What about sex before marriage?

What about sex before marriage?

Asked by kyle

I kinda understand why you should wait untill marriage for sex. I dont understand what sexual acts a viewd as ok to engage in before sex and futher more i dont understand why anything but sex before marriage is viewed as wrong. Why can’t i engage in sexual acts such as oral sex, fingering, and other forms of “fooling around” before marriage, or can i?

Hi Kyle,

Good on you for thinking about this seriously. The basic answer is that marriage is the place God created for sexual relationships. A sexual relationship is not just intercourse, it’s a much broader way of relating to someone, from the way you look at them to the way you touch them, etc. Oral sex is pretty clearly in this category (it is called sex after all!) and really any way that you try to arouse each other is in this category.

The Bible’s not going to provide a list of what sexual things are ok outside of marriage because God doesn’t intend for sexual things to happen outside of marriage. The Bible doesn’t split up a sexual relationship into bits that can happen outside of marriage and what’s only for inside.

What we see instead is statements like this: “But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband.” (1 Corinthians 7:2) Paul is talking about how it’s fine not to get married but if we find ourselves wanting to be sexual with someone the right response is to get married. 

I guess to think about it from a purely personal point of view, would you want your girlfriend “fooling around” to any extent with anyone else? Sexual love is naturally jealous because God’s ideal is one partner for life, the “one flesh” relationship that he sets up in Genesis 2.

This is pretty hard to deal with in our culture when everyone else is doing it. But all of Christianity is like that. God calls us to be self controlled, so we need to pray for God’s grace to stand up to our culture. We need to take a stand against our own desires as well, when they are different to God’s desire for us.

Ben

Answers are kindly provided by our friends at Christianity.net.au

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