Why single Christians are having sex

[~candice~]

Leonard, why can't it work? People are not robots, they can say no to pre marital sex. Men and women here on Worthy are proof of that. I shudder to think of young teens marrying to avoid sexual sins.

[clark thompson]

Sex is a very big temptation for most people and if they can convice theirselves that it is not sin to have sex outside marriage than their would be nothing stopping them from doing so.

[Guest ninhao]

I am a virgin and am middle aged and the way i have stayed abstinent is by appropriating the fulfillment I have in Christ. He makes me whole and brings fulfillment down to the very core of my being. All of my primary needs have been met and so I don't seek to have those needs met in a woman. The wife fulfills her husbands secondary needs, but God meets the primary needs. When the primary needs are met by God, the secondary needs can wait. There is no desperation, no burning. Abstinence is easy-peesy when you find your wholeness in Christ.

From reading your posts and knowing you are not a man to exagerate I am very encouraged by this post.

[NGKnightfell]

Our God is an amazing God!

He tells us that when an man leaves his family, and clings to his wife, they become one flesh. I have read recently a number of scientific articles that discuss the various hormones that are triggered in the brain during sexual intercourse, and that a number of these hormones, Oxytocin in particular, instill within each partner the feeling of being bonded to one another. In fact, in one such article, I learned that for the moments in which the sexual partners are connected to one another physically, the fluids that are commingling within the female body create a literal connection that operates exactly as if they were hard wired to one another, and that their bodies were responding to each others signals as if they were indeed one person.

This bond is deeply rooted within the brains of each partner, and it only deepens and become more permanent with time. To date, I have not found any evidence that this phenomenon of "one flesh" bonding ever occurs between two people of the same gender.

Just a thought, but as far as the pure chemistry of sex is concerned, it would appear that we perform the act of marriage everytime we have heterosexual intercourse. With this in mind, it is no wonder that God is so adamant that we treat the act of sex with a great deal of reverence, and that when we do have sex with someone, it is our intention to spend the rest of our life with that person. Or as it is said - what God has joined together, let no man put assunder.

With that said, Adultery could be seen as someone who has been having regular, and committed sex with someone, and then they simply break away in order to engage in the sex act with someone else, or in addition to the one that they are committed to. Fornication, on the other hand, is the kind of sex two people have that is indiscriminate, and without any intention at all of forming a lasting relationship. The Bible calls such people whoremongers and prostitutes.

What we typically think of as "marriage" today is actually the formal ceremony - the wedding - that two people participate in that legally sets these two people up as husband and wife. There are civil weddings and those done in religious circles - but the marriage itself happens as soon as their flesh and hormones combine during sex. While the wedding ceremony helps cement in our minds the concept of permanence, and the legal ramifications of trying to get a divorce after a wedding has taken place certainly gives a person pause before entering into such a legal union, the literal and truly Biblical MARRIAGE occurs during intercourse, and a person is committing adultery even if he is having regular sex with someone while simply "living together" and then entering into another relationship at the same time.

Nowadays, there is a great deal of stigma for having sex without benefit of a formal wedding ceremony, with licenses and witnesses and receptions and honeymoons, and we call this 'fornication'. But God apparently had something else in mind when He spoke about adultery and fornication, because He set it up that the very first act of sex between a man and woman "marries" them in HIS sight. In fact, He did not seem to mind it at all that men such as David, Abraham and Jacob all had multiple wives, and legal sexual partners called "concubines" - which implies to me that it is the commitment one has for their partners, and the detemination to sustain them in sickness and in health, that makes a sexual relationship sacred in God's sight, not the formal ceremony in and of itself.

With this said, a great many young people are putting off the formal wedding ceremonies in favor of the apparently more easily disposable lifestyles of simply "moving in together." Such cohabitation sometimes leads to a formal ceremony, but it tends to happen that they simply dissolve their cohabitation and pick up with someone else when they have their first real crisis. That this kind of thing happens is because we are not teaching our children that sex should only happen with someone whom we intend to spend the rest of our lives with, and that to celebrate our decision to partner with someone for life, we THEN have a wedding ceremony, and we thus enter into such a relationship with the blessings of our families and the church.

I believe it is only by instructing our children on the truth about what sex does between two people, this chemical bonding, that we will be able to help armor them against the temptation to enter into sexual relations lightly.

Not meaning to sound facetious, but there is no such thing as "sex outside of marriage" because sex IS marriage ... Sex without commitment, on the other hand, is fornication or adultery.

Blessings to all ...

[ayin jade]

the literal and truly Biblical MARRIAGE occurs during intercourse

I disagree. Jesus differentiated between marriage and just living together. There are plenty of references to the bride and groom being bride and groom prior to intercourse in the gospels too, when Jesus refers to the bridegroom coming to her fathers house to get his bride. Nowhere in the bible is intercourse called marriage.

