It is important to know why we do what we do.
God does not just tell us to obey; He lovingly shows us why His ways are best. God does not try to sell us something that is not for our best interests. This is almost impossible to believe in a world that seems like a continuous commercial trying to sell us something we really don't need.
The unfortunate state of many in our culture is a saturation of lies and message of self-fulfillment. Many, aware of it or not, are addicted to self-fulfillment. This is why the message of God’s standards for marriage is so hard to receive. It’s not that people don’t agree or understand, it’s that they are already addicted to self-pleasure and a steady diet of immorality.
The fact that almost half of marriages end in divorce doesn’t seem to make many stop and ask what the problem is. Strangely, it seems the opposite, like those watching friends and family swimming down a stream over the falls to destruction believing it won’t happen to them. That’s insanity!
There are three fundamental truths about sexuality stressed throughout the Christianity:
1. Marriage is the only proper arena for sexual activity
2. Marriages must be faithful for the love of spouses to thrive
3. Children are a great gift to parents.
Marriage is the only proper arena for sexual activity.
Why should sexual union only take place within marriage? It can hardly be denied that sexual relations create powerful bonds between individuals, even between those who do not desire such bonds.
Those who have sexual intercourse are engaging in an action that bespeaks a deep commitment to another seen as the "language of the body." Bodily actions have meanings, and that unless we intend those meanings with our actions, we should not perform them any more than we should speak words we do not mean. In both cases, lies are "spoken."
Sexual union means "I find you attractive;" "I care for you;" "I will try to work for your happiness"; "I wish to have a deep bond with you." Some who engage in sexual intercourse do not mean these things with their actions; they wish simply to use another for their own sexual pleasure.
They have lied with their bodies in the same way as someone lies who says "I love you" to another simply for the purposes of obtaining some desired favor.
But some who engage in sexual intercourse outside of marriage claim that they do mean all that sexual union implies and that, therefore, they are not lying with their bodies.
They are, though, making false promises, for those engaging in sexual intercourse outside of marriage cannot fulfill the promises which their bodily actions make.
They have not prepared themselves to fulfill the promise of working for another's happiness, or of achieving a deep bond with another. Such achievements take a lifetime to complete; they cannot be accomplished in brief encounters.
The existence of the institution of marriage acknowledges the importance of love for the happiness of human beings, of the lifetime unconditional love that marriage facilitates.
Love nourishes human goodness like no other force. For instance, love assists us in feeling secure in ourselves; it gives us the confidence to dare to exercise our talents; it gives us the assurance to reach out to others.
Love also serves to heal past wounds. Love in almost any form can promote these benefits to mankind, but marital love provides special benefits. Human beings are complicated and are not easily known by others; a lifetime relationship seems hardly time enough to get to know another.
Sexual intimacy plays a major role in the revealing of one person to another. It provides an opportunity for giving oneself in an exclusive way. Only in marriage can sexual intimacy achieve the goals that it is meant to serve.
The Christian insistence on reserving sexual union for marriage, then, has as one of its chief justifications a concern that sexual relations are meant to express the desire for a deep and committed relationship with another.
That relationship can only be built within marriage, because marriage is built upon a vow of faithfulness to one's beloved. The Bible, especially the Old Testament, regularly condemns the sin of adultery.
Faithful marriage is used as the paradigm for the kind of relationship which God's people should have with God. Those who are not faithful to God are likened to adulterers.
Proverbs and the whole of wisdom literature harshly condemn the adulterous spouse. Most spouses are devastated at the mere thought that their beloved desires another, let alone that their spouse may have actually been unfaithful. Faithfulness is essential to create the relationship of trust, which is the bedrock of all the other goods that flow from marriage.
We take vows in marriage because we realize that we are all too ready to give up when the going gets tough; we realize that our loves wax and wane.
Indeed, society at large seems to have a fondness for marriage. After all, in an age where there is little moral pressure against living together outside of marriage, most still choose to take marriage vows.
Couples realize that marriage vows help them express and effect their commitment to each other. But as the divorce rate indicates, modern society ultimately does not take these vows very seriously - or at least modern couples do not prepare for marriage in such a way that they are prepared to keep their vows.
Marriages must be faithful for the love of spouses to thrive.
A talk with a pastor, an "Engaged Encounter" weekend, or a "Pre-Cana" conference does not prepare one for marriage.
Real marriage preparation must occur for many years before we enter marriage. Young people enjoy the exercise of drawing up a list of characteristics that they would like their future spouse to have. But their time might be better spent drawing up a list of characteristics that they themselves should have in order to be a worthy spouse.
They need to reflect upon their expectations of marriage; many may find that their expectations are largely selfish. Most of us dream much more about how happy our spouses are going to make us than about how much we are going to do for our spouses.
Since marriage requires loving, faithful, kind, patient, forgiving, humble, courageous, wise, unselfish individuals - and the list could go on - young people should strive to gain these characteristics.
Marriages cannot survive unless the spouses acquire these characteristics. Certainly it would be foolish to require that individuals have all of these characteristics before they marry, for none of us do. Indeed, the experience of marriage itself undoubtedly helps foster these characteristics.
But if we do not work at acquiring them before marriage, we will be acquiring their opposites - selfishness, haughtiness, impatience: characteristics that are death to a marriage.
