What does the Bible say about sex and healthy relationships?

Earlier this week I was pulling together ideas for the next question when this post ran across my easily-distracted attention span:

I am damaged goods. by Sarah Bessey

Here’s how she led off:

I was nineteen years old and crazy in love with Jesus when that preacher told an auditorium I was “damaged goods” because of my sexual past. He was making every effort to encourage this crowd of young adults to “stay pure for marriage.” He was passionate, yes, well-intentioned, and he was a good speaker, very convincing indeed….

Oh, he didn’t call me up to the front and name me. But he stood up there and talked about me with such disgust, like I couldn't be in that real-life crowd of young people worshipping in that church. I felt spotlighted and singled out amongst the holy, surely my red face announced my guilt to every one.

She goes on to say:

In the face of our sexually-dysfunctional culture, the Church longs to stand as an outpost of God’s ways of love and marriage, purity and wholeness.

And yet we twist that until we treat someone like me – and, according to this research, 80% of you are like me – as if our value and worth was tied up in our virginity.

My first thought was this isn't how Jesus would have done it. True, Jesus didn't let the Samaritan woman at the well hide from the fact that she had 5 previous husbands and was living with someone else (John 4). But Jesus didn't shame her or lecture her on purity laws. He saw her as a human being, in need of love and nurturing, not scolding. He offered her spiritual nourishment. She left the well filled with a new spirit, not feeling like damaged goods. 

My second thought was, if 80% of unmarried evangelicals have had premarital sex (compared to 88% of the general population… here’s the link to the study Sarah mentioned), then whatever we’re saying as a church about premarital sex isn't working very well. And it hasn't been working for a long time. 

You can find a number of passages in the Bible on sexual immorality in general. Leviticus and Deuteronomy include laws regarding sexual relations. Paul’s letters (as well as those letters written in Paul’s name) include references to sexual immorality, often in a list with other sins. Jesus said we are guilty of sin if we so much as lust after another (Matthew 5:27-30).

But there’s no specific prohibition against sex between an unmarried couple.  Sometimes the case is made by coupling the passages against sexual immorality with this quote from Jesus from his teaching on divorce (Matthew 19:1-12): 

“Have you not read that the one who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

That passage has also been used to argue, among other things, that the sole purpose of sex is for procreation. 

Sometimes Paul’s less-than-enthusiastic endorsement of marriage has been used:

“To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is well for them to remain unmarried as I am. But if they are not practicing self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to be aflame with passion.” (1 Corinthians 7:8-9)

There are plenty of opinions on what’s wrong: Some folks say we’ve allowed our kids (and ourselves) to be influenced by the world. Some say that the difference in age between the onset of puberty and marriage has widened since biblical times so that, today, we have much more time to be tempted. Some say that the scripture passages on purity and sex outside of marriage are based on a society in which women and children were seen as property and, therefore, those passages don’t apply today. 

Maybe we’re focusing on the wrong issue. We wave the Bible and spout rules against doing this or that and believe that’s all that needs to be done. Don’t have sex before marriage. Save yourself for your spouse. 

There’s a parable by Jesus I’ve come to appreciate:

“When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it wanders through waterless regions looking for a resting place, but it finds none. Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ When it comes, it finds it empty, swept, and put in order. Then it goes and brings along seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and live there; and the last state of that person is worse than the first. So will it be also with this evil generation.” (Matt. 12:43-45)

Christianity is more than rules for living. If all we offer is a list of rules and behaviors to avoid, then we’re no better than the Pharisees and have done nothing to nourish the soul. Following Jesus is about relationships, not rules. It’s about loving God and loving each other as genuine human beings. The love of God and of others will fill the emptiness and crowd out evil.

Here’s what has been evolving in my mind as I find ways to talk to my sons about sex: The issue isn’t about sex. It’s about valuing each other as individuals, as people loved by God, flaws and all. It’s about seeing past the physical attractions that get in the way of caring for the other as a person and not as someone to use (a dangerous idea that, at its worst, can lead to sexual abuse). Maybe the emphasis needs to be on how we treat each other as God’s loved ones – relationship! – and not on preserving virginity as a gift, which still has a vestige of viewing sex and our bodies as objects. Let’s build from there.

What do you think? Am I oversimplifying things? Admittedly, there are more practical aspects to flesh out. Am I missing something? 

Here are some additional questions to ponder from Christian Piatt’s Banned Questions about the Bible:
Can you think of any healthy models of sexual expression in the Bible?
Do you think that sexual thoughts are as important as acting on them?
Can Christians advocate an alternate view (besides “prudish Victorianism” or “gratuitous hedonism”) based on the whole witness of scripture?