[Love is alive]

I am a virgin and am middle aged and the way i have stayed abstinent is by appropriating the fulfillment I have in Christ. He makes me whole and brings fulfillment down to the very core of my being. All of my primary needs have been met and so I don't seek to have those needs met in a woman. The wife fulfills her husbands secondary needs, but God meets the primary needs. When the primary needs are met by God, the secondary needs can wait. There is no desperation, no burning. Abstinence is easy-peesy when you find your wholeness in Christ.

Amen!! Great post!

[Love is alive]

Society makes it too easy for kids to think it is not that bad, when in fact it is!!

[Guest Butero]

People have no fear of God. They believe we are all sinners, and one sin is as bad as another. They believe that since we are living in the days of "grace," there is nothing to lose by giving in to sinful appetites. If you believe you will go to heaven, even if you fornicate, and die during the act, why worry about consequences? There are none.

[NGKnightfell]

the literal and truly Biblical MARRIAGE occurs during intercourse

I disagree. Jesus differentiated between marriage and just living together. There are plenty of references to the bride and groom being bride and groom prior to intercourse in the gospels too, when Jesus refers to the bridegroom coming to her fathers house to get his bride. Nowhere in the bible is intercourse called marriage.

In keeping with my line of thought, I need to say that a bride is a woman in preparation for being married, and the bridegroom is a man in preparation for being married. The marriage ceremony, which we call a wedding, is the formal and customary celebration which gives legitimacy to their intent to BE MARRIED ... or literally, have sex, or be "one flesh" with each other.

The point I had hoped to make, is this: God is very specific about what happens when a man lies down with a woman ... even in such extreme cases as when a man lies down with a prostitute, he is literally "one flesh" with her ... I Corinthians 6:16. Historically, it was customary that couples which had gone thru the wedding ceremony were not considered to be literally and truly Married until they consumated their vows by having sexual intercourse, and this could prove problematic in cases of inheritance or rights of rulership if it could be established that they were merely wedded, and not truly married.

If a man is considered to be "one flesh" with a woman simply by having sex with her, that gives me the indication that marriage does not occur during the wedding ceremony, but during the sex. Apparently, one can be one flesh with a woman without having gone thru a formal wedding service, which means that "getting married" must have meant something else entirely to God than what it means to us today. Indiscriminate sex is abhorrent to God, hence, His commandments concerning the need to avoid adultery and fornication.

Of course, it is far better that two people take the time to legitimize their desire to be one flesh by initiating a wedding ceremony beforehand, but the plain truth appears to be that the ceremony is not what makes the marriage happen, it is the sex. Which puts a whole 'nother spin on just how important it is to remain chaste until we are truly ready to be lifelong mates with each other.

[Guest Butero]

In keeping with my line of thought, I need to say that a bride is a woman in preparation for being married, and the bridegroom is a man in preparation for being married. The marriage ceremony, which we call a wedding, is the formal and customary celebration which gives legitimacy to their intent to BE MARRIED ... or literally, have sex, or be "one flesh" with each other.

The point I had hoped to make, is this: God is very specific about what happens when a man lies down with a woman ... even in such extreme cases as when a man lies down with a prostitute, he is literally "one flesh" with her ... I Corinthians 6:16. Historically, it was customary that couples which had gone thru the wedding ceremony were not considered to be literally and truly Married until they consumated their vows by having sexual intercourse, and this could prove problematic in cases of inheritance or rights of rulership if it could be established that they were merely wedded, and not truly married.

If a man is considered to be "one flesh" with a woman simply by having sex with her, that gives me the indication that marriage does not occur during the wedding ceremony, but during the sex. Apparently, one can be one flesh with a woman without having gone thru a formal wedding service, which means that "getting married" must have meant something else entirely to God than what it means to us today. Indiscriminate sex is abhorrent to God, hence, His commandments concerning the need to avoid adultery and fornication.

Of course, it is far better that two people take the time to legitimize their desire to be one flesh by initiating a wedding ceremony beforehand, but the plain truth appears to be that the ceremony is not what makes the marriage happen, it is the sex. Which puts a whole 'nother spin on just how important it is to remain chaste until we are truly ready to be lifelong mates with each other.

Do you consider someone who commits fornication to be married? If they commit fornication with numerous partners, are they married to all of them? I don't see them as being married. When Jesus was speaking to the Samaritan woman, he said plainly that the man she was with was not her husband, but she had been married 5 times in the past. I think a commitment between the couple and God is required to make a marriage. It doesn't necessarily need the blessings of the government, but I do believe it requires a commitment.