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THE BIBLE, SEX, AND THIS GENERATION - Book Review
THE BIBLE, SEX, AND THIS GENERATION is a study of sexuality in Biblical and modern society, from a Christian point of view. From Adultery to the Wedding, this thought-provoking book is reviewed...
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"Within the secular world, sex is often free and easy. Morality has sunken to the lowest of depths. Situations such as adultery, divorce and casual relationships are not only rife; they are socially acceptable.
"Christians may have escaped these ills to some degree. But still, they must face them as they seek to bring people to God. Situations that perhaps barely existed in the last generation are bombarding the church in its ministry." --from the Introduction of THE BIBLE, SEX, AND THIS GENERATION by Monicque Sharman.
Certainly, the presentation of sexuality in our society has radically changed in the past 60 years. In 1939, the producers of GONE WITH THE WIND had to fight the Hollywood censors to allow the word "d**n" in the movie. ("Frankly, my dear, I don't give a d**n!") Now, every word, every carnal situation is allowed on the Internet, music videos, books, magazines, television programming and the movies. Many parents aren't even aware that their children can freely download real "movie samples" portraying every sexual act. Nothing is forbidden -- although determined action by concerned parents and other citizens is at least keeping some control on the public display of child abuse and violent sexual assault. Thank God for that.
Monicque Sharman -- in THE BIBLE, SEX, AND THIS GENERATION: How God's Word Applies Today -- has explored this condition.
In Chapter 1, THE BEGINNING, she writes:
Although it was written thousands of years before His time as a man, when Jesus was asked about relations between married couples, He looked towards the first book of the Bible, Genesis. This book is sometimes called the ‘foundational book,’ and all the major doctrines of the Bible, from creation to salvation stem from it. Accordingly, we will also start to look at God’s timeless teachings on the subject of sex there.
In the beginning, after God had made the first man, we read the following passage:
“So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field. But for Adam no suitable helper was found. So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.” For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame” (Gen 2:20-25).
This is just the first of many passages from the Bible on the subject of sex. Part of it is exactly what Jesus quoted when He was asked about marriage and divorce. In the passage, we read of Eve being created and brought to Adam to become his helper. There is talk of man leaving his parents (becoming the head of a new household) and being united to woman, becoming one flesh. Thereafter it is accepted that Adam and Eve are married, they are both naked and open before each other, without shame.
As we continue examining the Biblical teachings on sex, we will see the truth in this: sex is extremely important and sacred - much more important and sacred than what many of us seem to realise. The entire Bible does teach us that if a couple has sex, then they must stay with one another, be the other’s companion, caring for and loving one another for life - ie. be and remain married. What I mean to say by that is this: Couples who have had sex with one another should stay in married relationship for life. Sex is so special and important; it binds people together, not only in body, but in spirit also. I’m not thinking here about wedding ceremonies or marriage contracts, I’m thinking here of what is in the heart and mind.
In Chapter 2, HOW GOD JOINS COUPLES IN MARRIAGE, she begins a detailed examination of the fundamental sexual union of Man and Woman:
Sex is what joins two people together, making them one. Accordingly, in Genesis we saw that when couples had sex, they did in fact live as married; they accepted the relationship that sex obligated them to keep. No church ceremonies or vows are recorded as starting marriages in the Bible. We see no marriage contracts being signed, and neither do we see that a wedding is a necessary facet to marriage. Marriage was simply started when a couple had sex, and accepted their status as lifelong companions, caring for, providing for and loving one another for life.
God joins couples together in marriage, not via a wedding, contract or vows. Couples do not even have to have anything to do with God to become married. To illustrate this point, we can see that many marriages in the Bible were between unbelievers. For example, King Ahab, one of the most evil people in the Bible, was married to Jezebel (1 Kings 16:30-31). The Bible shows clearly that both Ahab and Jezebel were people who rejected God in their lives, so we can assume that they had neither asked for God to join them together nor asked for God’s blessing on their marriage; neither had this couple been married in a church. Yet these and many other ungodly couples in the Bible were married.
Regarding marriage, Jesus said: “...what God has joined together, let man not separate.” Are some couples joined in marriage, yet not by God? Is it possible that some are joined together in another way?
