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Sex: Guilty Pleasure or Godly Pleasure?

You Thinkin' What I'm Thinkin'?

Guys, don't you feel guilty for thinking about, desiring, talking about, and even knowing the word "sex"? Yeah, me too. And I'm married.

You know what I mean. You're sitting around in your dorm room or student lounge and you think, Man, I just can't wait to have sex! And then, Um, I should probably think about spiritual things since that's a better use of my mental energy.

This is why I always feel guilty. I tend to equate sex with dirtiness and I often consider some meditation on God's word to be the perfect remedy to my nasty thoughts. In reality, there are a number of problems with that line of thinking.

Firstly, there is no friction between sex and God's word, which means that God's truths are not better than sex. This is because, secondly, sex is well within the bounds of God's will. In fact, thirdly, sex is not just a tolerable phenomenon within God's creation; it's an intimate part of His creation. Fourthly, even thinking that God's word is higher than sex goes against His word. This is because, fifthly, the Bible does not consider the spiritual world to be above the physical world since both are a part of His creation. The idea that the spiritual world is somehow above the physical world is, sixthly, something we've adopted from a heresy that dates all the way back to the days of the early Church and not from the Bible I suspect there may be more problems, but that should do for now.

It's funny that, in light of the fact that God made sex, it's still somewhat normal to portray us men as animals and barbarians because of our strong sexual drives. By the way, I'm not talking about sexual immorality here. I'm just talking about sexual drives. Even the fact that these two are sometimes equated betrays our unbiblical thinking about the way that God has made us.

Hey Paul, Pick Me

It was this type of "sex bad/spiritual good" thinking that the Apostle Paul had to deal with in Corinth. In fact, unfortunately for him, he also had to deal with those who said that sex with whomever you want, whenever you want, wherever you want, was a perfectly healthy lifestyle.

In my last article on 1 Corinthians, I looked a little at some of the various contexts that characterized Corinth during the first century A.D. One of them involved these two opposing groups: the hedonists, who thought that various perversities were just fine, and the ascetics, who thought that things having to do with the physical world (e.g. sex) were inherently evil, whereas spiritual things were inherently good, or at least better.

Both of these groups were vying for Paul's endorsement, hoping to get his apostolic blessing. Of course, it would've been easy for him to go either way. On the one hand, he knew that sexual practice was a good thing and that the majority of Corinthians fell in the Anyone/Anytime/Anywhere camp (the hedonists), so he could've easily played the popular card and supported hedonism. On the other hand, since he was not married when he wrote his first letter to the Corinthians, he could've just as easily held up the Sex Bad/Spiritual Good group (the ascetics) as the ones who were properly following his example, and therefore, following Christ.

Instead, he stuck to what he knew about sex and creation: If God created sex, then it's good; but also, if God created sex, then He had a certain purpose, or role, for it. This means that both groups had missed the point entirely. Sex is good, but it has a purpose and to stray from that purpose wasn't good.

More Biblical Than the Bible

Because of the type of church background that I have, I've tended to see more asceticism in the Church than hedonism; that is, I, and the Christians with whom I've grown up, have always had a hard time thinking of sex as an inherently good thing. In fact, we've had a propensity to view the physical world as less important than the spiritual world, at best, and evil, at worst.

Thus, we've tried to focus on the spiritual world as much as possible, making a concerted effort to ignore all things physical. Now, here's what's so interesting about this. This is exactly what those ascetics in Corinth were trying to do. They were the ones who had the bright idea that "it is good for a man not to touch a woman" (7:1, NASB) — which, by the way, is a euphemism for having sex with a woman — but Paul correctly notes that this is a bad idea. In fact, it's the kind of idea that leads to sexual immorality (vv. 2-5).

The funny thing is, the idea that giving up sex leads to sexual immorality seems totally counter-intuitive to those of us who have been brought up to think that spiritual things are better than sex. After all, if I'm spending all my time thinking about and talking about lofty things, it seems like this would be the most ideal protection against this type of perversion.

Paul Said It Would Be Like This

In the past century, we have seen a very sad trend take hold of the Church: congregations and families destroyed by adultery, pornography and sexual abuse. Prophetically, the Apostle Paul said it would be like this:

Now concerning the matters about which you wrote: "It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman." But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control (vv. 1-5, ESV; emphasis mine).

Our view that sex is dirty, possibly even evil, has led many Christians into immorality rather than into righteousness, despite good (though ill-founded) intentions. So, reacting to all the perversity that surrounds us by deemphasizing sex and emphasizing spiritual things is a strategy that has failed. And rightly so. We were never meant to live as if our bodies were dirty and evil. Rather, our bodies are "members of Christ himself" (6:15, NIV).

Upshot: Upturn

C O F F E E  S H O P

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What are some ways the Christian community can redeem the way we think about sex?

Join the discussion!

One thing that gives me hope is fact that many Christians are starting to realize that sex is part of God's creation and have begun to speak of it as such.¹ This trend should be encouraged and promoted. This way, God's intention for sex can be gloriously lived out between husbands and wives rather than shamefully swept under the carpet.

This way, we can be an example to the world of what sex is meant to be rather than keeping quiet about it, allowing those who don't know God to wander around, trying to figure it out for themselves. Men, shame and guilt are not proper responses to sex. What God has made is beautiful, so let's allow Him to redeem His creation through us.