Wise vs. Wild Contrast #10: Sexual Conduct
Sexual Conduct
Her sexual behaviorGirl-Gone-Wild: Impure & Dishonorable
Girl-Gone-Wise: Pure & Honorable
Girl-Gone-Wild: “… and kisses him.” Proverbs 7:13
Girl-Gone-Wise: She controls her body in holiness and honor, and does not wrong her brother in this. 1 Thessalonians 4:4-6*
The moral climate in the Roman Empire was not healthy. Sexual promiscuity was common. People got divorced on a whim. The Roman philosopher Seneca observed, “Women were married to be divorced and divorced to be married.” Romans traditionally identified the years by the names of their consuls-but fashionable Roman women identified the years by the names of their husbands. One historian quotes an instance of a woman who had eight husbands in five years.
Promiscuity and adultery also saturated Greek culture. One writer admitted, “We keep prostitutes for pleasure; we keep mistresses for the day-to-day needs of the body; we keep wives for the begetting of children and for the faithful guardianship of our homes.” There was no shame whatsoever in extra-marital relationships.
It was to new believers in this sex-crazed Roman and Greek culture that Paul wrote the following passage:
“Finally, then, brothers, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, just as you are doing, that you do so more and more. For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus.
For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God; that no one transgress and wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we told you beforehand and solemnly warned you.
For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness. Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you.”
1 Thessalonians 4:1-8
The young believers in the church in Thessalonica were trying to figure out what their new faith meant. Some undoubtedly had promiscuous sexual histories and were carting around a bunch of sexual baggage. They reasoned that they ought to indulge their passions and pursue sexual pleasure, and that it was completely acceptable to do so outside the confines of marriage. Though they had accepted Christ, they still had a very ungodly perspective on sex.
Paul challenges them to bring their thinking and behavior in line with the gospel of Jesus Christ. He reminds them of 5 things the Lord wants believers to do:Â 1) Abstain from sexual immorality, 2) Aim for increased sexual purity, 3) Control your body in holiness and honor, 4) Don’t sexually defraud others, and 5) Don’t disregard the importance of sexual conduct.
1. Abstain from sexual immorality
Immorality translates the Greek word porneia, from which we get our English word pornography. It means sexual unfaithfulness. It refers to any type of illicit sex that takes place outside of a (heterosexual) marriage covenant. Paul tells the believers to abstain from sexual immorality. In other words, he says, “Christians don’t sleep around outside of marriage! Â Staying out of bed with someone you aren’t married to is the bare minimum, Christianity 101, baseline sexual standard for followers of Jesus. If you’ve been sleeping around, stop sleeping around. Abstain. Give it up. That’s what Jesus expects you to do.”
2. Aim for increased sexual purity
The Lord doesn’t just ask us to refrain from illicit sexual intercourse. He asks us to aspire to increasingly higher standards of sexual purity. That’s why “How far is too far” really isn’t the right question. He doesn’t want us to ask how close to immorality we can get without crossing the line. He wants our sexual conduct to become more and more holy. Paul encourages the Thessalonians to pursue sexual purity-and to “do so more and more.”
Sexual impurity is a sin that the Lord often lists alongside the sins of immorality and sensuality. The word literally means “uncleanness.” It means dirty, common, and ordinary.  Purity is the exact opposite. It means clean, uncommon, and extraordinary-set apart. As we grow in Christ, our understanding of and desire for sexual purity will also grow. It won’t happen overnight, but as we are sanctified to become more like Jesus, our sexual conduct will become increasingly clean, extraordinary, and set apart for Him. The Lord doesn’t want you to settle for dirty, common ordinary sex. He wants you to reach higher. He wants you to nudge the bar up from where it is now. He wants you to constantly aim for increased sexual purity.
3. Control your body in holiness and honor
Sexual purity takes self-control. It requires that we don’t mindlessly follow our sexual passions, like people who don’t know God. The Lord wants us to control our sexual impulses. He wants us to intentionally rein them in and submit them to Him. He has bestowed His Holy Spirit upon us-the Spirit of power, love, and self-control-to help us discipline ourselves, and control our bodies and sexual passions in a holy and honorable way. (2Timothy 1:7)
4. Don’t Sexually Defraud Men
Paul advises the Thessalonians to ensure “that no one transgress and wrong his brother in this matter.” The Greek word is also translated “defraud.” It means to overreach or overstep; to go beyond. It carries the implication of selfish personal gain. Defrauding a brother is overstepping the line to take something that is not yours to take. The Girl-Gone-Wild of Proverbs 7 defrauded the young man. She seized him and kissed him when she had no right to. His compliance or approval is inconsequential. She still wronged him. She wronged him when she overstepped God’s idea of what was appropriate. Whenever you interact with a man who is not your spouse in a way that you should only interact with your spouse, you not only sin against God, you also wrong your brother.