God joins couples together whether they ask Him to or not. This is because couples are joined in marriage to each other by the God-designed and God-created action of having sexual intercourse with each other. In The Message Translation of the New Testament, Eugene H. Peterson renders Matthew 19:4-6: “Haven’t you read in your Bible that the Creator originally made man and woman for each other, male and female? And because of this, a man leaves father and mother and is firmly bonded to his wife, becoming one flesh - no longer two bodies but one. Because God created this organic union of the two sexes, no one should desecrate his art by cutting them apart.
Chapter 3, SEX IS COVENANT, she writes:
The concept of covenant is central to many Biblical doctrines where we often see people being ‘bound’ to God. In fact, the word ‘covenant’ itself means ‘to bind.'
Besides these things, we find that most Biblical covenants are marked by outward signs. Water baptism is the sign of the new covenant, circumcision was the sign of the covenant God made with Abraham, and rainbows are the sign of the covenant God made with all life on earth after the flood (Genesis 9:17).
While the outward signs marked covenants, and were not entirely necessary for the covenant to begin, the blood sacrifice actually started the covenant, and for the covenant to begin, blood sacrifice was entirely necessary. Covenants are even said to be ‘cut’ rather than ‘made’ - and this refers to the ‘cut’ bringing the blood necessary for covenant to begin.
With the covenant God made to all life on earth after the flood, the blood sacrifice was the deaths of many people under the waters of the flood. The blood of Jesus is the sacrifice of the New Covenant.
In a marriage covenant, sex is the blood sacrifice. But when I say this, I also wish to emphasize that it’s not the blood that may come from the vagina as it is penetrated for the first time. The blood that is sacrificed when two people have sex is not just a little blood from the genital region! The blood sacrifice is made as the lives of two people experience an ending or death to their two single lives...People enter into the marriage covenant as they join their bodies sexually to another person, becoming ‘one flesh’ with that other person. Their single lives have died and been sacrificed to form a new life - married life - an ending of two separate persons, and the birth of a new oneness. Paul called this a mystery (Eph 5:32), and it is difficult to believe! But when two bodies join in sex, they do become one (see Eph 5:28-32). Sex itself is self-sacrifice - blood sacrifice - death of the single person. And so marriage is constant self-sacrifice; it’s a lifelong relationship, a ‘living’ with another for many days (cf. Hosea 3:3).
A wedding is the outward sign that marks this covenantal relationship that has begun. Neither a wedding nor vows nor a contract has initiated this bonding. Sex is the blood sacrifice, initiator, and beginning of marriage. A couple is not married in God’s eyes until they have had sex with each other. Even in modern times, a marriage is not said to be ‘consummated’ or completed until the couple have had sex.
In the marriage covenant, man is described as the ‘stronger’ party, whom, like God in the example above, passes between the flesh of the other to ‘cut’ the covenant. By being called the ‘stronger’ party, I only mean that the male has a greater responsibility in marriage as God has a greater responsibility than we do in our relationship with him (cf. Eph 5:25, 1 Pet 3:7). Man is not ‘better’ than woman; he has a differing role. This is the same as God the Father is not ‘better’ than God the Son or the Holy Spirit, even though He is said to be ‘stronger.’ Man is equal to woman as the three persons of the trinity are equal to each other. When a woman submits to a man in marriage, she is no less than he is - in the same way as Jesus submitted to His Father, and was no less than Him. In marriage, man and woman have differing roles - just as the Father, Son and Holy Spirit perform different roles. In marriage, man and woman are both bound to one another, both must remain with each other for life. Man is the ‘stronger’ party but is not the ‘better’ party.
God says that He hates divorce, and asks: “Did I not make you both one?” God says, “...let none deal treacherously with the wife of his youth....” When a man has sex with a woman, he should never put her away and forget the fact that he has made a covenant with her - for this is dealing treacherously.
And just as God sees us whenever we have sex, God also knows our intentions, motivations and thoughts. He knows if we are committed to our sexual partner, just as He only knows if we are truly committed to Him. Only God can truly judge whether a person is righteously married, and why any marriage breaks down. .
