Sins

Matt 5:28

Matt 5:28 points out that

‘everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.’

Jesus’ standard and views on sins are higher than that within the Old Testament.

Jesus had established that having sex with someone in our mind is sin.

Would watching pornography be the same?

If we study the Old Testament, you will realize that many prominent characters had fallen to sexual temptations including Lot, David, and Samson. Hence, we encourage you to also read:

• D115 – Believers are not perfect, and
• D137 – Singleness (Celibacy) is not for everyone,
• B330, Abstain from sexual immorality – strategies on overcoming temptations.

Mark 7:21; Gal 5:19, 1 Cor 6:9; Heb 13:4

Adultery is defined as the voluntary sexual intercourse between a married person and a person who is not his/ her spouse.

Jesus made it crystal clear that unfaithfulness of a married partner is the only ground for divorce in the New Testament (Matt 19:9).

In the Old Testament, Mal 2:15-16, it says in NLT –

‘So guard your heart; remain loyal to the wife of your youth. “For I hate divorce!” says the LORD, the God of Israel. “To divorce your wife is to overwhelm her with cruelty,” says the LORD of Heaven’s Armies.’

Unfaithfulness is a serious sin because sex is sacrosanct between a man and his wife. The Old Testament often uses sex as a pictorial means to communicate the message of Israel’s unfaithfulness to God.

Adultery is a serious sin.

Mark 7:21; 1 Cor 6:9; 2 Cor 12:21; Gal 5:19, Eph 5:3; Heb 13:4; Rev 2:14; Rev 2:20

Heb 13:4 explains,

‘Let marriage be held in honor among all and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexuality immoral and adulterous.’

Sex is between a man and his wife who have entered into holy matrimony (who are married). It is a unique relationship.

NB: Not between a man and his fiancee.

To commit sex outside marriage, the term used is fornication, or sexual intercourse between people not married to each other. The world has made it an acceptable thing between two consenting adults. However, among Christians, the Biblical guideline is clear; it is sin.

Sex is a precious thing as two persons of opposite sex are literally naked before each other. It involves a sacred activity where ‘the two become one’. It is not to be taken lightly because sex is not an add-on benefit between two very good friends.

Nevertheless, in our highly sexualized world with global travel and limited accountability, there are ample temptations and opportunities to have sex. It is, therefore, unsurprising that fornication is widely practiced and taken lightly. That is where the element of self-control will have to be exercised.

From his first century perspective, the Apostle Paul, who was unmarried, understood the issue and offered a practical solution –

‘If anyone thinks that he is not behaving properly toward his betrothed, if his passions are strong, and it has to be, let him do as he wishes; let them marry – it is no sin’ (1 Cor 7:36).

We know it is a difficult world we live in now. Hence, if you are tempted, it is better to find a spouse and be married although we are aware that in our present time this is easier said than done.

Gal 5:19; 2 Cor 12:21

The word used is ‘impurity’ and is associated with open infection or childbirth. In Gal 5:19 and 2 Cor 12:21, it can also be associated with a woman who is menstruating (Lev 15:19-33).

It is a sin to have sex with a wife who is going through her period.

Mark 7:21, Gal 5:19, Rom 13:13, 1 Peter 4:3, and 2 Cor 12:21

Sensuality – the Greek word is aselgeia (conduct shocking to public decency/ wanton violence, lewdness), prostitution (2 Cor 12:21 – the Greek word is porneia or whoredom), orgies, debauchery, lustful pleasure – these are the words found in the verses above.

Lustful pleasures can come in many forms and since the days of Noah, human beings have devised various activities to bring heightened sexual pleasures between partners.

Would masturbation be a sin? Would it be lumped with the above definitions? The Bible did mention ‘wet dreams’ (the ejaculation of semen while asleep) and consider it unclean (Deut 23:10). We accept that masturbation might involve the entertainment of lustful intent found in S121 but would like to emphasize that the Bible is explicitly silent about the practice.

If we study the Old Testament, you will realize that many prominent characters had fallen to sexual temptations including Lot, David, and Samson. Hence, we encourage you to also read:

• D115 – Believers are not perfect, and
• D137 – Singleness (Celibacy) is not for everyone,
• B330, Abstain from sexual immorality – strategies on overcoming temptations.

Romans 1:26-28, 1 Tim 1:10; 1 Cor 6:9; Jude 7

In Romans 1:26-28, the Apostle Paul mentioned about

‘women exchanging their natural relations for those that are contrary to nature … men (also) committing shameless acts with men.’

1 Tim 1:10 and 1 Cor 6:9 then talk about ‘men who practice homosexuality’.

The Greek word for ‘homosexuality’ in both 1 Tim 1:10 and 1 Cor 6:9 is arsenokoites and it means a male engaging in same-gender sexual activity or a sodomite.

Jude 7 meanwhile, repeats the term ‘unnatural desire’.

USLegal.com defines unnatural sex as a US legal term to include oral sex, incest, procreative sex in the wrong position (unsure what this means), sodomy (anal sex), bestiality (sex acts involving animals), and necrophilia (sex acts involving corpses).

