Sex & Singleness

Mal Fletcher Added 18 June 2007

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Is Sex Really The Height Of Human Experience?

Do these song lyrics sound familiar: ‘I love you so much baby, I want to sit you down and have a good long talk’? No? That's because no such song exists -- or if it does, nobody's giving it any airtime! According to most of the songs in the charts, the most rewarding relationships are sexual ones. It’s one of the great tragedies of post-modern western culture: we're preoccupied with sex to the point where many people can't imagine life without it.

In our world, sex is too often confused with intimacy. In thousands of advertisements and scores of TV shows, we're told that it's hard to be intimate with someone unless, somewhere along the line, you're in the sack with them. That kind of thinking, though, has a very negative effect on human relationships.

A strong relationship is about communication, or, taking that word back to its roots, ‘communing’: sharing on a deep level our innermost dreams, hurts and hopes. A good relationship is also about completion -- people joining together their strengths and weaknesses, so that each partner makes the other whole and secure.

When sex becomes the foundation of a relationship, real security is harder to find. Studies have shown that when couples engage in sexual activity too early in a relationship -- and especially outside the commitment of marriage -- they have much less chance of actually making their relationship last.

The sex drive is such a powerful force that it can take over a relationship before people have had the chance to grow in other areas. Neither person has the chance to get to know their partner's deepest needs; and they can easily become self-centred in their expectations.

Too much emphasis on sex also means that people bring into relationships all kinds of baggage from earlier encounters. Strong trust comes when you feel you're special in the eyes of your partner -- that you share something together they've never shared with anyone else.

We all share a profound thirst for love and meaning; we long to find out who we are and where we belong. The sad irony is that the more people sleep around the less truly “naked” they become, the more prone they are to cover up, to defend themselves against hurt and failure. People who constantly “try it on” with someone new, often find that they become more jaded and disappointed in the process.

Of course, our preoccupation with sex has also contributed to the rise in sexually transmitted diseases, including syphillis and AIDS. Contrary to what many people preach, a condom is not the only thing that stands between you and STDs.

Prevention is always better than cure and saying “No” is still the best form of prevention. It's safer in all kinds of ways -- and not just the physical.

It's because the Bible places a high value on sex that it says we should be careful how we treat it. Sex involves every part of a human being: body, mind, soul and spirit. So to be truly “safe” it has to be safe on all of those levels. After all, lighting a fire in your fire-place at home will certainly keep you warm on a winter’s night; but lighting that same fire in the middle of the living room floor will burn the house down! The fire itself isn't the problem: it’s what you do with it that counts.

Everything the Bible says about sex is coloured by its teaching on marriage. In Genesis, God showed us his great dream for human sexual expression. Marriage, he said, would involve a man leaving his father and mother and “clinging to” his wife. In God's eyes, marriage is a special covenant; one which is made in a very public way and is sealed in a private, physical union -- the act of sex, which Genesis calls becoming “one flesh” (Genesis 2:24).

The Bible does not teach that sex is just about reproduction. Above all, sex is a sign of a unique love and commitment between two married people. Of all the types of love these two people will experience, this love is special and private. The Song of Solomon, one of the Bible's great books of poetry, is also one of the most graphic descriptions ever written of a sexual relationship between a husband and wife. No, it doesn't have any pictures – because it doesn't need them!

Some people say that the Christian view of marriage just doesn't work in the modern world. If you ask them to define the Christian view of marriage, they will usually respond with something like, “a man and a woman together for life”. But that's never been the Christian view of marriage.

A really complete marriage is about a man, a woman and God together for life! God himself is a Tri-une Being: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We were created in the image of God and all our relationships should be three-way too.

For many people today, the only really dirty word is ‘celibacy’. It's okay to be single as long as you can still be sexually active, they say. Jesus said that celibacy is a special gift from God (Matt. 19:11-12). Not everyone has this gift, but those who can should accept it joyfully, as an opportunity to serve God without distraction.

Back then, people had a saying, “sex is for the body, the body is for sex.” That's totally wrong, said the apostle Paul, because our bodies were made to be temples for God's Holy Spirit, filled with his love and power (1 Cor. 6:19, cf. vs 13). If that’s true, why settle for less?

In the Bible, celibacy is not a burden but a release – whether it’s for life or until we’re married. Celibacy is something we should admire in others. Jesus was never married and was never sexually active, but nobody could argue that he didn't live a full life.

He attracted people to him wherever he went and left a bigger mark on history than any other human being. Sex is certainly not the key to happiness and, as wonderful as marriage is, someone like Mother Teresa could never have achieved what she did if she had been responsible for a family.

In the Bible, sex is more than a physical experience -- more even than an emotional one. It is something that affects us at the deepest, spiritual level of our human experience. Like moths drawn to a flame, we're all looking for a love that will never let us down.

That love can never be found in the bedroom. Our deepest needs are met only in communion with God, in laying down our selfish interests in pursuit of him and the service of others. When a relationship is built on that kind of living, it can really grow.


This is extracted from the EDGES with Mal Fletcher TV film entitled 'Sex & Singleness: Why Wait?' See it at edges.tv.