5. Don’t disregard the importance of sexual conduct
Sex is a big deal to God. Paul warns the new believers not to underestimate or disregard the importance of their sexual conduct. He told the believers in Corinth the same thing:
“The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body . . .Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, “The two will become one flesh.” But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.” 1 Corinthians 6:13-20
Wrongful sexual conduct violates your covenant relationship with Jesus. It’s serious stuff. It has serious consequences. Paul implies that it has greater consequences than other types of sin. Over my years of ministering to women, I have found this to be the case. Because sexual immorality is an assault on your womanhood, it damages you in a way that other sins do not. When you sin sexually, you sin against your own body. You fracture your God-given identity. There is always great hope in the power of Christ’s redemption. But those who engage in sexual sin dig themselves into a very deep pit from which it is often exceedingly difficult to climb out. In my experience, Satan capitalizes on sexual sin and establishes spiritual ties, footholds and strongholds that require extensive spiritual warfare to overcome. So if you haven’t wandered down the path of sexual sin, please don’t. If you have, realize that God has the power to heal, and that He will fight with you to redeem what you have lost. But realize too, that the scars will remain for some time, and that you will face battles that you would not have had to face had you remained sexually pure.
© Mary A. Kassian
This is a pre-publication excerpt from “Girls Gone Wise in a World gone Wild,” © Mary A. Kassian to be published by Moody Publishers in 2010. All rights reserved. You are welcome to link to this post, but please do not copy and/or reproduce this copyrighted material without express written permission of Moody Publishing.
Category: Blog, Gender & Identity, Sexual Conduct
Sexual Repression 101 right here.
But seriously, there is a huge grey area between pure and holy virgin and immoral Godless slut that MOST women fall in to. Just because you don’t abide by these strict Christian morals doesn’t mean that you have no morals at all. I am growing very tired of this Madonna/Whore complex being bestowed upon girls these days. It’s damaging. The church AND secular society are contributing to these extreme views that girls have about how to conduct themselves sexually. You are a part of the problem, just fyi.
It means you have no Christian morals. The operative word here is Christian. What moral relativism is your framework then? They are not strict nor lenient. They are what they are: God’s law. That’s all. Your choice. Accept or reject. They are not up for negotiation. You either believe or you don’t. I must say your position portends inner conflict. I could’nt help but notice. By the way. There is no problem. FYI.
Christy,
You call it sexual repression. I call it sexual dignity and freedom. The advice outlined in the article encourages girls to have self-control over themselves, and to respect others by not dangling a carrot in front of them.
This is 2010! The rules you want girls to follow were enacted centuries upon centuries ago, when people a) only lived to be thirty and got married at 15, b) when sexual purity was a life-or-death bargaining chip in marriage transactions that secured a woman’s body as property and made sure her vagina was “sealed for freshness” to make sure your heir was really yours, and c) when the best methods of contraception were sheep’s bladders and lemons sliced in half.
This. Is. Twenty-freaking-ten, where we live to be a hundred, generally are allowed to choose who we want as partners, and can make women’s reproductive systems do backflips with the right cocktail of hormones, prophylactic hardware, and lab engineered sex toys.
Excuse me while I hitch up my horse and carriage to go watch one of them there moving pictures with the pian- wait, no, IT’S 2010!!!!
I mean, don’t get me wrong, abstinence is awesome. We should definitely teach kids that abstinence is the best way to prevent unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. HOWEVER, I think the dichotomizing of abstinence and sexuality and the demonizing of teenagers, especially girls and young women, who want to have sex is messed up and wrong. It actually WEAKENS the case for abstinence. If you give them an actual, viable choice, I think you’d get more young girls (and boys) who choose abstinence. And when they’re ready, they’ll use birth control. But I guess that would be logical.
The whole thing really does come off as being handed down from patriarchal views of women as proper and not about promoting a healthy view of sex at all.
MaryJ,
You’re missing the point.
I don’t know if you know this, but…
Your body is not yours. Surprised? You were bought with a price. First of all, God created you, in His image, and likeness. He created you to be like Him. And then, He bought you with the blood, sweat and tears of His Son. No one else will ever love you as much as He does. Casual sex, is basically cheapening what God chose to put so much value on, namely, you. Choosing not to give pieces of yourself away to every Tom, Dick and Harry is not “sexual repression”. It is choosing to recognize the dignity that the Most High God has bestowed on you.
And that isn’t even all of it.
And, basically, if you have to rationalize doing something, or having done something, then you know, that whatever you’re doing or have done, is (probably) wrong.
I’m not talking about casual sex. I abstained from casual sex when I was younger too. I didn’t start having sex until I was in a seriously relationship as 20something woman. But I feel like this whole idea of purity expects young girls to turn off their sexual side all together and I don’t think that’s healthy. We as humans ARE sexual beings. It’s something that’s engrained in us from the moment we hit puberty and it’s damn near impossible to ignore it. That’s why I fully support kids being educated about sex and their bodies and not just told that they MUST abstain and not even so much as think about sex until marriage because God says so. I think the high pregnancy rates in the United States should tell you that that method isn’t working very well. Some kids will have sex, some won’t. But not telling them how to do it safely and that the feelings that they feel are perfectly normal is causing a world of problems.
