Christian Groups Encourage Premarital Sex...

"I hear from so many Christian women who say there biggest mistake was not having more sex before marriage and now find themselves in such a totally unsatisfying relationship physically. Where is one to learn good sex skills when both partners are ignorant? There is far more to sex than just having intercourse. Studies show about 40% of women never have an orgasm from just intercourse and most women enjoy far more. That is why so many women are sexually frustrated when a man doesn't have a clue- how is he supposed to learn, or the women learn of her own sexuality if they go into marriage clueless without much experience?" (Source, Liberated Christian)

More than nine out of 10 Americans, men and women alike, have had premarital sex, according to a new study. The high rates extend even to women born in the 1940s, challenging perceptions that people were more chaste in the past.

"This is reality-check research," said the study's author, Lawrence Finer. "Premarital sex is normal behavior for the vast majority of Americans, and has been for decades."

The study, examining how sexual behavior before marriage has changed over time, was based on interviews conducted with more than 38,000 people — about 33,000 of them women — in 1982, 1988, 1995 and 2002 for the federal National Survey of Family Growth. According to Finer's analysis, 99 percent of the respondents had had sex by age 44, and 95 percent had done so before marriage.

Even among a subgroup of those who abstained from sex until at least age 20, four-fifths had had premarital sex by age 44, the study found. (Scott Conroy, CBS NEWS)

The temptation to engage in sex before marriage is tough enough on young Christians, and the peer pressure makes it only harder on them. But how can young Christians feel that they really have a chance and the proper encouragement and accountability, when the pressure to 'obtain sexual experience to, one day, be a better spouse' is coming from the Christian community?

A month ago I wrote an article about Christians who cheat on their spouses, and even social networks created as a dating service for married Christians to hook up with other married Christians, for the sole purpose of extra marital sexual gratification.

After spending some time digging deeper into the issue, I have found that there is large groups, claiming to be 'Christian', who believe that sex before marriage is not only appropriate, but desirable for sexual maturity before marriage.

Is the Bible for or against premarital sex? With this being such a huge topic, the Bible wouldn't have just skipped this question, Right?

According to the Liberated Christians website "There is absolutely nothing in the bible forbidding premarital sex. It is one of the traditions that is man made to control people.The only reference is in the OT and in the NT only the total mistranslation of the Greek word "porneia" as "fornication" - a clear lie that has no basis"

Is this information true, or are these 'Christians' as we have seen many times in the past with other groups, misinformed, or, as the Bibles warns, led away by seducing spirits, doctrines of demons, or blown around by various false teaching and winds of doctrines? Is this a false gospel teaching for those with itching ears; who desire to gratify their flesh sexually and still call themselves followers of Jesus?

Although there is no specific line in the Bible that reads: Do not have premarital sex!, many Christians, both Preachers, and those in the pews, believe that it is a matter of just reading, and doing a little study.

The Theologian, however defends the Gospel teachings against premarital sex. On their online resource site, The Theologian reports,'It could be argued that the Bible never addresses the modern dilemma of two Christians who love each other and want to have sex before marriage, because these two significant words porneia and zãnãh actually refer to prostitution not pre-marital sex. Zãnãh is translated by porneia in the LXX, and they are roughly equivalent terms. These words are used in descriptions of prostitution (indeed zãnãh occurs most often in metaphorical descriptions of Israel’s “whoredom" with idolatry). However, they do not just refer to prostitution.

See the relevant dictionary articles for more details: Eg. in NIDOTTE: "In the OT, fornication describes illicit sex by a female that violates a relationship with a male, either a husband or a father... In many cases illicit sex, not sex for hire, is in view." and in NIDNTT: "In the Pauline writings the word group pornê denotes any kind of illegitimate sexual intercourse." (see bibliography). See these verses (and contexts) for use of porneia: Mat 5:19; Acts 15:20; Gal 5:19; Eph 5:3; 1Thess 4:3; Rev 9:21.

The word “fornication” has gone out of fashion and is not in common use to describe non-marital sex. However, it is an excellent translation for porneia, which basically referred to any kind of sex outside of marriage, be it gay or straight, prostitution, incest, or bestiality. This has been contested (see the debate between B. Malina and J. Jensen in Nov.Test. 14 (1972) and 20 (1978)) but the overwhelming weight of scholarship and all the available evidence from the ancient world points firmly in this direction. “Flee sexual immorality (porneia) and pursue self-control” (cf. 1 Thess 4:1-8) was the straightforward message to Christians in a sex-crazed world. (Source, The Theologian)

When Pastor Simon Measures, of Harvest Field Church in Cheltenham (Gloucestershire in England) was asked the question: "I would like to know where I can find the verse in the Bible that says premarital sex is a sin."the Pastor took the readers through a short and informative Bible study.

Pastor Measures writes "Firstly, and most importantly, the word of His grace reveals to us the incredible bonding that God made the act of sex to bring about. Paul reminds the Ephesian church of God's written word related to marriage. He quotes:

Genesis 2:24, For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. Ephesians 5:31 - NKJV"

Other scriptures to support the idea that the act of sex, actually causes a bonding of the man and woman causing them to become one, is something that Paul comes back to later in another epistle;

"Don't you know that if a man joins himself to a prostitute, he becomes one body with her? For the Scriptures say, 'The two are united into one." 1 Corinthians 6:16 - New Living Translation

The Apostle Paul explains again the union that happens. Even if the person is having sex for pleasure and not love, they are still joined together in a union. Paul then follows it up with a strict warning:

"Run away from sexual sin! No other sin so clealy affects the body as this one does. For sexual immorality is a sin against your own body." - 1 Corinthians 6:18 - New Living Translation

Since Paul was a man, and he did understand the temptation to engage in sex before marriage, he encouraged Christians to get married to one person and have sex.

Nevertheless, because of sexual immorality, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband. -1 Corinthians 7:2- NKJV

For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God. - 1 Thessalonians 4:3-5 - NKJV

With sex creating a union between those who engage in it, it would make since that those who are not married to run from it, while those who are married purse it, as it brings the two closer and closer in union with each other.

Today it seems that so many people are trying everything that they can to 'make the Gospel work for them.' The Bible is very black and white in many areas, and in the areas that there seems to be some grey, what happened to seeking God on hands and knees. To be Christian is to devote ourself to being 'like Jesus', not to make 'Jesus like you.'

The thought of a Gospel with no boundaries, no sins, no absolute truth, is not the Gospel message of the Bible, but a 'me centered' humanistic belief system which appears to be a merging of hand picked teachings of Jesus and the humanitarian agenda: which is anti Christianity.

For More Information:
CBS News: Premarital Sex: Almost Everyones Doing It
Pastor Simon Measure: Study on Premarital Sex and the Christian
Les Gatiss: The Theologian: The Issue of Pre-Marital Sex
The China Daily: Almost all Americans had Premarital Sex

How do you feel about this article?
Did you engage in premarital sex:
How has it affected you, your marriage, your relationship with your spouse?
Did you wait till marriage? Why? Are you glad you waited? Why?

From Samuel Connelly, The Cypress Times