Jan 21st
1 Corinthians 6:12-20
Avoiding Sexual Sin
12 You say, “I am allowed to do anything”—but not everything is good for you. And even though “I am allowed to do anything,” I must not become a slave to anything. 13 You say, “Food was made for the stomach, and the stomach for food.” (This is true, though someday God will do away with both of them.) But you can’t say that our bodies were made for sexual immorality. They were made for the Lord, and the Lord cares about our bodies. 14 And God will raise us from the dead by his power, just as he raised our Lord from the dead.
15 Don’t you realize that your bodies are actually parts of Christ? Should a man take his body, which is part of Christ, and join it to a prostitute? Never! 16 And don’t you realize that if a man joins himself to a prostitute, he becomes one body with her? For the Scriptures say, “The two are united into one.”[a] 17 But the person who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with him.
18 Run from sexual sin! No other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does. For sexual immorality is a sin against your own body. 19 Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, 20 for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body.
OOOOhhhh the scriptures are getting spicy.
So let’s talk about sex…. :plays salt n pepa:
I like how Paul says, “I can do what I want.” And he’s right. Technically God has given us enough
free will to do whatever we want. But just because we can do what we want doesn’t mean we should. We should especially avoid the things that will cause us harm.
For example. You work out every single day and not take a day off. You can overdo it.
You can over supplement, you can overtrain, you can over-think.
You can take something good and overdo it making it bad.Sex is the same way.
Technically you could have sex however you want and with whoever you want. But is that wise? Is that a wise use of your body? When you follow God you make a commitment to give your body to God and to take care of it. Maybe this is why traditionally the church has taught abstinence.
Because (using recent terminology) this represents an “abundance of caution,” “great care” of the body.
(Side Bar: Truth is that even when you have sex with someone within marriage it can still be unsafe. So there’s levels to this. But I digress.)
When I was 22 the church I attended, and gave my life to Christ in, taught abstinence - Even though most of us weren’t virgins. We were young wild college students.
So, while I am progressive in many ways, I am not ready to condemn abstinence. But I do think that the church can also teach about safe sex.
Why pretend like everyone who goes to church is a virgin who is waiting to be abstinent? That’s not even found in the super super conservative churches. I think the Christian culture went wrong with shaming people who had sex and they went wrong by not teaching safe sex. And they made people teach one or the other.
What do you think? What should be added to the sex conversation within the Church? I’m still growing and learning.