The outward signs of the marriage covenant (a wedding and/or contract) were performed to remind and to teach the people of what they had done. The wedding ceremony is a reminder and a witness to the world that a marriage has taken place. Do we really need this? Not exactly. But being reminded of something as important as sex is never wrong! When Joshua and the people that he led made a covenant with the Lord to serve and obey Him, Joshua took a large stone and made it a marker, or witness, to what the people had done. Whenever the people saw the marking stone, they remembered that they had agreed to the covenant (Joshua 24:24-27).
The problem with the wedding is that in this day and age, among many people, the outward sign of the wedding has grown to be seen as the marriage itself, and sex has become meaningless. People respect weddings more than they respect sex (yet even weddings and marriage contracts are hardly respected). We have allowed the outward sign to take precedence in importance over the reality of what that outward sign shows.
And this sad reality has happened many times, with many covenants.. .
Chapter 4, RESPONSIBILITIES OF SEX, begins a thought-provoking study of fundamentals that are crucial to understanding today's situation:
So far, we’ve learnt that marriages begin with sex - that when a couple have sex God expects them to stay married for life. The Bible certainly does not teach that wedding ceremonies start marriages. In this chapter, we go back to the beginning of the Old Testament, starting half way through the book of Genesis to see how people lived this teaching.
One of the first things we cannot fail to notice is that very often, men had more than one wife! Some men are said to have ‘concubines’ also - what does this word really mean? In this chapter we’ll look at the meaning of the words ‘adultery’ and ‘concubine’.
In the first chapter of this book, we spoke of Jacob, who was tricked into marrying Leah even though he had wanted her sister, Rachel. Eventually, Jacob did in fact marry Rachel also. Jacob loved Rachel more than he loved Leah, however, Leah remained his wife. There was no divorce, the second marriage did not annul the first, and the second and subsequent marriages were not called ‘adultery.'
Wives did not have to be those women whom a husband was ‘in love with’. Jacob loved his wife Rachel, but not his wife Leah whom he still had sex with (obviously, as they had four children). It is likely that Jacob wasn’t ‘in love with’ Bilhah either - he only married her on the request of Rachel to provide her with children.
So not only does Genesis teach that once a couple had sex they were to remain married - it is also taught that if a man was already married when he had sex with a second woman, then both women would be his wivws. So what then is adultery?
Back in Biblical times, when there were no paternity tests, men wanted to be sure that their wives were having their children, and not the previous man’s. I think also that all people had more respect for each other and for marriage - men in general didn’t want to take another man’s wife. Yes, society is vastly different now, but can we use that excuse as our justification to commit adultery? As Christians, our standard is presented in the Bible, and although difficult at times, this is the basic ideal that we should strive to live up to...
The punishment for adultery was severe, and adultery was when a woman had sex with a second or subsequent living partner, or when a man had sex with someone else’s wife. Adultery is only sex with a married woman, not a married man. Even in the New Testament, which we will look at in further chapters, this is the meaning of adultery (cf. 1 Cor 7:10-11, 39).
In Chapter 5, SEX WITH A MARRIED MAN, she writes:
King David did not immediately have his adulterous concubines killed, neither was Hosea’s adulterous wife killed. Even Jesus did not condemn the woman caught in adultery (John 8:1-11). As I believe that David did the right thing in continuing to provide for the adulterous concubines, and giving them time to repent, we also should do the same. We need not focus on killing the adulterous people that we know, or view them as dead. Rather, what we can focus on is the forgiveness of God that can stop this adulterous cycle in its tracks. Our purpose as Christians is to bring others to a saving knowledge of Jesus, not to kill them for their sins, or give them up as hopeless and dead, rejecting them, telling them our love for them was conditional, and has now ended. Remember, this person has been a part of us (cf. 1 Cor 7:4). Although very difficult, I believe that God wishes us to continue loving our sinful partners as He does; praying that they realize that what they have done will eventually bring them true death, and praying that they come to know the forgiveness that God offers - if only they truly repent.
We were not immediately killed for the many sins that we have committed in the past. Neither would many of us kill our own children for disobedience to us. We discipline our children when they are disobedient, as we know that their wrong actions will harm them. We also know that adultery will harm the person that does it - unrepentant adulterers will die. But to those who repent, adultery (like any transgression) is forgivable. So, how can we immediately kill this person, if only in our minds? I believe that rather than giving us excuse to get out the virtual shotgun, the laws in Deut 22:22 and Ex 20:14 are there to show us that adultery is a grave sin - like many others. It’s as bad as murder. It will bring death, eventually. Rom 3:20b states that “…through the law we become conscious of sin.” The laws against adultery tell us that it is sin, and show us the penalty we deserve for that sin. Yet, the same Bible also tells us that that sin is forgivable.
