God’s View on Sex Is Clear-Man’s View Isn’t

In a world filled with members of the opposite sex, your chances of coming into contact with them are pretty high. Men will be your fathers, brothers, coworkers, friends, and husbands. Women will be your mothers, sisters, coworkers, friends, and wives. How can you recognize and avoid potentially dangerous opposite-sex relationships.

Our only dependable basis for this discernment comes not from the culture, not from family traditions, and not from personal choices. Culture has a way of shifting its mores from era to era, swept along by the critical mass of current opinion. Family traditions have a way of perpetuating improper behavior, duplicating the sins of previous generations along with genetic material. Personal choices have a way of leading to unintended consequences, with feelings and desires ascendant and caution thrown to the wind.

In the midst of uncertainty like this, we have only one standard to go by – the one articulated by the creator of man and woman, by the Author of male and female, by the Originator of the very concept of sex, God Himself. 

Our world is aflame with sex. Sex is practiced openly, talked about freely, engaged in creatively, and flaunted shamelessly. Cultural stigmas that once kept sex within definable boundaries have been debunked by the gurus of this age. Movies . . . television . . . magazines . . . music . . . advertising all provide kindling. Almost without knowing it happened, the present generation has become blasé about sexual humor and seductive shows that would have outraged our grandparents.

The powerful, invasive influence of current culture seeps into our consciousness moment by moment, and we hardly know it.

With cultural messages bombarding us with sexual content, with sexual boundaries shifting and changing, what can we rely on to keep ourselves sexually steady? What can we use to anchor our relationships within their proper context?

To go against the grain, we are considered “counter-cultural.” Strike out on our own, and media views us a “marginalized.” Stand up to our friends, and we become outsiders. Yet this is precisely what God asks of us. “Do not conform . . . to the pattern of this world,” He commands (Romans 12:2).

God is the author of sex and sexuality. As the author, it only makes sense that He is the authority we are to go to when confronted with the question of how to carry on sexual relationships, no matter the time, no matter the situation. God allows only one relationship to become sexualized. It is commonly known as marriage. Put even more simply, you are allowed to view only one person in a sexual way. God says you can have sex with only one person and still be pleasing to Him. That one person is your husband or your wife.

If you are married, it’s pretty simple whom you can enjoy a sexual relationship with. If you are not married, and therefore have no spouse, it’s even more simple. If you are not married, the Bible says you cannot have sex. If your are single, God allows no relationship in your life to be sexualized.

Only man, in his sin, could take such plain concepts and simple answers and turn sex today into such a complicated mess!

In the course of daily life, men and women will, and do, interact in relationships that are not sexual. God recognizes that male-female relationships can exist apart from sexual feelings and actions. God also recognizes that nonsexual male-female relationships can become sexualized if you are not careful to guard your eye. Our wandering eyes can get us into trouble.

In dealing with our sex-laden culture, we need to rely on God’s Word to provide the framework necessary to construct a set of core beliefs that will maintain the view of the “impossibility” of certain sexualized behaviors and relationships. A heart committed to God’s holiness can effectively censor a roving eye.

Jantz, Gregory L and Ann McMurray, Too Close to the Flame, West Monroe, LA, Howard Publishing Co., Inc., 1999. Used by Special Permission.