A few months back someone in church who is dating asked me this question (I paraphrase):
Okay Steve…so we’re not to have sex till marriage… but why… and what are the principles that underly our thinking on sexual boundaries whilst we date?
I was so grateful for the candor and for the chance to chat together then. For me, it has also led to some further reflection since. This blog is the fruit of that discussion and my reflection.
Ruth & Boaz – a story to warm the heart and inspire the mind
It also seemed appropriate to write this blog whilst we preach through Ruth chapters 3-4. In those chapters we have a beautiful story that gives us a picture and a vision (not rules!) of what God wants sexual activity to look like in singleness (chapter 3) and marriage (chapter 4). Ruth chapter 3 is fraught with potential sexual temptation and missteps for Boaz as the beautiful and sweet-smelling Ruth, who is considerably younger than him, makes a move towards him and asks for his hand in marriage. Boaz has had a few drinks after a good day’s work and a great evening of food. It’s a potential recipe for disaster, but he shows restraint and waits for the right time to make love to Ruth, which happens in chapter 4 once they are married. And the fruit of their love-making is not only personal joy and intimacy but also the bearing of a child which blesses others (particularly Naomi). Their love story even gets woven into the great story of God’s love for us in Jesus (see Ruth 4:16:22). Ruth and Boaz discover God on their journey of love, and so should we.
As we come to consider the principles which underly our decision-making around sexual boundaries as Christians, it’s helpful for us to read Ruth 3-4 and to have our hearts captivated by the narrative and our minds inspired by the picture that we see. If making decisions about sexual boundaries is about ‘rules to obey’, not only will we fail, but we’ll resent them. Rules have their place, but unless our hearts our warmed and minds inspired, they’ll fail us and we’ll fail them. I have written before how rules often bring out the worst out in us.
3 more stories – the Bible, our culture, my own
I also want to say by way of introduction that this blog is written for someone who has trusted Jesus as their Lord and Saviour, and therefore submitted themselves under his Word (the Bible) in all areas of belief and practice. I hope what I outline might show the reasonableness and attractiveness of the Christian sex ethnic to those ‘looking in’ from the outside, but this blog is written to those on the inside, who are followers of Jesus who want to walk in the paths of righteousness he has outlined for us. This is the perspective that comes from the story of the Bible.
Our culture has its own story and view of sex, gender, singleness, celibacy, dating and marriage. Increasingly the historical Christian position is at odds with it. For many in our culture to show any sexual restraint, or to have any sexual boundary beyond the question ‘is it consensual?’ is viewed at best as alien and strange, and at worst, (in the media and academic writings) as dangerous and immoral.
The Bible has a story and our culture has a story to tell about sex, but each of us also has a story when it comes to sex. For many of us there is guilt, shame and fear. For others there is frustration, anguish and longing. For others there is joy, delight and fruitfulness. Leanne and I have our own story (which we’re happy to share if anyone wants to chat 1-2-1) around sexual purity, sexual boundaries, success, failure, guilt, shame, frustration and joy – through our singleness, our 7 years of dating (through our late teenage years and early 20s) and in our 18 years of marriage. What I share below I share humbly as a fellow traveller on the path of righteousness, only too aware of how often I have stumbled and have needed my gentle and lowly saviour to pick me up, dust me off and get me going again, experiencing afresh his forgiving grace for my sin and empowering presence that leads me in holiness.
So now for those underlying principles that I was asked about…
(1) Sex is too good, beautiful and powerful to be treated lightly
The Bible has a lofty and exalted view of sex. The Bible is not shy about sex (just read the Song of Songs!). The Bible says God made sex and made it pleasurable and made it for our enjoyment, his glory and for the good of others.
But because it is so good, the Bible describes sex like fire (Proverbs 6:27). Fire is wonderful and powerful, and we often need it to survive, but it is not to be played with. If you play with fire you get burned. So it is with sex. We put guardrails around fire so that children do not get burned, and in the same way, God has put a guardrail (marriage – a covenant vow) around sex so we don’t get burned, but instead receive the benefits of warmth and light.
Our culture treats sex very lightly; the only guardrail is whether it is consensual. And yet when we look at our culture and see all the damage that sex does in people’s lives (broken marriages, unfulfilled sex lives, a billion dollar porn industry etc etc) we should be careful of listening to its vision of sex, and the guardrails it endorses. Sex is too good and beautiful to be treated lightly. We should treat it like we’d treat a pearl of great price – yes with delight and joy, but not carelessly and not to be shared thoughtlessly.
