Introducing the Sins of the World

Welcome to “Sins of the World”. This series came from some thinking on the Fruit of the Spirit, found Galatians 5:22-23. A lot of pastors and church leaders tend to do a series on the fruits, breaking down what they are, what they represent, and how we can apply them. I was look a little earlier in Galatians 5 and Paul lists out many things that we should not let grow within us. We rarely hear people talk about them in the same capacity. Especially, through my past studies, when we see that the modern understandings of these past sins aren’t how we see them today. I wanted to dive into that list (see Galatians 5:19-21) and explore what Paul meant by these works. Be prepared for a 16-part series with this of looking how at these works are described, how we see them, and how we can use the Fruit of the Spirit battle them.

For Part 1, we are starting in Matthew 5:32 to talk about sexual immorality. I have written on this topic in depth, which you can check out in “Boundaries for Your Sexuality.” I looked at everything for the original word choices and translations, legal definitions, and different religious perspectives of the topic. I will bring over the definition that I created as a conglomerate of terms and understandings. My goal will be to bring into context the modernized perspective of it and what we can do to fight those works.

REFLECTION CHECKPOINT: How do you understand sexual immorality? How were you taught about this growing up church?

Biblically Understanding Sexual Immorality

First, it’s important to see the word choice that Paul uses in Galatians 5:19. Overall, the Greek noun used here is porneia (por-ni’-ah). It describes all forms of sexual activity outside the covenant of marriage as ordained by God, historically, between one man and one woman (we must remember the patriarchal society ruled heavily here.) It covered everything from pre-marriage sex, prostitution, adultery, homosexual practices, incest, and any other type of distortion of God’s design for sexuality.

It’s broken down into for key parts:

• A violation of covenant – it opposes the covenant relationship shown in marriage; Jesus says this is the legit reason for divorce (Matthew 19:19)
• A defile of the body – makes the home of the Holy Spirit impure (1 Corinthians 6:18)
• A threat to community holiness – sparked a demand for church disciplines (1 Corinthians 5)
• Spiritual idolatry – it often metaphorically connects to idolatrous alliance with worldly power (Revelation 18:3)

This term, in the Old Testament, incorporates the prohibition against adultery, incest, bestiality, and cult prostitution. The Greco-Roman society normalized extra-marital sex, concubines, and temple prostitution. So they banned these acts (Acts 15) to distance themselves from pagan believers and to create a divine protection for the Jewish Christians, centered on the Levitical practices.

So, where does that leave us? Sexual immorality describes sexual activities outside of a covenantal marriage relationship. It encapsulates acts that would violate this covenant, such as pre-marital sex, prostitution, adultery, homosexuality, incest, and other sexual activity that distort the ultimate route of creation. Obviously, our society moved away from sex being only used for creation. Whether you believes that’s right or wrong is completely up to you, for I am not here to judge, critique, or criticize. The biggest movement of sexual activities that I see, hear, and read about tend to fall into two things: pleasure and connection. Two topics, that I believe we will get ourselves into as we progress today.

REFLECTION CHECKPOINT: Removing any sermons that you have heard on sexual immorality, what are two takeaways from the conversation listed above?

Modernizing Our Understanding

I do want to also touch on the definition that I created to help us modernize our understanding even further:

Sexual immortality is committing sexual acts or being nude with someone(s) outside of the boundaries of a healthy, God-led romantic relationship with the intent to accomplish sexual satisfaction, obtain money, satisfy lustful desires, or obtain gratification in a noncommittal manner in a way that can involve a variety of forms of abuse, force and/or inhuman treatment of those involved.

It’s a massive definition, so let’s break it down. “Committing sexual acts or being nude with someone(s) outside of a healthy, God-led romantic relationship…” This talks about the vulnerability that comes with being intimate with others. Intimacy goes beyond just sex and romance. It’s about seeing someone as we truly are without any barriers protecting us. When done with the wrong person, it can lead to abuse, distrust, and fear of future relationships. It’s important that both people do this with the intention of care, compassion, and respect for all parties. There may be situation where this can happen in a non-romantic setting (i.e. locker-room, sauna, etc.). Overall, the same rules still apply. “…with the intent to accomplish sexual satisfaction, obtain money, satisfy lustful desires, or obtaining gratification in a noncommittal manner…” Sometimes sexual relationship can be used purely for the act, and less so for the actual relationship and activity. It’s important to recognize why you are ready to move towards sexual activity before you commit them. The portion regarding obtaining money aligns with those in ethical, moral, and positive sex work. We want to make sure that you are treating your body with kindness and using it for sex-positive reasons that show healthy pleasure, body positivity, and more. “in a way that can involve form of abuse, force and/or inhuman treatment of those involved.” The porn industry can show us behaviors that glorify abuse, rape, and assault as kinks. Now it’s important to recognize that while these are done with proper boundaries, these things should never be glorified. Period. Sex and sexual relationships should be based on respect, care, and healthy boundaries. No one should ever be forced into a situation, sexual or not, that makes them fear for their well being at any point.

