What Does the Bible teach about Sexuality?
Sexuality is a gift from God and an expres-sion of love and affection between a man and his wife. In this context, the Bible speaks of man and woman breaking away from their parental home and becoming "one flesh" - that means: one unit. This in-cludes both the spiritual and the physical level.
After God created humans, He commanded them to multiply and populate the earth that God gave to humans to possess. Sexual union should enable man and woman to produce offspring together and in this way fulfill God's mission.
The Bible explicitly teaches that marriage between a man and a woman is the only legitimate form of partnership approved by God and that God's blessing lies only on it. This also means that sexuality can only be practiced within this framework. God sees freely practiced sexuality that only serves the selfish gratification of pleasure (as in the case of pornography, non-binding re-lationships, prostitution, etc.) as adultery or fornication, which in turn is a form of greed that has nothing to do with real love.
Adultery and fornication (which means any sex outside of marriage) are sins, both against God and against one's body, and will bring God's judgment if they are not repented of. The same applies to any kind of sexual relationships and actions outside of the God-given framework. It doesn't matter in the slightest to God whether these are socially accepted or not. The an-cient cities of Sodom and Gomorrah serve as a chilling example of the consequences that disregarding God's commandments with regard to sexuality can have, whose inhabitants were guilty of homosexual acts without remorse and were therefore razed to the ground by God....
Most people today ignore God's command-ments regarding relationships and sexua-lity. In doing so, they devalue and pervert this divine gift to the utmost. For many people, sex is now nothing more than a consumer good and the partner is more or less an object through which one tries to satisfy one's sexual desires. The Bible, on the other hand, urges us to keep marriage pure and the marriage bed undefiled. This means that neither a man nor a woman can al-low themselves to be unfaithful to their spouse or to intentionally harm them. In this context, Jesus explains that sexual infi-delity begins in a person's heart or mind.
For this reason, Jesus seriously commands us to resist with all determination any temptation that might lead us to betray our partner or commit sexual sin. At the same time, the Bible warns that any viola-tion of God's commandments regarding marriage will not be without consequen-ces.
People who have problems with their sexua-lity should urgently confide in a spiritual counselor or seek advice in a Christian community. The same applies to addiction to pornography, as well as to homosexual tendencies or compulsive sexual behavior. An honest admission to God and yourself as well as asking for God's help is an impor-tant first step towards freedom.
Faith in God and the power of His Holy Spirit enables us to control and overcome the sinful thoughts and unnatural ten-dencies in our hearts (even if they seem natural to us) and instead do what is right in the sight of God and is pleasing to Him.
God gives every person the free choice to marry or remain unmarried. There are Christians who consciously decide to for-go marriage in order to be able to serve God with undivided attention. However, living without marriage is a gift that not every person has. Anyone who feels a strong desire for a partner or cannot live celibate should follow the advice of the Bible and commit to a partner. This can pre-vent the person from committing fornica-tion and thus becoming guilty before God.
People who have committed sexual sins in their lives can trust in God's grace and know that God will forgive them if they sincerely confess and repent of their sins. They can demonstrate this by acknowled-ging God's commandments regarding sexu-ality and by loving and remaining faithful to their own spouse. A marriage that is concluded and lived in the spirit of God is under God's blessing and protection. In this way, we can have peace with God and enjoy physical togetherness with our part-ner with a clear conscience.