So when deciding on sexual boundaries with your partner, don’t treat sex lightly, don’t be naive and play with fire! Honour it and honour one another, as God does. On a similar note, beware of the ‘deceitfulness of sin’ (Hebrews 3:12-13) to make you minimise, excuse, hide or justify your sexual activity. We are all very good at convincing ourselves that there are good reasons for our sinful actions. So involve brothers and sisters. Ask them to hold you accountable. Ask them to remind you of why following Jesus’s ways is worth it and let them hold you and strengthen you when you’re weak.
(2) Sex is the whole package not just the orgasm
When it comes to sexual boundaries we can often focus purely on the moment of penetration or orgasm. But they are (or should be!) the wonderful climax to everything that has gone before – the verbal affirmation, the emotional sharing, the physical arousal and suspense. That is how God designed sex and that is one of the reasons why sex is so meaningful and intimate, it isn’t just ‘the moment’ but ‘the whole package’.
The Song of Songs has a repeated refrain as ‘the lover’ and ‘his beloved’ are excited by sexual intimacy but are not yet married:
Daughters of Jerusalem, I charge you
by the gazelles and by the does of the field:
Do not arouse or awaken love
until it so desires.
(Song of Songs 2:7 & 3:5)
In other words, a helpful principle in dating is not to create arousal that is part of the whole package that leads to the climax. Physical touch that expresses affection is appropriate, but physical touch that creates arousal is not. I have never heard of a Christian couple that regretted waiting till marriage! So if in doubt, particularly given the deceitfulness of sin and the power of sexual arousal, err on the cautious side when deciding your sexual boundaries. Listen to the charge from the Song of Songs.
(3) Sex is for your covenant partner
In Genesis 1:27-28 and 2:24-25 we see what God intended for sex. It’s to be between a man and a woman in marriage, where there is a leaving from two previous families and a joining together as a new family unit, entered through a covenant with each other before God and earthly witnesses. It is to be passionate, faithful and fruitful.
This explains why the Bible teaches that sex is only for marriage as it is part of a complete sharing with another person – not just physically but financially, legally, emotionally, spiritually and relationally. If you’re not ready for the commitment and complete sharing of marriage then the Bible says don’t completely share your body with another, or else you’ll get burned. The commitment (the marriage vow) enables and empowers the vulnerability. Physical nakedness without total commitment is like playing with fire – it can burn you time and time again.
So if sex is for your covenant partner, this gives us a great underlying principle in deciding on sexual boundaries. For a married person this is obvious – if the person I am sharing this physical intimacy is not my spouse, how would this affect my relationship to my spouse? It would be devastating. Adultery is devastating. Well by the same token, for those dating or ‘hooking up’ spontaneously, how does what I am doing with someone affect my potential future-spouse? Yes there is a time-delay, but that is the lens with which we should view sexual activity if it is not with our spouse – we’re being unfaithful to them (whether in the present, or in the future).
The greek word porneia, which is translated ‘sexual immorality’ in the New Testament (e.g 1 Corinthians 6:18, Ephesians 5:2 and Revelation 2:14) helps us understand this principle even more. Porneia includes a larger category of sins and not just adultery, where the greek word is moicheia. What is interesting is that the words are often used side by side – Matt. 15:19; Mark 7:21; Gal. 5:19, 1 Cor. 6:9; Heb. 13:4. If moicheia (adultery) was just porneia (sexual immorality) it would be redundant to use it. So it shows sexual immorality is a broader category which includes more than just sexual unfaithfulness in marriage.
Kevin Deyoung gets this point across well, in his chapter called ‘saints and sexual immorality’ in his brilliant short book The Hole In Our Holiness when he says:
The simplest way to understand porneia is to think about the things that would make you furious and heartbroken if you found out someone was doing them with your husband or wife….a kiss on the cheek or even a peck on the lips in some cultures might be appropriate. But if you found out another person…saw her naked or touched certain parts of her body you would be furious.
