After Paul’s First Missionary Journey resulted in many gentiles being converted to the faith, the issue had to be faced regarding Jews and gentiles living together in full fellowship. At a great conference in Jerusalem, a solution was proposed and accepted that the gentile converts would agree to “abstain from pollution of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood” (Acts 15:20).
Three of the four items related to dietary sensitivities of the Jews which today we would consider not moral but ceremonial issues. But “fornication?” What’s that doing in the list? Illicit sexual conduct is a sin of great magnitude, not in the same category as eating meat to satisfy the urges of normal human hunger.
A common pagan practice
A similar linkage of ideas occurs in I Corinthians 6:
All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not profitable Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats but God shall destroy both it and them. Now the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.. (I Cor. 6:12-13).
Again the generally non-moral issue of satisfying hunger is lumped with the serious sin of fornication. From Paul’s admonition and the Jerusalem letter, a rather startling conclusion is evident. Some of the gentile converts felt the principle of Christian liberty allowed them to do as they liked in respect to sexual indulgence. As with hunger, they felt sex was a natural bodily urge and therefore satisfaction of it was allowable with minimal restraints.
For many of the converts, such a libertine approach to sex was part of the philosophy with which they were raised. A pervasive pagan teaching of the day was that “the important thing was the soul, the spirit of a man; the body was a thing that did not matter.” In practice, this idea “was taken to mean that since the body was of no importance you could do what you liked with it; you could let it sate and glut its appetites…so the heathens took their pleasure when they wanted it and where they wanted it.” (William Barclay, Letters to the Corinthians, Westminster Press).
Coming from such a background and living in such a society, it’s no wonder some of the converts had a difficult time practicing holiness in Christ, and it’s no wonder the epistles stress this point: “For this ye know, that no whoremonger…hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no man deceive you with vain words…” (Eph. 5:5-6).
Reverting to heathen thinking
We need to give heed to these powerful warnings of scripture because there is an increasing body of anecdotal evidence that we have a like problem today, in our own community. It’s no wonder, as the world around us has largely adopted the attitudes and standards of the first-century heathens. The general sentiment we face is that the sexual appetites can be satisfied with impunity so long as both parties are consenting adults.
It’s been called a “sexual revolution” that started seriously in North America in the 1960’s with the birth-control pill and a general softening of standards brought on by WW II. In many cultures, sexual promiscuity has long been a feature of daily life.
Today, in North America, the message is conveyed throughout society by the most powerful and influential elements. In the public schools, as early as the fifth grade, ten-year-olds are taught the basics of the sexual process with no moral or religious overtones. They are introduced to methods of contraception which come under the heading of “safe sex.” Sex education is simply another aspect of the human body taught along with the elements of diet and personal hygiene.
In the September issue of Pediatrics magazine a research project was reviewed which tracked the influence on teenagers of sex on television. An Associated Press article by Lindsey Tanner noted some highlights which included one researcher’s comment that TV “sends kids the message that everybody’s having sex and nobody’s thinking about responsibility and nothing bad ever happens. You don’t see the fade to black, the couple has sex, and the next morning says, ‘You gave me a sexually transmitted disease.'” Speaking of what comes across on TV, it was noted that on a recent TV talk show a female doctor commented, “When I discovered sex was part of dating I had to reconsider my attitude and adjust my hygiene.”
Growing up in such an atmosphere, it’s understandable our youth think everybody’s sexually active. When such a pervasive message is combined with the normal release of hormones during the teen years, we have a problem in doing it God’s way.
God’s standard
Because of natural human urges and the message of society, we may come to feel, like the heathens did, that fornication is all right. But we don’t define sin, God does. And God has put into us powerful drives that are designed to create and build families; the God-implanted drives are designed to bind one man and one woman into a united whole for life. This has been His way from the very beginning as the apostle referred the Corinthians back to the Garden of Eden with the words: “know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? for ‘two,’ saith he, ‘shall be one flesh‘” (I Cor. 6:15 citing Gen. 2:24).
Throughout the law of Moses, the original intent is upheld by specific ordinances. One is particularly pointed. If a man took a wife and correctly claimed she was not a virgin, the woman could be stoned because she had “wrought folly in Israel, to play the whore in her father’s house” (Deut. 22:21). She was either a virgin or a whore!
Speaking of the Law of Moses, some have extrapolated from the laws regarding engaged persons an apparent license to pre-marital sex, as the engaged were termed “husband” and “wife.” Yet today’s engagements are hardly in the form of a covenant obligation, as they are frequently broken before consummating in marriage. We need to remember that fornication is a grievous sin and we don’t change the definition of sin just because we’d like to. There are also practical issues to be considered: people can feel used if persuaded against their will into intimate relations before marriage, and starting off with an unwanted pregnancy puts an enormous strain on that marriage.
How to avoid sin
Staying away from fornication does take will power but there’s no mystery in how to do it. Ask yourself, “Do I want Christ to see this?” Choose friends carefully. Don’t put yourself in compromising situations. Don’t start down that road. Just say NO! These, incidentally, are exactly the same techniques we use to avoid drugs and a whole host of other sins.
Furthermore, if we’re going to be a disciple of Christ, we must learn to resist peer pressure to sin. It’s important to start learning to resist peer pressure at an early age so that, hopefully, as we mature spiritually, it will become easier to resist pressure from the world in general.
I’ve already sinned
Evidently the sin of fornication is not uncommon in our day, and it certainly occurred among first century believers, otherwise the epistles would not contain such stern exhortations. But the reaction should not be, “Well I’ve done it, so I might as well keep on.” Our reaction should be confidence that, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (I John 1:9).
Repentance should be our reaction. True repentance means confessing our sins to the Lord and turning back from repeating them.
If it becomes evident to others that we have sinned, we should not be disconsolate. The sheer frequency of such sin in our day has made the community understanding of the problem. This may be unfortunate because it suggests the extent to which the world has invaded the ecclesia of Christ, but at least it means that other disciples will help us reconcile with our Lord IF we confess our sins and truly repent.
A critical matter
As we commented above, the anecdotal evidence we are hearing indicates the world is winning in the matter of fornication. To reverse this ungodly trend, we need to heed the word of truth. If not, we face the inevitable — fornicators will not inherit the kingdom of God.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One