TITLE: God’s Design for Human Sexuality TEXT: Genesis 1:26-28, 2:15-24, Matthew 19:4 THEME: God...

TITLE: God’s Design for Human Sexuality

TEXT: Genesis 1:26-28, 2:15-24, Matthew 19:4

THEME: God created sexuality to reproduce children in the context of marriage.

John Partilla, and Carol Anne Riddell, a local news anchor.

“Rather than ‘deny their feelings and live dishonestly,’ they chose to abandon their spouses and children: ‘All they had were their feelings, which Ms. Riddell described as ‘unconditional and all-encompassing. . . . It was a gift . . . but I had to earn it. Were we brave enough to hold hands and jump?’ ” (Sherif, 99)

I. The Premise: Christianity has been sexually repressive and discriminatory.


A. Whatever consenting adults do sexually is okay. The key is that they agree.



B. Marriage is only a preferred option for sexuality.




C. Marriage is intended for the fulfillment and happiness of the adults involved.





D. Marriage is defined by the state.





D. Marriage is defined by the state.

E. Marriage is a romantic union of two (?) consenting people.

Study on Marriage

“Marriage is now often viewed as what they describe as the “soul mate” model. It has become a couple-centered vehicle for personal growth, emotional intimacy, and shared consumption that depends for its survival on the happiness of both spouses. It is viewed as a luxury when couples can afford it and non-essential to children and family.” May (278-281).

Oscar and Alfred

• Why should we no let them get married and have the benefits of other married people?

Oscar and Alfred

• Why should we no let them get married and have the benefits of other married people?

• Why is it that sex is more expressive of marriage than other pleasing activities that build attachment?

II. The Problem: This view undermines the family.

A. The sexual impulse is so strong there must be at least some boundaries.


A. The sexual impulse is so strong there must be at least some boundaries.

B. Christianity has always held sex is to be confined to marriage.

Two competing views of marriage that are not compatible.

• Conjugal • Revisionist

The Conjugal View

• The conjugal view focuses on the nuclear family- it sees marriage as a comprehensive union that unites a man and a woman with each other and any children born from their union.

The Conjugal View


• It sees marriage as a comprehensive union.

The Conjugal View


• It sees marriage as a comprehensive union. • In marriage, a man and a woman freely

choose to make themselves irreplaceable to each other.

The Revisionist View

The revisionist view focuses on the sexual partnership- it sees marriage as the union two (maybe more) people who commit to a romantic partnership and domestic life: it is essentially an emotional union, merely enhanced by whatever sexual activity the partners find agreeable.


If marriage is centrally an emotional union, rather than one inherently ordered to family life, it becomes much harder to show why the state should concern itself with marriage any more than with friendship. Why involve the state in what amounts to the legal regulation of tenderness?


When people come to understand marriage as only an institution for individual fulfillment and happiness, there is no longer any inherent connection between the relationship of the adults, procreation, children, and a family of common ancestry.


A. The sexual impulse is so strong there must be at least some boundaries

B. Christianity has always held sex is to be confined to marriage.

C. The benefits of marriage conjugal marriage are significant.

Yale law professor William Eskridge

Redefining marriage “involves the reconfiguration of the family, deemphasizing blood, gender, and kinship ties.” (May)

Greg Bellow

“I responded by making a snowball and letting it fly at a nearby pigeon. What I really wished for was the courage to hit my father with the snowball. Under the childhood anger my father expected and hoped to see was sadness born of losing the parent who understood me the best.”

III. The Biblical Response: God’s plan for sex is conjugal marriage.


A. What Genesis teaches us about sex and marriage (1:26-27, 2:15-24).

Genesis 1:26-27

26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.

Genesis 1:26-27

27 So God created mankind in his own image,

in the image of God he created them;

male and female he created them.

Sex and marriage have three primary purposes

• Procreation (be fruitful and multiply)

Genesis 1:28

28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”


• Procreation (be fruitful and multiply)• Pleasure (the two become one flesh)

Genesis 2:21-23

After naming the animals we learn that, “for Adam no suitable helper was found. 21 So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

Genesis 2:21-23

23 The man said,

“This is now bone of my bones

and flesh of my flesh;

she shall be called ‘woman,’

for she was taken out of man.”


• Procreation (be fruitful and multiply)• Pleasure (the two become one flesh)• Bonding (and is united to his wife)

Genesis 2:24

24” That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.”



1. God created sex to be enjoyed in the context of marriage.




2. The nature of marriage.

The Nature of Marriage

• Marriage is exclusive:


• Marriage is exclusive. • Marriage is permanent.


• Marriage is exclusive. • Marriage is permanent. • Marriage is the context for raising children.

Leviticus 18-2-

Must distinguish:– Ceremonial Law– Civil Law–Moral Law-these verses are under the section of

moral law.




2. The nature of marriage.

B. What did Jesus say about marriage? Matt 19

Matthew 19:4-10

4 “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ 5 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’? 6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.

Matthew 19:4-10

7 “Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?” 8 Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. 9 I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.” 10 The disciples said to him, “If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry.”


1. Jesus affirms the Genesis account of marriage.



2. The surprise of the disciples affirms his radical affirmation.




3. This radical affirmation is enforced in his position on lust. (Matthew 5:27)

Matthew 5:27

• “But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”





4. His affirmation teaches us two things.





4. His affirmation teaches us two things.• Marriage is defined and ordained by God- not the state





4. His affirmation teaches us two things.• Marriage is defined and ordained by God- not the state• Those who violate this God ordained marriage model are guilty

of sin in need of forgiveness.

Alain de Botton, an atheist philosopher

“Sex is not something we can ever expect to feel easily liberated from …. Tame it though we might try, it tends to wreak havoc across our lives; it leads us to destroy our relationships, threatens our productivity, and compels us to stay up too late in nightclubs talking to people whom we don't like but whose exposed midriffs we wish to touch.”

Alain de Botton, an atheist philosopher

“[Christians] are often mocked for being prudish, but they wouldn't judge sex to be quite so bad if they didn't also understand that it could be rather wonderful.”

APPLICATION

• Redefining marriage and the family implies the only thing that is important in parenting is competency leading to the notion that no one, including mothers and fathers, are irreplaceable, and men and women are interchangeable. The fallacy of this can be seen by turning to our own experience.

APPLICATION

• All of us have the desire for connection, for knowing and for being loved by our mother and father. Marriage is God’s plan for that connection.

APPLICATION

• Some of us have circumstances and histories that hinder us from enjoying this ideal. You are not less of a person- you are no less loved by God. For you the challenge is to accept God’s plan and realize He has another plan for your life that will offer its own rewards. Sex is not the purpose or end-all in life.

COHABITATION

“So here's the problem with the car analogy: the car doesn't have hurt feelings if the driver dumps it back at the used car lot and decides not to buy it. The analogy works great if you picture yourself as the driver. It stinks if you picture yourself as the car.”

TITLE: God’s Design for Human Sexuality TEXT: Genesis 1:26-28, 2:15-24, Matthew 19:4 THEME: God...

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