It Really Doesn't Mean What You Think It Means - Sexual Immorality, Part I

Sexual immorality. The term has been a bane to myself and to countless other singles who wanted to experience the joy of sex, but couldn’t find a suitable marriage partner. When I was really struggling with not being able to have sex, I got so frustrated that I emailed some church about it (not the church I was attending, as they really did not care). The message that I received back from one of their pastors was less than encouraging. He said that it was “sad” that I was trading in the blessings of God for the temporary carnal pleasures of the flesh. But, isn’t sex from God?? The answer to that is a resounding, “Yes!!” To this day, I cannot stand the anti-sex attitude of most churches, where they have a set of “don’t you even think about sex” rules for singles; while having an opposite set of rules for people who were married.

“But, this is how God intended it to be! Sex outside of marriage is sinful and wrong!”

See, that’s the exact same attitude I’m talking about! Why is it then that it caused so much disharmony and envy at the church I was attending? I remember how, when a marriage or dating announcement was made, people would be envious of what that person had. Some went so far as having hatred for that person! Why? For the exact reason that they “got” to have sex! Don’t believe me? There have been multiple times when a couple snuck off to Las Vegas to get married there, just so they could “be together” and have sex and it wouldn’t “technically” be sin since they were married. Those people, of course, got divorced later on down the line. But, it also happened to those who did it “the right way” and waited.

Now, I need to ask, is God getting any glory from all of this? I think not! Did not Paul preach to be at peace with everyone? Did not Jesus preach not to hate your brother? Did not God put as the 10^th Commandment “Thou shalt not covet”? Do you think that God is glorified when people, in their desperate need for natural love and affection, commit an act of gross deceit? Is this any better than staying “pure?”

I find nothing in the Bible specifically listing premarital sex as a sin, not even in the big list of sins in Leviticus 18 and 20, where the Lord details unlawful sexual sins, which include (in graphic detail) incest, bestiality, and apparently homosexuality. Some people have said that just because it isn't in the list, doesn't mean it is not a sin. I disagree with that position. Who is able to determine what is a sin or not? God. Man is incapable to determine that. Sin is whatever God says it is, not whatever man says it is. So, if there is no law against something, it's likely not a sin to do it. Think about this - has a policeman ever pulled you over and charged you with a crime not in the books? Never happened to me or anyone I know. Want to know why? Because that would be illegal for the policeman to do! He cannot legally charge you with something unless you commit an infraction of the law. In the same way, God cannot find you guilty of a spiritual crime for which He made no law – Rom 3:20 even says, “for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin” (NASB). One may still insist that just because it's not on the list, doesn't mean it's not a crime, since the list and examples in the Bible are so limited in space. It's true that there can't possibly be a list long enough for each and every situation, but that's where the supreme law of "Love God and Love Neighbor As Yourself" comes in. Does something I do hurt God or my neighbor? Romans 13:10 says, "Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law" (NIV).

Some scriptures that people use in the New Testament may be clearly saying that premarital sex is a sin, but look a little bit closer. 1Cor7:2 reads, "Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband" (KJV). What's fornication? If you think it's premarital sex, think again. The same can be said with the blanket term “sexual immorality.” People nowadays just throw that term on anything sexual they don’t like. The word is used also in Matthew 19:9, where Jesus says that fornication is the only acceptable reason for divorce. So, premarital sex is a reason for divorce? No, that's not what he is saying. In this case, the person cannot be committing "premarital sex" since s/he is already married. The word fornication is used more to describe things like temple prostitution, adultery, incest, and, in the case of Israel, idolatry. So, 1Cor7 can mean "...to avoid temple harlotry, let every man have his own wife." This would make sense, since the city of Corinth was filled with all types of idols that had their own shrines and temples, and they had prostitute priestesses who worshiped the false deity by luring in people to have sex with them. In that superstitious time, it was a common belief that if you had sex with a temple harlot, you would be blessed because you worshiped that god. So it had to do more with the practices of certain fertility cults.

At church, no one cared about my sexual health, only my sexual sin, and “impurity.” Just about all of the teaching regarding sex that I got from the singles ministries boiled down to “don’t do it.” I’ve spent years hearing the same thing, and denying myself pleasure because I thought I was going to hell if I gave in. Did you know that in the time of Israel in the Bible, you did not need to wait for all that long? They usually had arranged marriages, and if they didn’t, they could purchase wives from their fathers. Is that surprising to you? Then, you clearly don’t know your Bible. Here’s the thing: they preach that “among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity” (Eph 5:3, NIV), without defining what “sexual immorality” and “impurity” are (they also usually just skimmed over the “or of greed” part or ignored it altogether, but used this verse to really lay into the singles regarding sex, especially with masturbation).