I agree that God has made us with sexual desires and wants. He created sex not just for procreation, but for pleasure. The key however, is that he created it to be within the bounds of marriage. He did not do this as some cruel plan. He, the Creator, knows what is best.
I believe it comes down to one thing. God has told us in the Bible that we are to abstain from sex outside of marriage and we must obey. If we truely believe that God is who he says he is, that we are His creation, and that the Bible (truth) is to be obeyed…we must abstian.
We cannot let our desires and wants negate God’s directives. He is Good and no good thing will he withhold from us.
But what about those who can’t get married or don’t wish to get married? Are they supposed to live their entire lives as celibate if they wish to please God? That does seem rather cruel to me. I have never been able to fathom that God is a micromanaging control freak like that…I guess that’s why I struggle with Christianity.
Mary, yes they must abstain from sex. I continue to return to God’s Word as the source of truth. In His word He tells us to abstain from sex. While it is easy to dwell on this command, I think that the big picture is not sex. The big picture is that as followers of Christ, we do not live lives in pursuit of our desires. Instead, we pursue God.
I think about the desire some have for food (as an example). To them food is a comfort and is fulfilling. If many people followed thier desires and ate what they wanted there would be consequences of poor health and even death. God our creator warns us agianst gluttony and to live lives of moderation. He does this becuase he is our creator and knows what is best for us.
I also thought of the picture of parenting. As parenta we give our children rules and boundreis. They don’t always understand them or feel that they are fair. However, does that make the parents cruel. No! Parents love their child and know what is best for him or her.
We all have to come to a place of accepting God as our creator, as all knowing and wise, and as good. Until we accept this and are willing to place our lives in submission to Him, our desires are very difficult to overcome. Even after accepting Christ as our Lord and Savior it can still be difficult.
I can’t say in my own life I have had to really deal with this struggle. I can say however, that God has never led me in the wrong direction. He has never done any harm to me. When my life is lived in complete obedience to Him I find true joy and fulfillment. The things this life has to offer us (including sex) pale in comparison to what Christ offers us every day of our lives.
I would suggest reading the Bible, specifically the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Get to know Jesus himself before you struggle with his design for sex. In knowing him and finding out just how much he loves you, it will shed new light on His design for your sexuality.
I am honestly, in a way, depressed upon reading some comments here — along with those from other blog entries. I am a very conservative person, and I am shocked by how “liberal” the mindset of a lot of women are nowadays. I even often find myself caught off guard when I find out how people view some things nowadays: like how they don’t value virginity, or that sex outside marriage (even casual, “meaningless” sex) is okay with them.
And yes, we ARE sexual beings; God created us with sex drives. But I believe that it is meant to be fully enjoyed in the context of marriage.
And while it can also be “enjoyed” outside marriage, I believe that no one — male or female — will ever really find satisfaction in anything aside from God. Only God can fill us, make us whole — no other man or woman, not even sex. Once we experience the delight in being with God, in serving Him, in being under His care, I strongly believe that sex pales in comparison (yes, I am still a virgin, not yet married).
I urge everyone who reads this to not be swayed by the world! (Read: 2 Timothy 2:22) Trust in God, He is able to give us more than we need and want! God bless us.
And thank you, Ms. Mary Kassian, for this wonderful site! 
I am just amazed at some of these comments.
I am a new believer and I have struggled sooooo much with this issue my whole life. I believed as many in the world believe today, that we are sexual creatures and is our “nature” to have sex. However, what the world doesnt make very CLEAR is that once you have sex with that significant other you give a part of your self, your soul, away. In the bible it states very clearly that sex is to be a part of a marriage because once a man and woman have sexual intimacy they become of one flesh! Thus as you go on and have (casual) sex with this one and that one, you give this part of your self and that part and this and that until you realize you have been giving away way too much of yourself to people who did not deserve it! Your body is a temple, it is not yours but his (GOD) so let’s treat it as a temple and have some respect for yourself!
I understand it is 2010 and we are no longer in the old days, but maybe that is the problem. We have advanced sooo much we no longer have a clear view of morality! In this world casual sex has become the norm, prostution has become legal, and even orgies are starting to increase in populatiry!! no wonder people are saying “what has the world come to” so dont give that excuse oh it’s 2010 lets all have freedom in our sexual needs!
The bible states we need self control because those who reap the desires of the flesh (your sexual “needs”) will sow destruction (unnecessary heartbreak because you have given a part of yourself to someone, unwanted pregnancy, abortion, or stds!!)
I myself, at age 24, have decided to be celibate because sex IS an important not causal matter of the heart. I will remain pure until marriage, knowing that the lord will provide that Godly man who, even if it is 2010,2020, or 2030, values sex as I do: a beautiful act that should be done between husband and wife, as one flesh.