REFLECTION CHECKPOINT: How did modernizing the biblical conversation around sexual immorality? Did it actually hurt your perspective of what it’s about?

Divorce Through Immorality

I guess we should get to some scripture, shouldn’t we? Let’s pause and look at Matthew 5:32.

AMP – but I say to you that whoever divorces his wife, except on grounds of sexual immorality, causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a woman who has been divorced commits adultery.

NRSVUE – But I say to you that anyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, causes her to commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

VOICE – But I tell you this: unless your wife cheat on you, you must not divorce her, period. Nor are you to marry someone who has been married and divorces, for a divorced person who remarries.

Divorce was permitted under the Mosaic Law. Deuteronomy 24:1-4 talks about what was permissive for divorce: “she becomes displeasing to him because he finds some indecency in her.” If that woman remarried, and the second husband hated her, he too can divorce her. If the second husband died, then the first husband may not remarry her. These rules often got misused, and the Pharisees were arguing it on the grounds of wanting a more liberal interpretation.

Jesus mentions that the only true ground for divorce is sexual conduct. This aligned with the Jewish understanding of marital unfaithfulness as a serious breach of the marriage covenant. In their culture, a divorced woman would face social stigma and economic hardship. By Jesus stating that divorce leads to adultery, he shows the seriousness of breaking up a marriage bond. The belief is that marriage is a lifelong covenant, and the concept of marrying while the original spouse is still living, was considering cheating (adultery) back then.

REFLECTION CHECKPOINT: Our focus today is on the marriage covenant. How do you see a new understanding of sexual immorality in the marriage covenant?

Committing to Healthy Relationships

Jesus recognizes that sexuality outside of the marriage covenant was important to avoid. I believe this to be the focus of humanity’s call for pro-creation, as seen in the original command for humanity in Genesis 1:26-27. The focus of reproduction was massive push during the days of the early Israelites and during the time of Jesus’ ministry. They were watching corrupt societies around them grow bigger and were worried about being overthrown or oppressed, so if they could create more life that would grow up in the ancient Mosaic Law system and through the ministry and teachings of Jesus, then they could continue creating a strong society. Granted, that’s purely my speculation, but still. It’s a modern way of why they focus on the marriage covenantal responsibility of sex and procreation and condemn/declare sinful acts like pre-marital sex and homosexuality.

You will notice that I didn’t include adultery, incest, and prostitution. The reason I didn’t include them is because a great majority of the general public would agree that these acts are wrong. There’s no debate on these things for the most part (prostitution would be an argument due to the online sex workers being an active role for many people’s income.) The reason that I included it still is because we can recognize that it’s still a majorly harmful, immoral, and toxic line of work for the majority of workers.

The main reasons I singled out the pre-marital sex and homosexuality is because these are things that are more common in our world today. However, we need to handle these thing in a healthier manner. With pre-marital sex, the focus I want to talk about is commitment. Do I think pre-marital sex is wrong? No. Do I think pre-marital sex should happen for people that are casually in these relationships? No. I think sex needs to happen when both parties are committed to their relationship. The risks that come with sex should force us to realize that the people that we have sex with should be committed partners that last for what will feel like the foreseeable future. The reason I point out that is because sex is a very intentionally act and a very vulnerable act. We shed everything that we are and connect in a very real, very physical way. With that in mind, we release a lot of emotions onto and into each other and create this very soul tie that we may not share with others. We need be very intentional with who we determine to have sex or sexual activities with. With homosexuality, the focus I want to talk about is relationship. A lot of people still do not value people in homosexual relationship as legitimate. People still think it’s a phase, a sin, or something else that’s both temporary and wrong for humanity. There are many people that I know that are in happy, romantic relationships, moreso than a lot of heterosexual people. It’s those people that look down people in the LGBTQ+ community that create the bigotry that this world seems to thrive on. They create laws restricting homosexual couples to have the same rights as heterosexual couples. They create heavier barriers to entry when it comes to adopting if they want kids, but cannot do it physically. They threaten them with different levels of physical, mental, and emotional violence due to their beliefs. A lot of Christians tend to look down on it because they don’t agree with it. However, it’s not their job or their role to tell others what to do or not to do. We here to ensure that everyone has an equal right to life. We here to make sure everything is treated with with the same standards to a successful and thriving life. God is the ultimate judge. God is the one that can treat us with judgment, but He does so through. We tend to do it through hate. We need to work through our own biases and judgments, and work to change our perspective to be of love, care, and compassion. This is how God treats us, and we are called to treat others.

REFLECTION CHECKPOINT: At the end of everything we talked about, what is your takeaway as far as understand what sexual immorality is and how we can work to avoid it in our everyday life.?