The Hole In Our Holiness, p114
DeYoung helpfully shares his story (of success and failure) with his wife before marriage, and also how our bodies are not our own, they belong to the Lord and therefore we must honour God with our bodies (see 1 Corinthians 6:12-20). DeYoung also brings out another helpful insight when it comes to dating and sexual boundaries. Very counter-culturally he says:
You should treat all the Christians you are not married to as your brothers and sisters in Christ…indeed this was Paul’s approach:’ Do not rebuke an older man but encourage him as you would a father, younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, younger women as sisters, in all purity” 1 Tim 5:1-2). So, young single men, what does purity look like toward your sister? Would you make out with her? Engage in passionate kissing? Be in bed together? By no means! She’s your sister!! Well, there you have it: a standard for purity towards spiritual sisters in your life. Unmarried Christians, the general rule is this: Don’t do with another guy or girl what you wouldn’t do with your brother or sister.
This is certainly counter-cultural stuff, but it is worth considering and reflecting carefully on those verses in 1 Timothy 5:1-2 when deciding your sexual boundaries.
(4) Sex is about Jesus
The Bible tells the most marvellous story which starts in a garden and ends in a city, and at the start and end of the story is a marriage – of Adam and Eve (Genesis 2) and of Christ and his church (Revelation 21). In his fantastic short book ‘7 Myths about singleness‘, Sam Allberry in his very helpful chapter entitled ‘Singleness wastes your sexuality’, quotes Ray Ortlund who says:
The eternal love story is why God created the universe and why God gave us marriage in Eden and why couples fall in love and get married in the world today. Every time a bride and groom stand there and take their vows, they are reenacting the Bible love story, whether they realise it or not.
At the heart of this love story is a single celibate man who lived a fulfilled and flourishing earthly life. Jesus never had sex and his life was not inadequate as a result. The Apostle Paul himself was single and celibate and at certain points commended others to be as he was. Jesus taught that there will be no human marriage in heaven (see Matthew 22:30-33). Why? Glynn Harrison puts it like this:
The Bible does not teach that there will be no marriage in heaven. Rather, it teaches there will be one marriage in heaven – between Christ and his bride, the church*.
Earthly marriage is the shadow (a temporary state); our heavenly marriage is the reality (a permanent state). With this in mind, Harrison shows how both our celibacy in singleness (and sexual restraint whilst dating) and our sexual faithfulness in marriage point forward to what awaits us all in Jesus.
Single Christians (or dating Christian couples) who abstain from sex outside the marriage bond bear witness to the faithful nature of God’s love with the same authority as those who have sex inside the marriage bond….Denying yourself can be just as potent a picture of a thing’s goodness as helping yourself to it…both single and married people (or dating Christian couple) who abstain from sex outside the marriage bond point to the same thing. They both “deploy” their sexuality in ways that serve as a sign of the kingdom and the faithful character of God’s passion.
As Allberry says elsewhere:
If marriage shows us the shape of the gospel, singleness shows us its sufficiency. It’s a way of declaring to a world obsessed with sexual and romantic intimacy that these things are not ultimate, and that in Christ we possess what is. Our sexual feelings point us to the reality of the gospel’.
Harrison also has this extremely valuable insight:
Whether we are married or single (or dating) in this life, sexual desire is our inbuilt homing instinct for the Divine, a kind of navigation aid showing us the way home. You could think of it is as a form of body language: our bodies talk to us about the greater reality of fulfilment and eternal blessing, and urge us to go there.
In the end, sex is about Jesus – he invented it, he made our bodies, our bodies belong to him and ultimately we belong to him, heart, body and soul. Decide on your sexual boundaries with the big story of the Bible in mind, knowing where it ends and what glory, joy and intimacy await us all. Jesus is our Guardian-Redeemer (as Boaz was to Ruth) who meets all our relational, spiritual and emotional needs. It is in this context that Paul can say “flee from sexual immorality” (1 Corinthians 6:18) and within this context I urge you to consider your sexual boundaries when dating.
As I said at the start, Leanne and I are are available to talk if helpful, or another one of the staff or leadership team. All of us have mistakes we can share, and hopefully wisdom too!
—
*Glynn Harrison: A Better Story – God’ Sex & Human Flourishing – see pages 136-7 & 153 [I added the brackets to include dating]
Kevin DeYoung – The Hole in our holiness (finding the gap between gospel passion and the pursuit of godliness
Sam Allberry – 7 Myths about Singleness
Sam Allberry article – How celibacy can fulfil your sexuality
Sam Allberry podcast – Sexuality, the Church, Grace, and Truth
2018 CCC Blog & Preaching Series