Celebrating Pride (Part 2)
This is the second week of speaking to the topics of biblical identity, gender, sexuality, and marriage/singleness. Last week we focussed on identity, this week we’ll aim at a biblical understanding of human sexuality — namely God’s plan and design — specifically as it contrasts with the world’s paradigm for sex and sexual expression.
Sexuality
First, two reminders: One, we’ll be going through a series on these topics in September, called “Made for God,” so stay tuned for that and two, please recognize that these Monday emails are brief not comprehensive, brushes with these topics.
A worldly understanding of sexuality:
In short, the world’s approach to sexuality is that any and all expressions of sexuality, should at a minimum, be explored. Now, immediately some will likely push back and reference things like polygamy, pedophilia, and bestiality as taboo or anathema, even to larger secular culture. In a sense this is true as the aforementioned are still illegal in most states. But what is also true is that the envelope is being pushed in these areas as well. In the LGBTQ world being a “Minor Attracted Person” is now a category of sexual identity received with sympathy, and pedophilia, while formerly a word largely associated with criminal connotations, is described commonly on the internet as a psychiatric disorder, implying that one does not have control of such behaviors, or at least interests or desires. If this is coupled with the general believe that all sexual urges ought to be indulged, or at least explored, than formerly taboo sexual categories will (and I would argue are) be pushed and even become mainstream over time. This is a far cry from a biblical understanding, but I don’t want to get ahead of myself.
There is more we could say here, and a quick Google search will reveal that there is a shift into psychological language across the board where sexual desires and even behaviors are concerned that implicitly implies two things. One, it reinforces the worldview that we discussed last week, that my psychological self informs my behavior and identity over and above my biology and any outside authoritative source (such as the Bible) and two, and this is a big one — that my sexuality IS my identity — or at least a very significant part of it.
A Biblical understanding of identity:
The Bible sets a pattern for biblical sexuality (and marriage, we’ll get to that later) in Genesis 2:24, wich says…
Genesis 2:24- For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.
This is then affirmed, verbatim I might add, by Jesus in Matthew 19 in the discussion about divorce…
Matthew 19:4–5- “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’?
And affirmed again by Paul when he makes linkage from marriage to the love of Christ for the church in Ephesians 5…
Ephesians 5:31- “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”
It’s important to notice that whether the larger conversation was about cultural practices of divorce, or about the illustrative role of marriage, Jesus nor Paul updated the language of God’s pattern for marriage and sexuality, adding new categories or widening to updated practices. Notice secondly that married sexuality is both elevated as something God-ordained, and yet subordinate to God’s greater purposes.
Now it’s fair to say we’re not unpacking any biblical teaching on prohibitions of sexual behavior (we just don’t have the space) but rather I simply want to focus on what the Bible sets forth as God’s intended plan or ideal for sex. (READ Romans 1, 1 Corinthians 5–6, and 1 Thessalonians 1 for starters if you want to dive deeper).
That is, one flesh union between a man and a woman who’ve stepped away from their families of origin to cultivate a new family, (among other things — married sexuality certainly also has the biblical purpose of pleasure, not just procreation. See Song of Songs and Psalm 5).
OK, wrapping it up…
Notice what I didn’t speak to? Homosexuality vs. heterosexuality. While the Bible does directly speak to homosexual behavior in both the OT and NT (see above for some references) homosexuality (nor heterosexuality) are presented in Scripture as categories of identity. This is hugely important and foundational to our understanding of why the Bible’s view of sex and the world’s are SO unable to harmonize or even understand where the other is coming from.
In other words, sex is something we do, its a function of our humanity, it is something we are embodied with as PART of our identity, but it is not the sole and total category of my personhood.
Homo and heterosexuality are Freudian concepts of identity that are not biblical. The biblical issue with regards to my sexual expression is divided along the lines of holiness or unholiness. It matters not whether my attractions, desires, or acted-on behaviors are to the same sex or opposite sex. To put this in practical terms, people indulging in homosexual sexual practice, and those who are cohabitating in a heterosexual, sexually active relationship, but unmarried, are both violating the biblical sexual ideal outlined above.
How shall we then live?
SO this month, if you do find yourself in conversations with those advancing the Gospel of sexual freedom and celebration, rather than confronting sexual orientation, approach the conversation from the perspective of what they might find to be off limits in sexual practice. Inevitably, this will be subjective and vary person to person. Rather than arguing about homo vs. hetero sexuality as an orientation, share God’s good plan and why all sexual expression outside of God’s plan presents a problem between God and us (including your own areas of sinful temptation), BUT that Jesus came to restore that relationship, as well as reorient our understanding of sex and human relationships around Himself and God’s plan and design (Eph.5).
Resource
For those interested in reading more, check out Christopher Yuan’s “Holy Sexuality and the Gospel.”
This book is the most thorough and accessible treatise on biblical sexuality written in the last 20 years.
In Christ’s Love, Gary
