When I went to Zambia, I did not think that I would spend so much time talking about sex. This is because I had not planned on talking about it at all. I was there to preach a sermon, teach pastors about counseling, and lead a marriage seminar. The pastor leading the seminar asked me to address it. The pastors that I was teaching asked me how to counsel people on the issue of sex. The missionaries I was visiting asked me to talk to the young adults on the topic. By the end of my trip, I had taught on the issue of sex numerous times.
Part of the reason for this is because the Zambians were amazed that a pastor would even talk about it. Even though issues of sex were having all sorts of destructive consequences in their country, it was not something they were comfortable talking about directly. They were under the impression that Americans were much more open about it. In some ways, we are. It is all around us, from commercials, to magazine covers, to television; it is one click away on the phones we have in our pockets.
Yet, we don’t necessarily talk about it all that much, especially in healthy ways. Guys talk about how to get girls in bed. Magazines offer tips on mechanics. Churches often talk about what NOT to do. While sex has become a major part of how our society views itself, it is shocking how little we actually discuss it. There are not enough conversations about what a healthy sex life is.
I have found that many Christian youth grow up with an idea of the Biblical law regarding sex without a picture of the beautiful design of God. Their parents describe sex in a scientific way, then add a bunch of rules that they should follow ‘because God said so.’ The problem is, legalisms applied from the outside are not able to match the cultural pressures and God’s Way is ignored. I watched the majority of the kids I grew up with in the church, who knew what the expectations were, throw them out the window.
My challenge to the pastors in Zambia was to cast God’s vision to their churches, knowing that another, opposing vision is being communicated. I decided that I should also respond to this challenge.
This Sunday, the epistle that we are in told us that God’s will for our life was sanctification, then it followed with this imperative: that you abstain from sexual immorality. The term ‘sexual immorality’ refers to anything that is outside of God’s design for sex. Whenever anyone says that the Bible does not condone some sexual act because it doesn’t mention it by name in the Bible, they are not recognizing that an existing standard defines everything that is not in line with it. In other words, instead of a list of DO NOTS, God tells us what to DO, and everything that isn’t following this is what we should abstain from. To abstain from sexual immorality, we must first know what this standard is. The best way to do this is through the concept of one flesh.
This is a term that is introduced in the second chapter of the Bible, is an undercurrent for all of the OT laws on sex, is used by Jesus in the gospels and by Paul in his epistles. Through One Flesh, we are able to see how marriage and sex are connected and why God has designed it to function in this way. Over the course of this week, I want to lay out the plan that God has for how sex fits within our created order.