The Bible Is All About Sex

by Rev. Paul M. Turner in Seeds of Hope

I have viewed your website and I come in peace. I don’t believe in being politically correct especially when it involves one’s eternity. I came to you not vice versa so I will make my point and leave.

I have read all the rebuttal and explanation for various scriptures in the Bible. God speaks through men in this book about many various issues. He speaks more about how we conduct our sex life and where we put our resources more than any other issue. I believe that a sexual relationship was meant to be spiritual in nature or God would not have condemned so many sex practices.

Am I to believe that I am free to fornicate if I am in a “loving committed relationship?” Or perhaps I can justify other behavior by taking scriptures out of context. The scriptures in Romans chapter 1:17-32 talk about women and men and the forsaking of sex relationships with the opposite sex choosing to have sex with same sex liaisons. Of course I read the rebuttal on that. It sounded like a lot of justification. I believe you need to go back to the beginning or Genesis as it were. God created the world, then man, he seen the man was lonely and created……..woman. He created this woman from part of Adam’s body. That is very significant. Then the comment in Genesis 2:24 “Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave onto his wife; and they shall be one flesh.” God had a plan for families and an order for their life. Apparently if he had meant to give free reign to all manner of sexual experience he would not have been so specific about his design.

I’m not here to condemn anyone. Look at Romans more carefully without your bias about what you want or what your needs are. It talks about persons thinking they are wise and being fooling and their hearts darkened . It also talks about dishonouring your bodies and changing the truth of God into a lie. I can honestly say there are so many Christians out there now who try to justify their behavior. If we don’t believe any of the Bible and feel the need to justify or change it for our own needs why bother? God is not mocked.

Please do not use my address to have people gang up on me about these issues. I have come with no agenda except to speak my mind. I have already read your viewpoint and am responding.

God Bless you,
Star*

Dear Star,

Thank you for your letter. While it is long and you say that you came in peace, I am going to respond to those parts of your letter that seem to me to be rather judgmental and therefore it is not fair for you pop in to say your thing and then leave. In my way of thinking that is like taking a shot in the dark and then running away so you don’t have to see or think about the response of the target you shot at. Sorry, our people have done that for far too many years.

“He speaks more about how we conduct our sex life and where we put our resources more than any other issue. I believe that a sexual relationship was meant to be spiritual in nature or God would not have condemned so many sex practices.”

I am curious as to where or how you come to this conclusion. Much of what we call canon today is concerned about how we worship God and how we treat our brothers and sisters. Almost all of Jesus’ ministry revolved around the treatment of people by the powers of the day. Beginning in the Old Testament when we are told God requires we do justice, act mercifully and walk humbly with our God all the way through to Paul’s admonishment to pray for each other. Jesus spent a tremendous amount of time bringing those who were cut off and rejected back to the fold and loving arms of God. To say that scripture is a virtual sexual primer seems to miss the point of the Bible entirely. But since you bring it up, let’s address it.

You say the Bible is “about how we conduct our sex life” more than anything else. Tell me then, shall we return to the notion of Levirate marriages? The Bible clearly models this form of marriage where a man takes many wives, and they are his property. If the man dies, then the brother-in-law must take the woman for his wife and do his duty and give her children. This is a model of pious sexuality that the Bible would seem to condone and promote. Yes, according the Bible, the woman shall leave her father and cleave with a man, but as a rule it was many women for one man, and those women were his property. If you advocate one form of sexual model that you say the Bible is clear about, why are you not advocating a return to the Levirate marriage? It’s right there in the Bible … clearly advocated by God.

The Bible also does not express much shame over, nor condemn, the incest between Lot and his daughters. In fact, the children born to Lot’s daughters are the beginnings of the Moabites and the Ammonites. It’s interesting to note that if you follow the line of ancestry that began in incest between Lot and his daughters you’ll find such names as David, Solomon and ultimately Jesus among those who spring from this line.

Are these the sexual mores you advocate us to model today, Star? I certainly hope not. To view the Bible as a sexual handbook for all eternity is a bit ludicrous. Indeed, Star, you are picking and choosing the sexual mores you’d like to see enforced, then using the Bible to back up your argument. That’s called bad exegesis, and it is an indefensible position.

