The Biblical View(s) of Marriage and Sex

July 15, 2008

Oops! Sorry for not posting last night as I intended but both my computers were stuck for hours uploading the latest upgrade to the Mac operating system while my iPod Touch was grinding away with it’s own massively time-consuming upgrade. By the time I’d rebooted half a dozen times and sorted my way through the so-easy-everyone-but-me-can-do-it installation instructions I was done in for the night with everything operational and nothing haven’t been slammed into the wall in frustration. A successful venture all the way ’round.

I’ve chosen to begin a conversation on (queer) Christian sexual ethics by responding to several foundational statements that continue to serve as the foundation for all the church teaches on human sexuality and relationships. This might seem an indirect way of entering into the conversation but if you stick with me to the end you might agree how central this all is to the topic at hand.

The Biblical View of Marriage: Marriage is between one man and one woman and is the only form of marriage ordained by God. Marriage between one man and one woman constitutes the Judeo-Christian institution of marriage.

In the Genesis account, God made the first woman for the first man so that the man wouldn’t be alone. The woman was to be his help meet, the original Hebrew word suggesting that both the man and woman were to share equal status as co-partners, and that together in union they became one flesh. This is a great foundational story intended to explain how humankind came into being and how they continued to propagate the earth. It is the creation story of the world and not a blueprint outlining an exclusive model for marriage and human relationship.

To hold up marriage that consists of one man and one woman as the only acceptable form of marriage in the eyes of God is to do so at the exclusion of the rest of the Biblical witness. The Biblical account is filled with various types of marriages that are mentioned free of any judgment or condemnation. Some of these marriage types include:

• Arranged Marriage - Marriages arranged by family to serve as a means of exchanging and securing property between families and to strengthen alliances or reconcile peace between tribal family units.
• Levirate Marriage - A man was obligated to marry his deceased brother’s widow if she hadn’t given birth to a son with her deceased husband, and at the birth of the first male child, he was to be considered the son of the deceased husband. This type of marriage was never condemned in Scripture but the exact opposite is recorded in Genesis 38. When Onan was required to marry Tamar, his deceased brother’s wife, he decided to expell his semen rather than impregnate her and God killed him for his action…or inaction as the case may be.
• Polygynous Marriage - The Old Testament lists numerous accounts of men who had multiple wives including Esau, Jacob, Solomon, Gideon and David. Polygamy was never condemned by the biblical witness.
• Open Marriage - It was fully acceptable for a man to have one or more wives and some concubines on the side. Concubines were woman who held a lower status than that of a wife and were often female slaves who could be dismissed from the role of a concubine at the will of the man for any reason. Abraham, Gideo, David, and Solomon were among those with one or more concubines.
• Marriage by Rape - Deuteronomy 22 explains that a female virgin who wasn’t engaged to be married was required to marry her male rapist. This law created a situation where a man could simply rape any woman he wanted to marry and then pay her father 50 pieces of silver to seal the deal. Interestingly enough, only in this type of marriage is a man prohibited from ever divorcing his wife.
• Slavery-Soldier Marriage - When the ancient Israelites destroyed the Midianites, they killed every man, woman and child with the exception of the female virgins. These women, after an allowed time of mourning were required to submit to one of their Israelite captors as a wife.

Every one of the above forms of marriages appear in the Scriptures and only in the case of Solomon is God attributed with being displeased, but not because of the number of wives and concubines but rather because many of the women were foreigners who worshiped other gods. One could even argue that God approved of multiple marriages because it was through Jacob’s twelve sons, born of two wives and two female slaves, that the twelve tribes of Israel was established.

That Jesus only approved of marriage between one man and one woman can’t be substantiated in the Gospel accounts. While Jesus affirmed marriage between a man and a woman by performing his first miracle at the wedding in Cana, that’s not an indication that he affirmed it at the exclusion of all other types of marriage. Neither does Jesus direct answer to the specific question of a man divorcing his wife suggest that Jesus was condemning all other types of marriage, including polygamy which was still present in 1st century Palestine.

The Biblical View of Sex: Sexual intimacy is to be held exclusively within the confines of heterosexual marriage.

Romans 1:29-31Romans 1:29-31
English: American Standard Version (1901) - ASV
29 being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malignity; whisperers, ³⁰ backbiters, hateful to God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, ³¹ without understanding, covenant-breakers, without natural affection, unmerciful:  

, I Corinthians 7:2, Galatians 5:19-20Galatians 5:19-20
English: American Standard Version (1901) - ASV
19 Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are [these]: fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, ²⁰ idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousies, wraths, factions, divisions, parties,  

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, and Jude 1:7Jude 1:7
English: American Standard Version (1901) - ASV
7 Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them, having in like manner with these given themselves over to fornication and gone after strange flesh, are set forth as an example, suffering the punishment of eternal fire.  

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are a few of the Scriptural passages that condemn fornication (sexual intercourse between two partners who are not married to one another) as sin and as something to be avoided, however the witness of these selected passages are not the only word on sex outside of marriage found in the Bible. Returning to all the types of marriage relationships outlined above, it’s logical to assume sexual intercourse was involved in all of them and yet in none of these instances is a condemnation of sexual intimacy mentioned, even in those marriage relationships we no longer deem as moral.

And then there’s the Song of Songs. Whether you choose to interpret the story as nothing more than spiritual allegory, the frank sexual content of the story, free of any and all condemnation can’t be denied. Song of Songs is a love poem filled with the yearnings and desires of two unmarried lovers;  two people falling in love, describing in intimate details the beauty of each other’s bodies, and the joy of sexual arousal and making love.

Whether looking at the variety of relationships that are viewed as acceptable in the Scriptures, or the conflict that exists between passages that condemn fornication and passages that recognize sexual intimacy outside of the boundaries of marriage between one man and one woman, the message seems clear. The Bible doesn’t give us any easy answers when it comes to determining how we will live out our lives as sexual beings in relationship to one another. Those individuals who claim otherwise and season their views on Christianity and human sexuality with black and white catch phrases are doing so at the exclusion of large portions of the biblical witness. I’m not suggesting the Bible offers us nothing to guide us in living sexually moral lives that honor God, only that what it provides requires more from us that simply following a presumed code of Biblical sexual ethics to be applied universally to everyone. If that were the case then as we’ve seen we’d be required to accept a long list of Biblical sexual practices we find reprehensible in our contemporary culture including forcing a woman to marry her rapist or stoning to death a couple caught in adultery.

So if the Bible doesn’t provide us with a clear sexual ethic where do we go from here? How do we know how to live out our lives sexually with integrity and in a way that’s both fulfilling and honorable to God? How do we know where the lines are around sex and relationships? These questions will be examined in an upcoming post but for the time being, I’d encourage you to look over an excellent article by Walter Wink in the SisterFriends archive entitled Biblical Perspectives on Homosexuality that addresses the issue of Biblical sexual mores in greater depth.

Now, let’s hear from you!

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Posted in Marriage, Sexual Ethics