The Bible talks about ‘natural relations’ and ‘natural desire’. What is natural sex?

It is as easy as explaining how we fit a plug into an appropriate socket; one does not fit an electrical plug into just any hole but one that allows electricity to be released from it.

In describing homosexual sex for men, the late renowned evangelist Reinhard Bonnke offered this description,

‘Do you fit a petrol pump nozzle into the exhaust pipe of your car?’

But unnatural sex is currently not only practiced between man and man. In our curiosity and quest for better sex, some men have turned to their wives and girlfriends to engage in anal sex; according to Psychology Today published in 2015, as many as 38 percent of men ages 18 to 59 had engaged in anal sex with a female partner.

Our research found that ‘unnatural sex’ can be quite dangerous if a man does not use a condom since it also involves fecal matter and the male sexual organ. As you can imagine, it can be quite grossed.

While the world may support sexual diversity and the perverted practice of sex beyond its natural state, ‘unnatural sex’ and ‘unnatural relations’ are abhorrent to the God of the Bible. Men and women have never been designed by God for such relationships.

See S129, Sexual Immorality of all sorts, for more information.

Matt 5:32; Matt 19:7-8; Mark 10:11-12; Rom 7:2-3

The New Testament is consistent and it does not matter whether it is found in Matthew, Mark, or Romans. A divorce is only possible due to adultery committed by the other party. If Person X chooses to divorce Person Y not on the ground of adultery, and Person X remarries, then Person X would have committed adultery and it is a sin.

Divorce unfortunately has been taken lightly as societies seem to adopt new non-Biblical values. Even churches have their fair share of divorcees. In any divorce, the family suffers and there will always be a price paid to it. There are no winners that is, unless you are the divorce lawyers. The goal of any Christian counselor is to bring about reconciliation of the couple.

Would a lawyer who specializes in helping people to divorce be classified as an evil protagonist as in S13, Invent evil things?

On a side note on ‘Divorce’, world renowned John and Julie Gottman of the Gottman Institute, who conducted more than fifty years of breakthrough research on marital stability and divorce prediction, identified the FOUR divorce predictors by using the metaphor of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

These four horsemen are Criticism, Contempt, Defensiveness, and Stonewalling. For more information, please go here.

The Gottman also offers a free Gottman Relationship Quiz to find out how well you know your spouse. Click here for the quiz.

Matt 5:32; Mark 10:11-12; Rom 7:3

If Person Z marries a divorcee who chose to divorce not on the ground of infidelity, then Person Z has committed adultery. Again, verses from the Bible above have made that clear.

Marriage to another person who did not leave because of infidelity is considered an adultery.

1 Cor 5; 1 Cor 6:15-20

In 1 Cor 5, a man was having an affair with the wife of his father, that is, effectively his step-mother. That is a gross sin.

To understand sexual sins, it might be worthwhile to review the Torah in the Old Testament:

1. Do not commit incest (There is a long list found in Lev 18 defining what ‘incest’ is),
2. Do not have sex between two men,
3. Do not have sex with a beast.

Deuteronomy 22:25-27 specifies the penalty for the man who rapes a betrothed young woman is death while Deuteronomy 22: 29 explains that if a man rapes an unbetrothed (unmarried) young woman, then he is obliged to pay a big fine and marry her.

It was sexual sins that destroyed the earth during the time of Noah. Gen 6:1-8 explains the ‘wickedness of man’ being ‘great’ when it mentions that ‘the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive and they took as their wives any they chose.’

This project does not aim to define who the ‘sons of God’ were but the choice of marriage was considered one of the ‘vile’ abominations, sufficient for God to punish the earth.

In the case of Sodom and Gomorrah found in Gen 18 and 19, men were craving for men for sexual purposes. When two male angels came to rescue Lot in Sodom, Lot invited them into his household. In the middle of the night, the men of Sodom surrounded the house and demanded these men for sex. Instead, in order to protect these angels, Lot sacrificed his two virgin daughters to them (which was by itself a wicked deed). Subsequently, both Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by the Lord supernaturally.

In Jude 1:7 (NLT), the author described the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah and their neighboring towns as engaging in ‘every kind of sexual perversion.’ The original Greek translation was sarx heteros or ‘flesh/ human nature of a strange/ different kind’.

Interestingly, looking at the current aggressive sexual revolution in the world (2023), one mature Christian asked whether the end-goal of the far left is really one of turning pedophilia into a legalized activity.

Any sex, other than that between a man and his wife in its original intention, is sin.

See also S126 – Engage in unnatural sex.

2 Tim 3:6

2 Tim 3:6 talks about ‘weak women’ and how some men try to take advantage of these women.

Men profess love to gain sex and women offer sex in the hope of finding love.

It is not exactly like that but the world (even in churches) has many evil men who will take advantage of ‘weaker’ women to gain ‘trophies’. Unfortunately, we have seen such things happening, including date rape, even in a church. These men have become opportunistic.

To men who take advantage of ‘weak women’, this is evilness. Of course, in a time of gender equality, it might work the other way too.  Or it might even involved a man with another man.

