NO SEX UNTIL MARRIAGE, IS IT POSSIBLE???
May 27, 2010 Featured
Posted by
CYO
Christianity, single, and sex… if you are Christian you know that using those three words in the same sentence is taboo. According to Christianity, if you are single you must remain abstinent until you marry…. but is that a realistic expectation? I have had the opportunity to meet a lot of young, attractive, successful and intelligent (Y.A.S.I.) christians that are single. Even worst there are those who are within the mid age range, late 30’s early 40’s, that are too Y.A.S.I yet still single. What does that mean about their sexual drive and sex lives?
It’s perched in the Christian gospel that one should marry to avoid burning in their lustful desires…
* See the passage below from the frequently used King James version
1 Corinthians 7:7-8,
7For I would that all men were even as I myself. But every man hath his proper gift of God, one after this manner, and another after that.
8I say therefore to the unmarried and widows, it is good for them if they abide even as I.
9But if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn.
This is where it gets complicated. Because what happens if the young and mid age (Y.A.S.I) want to marry but can’t find the right person. This is unfortunate because its also apart of the Christian belief that a person would have to be given a special spiritual gift to be celibate and that one should marry if you aren’t in possession of it.
It can be argued that this notions leads to pressuring single Christians into settling in a marriage because of wanting to avoid fornicating. In layman’s term, letting sex be a primary reason to marry someone instead of focus on compatibility. Exploring this raised a few questions in my mind. Is the decision to marry strongly based on sex and if so does society expect or require too much from a marriage candidate? Considering that even God acknowledges sexual temptation as being strong enough that a person should avoid it by getting married, is it unrealistic to expect a person, who has been single for years, to withstand from sex? Should churches focus on encouraging marriage instead of encouraging people to practice celibacy? If one must possess the spiritual gift in order to withstand peacefully, what does that mean for those who don’t have the gift and haven’t married?
Tags: celibacy, christianity, sex, single
May 28th, 2010 at 7:12 am
I guess it all depends on what your goals are. If your goal is to please you then rock out and do what you feel, but if your goal is to make it to heaven and please God then know it may not be easy but it is well worth the struggle. Also realize that we all fall short of our goals at times and nobody is perfect yet the more you do any particular “sin” the more you become immune to feeling bad about it. The people in their 30 – 40’s, most often, spent their lives chasing money and career goals instead of family; now that the reality set in the youth doesn’t last forever the rush to fulfill more noble goals.
Allah says in the Quran that “…the life of this world is but the comfort of illusion…” so never forget that just because it feels good to you doesn’t mean it is good for you.
Hopefully you believe that God is full of mercy and loves to forgive. Best believe that sex before marriage is not the worst thing you could be doing in you life, especially if you live in America. I live in a country where they don’t even respect marriage. They say it is a sacred, religious institution but it run by the state and they make a mockery of it with shows like “who wants to marry a millionaire”, the bachelor, the bachelorette, the VH1 “for the love of….” and “…xyz “of love” series, millionaire matchmaker, etc. We also promote a “hook up” culture and to top it all off we even have people out the who are foolish enough to call the primal act of sex “making Love”! LOL, Thats not how you make love, its how you procreate and satisfy lust. Love is much more complicated and so is a good marriage, we need a paradigm shift…