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Last Sunday, the elder doing the sermon at our church made a couple of interesting points:
Pharisees make rules differing from those established by God, and consider themselves righteous when they follow their self-made rules.
Christ-followers know that a faith based on rules portrays a false Jesus, and therefore becomes a false religion.
I immediately saw how these explain something I’ve faced repeatedly during my years of ministering about sexuality.
I’ve spent way too much time arguing with folks who want to add to what the Bible says about sex. They want to make all masturbation sin. They call oral sex sin. Some toss sex toys into the sin bin. Others actually suggest some sex positions, or anything other than missionary, are wrong. There are even those who say it’s a sin for anyone to have an orgasm in any way other than vaginal intercourse. (I guess the majority of women who can’t do that are just out of luck!)
If you believe any of those things, that’s just fine with me. Don’t do them. If you want to put your man-made rules on others, I’m going to call you out. I’ve always blamed this on Gnosticism, and I think that’s a factor. But feeling righteous or superior for following your own rules seems like a big part of it, too. Pick something you don’t like, call it sin, don’t do it, and boom, you’re such a good Christian! Or even more impressive, pick something you do enjoy, make it sin, don’t do it, and you’re a super Christian!
Of course, the truth is you’re really just adding to God’s Word, which is a big no-no. God didn’t miss anything, and doesn’t need our help. A rules based faith is not what Jesus called us to. If rules could save us, Jesus would not have had to die for us.
God gave us a great deal of freedom in our married sex lives. If it doesn’t involve anyone other than our spouse, which would include porn, you’re both okay with it, and it’s not causing harm, then it’s okay with God. Anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to inject themselves into your sex life, and that’s wrong.
So get in there and enjoy sex the way God intended!
Image Credit: © Piotr Marcinski | stock.adobe.com
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Thank you!
Very well said. I think it’s not even necessarily taught a church, sometimes it is what people get in the heads that this particular thing must be wrong. My mother in-law told my wife when she was in high school that only prostitutes and nasty women give blowjobs. She still thinks about that.