "not possessing it with the passion of
desire like the Gentiles who do not know God also do"
(4:5) and "not to offend and defraud your brother in this matter."
The words used in this last statement have overtones of "taking over"
(hyperbaino)
and "taking more than your due" (pleonekteo). In short, I think
Paul must primarily have either adultery or sleeping with someone promised to
another in view.
By the way, this word does not refer exclusively or even primarily to
pre-marital sex, as the KJV translation "fornication" is sometimes
taken. It probably includes
pre-marital sex, as one possible interpretation of this passage indicates.
I believe the following statement to be true: There is no act of sex outside marriage that Paul does not consider to
be sin. But what is interesting is that Paul, and all the other
biblical writers, do not argue that such sex is sin because it is outside marriage. In other words, biblical
authors argue that various kinds of sex outside marriage are sins, but they
never argue that they are sins because
they take place outside marriage. They do not
argue that a person can only have sex within marriage and that any
sex a person has outside marriage is a sin, although
this is what their position amounts to. Rather, they argue that
specific types of sex are sins and they do this with nearly every specific type
of sex other than the act of
sex within marriage. This is a major difference between Paul's sexual paradigm
and the current evangelical one.
Let us go through the various sexual sins that the Bible discusses to
demonstrate this claim:
1. Sex with a Prostitute (1 Corinthians
6)
I start with this category because Paul's comments on this issue are
instructive. Paul makes it clear to the Corinthians that they should not join
their "members" to a prostitute. The reason is that they defile the
body both of Christ and of themselves. Here we note that Paul does not say that
the act of sex defiles because it
is sex outside marriage. It defiles because of who you are becoming "one
flesh" with.
Note the distinction: Paul does not argue that you shouldn't have sex with a
prostitute because you have become one flesh with your wife (and Paul's
arguments are male-oriented). This would be the way a contemporary evangelical
would argue the prohibition. Rather, Paul argues that you should not have sex
with a prostitute because you become one
flesh with her! (and she's
"icky")
2. Adultery
Adultery is consistently understood to be a sin in the Bible. However, the
Bible never says that it is sin because any sex outside marriage is a sin. In
the categories of both Leviticus and the New Testament world, adultery shames the husband of the wife with whom
a man sleeps. Adultery is thus argued to be wrong because it is shameful and
has incredible social consequences. The woman seems to get a raw deal here--the
ancient world didn't speak of committing adultery against a wife. Adultery seems to have always been
formulated as an offence against a man.
In Leviticus 18, almost every act prohibited follows the pattern Do not uncover the nakedness of x (a man) by sleeping
with y (a woman who stands in some honor-shame relationship with x). The
NIV, as many translations, has eliminated the honor-shame language of
nakedness. Again, in none of these places does the text locate the problem as
one of sleeping outside your
marriage. The problem comes from who you are sleeping with and, thus, from the
fact that you are shaming some man.
And here we remind ourselves again that God has moved His church to a more
perfect understanding of so many of these things. So I can reiterate that I
think the current evangelical way of arguing these things is possibly the way
God wants us to argue them. But in the ancient world, adultery was understood
as the shaming of a man by lying
with his wife. In that sense, the OT would not have defined what
What is interesting is that
Jesus' words in Matthew 5 and 19 are thus shocking, because he suggests that a
man commits adultery against himself
when he divorces his wife. Normally, divorcing your wife would not be
considered adultery. But as usual, Jesus is being provocative. A man who divorces his wife, in effect forcing her to marry another
man (how else would she survive?), causes her to commit adultery against
himself. Jesus' words set in motion a process that reaches full bloom
with us, for we rightly believe that a man commits adultery against his wife when he sleeps with
anyone but her. But I do not think you will not find this concept clearly
articulated anywhere in the Bible.
Homosexual Sex
A previous string of entries have made it clear that Paul considered the act of
sex with someone of the same gender to be shameful and defiling. What he
nowhere argues, however, is that the act is defiling because it is outside
marriage.