Although faithfulness is one of the cornerstones of marriage, it may seem odd to speak of the need to be faithful to one's spouse before marriage. But in a sense, one should love one's spouse before one even meets him or her.
This means reserving the giving of oneself sexually until one is married - for in a sense, one's sexuality belongs to one's future spouse as much as it does to oneself.
A few generations ago, it was not uncommon for young people to speak of "saving themselves" for marriage. While scoffed at today, this phrase is nonetheless indicative of a proper understanding of love, sexuality, and marriage. One should prepare oneself for marriage, and one should save oneself for marriage.
How does one do so? Obviously, by remaining chaste - and that is not an easy prescription.
For instance, it means being attentive to what provokes sexual thoughts and desires and avoiding these provocations. It means, most likely, dissociating oneself from many of the forms of entertainment popular today.
Those who view sexuality as a gift, which one offers one's spouse at the time of marriage, cannot fall victim to the constant sexual stimulation that Americans face daily.
We need to be careful what music we listen to, what movies and TV shows we watch, and what clothes we wear. We need to try to save sexual thoughts and sexual stimulation for the time when they will not be frustrations, but welcome preludes to loving union with our spouses.
Sexual temptations are, of course, impossible to avoid, especially since our society provides temptations around the clock. Christ's teaching that lust in one's heart is wrong tells us that we must guard our inner purity as well as govern our actions.
Few people, Christian or not, think it sensible for those who are engaged to wait until their wedding night to enjoy sexual union. Many think waiting until marriage would make sexual intimacy too awkward. Most think that, since one is soon going to take vows, it makes little difference whether sexual intimacy begins before or after a ceremony which simply ratifies a commitment already felt.
What difference does waiting make? Well, certainly a vow is not a vow until it is spoken; unspoken, unratified commitments are all too easy to break.
There are practical reasons as well. The period before marriage is an irreplaceable opportunity for lovers to get to know one another. Engaging in sexual intercourse creates a false sense of closeness; it creates a bond that may obscure elements in a relationship that need work.
Courtship is a time for getting to know each other; for sketching out dreams and plans; for expressing worries and hesitations. The delight of sexual union can easily distract couples from preparation for marriage.
There is also a deeper reason, and that is the question of honesty and trust. Few of those who have sexual relations before marriage, especially Christians, can be fully open about their actions.
This means that people engaging in such relationships inevitably are deceiving someone - their parents, their teachers, and perhaps their friends as well.
The ability to practice such deception does not bode well for one's integrity. A woman observes that her lover is good at deception and will file away this information. She will have reason to wonder in the future if her spouse is being honest with her - after all, he had no trouble deceiving others whom he or she respected.
Many Christians feel terrible guilt at violating their deeply held moral principles; after they are married, they may continue to have guilty feelings about sex. In a sense, they have programmed themselves to think of sexual intercourse as a furtive and naughty activity.
On the other hand, couples who do wait until marriage have a special kind of euphoria about their sexual union. Because they waited, they see sexual pleasure as a privileged good of marriage.
They have an easier time developing a deep and abiding trust and consideration for each other. Their willingness to wait, to endure the strains of sexual continence out of love and respect for one another, is a great testimony to their strength of character.
They have shown that sexual attraction is not the most important part of the relationship, and they can enjoy each other's company even when the delights of sexual union are not available to them.
Such faithfulness and chastity before marriage ensure greater faithfulness and chastity during marriage. Because of pregnancy or illness or separation, all couples must abstain at some time in marriage; the acquisition of the virtue of self-mastery before marriage facilitates such abstention.
Children are a great gift to parents.
God, it seems, has a preference for children; after all, one of His first commands was to "be fruitful and multiply." Throughout the Old Testament, having many children is listed among the signs of prosperity that indicate God's favor. Psalm 127 states "Behold, sons are a gift from the Lord; the fruit of the womb is a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the sons of one's youth. Happy the man whose quiver is filled with them." Psalm 128 is one of my favorites; it states:
Happy the man who fears the Lord, who walks in his ways!
You shall eat of your hand's labor; blessed are you, and it shall be well with you.
Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine in the recesses of your house;
Your sons, like olive shoots around your table.
Behold, in this way shall be blessed the man who fears the Lord.
God has arranged matters such that parents and children need each other. The experience of child rearing, like the experience of marriage, both requires and fosters many virtues.
Having children generally does adults a lot of good; most find they become more selfless, patient, kind, loving, and tender when they have children. Learning to live with children has many of the same advantages of living with a spouse: it forces one to accommodate oneself to others, to acknowledge that one has constant tendencies to be selfish. Staying awake at night with children, dealing with their daily joys and sorrows, and learning to be a good example for them contributes greatly to the maturity of adults.
Christians have a radically different view of children from the rest of society. They understand that their offspring are not possessions through which they are to live their unfulfilled dreams and win the respect of the world around them.
Rather, Christians see children as a gift from God, as souls entrusted to them, whom they are to return to God. Among Christians there is a predisposition toward children, for they understand that God loves life and wishes to share His glorious creation. Christians are generally more eager and willing to have children because they realize the importance of children to God and depend upon Him to assist them in providing for the children He has given them.
Trust in God replaces the standard American understanding of perfect security: accumulating enough money and material goods to serve as a buffer against the world. With trusting and light hearts, they proceed to enjoy their growing families and to soak up the love that flows in families given over to the Lord.
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