The Bible 's Teachings On Sex

The New Testament says nothing about premarital sex. Some versions though do mistranslate the Greek word pornei, which means sexual immorality, into the English word fornication, which means sexual intercourse with someone who one is not married to.

During that era, the entirety of sexual intercourse (irrespective to the practice of married couples with intentions to procreate) was deemed immoral. This was because any practice of sexual activity was

What was confusing for me, was starting to go to church with my family at the age of fourteen, but still witnessing my father’s sexual expression not change. From what I was being taught about the Bible, sex or sexual issues were only appropriate in marriage between a man and woman. The male was the leader of

The majority of marriages consisted of a couple who married for love and were open about it. There were rarely any divorces that happened due to the involvement of the church and not wanting the reputation of having a broken family to go around where they lived or

To start with, let's take a type of religion, christianity, and the United States’s society and see how their views of sex are. Since the christian religion is large , I will narrow it down to my christianity, Baptist, in order to avoid conflict with other christian

In America, a Christian woman was one who embraced and promoted the virtues of true womanhood. Welter (1996) describes the four cardinal virtues a “true” woman should entail: piety, to be devoted to their religion acting as Eve working with God. Purity, to abstain from sexual activity and remain celibate until marriage. Female purity was a powerful thing that was used to keep men in control of their sexual needs and desires. Women who engaged in sexual activities prior to marriage were referred to as ʺfallen women”, unworthy of love, marriage, or motherhood. Submissiveness, to allow themselves to be dominated by their partner and actively responsive to their demands. “A really sensible woman feels her dependence. She does what she can, but she is conscious of her inferiority and therefore grateful for support” (Lavender, 1988). This implies

The most important recurring issues in the study of the history of Christianity during our time period is sexual abuse amongst the Catholic Clergy and abortion, the killing of a living entity, as it is a sin against God according to biblical doctrine. Many believe that sexual abuse happening in the Catholic Church, is directly related to celibacy. The Churches restriction on priests that directs them to abstain from sexual relations. This issue has been debated since the reformation in which Martin Luther and other reformers opposed celibacy. They based their argument against celibacy on the bible scripture, namely Genesis 1:28, where God wanted people to “be fruitful and multiply”. There is nothing in the bible that directly mentions celibacy. There are many versions that mention fornication and uncleanliness and the interpretation of the Catholic Church seems to have made this deduction based on those scriptures. The other major issue that is common in most of the world’s religions is abortion; the Catholic Church, the Orthodox Church, and the Protestant Church still adopt the early church’s belief to oppose the practice of abortion. Abortion is considered murder and a mortal sin in accordance which many versus in the bible as it relates to each of these faiths. Even between the Old Testament, where the law or Tora refers to the 10 commandments, where Exodus 20:13 states “Thou shall not Murder” and

The Middle Ages were a time of expanding and experimenting sexually for the people. Religious figures who had taken vows of celibacy had children, sometimes with more than one woman. Even some popes of the time had illicit affairs. However,

Marriage within the Christian faith was meant to be until death, thus the attraction between the couple was also very important. As young as 7 years old, parents would sometimes house the couple to make sure they were suited for each other. In the Muslim culture, the match between a bride and groom was not as important because the dissolution of marriage was not uncommon.

of the church taught that sexual relations should be avoided if possible and indulged in

In the Antebellum time period, there were four voices that carefully discussed and showed their beliefs of sex to the society. One of the voices was known as Evangelical Christianity. Christian ministers and Lyman Beecher’s, strong ideas and passionate efforts were shown to try and get society to follow their ideas of sex. In their eyes, lust was known to be a deadly sin during the Nineteenth Century (Horowitz, 8). In order for them to control society members, they expressed and advocated that if one goes against the Christian view of sex and lacks morality, then he or she will be lead to the devil (Beecher, 45). Evangelical Christianity supporters such as Lyman Beecher believed in using the church, Bible, law and institutions to control how individuals acted upon sex as well as how sex was seen in society as

Some early Christians practiced infanticide by exposing unwanted female infants. Church fathers warned against this because they believed that children that were exposed were more likely to be victims of incest and/or become prostitutes. In turn, they warned against having sex with prostitutes because they believed that it may result in a father having sex with one of his own children. However for Christians, as with the Jews, it was considered a criminal act.

Biblical writing tends to have strict laws about sex and sexuality and how it was expressed and universally accepted. The Pauline Epistles, or Paul’s views, had unique views on sex because he completely distrusted gender as a whole and because he believed that there would be an apocalypse. Many of Paul’s ideas were widely accepted back than because they explained may things that people could not, for instance it explains homosexuality. Today, the laws are seen differently and in some cases interpreted much more literally than they were back then. It is likely that ideas have changed either because people have become more understanding and accepting of others or because we no longer view sex and sexuality as a thing to be ashamed of. This new age of interpretation is seen in the way homosexuality is accepted today, submission of the wife to the husband in some religious dominations, and the ideal of marriage and its sexual implications.

Any kind of sexual expression is limited to marriage, and even, sexual relationships in marriage were only justified for procreation.

Sex is the sacred sigh of the covenant with God, when a couple has sex they are sealing the covenant with God. Breaking this sign of the covenant is one of the most harmful sins that we as a people can expose ourselves to. In order for us to enter into heaven God says "But among you there must not even be a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity...because these are improper for God's holy people.1" Breaking the sign of the covenant with God is breaking God's law and going against everything God wants for us. God doesn't ask much from us considering all that he has given us, he asks us only to follow his laws, in Jesus said, "If you love me, you will obey what I command.1" Premarital sex goes against God's command and ruins our relationship with him.