God's Great Design for Sex

Here is part of an introduction to the subject of “Christian Sex” which I wrote a few months ago to the parents of my grandchildren:

Sex in contemporary American culture is a contradiction. While it remains a very private and intimate experience, it is also a very public subject, splashed at nearly every grocery store checkout line, headlined on the cover of seemingly every issue of Cosmopolitan magazine. Television, movies, magazines, and especially the internet openly depict and describe sexual activities without embarrassment. Meanwhile, most of us would be truly embarrassed if our own sexual activity was displayed or talked about in the same way!

The Bible presents a similar contradiction. Before sin, “Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame,” but afterward “they realized they were naked” (Genesis 2:24; 3:7). Ever since, covering nakedness has been appropriate, and moral standards for sexual activity are made clear. Yet at the same time, the Bible is very open about sexual activity. Scripture tells the stories of Tamar’s seducing her father-in-law as a prostitute and Amnon’s rape of his half-sister. Samaria and Jerusalem are compared to sisters whose young virgin breasts are fondled and who end up prostituting themselves and lusting for donkey-sized penises that ejaculate like horses (Genesis 38, 2 Samuel 13; Ezekiel 23). The Song of Songs is an erotic celebration of a man and woman desiring each other. Proverbs plainly instructs a man to let his “fountain” be blessed by rejoicing only in the breasts of the wife of his youth (Proverbs 5:15-21).

In the course of discussing the human body as an illustration of the members of the church, Paul mentions that some parts are unpresentable are treated with special modesty. Yet in the same letter to believers in sex-charged Corinth, he frankly discusses sex in marriage and prostitution. A sexual matter shocking to even pagans is dealt with openly (1 Corinthians 12:21-24; 7:1-6; 6:12-20; 5:1ff).

The writer to the Hebrews summarizes well the witness of all Scripture: “Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral” (Hebrews 13:4). As followers of Jesus Christ, we need to preserve the privacy and purity of sex while being open about its reality. In seeking to understand my own sexuality as both designed by God and ruined by sin, I have become burdened that parents learn this balance in their own sexual relationship and communicate it well to their children.

Unfortunately, it is now nearly inevitable that children will come across internet pornography. Even if we successfully shelter our own kids, the ones they marry are likely to have been influenced by the sexual excess of our culture. More than ever, Christians need to answer perversion with the truth of God’s design for sex which makes it truly great!