“Am I to believe that I am free to fornicate if I am in a “loving committed relationship?”

Fornication has traditional been defined as sex outside the bounds of marriage. Marriage is about making covenant with God, the couple and community. When two people make covenant with God, themselves and their community they have a marriage. The sexual acts within that relationship is hardly what one could call fornication. Just because you will not recognize a same gender couple’s vows to God, themselves and their community as valid does not mean there is not a marriage. There was a time in this country when a person who was white being in relationship with a person of color was not considered valid yet we have discovered God is color blind. I don’t think it is a stretch to see that God is gender blind as well.

Before you say that gay churches are not legitimate therefore the community part of the covenant is not valid, understand that every state in the Union accepts and affirms those churches and the credentials of those churches. The state recognizes the Pastor of those churches by virtue of their ordination by the people in those churches thereby constituting a community.

“Look at Romans more carefully without your bias about what you want or what your needs are. It talks about persons thinking they are wise and being fooling and their hearts darkened . It also talks about dishonoring your bodies and changing the truth of God into a lie. I can honestly say there are so many Christians out there now who try to justify their behavior. If we don’t believe any of the bible and feel the need to justify or change it for our own needs why bother? God is not mocked.”

Okay, let us look carefully at the context in which Paul is speaking to the Roman Christians in Romans 1:16-25:

16 For I have no feeling of shame about the good news, because it is the power of God giving salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first, and then to the Greek.

17 For in it there is the revelation of the righteousness of God from faith to faith: as it is said in the holy Writings, The man who does righteousness will be living by his faith.

18 For there is a revelation of the wrath of God from heaven against all the wrongdoing and evil thoughts of men who keep down what is true by wrongdoing;

19 Because the knowledge of God may be seen in them, God having made it clear to them.

20 For from the first making of the world, those things of God which the eye is unable to see, that is, his eternal power and existence, are fully made clear, he having given the knowledge of them through the things which he has made, so that men have no reason for wrongdoing:

21 Because, having the knowledge of God, they did not give glory to God as God, and did not give praise, but their minds were full of foolish things, and their hearts, being without sense, were made dark.

22 Seeming to be wise, they were in fact foolish,

23 And by them the glory of the eternal God was changed and made into the image of man who is not eternal, and of birds and beasts and things which go on the earth.

24 For this reason God gave them up to the evil desires of their hearts, working shame in their bodies with one another:

25 Because by them the true word of God was changed into that which is false, and they gave worship and honor to the thing which is made, and not to him who made it, to whom be blessing for ever. So be it.

Verse 17 indicates one who is doing righteousness is living by faith, so a same gender couple who commits their relationship to God and are loyal to one another and is an example to the community is practicing righteousness and therefore living by their faith.

Further verse 21 indicates some of these folks did not give honor and glory to God or praise to God for that matter. Same gender couples by their covenant with God, themselves and their community do exactly the opposite of what Paul accuses some of the Roman Christians of. By going to their churches and participating in the rite of Holy Union, they place God as the centerpiece of their relationship. They worship and praise God and have no other God before them. Yet, you will quote this scripture to call them fools? Seems to me that you are the one coming up with justifications for your position. Further, gay Christian couples do not participate in fertility cults, prostitution or have any other God but the God of Jesus the Christ. You are trying to apply scripture that truly indeed was for another time and place. Not only do you quote out of context but of culture as well.

Star, it is not a matter of not believing the Bible or even justifying our behavior, it is about understanding that whosoever believes will have life eternal. Same gender love that includes God as the centerpiece of that love is hardly in danger of God’s wrath. Rather they are in danger by thought processes like yours that would cut them off from God by a lack of recognition of how deep and God-felt that love is.

Yes, you’re right, I have an agenda. That agenda is to tell all of God’s creation this:

“For I am certain that not death, or life, or angels, or rulers, or things present, or things to come, or powers, Or things on high, or things under the earth, or anything which is made, will be able to come between us and the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” — Romans 8:38-39

God Bless,
Pastor Paul