Furthermore, there was a study that showed that among those that pledged to be virgins until marriage, 80% of Evangelicals Have Had Sex. Compare that with 88% by the "world's" standards. 80% reneged on their promise to God, and that “silver ring thing” went out the window. Why? Today's theology teaches that, basically, sex is evil. This is not a new teaching, by the way. We got this theology from the Roman Catholic church, which was influenced very heavily by the Manichean Gnostic, St. Augustine. I don't even like referring to this man as a "saint." He's done much damage with his way of thinking. Anywho, he taught that the physical is evil, the spiritual is good. He also taught that sex was the “original sin.” He taught having sex with your own wife was a sin. He went further and taught that even thinking about having lawful sex with her or undressing her was sin! And that theology pits your desires (which are God-given) against misleading teachings that have been taught for centuries.

Leviticus 18 is the big chapter that defines “sexual immorality.” It reads:

“Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, ‘I am the Lord your God. You shall not do what is done in the land of Egypt where you lived, nor are you to do what is done in the land of Canaan where I am bringing you; you shall not walk in their statutes. You are to perform My judgments and keep My statutes, to live in accord with them; I am the Lord your God. So you shall keep My statutes and My judgments, which, if a person follows them, then he will live by them; I am the Lord. ‘None of you shall approach any blood relative of his to uncover nakedness; I am the Lord. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father, that is, the nakedness of your mother. She is your mother; you are not to uncover her nakedness. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father’s wife; it is your father’s nakedness. As for the nakedness of your sister, either your father’s daughter or your mother’s daughter, whether born in the household or born outside the household, you shall not uncover their nakedness. The nakedness of your son’s daughter or your daughter’s daughter, their nakedness you shall not uncover; for their nakedness is yours. The nakedness of your father’s wife’s daughter, born to your father, she is your sister; you shall not uncover her nakedness. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father’s sister; she is your father’s blood relative. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your mother’s sister, for she is your mother’s blood relative. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father’s brother. You shall not approach his wife; she is your aunt. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your daughter-in-law. She is your son’s wife; you shall not uncover her nakedness. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your brother’s wife; it is your brother’s nakedness. You shall not uncover the nakedness of a woman and of her daughter, nor shall you take her son’s daughter or her daughter’s daughter, to uncover her nakedness; they are blood relatives. It is an outrageous sin. And you shall not marry a woman in addition to her sister as a second wife while she is alive, to uncover her nakedness. ‘Also you shall not approach a woman to uncover her nakedness during her menstrual impurity. And you shall not have sexual intercourse with your neighbor’s wife, to be defiled with her. You shall not give any of your children to offer them to Molech, nor shall you profane the name of your God; I am the Lord. You shall not sleep with a male as one sleeps with a female; it is an abomination. Also you shall not have sexual intercourse with any animal to be defiled with it, nor shall any woman stand before an animal to mate with it; it is a perversion.”

And then in chapter 20, beginning in verse 10, we read,

“If there is a man who commits adultery with another man’s wife, one who commits adultery with his friend’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death. 11 If there is a man who lies with his father’s wife, he has uncovered his father’s nakedness; both of them shall surely be put to death, their bloodguiltiness is upon them. 12 If there is a man who lies with his daughter-in-law, both of them shall surely be put to death; they have committed incest, their bloodguiltiness is upon them. 13 If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act; they shall surely be put to death. Their bloodguiltiness is upon them. 14 If there is a man who marries a woman and her mother, it is immorality; both he and they shall be burned with fire, so that there will be no immorality in your midst. 15 If there is a man who lies with an animal, he shall surely be put to death; you shall also kill the animal. 16 If there is a woman who approaches any animal to mate with it, you shall kill the woman and the animal; they shall surely be put to death. Their bloodguiltiness is upon them. 17 ‘If there is a man who takes his sister, his father’s daughter or his mother’s daughter, so that he sees her nakedness and she sees his nakedness, it is a disgrace; and they shall be cut off in the sight of the sons of their people. He has uncovered his sister’s nakedness; he bears his guilt. 18 If there is a man who lies with a menstruous woman and uncovers her nakedness, he has laid bare her flow, and she has exposed the flow of her blood; thus both of them shall be cut off from among their people. 19 You shall also not uncover the nakedness of your mother’s sister or of your father’s sister, for such a one has made naked his blood relative; they will bear their guilt. 20 If there is a man who lies with his uncle’s wife he has uncovered his uncle’s nakedness; they will bear their sin. They will die childless. 21 If there is a man who takes his brother’s wife, it is abhorrent; he has uncovered his brother’s nakedness. They will be childless” (NASB).