Premarital Sex
I believe it was the assumption of Paul's world that a woman should be a virgin
when she marries. He never argues this, but he assumes it throughout 1
Corinthians 7. It is so deep an
assumption of Paul's world that he doesn't even think to argue it. As
far as a man is concerned, what avenue of sex is there outside marriage that
Paul would allow? He prohibits sex with a prostitute, sex with someone's wife,
homosexual sex, etc... What is left?
Paul implies that pre-marital sex is inappropriate in two ways. First, he says
it is better to marry than to burn (with passion). This statement appears in 1
Corinthians at a place where Paul is arguing that celibacy is not for every
man. He argues that if you cannot control your passions, you should marry.
Second, this argument is similar to what Paul has said in 1 Thessalonians 4:
don't possess your vessel with the passion of desire. Pre-marital sex implies
an inability to control your "passion" and "burning."
In Paul's day it "defrauded" the father and perhaps appointed spouse
as well. It also cheapened the virgin, making her an object of shame. Couples
who cannot wait for marriage today often experience a
similar shame and compromising of value in the church today as well--which is
in continuity with the biblical world.
Masturbation
I add this section at the request of a colleague. As far as I can tell, there
is no biblical passage that addresses this topic. Some use the passage about Onan in Genesis, but it has nothing to do with it. Onan was required to raise seed for his dead brother and he
didn't. He was more than happy to have sex with Tamar, but not willing to
climax with her so that she would get pregnant, even though that was his duty.
He didn't want the rights of his own first born to be assigned to his dead
brother. In short, this passage is about a whole lot of things that aren't
masturbation.
I doubt very seriously that any biblical author would have considered maturbation under the heading of "sex," so in
some ways it doesn't fit in this discussion. Paul might address it under the
"passion of desire" clause.
So under the "I too have the Spirit of God" category, let me suggest
a few things:
1. What makes masturbation dangerous and sinful for a
Christian is what you are thinking.
Are you lusting after someone? Then it comes under the Matthew 5 heading--don't
do in your mind what you shouldn't do in real life. Ask yourself, "How would this girl react if she
knew I was thinking this?" Lust cheapens the person you
are lusting after. I have known guys who have claimed not to lust while doing
this, and I believe it is possible. God is ultimately the judge of intentions
(1 Cor. 4). Sometimes we feel like we have to be able
to catch those who are lying or rationalizing, but no one ever fools God. He is
the judge.
2. "Moderation in all things." That's the Golden Mean. A man's body
has a cycle like a woman's--it just isn't tied to a regular sequence of days.
Let's say about every three weeks or so the male body gets to a certain point
where thinking is not involved.
Well, enough on that...
Run away...
Conclusion
So we can add these individual prohibitions and come
to the conclusion that "sex is only appropriate within marriage." That
is the current evangelical position. But notice that Paul did not formulate it
the way we do. Paul prohibited all the various avenues of sex outside marriage.
Our formula is much simpler and reaches the same conclusion: Christians should only have sex within marriage.
I think God has helped the church progress in this formulation, for it treats
the woman equally to the man in every way, and I'm convinced that this is God's
way.
Hermeneutical Epilogue:
To wend my usual wares, I make my usual observations:
1. To read the Bible the way we know we need to read
it, we must often go beyond what it actually says and means. The Bible alone
could be used to support a world where a man can sleep with someone who isn't
his wife without committing adultery.
2. Christians extend the biblical meanings in this way all the time. Although
there is no passage anywhere in the Bible that says "Do not have sex with anyone but your spouse"
or "It is a sin to have sex with anyone but your spouse," most
Christians would insist it does say this. This is the implication
of the biblical teaching, but the Bible nowhere says this.
3. It is the "Bible-as-churched" that is authoritative for
Christians, not simply the original meaning. It is the meaning these words take
on when we bring a "Christian dictionary" to bear on them, and this
dictionary is the dictionary provided by the communion of saints through the
ages, in whom the Spirit of God dwells. Such a dictionary is usually in
continuity with the original meaning, but it is usually a little different and
often quite different.