The other chapters explore the Biblical teachings and revalations of sexuality and give Sharman's expert ideas of how these apply to today...
Chapter 6 PORNEIA
If sex makes a marriage, then what would the word ‘porneia’ (commonly known as ‘fornication’) mean? This chapter is extremely interesting as it proposes a meaning for the word ‘porneia’ that many would never have previously thought of.
Chapter 7 SEPARATION AND DIVORCE
Biblically, are separation and divorce the same thing? And are they allowable?
Chapter 8 THE EXCEPTION CLAUSE
Keeping the new meaning of the word ‘porneia’ in mind (chapter 6), how does this change our understanding of Matt 5:32 and 19:9? An explosively interesting chapter!
Chapter 9 REMARRIAGE
What does the Bible teach us about remarriage and polygyny? Many people have their set ideas about these things, but do they know what the Bible really teaches?
Chapter 10 ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIPS
If divorce and remarriage are unacceptable behaviors for christians, where then does that leave those people ‘stuck’ in abusive relationships? This chapter looks into the story of the marriage of Nabal and Abigail (1 Sam), and also at the abusive relationship between Israel and God.
Chapter 11 DEFACTO RELATIONSHIPS
Are all people living in defacto relationships ‘living in sin’? This chapter also includes some good reasons why christian couples should actually have a wedding.
Chapter 12 ANNULMENT
Here Sharman looks at some historical applications of the Bible’s teachings on sex, along with some information from the bible on vow making.
Chapter 13 THE HUSBAND OF ONE WIFE
This chapter looks primarily at 1 Tim 3:2, 12 and Titus 1:6. Do these verses exclude men who have been divorced (and/or remarried) from the pastoral ministries?
Chapter 14 MARY AND JOSEPH
Were they engaged or married before the birth of Jesus? Had they had sex with each other? Rather than going into details of the fatherhood of our Lord Jesus, in this chapter Sharman looks at divorce, engagements, and appropriate sexual behavior for the unmarried.
Chapter 15 HOMOSEXUALITY
A great chapter explaining biblically why homosexuality is wrong. This chapter does more than many previous works on the subject of homosexuality, because it builds on the many new teachings that the book has already presented.
Chapter 16 FANTASY, MASTURBATION AND PORNOGRAPHY
In a book about the biblical teachings on sexual relationships, a chapter on these subjects must inevitably be included. Sharman takes a sensitive look at these issues in the light of what we have learnt.
Chapter 17 THE WOMAN AT THE WELL
Looking at stories such as the ‘woman at the well’ from the gospel of John, we see God’s great love and forgiveness for those of us who have sinned sexually.
Chapter 18 THE WEDDING
This chapter explains where weddings came from and why many think they are mandated by the Bible. It explains that sex itself is far more sacred than the ceremony originally designed to protect it.
Chapter 19 MARRY 'IN THE LORD'
This chapter looks at some of our favorite biblical marriages – and how they survived despite odds similar to those many face today – especially in light of the teachings of this book!
EPILOGUE
The Epilogue finally ‘wraps up’ the book – summarizing the main and most interesting points.
Appendix WHAT SHOULD HAVE SHARI DONE?
This appendix to chapter 2 asks what guidance a parent or adviser should give to a young person already engaging in sex...
THE BIBLE, SEX, AND THIS GENERATION: How God's Word Applies Today is available in eBook, Paperback and Hardcover.
YOUR DREAM TEAM Book Rating: * * * *
About the Author: Over the years, Monicque Sharman has authored many religious articles and successful websites. She is also involved in Christian counseling and is studying towards a theology degree. Monicque is young enough to have been a part of this generation, yet old enough to have come to understand the last. She lives with her husband and three small children in Tasmania, Australia.
To see more on THE BIBLE, SEX, AND THIS GENERATION -- just Click on the BOOK above or "Go To Web Site" and see "YOUR DREAM LIBRARY"
Reviewed by YOUR DREAM TEAM
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