Sex outside of marriage has become a key point of disagreement in the culture of the United States. There has been a rapid shift from a cultural norm that favored sex within marriage to the current cultural norm where sex is widely accepted outside of marriage.
My personal theory as to why sex outside of marriage has become so common in only a few generations is that birth control in the U.S. today is extremely easy to procure. Once I was in a store and birth control was right next to the toothpaste, and I presume any teenager could have gone to the "self-checkout" lane and purchased the items without anyone even knowing. Such were not so easy to purchase fifty years ago.
I turn to the teaching of Jesus in Matthew 19: 4-6, "Haven't you read," [Jesus] 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?' So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate" (NIV) (1).
Jesus ordained marriage, which was His idea in the first place. Sex was meant to be a special expression of love within marriage. Yet how do I know it was solely meant for marriage? When furthering the Law in what many people call the "Sermon on the Mount," Jesus said that adultery and even lust, which is the root of adultery, is utterly wrong. Why? Because they lead away from the God's purposes for sex. I add that since lust is so commonly done by some folks, it may seem like a ridiculous rule Jesus is giving here. Yet the point of the Sermon on the Mount on the whole is that God's ways can only be carried out as a person relies on God to be a better person. There is forgiveness offered by Jesus for wrongs we have done, and there is a command to change and live a life free from sexual wrong doing, of which the Spirit of Christ will help.
The designer of sex was God. Indeed, He came up with it. Thus sex is good! Now God had multiple intentions for sex, yet first and foremost it is to be a growing expression of love between a man and a woman in a lifelong covenant relationship. Go with God's intention for sex, and you will be blessed!
Hunter Irvine
(1) The Holy Bible; New International Version (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1973), 1528.
