Fornication or Sex Outside of Marriage in the Bible
So what about sex in the Bible for people who aren't married (or fornication)?
Scripture frowns upon fornication too.
The written law says (which Jesus said not one jot or tittle has been abolished) that couples who commit fornication should get married.
Deuteronomy 22:
28 If a man find a damsel that is a virgin, which is not betrothed, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found;
29 Then the man that lay with her shall give unto the damsel’s father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife; because he hath humbled her, he may not put her away all his days.
Fornication and Adultery are Evil
In fact Jesus himself referred to fornication in the same breath as adultery as “evil thoughts” in:
Matthew 15:
6 And Jesus said, Are ye also yet without understanding?...
17 Do not ye yet understand, that whatsoever entereth in at the mouth goeth into the belly, and is cast out into the draught?
18 But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man.
19 For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies:
20 These are the things which defile a man: but to eat with unwashen hands defileth not a man.
Furthermore Paul builds on 1 Corinthians 6: expanding on the subject of fornication.
13b ….Now the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body.
14 And God hath both raised up the Lord, and will also raise up us by his own power.
15 Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid.
16 What? know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? for two, saith he, shall be one flesh.
17 But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.
18 Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body.
This echoes several comments in Proverbs about the ultimately self-destructive consequences of sex outside of marriage, that we’ll look at in the Bible later.
1 Corinthians 6: continues:
19 What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?
20 For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.
Again in Ephesians 5: Paul writes
3 ¶ But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints;
As he similarly writes in Colossians 3:5
5 ¶ Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry:
6 For which things’ sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience:
…and in I Thessalonians 4:
1 ¶ Furthermore then we beseech you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, so ye would abound more and more.
2 For ye know what commandments we gave you by the Lord Jesus.
3 For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication:
4 That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour;
5 Not in the lust of concupiscence, even as the Gentiles which know not God:
More Judianity Articles on the the Subject of Sex in the Bible
Go back to the start of Judianity - A "Third Way" Between Judaism or Christianity?
Theologians believe that even after the crucifixion Paul kept Nazirite vows at the temple and offered sacrifices. One predictable adjustment to a written Torah law about circumcising gentile proselytes in Acts, caused massive turmoil in the church. If most of the other "Old Testament" laws were abolished, why wasn't a similar level of controversy recorded then? Was the Torah really "done away" in Galatians ?
Let's take a look at the subject of Sex During a Woman's Menstrual Period in the Bible.
© www.judianity.info May 2009.