Did you notice something was missing from this list? I found a few. No mention of sex outside of marriage. And, even though men were disbarred from having sex with other males, lesbianism wasn’t included in this list! Neither, for that matter, was masturbation. Surely, if sex with relatives, men having sex with men, and sex with animals was included, then why weren’t these? I mean, how hard would it have been for the Lord to have commanded these things? Anyway, the average Christian would say, “But, it’s still fornication.” You know that fornication is not a warning against singles only, and that married people can also commit it, too, right? Do you know where the term “fornication” comes from? One website defines it as,

“c. 1300, from Old French fornicacion "fornication, lewdness; prostitution; idolatry" (12c.), from Late Latin fornicationem (nominative fornicatio), noun of action from past-participle stem of fornicari "to fornicate," from Latin fornix (genitive fornicis) "brothel" (Juvenal, Horace), originally "arch, vaulted chamber, a vaulted opening, a covered way…Roman prostitutes commonly solicited from under the arches of certain buildings.”

(Source: https://www.etymonline.com/word/Fornication)

The word is used in Matthew 19:9, where Jesus says that fornication is the only acceptable reason for divorce. The word fornication is used more to describe things like temple prostitution, adultery, incest, and, in the case of Israel, idolatry. In 1Cor 7:2, another version reads, “But because of immoralities, each man is to have his own wife, and each woman is to have her own husband” (NASB, italics mine). Paul could have written it to mean "...to avoid temple harlotry, let every man have his own wife." Let’s breakdown that word, shall we? The term fornication comes from the Latin term “fornicatio” or “fornix,” referring to the archway where prostitutes would go and advertise their, um, “wares.” The Greek term for “fornicatio” was the word “πορνεία porniea.” That word, according to Strong’s concordance, means “illicit sexual intercourse” (Strong’s #4202). However, and this is somewhat shocking, it is still a source of contention among Bible scholars. What I mean is, they still can’t agree on exactly what that word means! Thanks to the Septuagint, we know this word is the Hebrew “ZNH, zonah or zanah,” which doesn’t seem to have a sexual connotation at all in the Hebrew Scriptures, but rather, it denoted a serious spiritual problem – idolatry. Taken from a website, we read:

Were the sex rules a mistake?

A rare Greek word created Christianity’s sex rules. It might’ve been misread.

When reading Bible scholarship, should you laugh or cry? A major religion, Christianity, tried to define spirituality as obeying sexual rules. It found them in a handful of New Testament passages that used a rare Greek word, πορνεία, or porneia.

Christianity translated it as ‘fornication’ or ‘immorality’.

Is that what it meant?

Scholars have known for years there was a porneia problem. “The N.T. evidence is not at all clear,” sighs Bruce Malina, back in 1972.

In 1980, John Boswell writes: “many English translators content themselves with the vague word ‘immorality.’ This is safe enough, since whatever else ‘πορνεία’ may be, it is certainly ‘immoral,’ but the term is misleadingly general.”

This is the word that fuels all traditional Christian practice. And it’s not absolutely clear what it means? All the Bible scholars would say, for decades, is that it was a ‘problem’.

“I prefer to leave the term untranslated in most cases,” notes John Kampen in a 1994 paper, “The Matthean Divorce Texts Reexamined.”

“The Greek word porneia, whose meaning constitutes a separate important problem, will be left untranslated for the present,” says David C. Parker in The Living Text of the Gospels (1997).

Ann Nyland’s Source translation, in 2004, leaves it untranslated. “No equivalent English term,” a footnote explains.

The clerics knew what it meant.

That’s what mattered. The faith was ruled by ‘men of God’, and they knew what God was thinking. The sectarian scholars tended to agree with them.

For John MacArthur, porneia “refers to any illicit sexual intercourse, whether or not either of the parties is married. It was a broad term . . .”

