Articles
Sexual Morality
“Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge.” (Hebrews 13:4)
Have you noticed how the world will revel in a sexual scandal, even while many of the loudest voices in the culture are dismissing the sexual morality of the Bible? This seems strange. Can we really have it both ways? Can there be a sexual scandal in the absence of objective sexual morality?
Many people may not be ready to give up on the idea of sexual morality despite what the loudest voices in the culture are saying and despite their own practices. They may engage in behavior that they have doubts about themselves because they haven’t committed to trying to figure out how to establish a reliable standard of sexual morality. However, when someone gets caught behaving questionably, they feel compelled to acknowledge it, even if they could have been caught doing the same thing.
Other people just want to be the arbiters of their own sexual morality…which is the same thing as no sexual morality. There are no real boundaries being drawn if we can change the rules to fit our desires in the moment. Many people in the culture acknowlege sexual scandals because the inconsistency of others gives them an opportunity to attack the validity of sexual morality and excuse themselves.
Sex has emotional and biological consequences that cannot be undone just because someone says that they do not believe in sexual morality. The most significant “consequence” of all would probably be unwanted children. Some children are conceived by parents who don’t feel much in the way of responsibility for them because they have accepted the lie of sex without responsibility.
More could be said on this subject but this much should be clear — we cannot have it both ways. There can be no such thing as a sexual scandal if there is no such thing as sexual morality and there are too many responsibilities that go along with sex for us to say that there should be no such thing as sexual morality. People with some of the most liberal views on sexual morality still believe that rape and sexual assault would be wrong. Everybody seems to want to draw the line somewhere, regardless of how open-minded they claim to be.
We may be overly optimistic in saying this, but it doesn’t seem fair to be angry whenever anyone brings up the subject of sexual boundaries. Everybody wants to draw the line somewhere. Instead of getting angry, why not listen to what others are saying. What consequences are they trying to avoid by the boundaries that they are promoting?
Hopefully, Christians are going to draw the lines that God has drawn in His word. We should know that sex came from God and that it is to be enjoyed within the commitment of a marriage relationship. When we argue for the sexual morality of the Bible in the culture, we’re not trying to impose our religion on others. We do want people to become Christians but we also believe the sexual morality of the Bible deals with all of the responsibilities that go along with sex in the most effective way.