Whatever it is, to take advantage of someone who is in a vulnerable position for one’s own sexual gain, that is vile and evilness.

Rom 1:26-27

The NLT gave the most explicit description of same sex relationships in Rom 1:26-27. It says about –

‘women turned against the natural way to have sex and instead indulged in sex with each other (Lesbianism). And the men, instead of having normal sexual relations with women, burned with lust for each other. Men did shameful things with other men …’

The Bible makes it clear that there are only two genders – male and female (Gen 5:2) and it does not matter whether it is human beings or animals (Gen 6:19).

Jesus endorsed it in Matt 19:5 when he said,

“Have you not read that from the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female.'”

Same-sex sexual relationship, and we have to clarify that, as two persons of the same sex can have a perfectly normal friendship without sex, is currently a highly divisive issue even in churches. There is much pressure from the left leaning liberal mainstream media (MSM) and Hollywood for churches to conform to their beliefs. Such sexual beliefs are also being taught in schools across the nations and gaining acceptance among the younger generation. Same-sex sexual relationship has become a global movement.

It made even para-church organizations, like World Vision to consider altering its employee conduct policy to allow someone in a same-sex marriage to work in the organization.

We also observed more Christian parents have been told by their younger adult children that the view of a two-gender society will require revision as sexual orientation could be a result of genetics, environment, and even diet.

The younger generation is also seeing more of their secular friends, and even Christians, adopting the same view. Hence, tolerance of ‘same-sex sexual relationship‘  is clouding the minds of our Christian audience, especially those who are younger, who seems more amiable to ‘update’ their values into endorsing this global prevalent movement.

In a 2020 US survey carried out by Lifeway Research among mainline pastors, it found that the views of pastors supporting same-sex marriage had jumped from a third (32 percent) in 2010 to almost half (47 percent).

The study also found that Presbyterian or Reformed (49 percent), Methodist (47 percent), Lutheran (35 percent) and Christian/Church of Christ pastors (20 percent) were more likely to see nothing wrong with same-sex marriage than Baptist (3 percent) or Pentecostal pastors (1 percent).

Same-sex marriage has also been discussed among many liberal biblical scholars. They shared six passages of the Bible that targeted homosexuality as follows:

1. The story of Sodom and Gomorrah in Gen 19 where the term ‘sodomy’ became synonymous with male homosexual sex.
2. The two laws specified in Lev 18:22, and Lev 20:13 where it clearly states that a male shall not lie (have sex) with another male as with a woman for that would be considered an abomination.
3. The two verses in 1 Cor 6:9-10 and 1 Tim 1:10 where they make clear that homosexuality (and other vices) will not ‘inherit the kingdom’.
4. Finally, it included Rom 1:26-27 as highlighted at the start.

These biblical scholars, however, argued that as there were only six verses out of more than 31,000 verses in the Bible speaking out against homosexuality, a mere 0.016% of the text, it was therefore not a significant topic. This was especially so when comparing the homosexual topic against the more than 2,000 verses about money.

Nonetheless, the argument in using the mathematics of 0.016% is unsound when we matched against just two verses in the entire Bible specifically telling us not to take on the mark of the beast either on our right hand or the forehead as it would result in a direct route to hell – Rev 13:17 and Rev 14:9. Using the same logic as those arguing for homosexuality, does it mean that since there are only two verses in the Bible about the mark of the beast, believers are safe to ignore this instruction? For more information about the mark of the beast, please go to S141 – Mark of the Beast.

Franklin Graham also took exception to the concept of same-sex relationship when he quoted Gen 2:24 where it says, ‘Therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.’ To him, marriage is between a man and a woman. For sticking to his views, Franklin Graham was turned away by several venues in his 2020 eight-city UK crusade.

In the Old Testament, Lev 18, the Lord said to Moses the many misconducts that were associated with the Canaanites and how the children of Israelites were not to participate in them.

These sins were considered the most abominable and they include incest (Lev 18:6-17), adultery (Lev 18:20) bestiality (sex between a human being and an animal, Lev 18:23), and homosexuality (Lev 18:22).

The Lord highlighted the seriousness of them in Lev 18:24-25,

“Do not make yourselves unclean by any of these things (including sexual sins), for by all these the nations I am driving out before you have become unclean, and the land became unclean, so that I punished its iniquity, and the land vomited out its inhabitants.”

In Lev 19:29, the Lord equated sexual sin with wickedness and said that it had a direct bearing on the land.

It was for these reasons that the Lord had to get rid of the Canaanites and Amorites from their land (Gen 15:16).

Sexual sins, especially those involving the same sex, are not to be taken lightly.

Same sex marriage obviously involves unnatural sex as defined in S126 – Unnatural Sex. Hence, please read S131 alongside with S126.

Like the fitting of a pair of male and female connectors in order to receive electricity, men are never designed for men and neither are women designed for women. We are meant to complement each other.

There is nothing wrong with good friendship between two persons of the same sex but if involves sex, then, it is never acceptable and a serious sin.