For James Thompson: “While porneia means ‘unlawful sexual intercourse,’ in the New Testament it is often ambiguous…”

For David Instone-Brewer: “While it is true that porneia can refer to illegitimate marriage and to premarital unfaithfulness, it can also refer to any number of other sexual offenses.”

This ‘broad’, ‘ambiguous’ reference to ‘any number’ of ‘sexual offenses’ starts to look like it means whatever they say it means.

A secular scholar, Kyle Harper, made some waves with a 2011 paper, “Porneia: The Making of a Christian Sexual Norm,” which noted “its meaning has remained elusive for modern interpreters.”

He supplies some information. Porneia is often said to refer to prostitution, but in ordinary Greek, “πορνεία does not mean ‘prostitution’ in the abstract sense of ‘the institution of venal sex,” he notes. “Πορνεία means ‘the practice of selling access to one’s body.’”

The practice of selling access to one’s body.

But this is not describing prostitutes in the ancient world, as they tended to be slaves. They weren’t ‘selling’ — they were sold.

Finally, in a 2018 paper, “Can a Man Commit πορνεία with His Wife?,” three Bible scholars from secular universities, David Wheeler-Reed, Jennifer W. Knust and Dale B. Martin, tracked down all surviving usages of porneia in ancient Greek sources. There are four.

The most specific ones include a Greek orator, Demosthenes, insulting another man who “has allowed himself to be ‘screwed’ by many other men” — not in a sexual sense, but in terms of being bested or outmaneuvered.

Then a Greek historian, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, “mentions slaves selling themselves sexually to raise money with which to buy their own freedom.”

The verb form is found a few times.

Herodotus claims that the daughters of a certain region prostituted themselves to raise money for their own dowries (Hist. 1.93). Aeschines accuses his opponent Timarchus of prostituting himself to many men (Tim. 52). As in the above example from Demosthenes, this accusation is more an insult than a claim that Timarchus was literally a prostitute.

It seems that porneia was understood to be selling oneself when one didn’t have a right to do so. It functioned as an insult when such a sale would be humiliating to a free person with social power.

What ordinary Christians often don’t understand is that the meaning of many biblical words are guessed.

Scholars debate at length, and the debates are often not reflected in the translations most often read.

Readers not be able to make it through the text with the “problems” on display. Here, for example, would be 1 Corinthians 6:13.

Now the body is not for porneia, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.

It’s not exactly clear, without the supplied translation — ‘fornication’ — that the problem here is people having sex. Without the imposed context of sex, one might recall that all Christians are seen as ‘one body’, as in 1 Corinthians 12:13, or Romans 12:5: “we, though many, form one body.”

Some porneia references, clearly, point to scenes where sex isn’t happening. In Hebrews 12:16, Esau is a pornos since he “sold his birthright for a single meal.” There’s no sex in his story back in Genesis 25:34.

In Revelation 2:20–22, Jezebel gets God’s people to commit porneia. There’s no sex in her story back in 1 Kings 18:19, when Israel’s queen supports the prophets of rival gods.

In the usages of porneia in Paul’s letters, as well, there is often a referral back to an Old Testament narrative. In 1 Corinthians 10:8, Paul says: “We should not commit porneia, as some of them did — and in one day twenty-three thousand of them died.”

That refers to Numbers 25, an episode during the Jewish Exodus, where instead of going into the Promised Land, many Israelites stop at a pagan city and decide to stay there, inter-marrying with pagan women, and worshipping their gods instead of Yahweh.

There is no unmarried sex in the scene. The men marry the pagan women. There is unauthorized sex, however. It’s with the rival deity. In Numbers 25:5, the men must be executed “who were joined to Baal-peor.”

And it begins to seem like porneia is a spiritual problem related to the worship of other deities. A book in the Septuagint called the Wisdom of Solomon, widely read by early Christians, actually says this outright.

For the invention of idols was the beginning of porneia, and the discovery of them the corruption of life. (14:12)

And Christian Bible scholars, of course, know all of this. On occasion you’ll find the surprise tucked into their enormous commentaries.

“As it turns out, most of the references to prostitution in Paul’s Bible are figurative, referring to Israel’s unfaithfulness to the Lord and worship of other gods, which also help explain Paul’s treatment of porneia in terms of unfaithfulness to God,” note Roy E. Ciampa and Brian S. Rosner in The First Letter to the Corinthians . . . on page 249.

In another book, Rosner adds that, the further you get into Jewish literature, the more infernal it becomes: “Several texts in Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, Damascus Document (CD), and Rule of the Community (1QS) associate πορνεία with demons.”

So are demons making you have sex, or what?

The dirty secret of the Bible is that religious terms are often sexual.

In 2 Corinthians 11:2, Paul says: “I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him.”

This isn’t a call for Christians to be physical virgins. You’re a “virgin” here if you’ve never been part of another religious system.

In the Bible, communities become ‘married’ to deities. The community is a wife, and the deity is a husband. (Baal, the Old Testament address for gods, is a regular term for a husband.) To worship a deity other than your own is seen as adultery, or ‘prostitution’ if receiving goods or protection.

So yes, the references seem sexual, as also in 1 Corinthians 6:16:

Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute (pornē) is one with her in body? For it is said, ‘The two will become one flesh.’

But is Paul really referring to a physical sexual act with a slave? Physical prostitution — and sex with slaves — is always legal in Jewish law. Remember Abraham and Hagar? That’s sex with a slave.

But as a theological term used by prophets, ‘prostitution’, or rather, porneia, was an affront. In Ezekiel 16:17, God accuses Israel: “you made male idols with which to prostitute yourself.”

“The prophets accused Israel of being a ‘spiritual slut’,” as Kyle Harper puts it.

All the porneia references might make sense as spiritual violations of improper worship. Esau, for example, in selling the soup, is rejecting a special meal. Lentils are an ancient food of mourning. Abraham has probably died, and Esau doesn’t care. Having been flirting with idolatry, he’s on the way to leaving YHWH worship.

Christians had forgotten this word was (via the Greek translation called the Septuagint) not a word for ‘prostitution’, but a translation of a Hebrew word, ZNH, zonah or zanah. It expressed a serious religious problem that, in book after book of the Bible, horrifies God.

In a 2009 study, The Vanishing Hebrew Harlot: the Adventures of the Hebrew Stem ZNH, Irene Reigner defines ‘ZNH’ — which becomes porneia — as to “participate in non-Yahwist religious praxis.”

It’s not fully going over to another deity. In sexual terms it would be “cheating” — but it’s a spiritual offense.

But aren’t there some very sexually suggestive uses?

Surely 1 Corinthians 5:1 is about sex, isn’t it? Paul writes: “It is actually reported that there is porneia among you, and of a kind that even pagans do not tolerate: A man is sleeping with his father’s wife.”

Except we might remember that Israel was seen as Yahweh’s wife throughout the Old Testament, as the ‘Bride of Christ’ becomes the ‘wife’ of Jesus (cf. Eph 5:22, 2 Cor 11:2, etc.).

For Christian people to be ‘sleeping with his father’s wife’ might be . . . the Jewish converts going back to Jewish practices, i.e. the usual problem of Judaizing.

In Matthew 5:32 (and 19:9), Jesus himself speaks of porneia, and Christians often take this to regulate human marriage.

Whoever divorces his wife, except for the cause of porneia, makes her an adulteress.

To see this as a sexual regulation is actually rather tricky. If a human male divorces his wife (which is legal in Jewish law), Jesus says his wife is an adulteress?

But adultery is a capital crime (cf. Lev 20:10; Deut 22:22). It just seems unlike Jesus to say a woman whose husband divorced her had, then, to be killed. Maybe the context has been misread.

In Acts 15:19–20, some Jewish leaders, led by James, think over what the Gentile Christians are supposed to do. They say: “abstain from things defiled by idols and from porneia and from what has been strangled and from blood.”

In a study of the meat references, Ben Witherington III thinks: Where do we find these succession of offenses happening? “The answer is probably in an act of pagan worship.”

Did Christianity just misunderstand?

It would be rather odd to imagine early Christianity is a religion of sexual control. Many early converts were slaves! They had to do whatever their master said, and legally were unable to marry.

We forget this wasn’t a system devised by Christian clerics for the control of populations, and empires. It was a means of connecting to God.

The one New Testament text that was easy to understand, being written for Gentiles in simple Greek, was 1 John . . . a text little read or regarded by traditional Christianity.

Here, there’s no porneia, no sex talk at all, just an insistent refrain: “Love one another” (3:11, 3:23, 4:7, 4:11, 4:12; cf. 2 Jn 6). As Jesus is seen to inhabit the Christian person, to ‘love’ is to worship with the deity in them.

Maybe that was always the teaching.

(Source: https://medium.com/belover/were-christian-sexual-rules-created-by-a-mistranslation-of-a-single-word-8b32c68371b5)

More to come...