Sex is Forbidden

Sex Is Forbidden Book Summary and Study Guide

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I know circumcision is sunnah but hadith are still just stories people told about the prophet - ie all second-hand words of men. So I always treat them carefully and only really bother with the ones I personally like or which are backed up specifically by the Quran. And as the Quran mentions nothing about circumcision, I'll ignore it. If Allah didn't feel it warranted a single word, I won't bother with it for my children either! The reason are really about social order. Children born out of wedlock create a real headache for inheritance and lines of transmission for example. And in an age where women were not wealth creators themselves, it could put them in a very dangerous position.

But, you're right, times have changed, social mores have moved on, women are very different societal creatures than they were in that tme - something we often forget with our very short memory. It is a very different thing to be a woman or indeed a man! The basic reasoning around social order probably no longer exists. But saving sex until after marriage is a sweet idea still, isn't it? So no, nowadays there is no rational reason to save it until after marriage. But, there's no rational reason to do it before getting married either!

So choose one, knowing that Islam prohibits one of them. We are all bad Muslims anybody who tells you otherwise is showing pride and so becomes a bad Muslim in so doing! I know that circumcision was done by the Prophet sas and he said that it was good to do it for men and not for women!! The sentence you choose is really interesting because it doesn't forbidden sex before marriage it only says that Allah will give you his bounty if you abstain from sexual relationships. Just so we know where it actually refrences this in the Quran, I managed to dig out this line why is it always so hard to find what we think of as mormal Islamic premises even mentioned in the Quran?

Did you know for example that the Quran doesn't even mention circumcision in passing? Makes you think our ideas of what Islam is is actually manufactured by imams! I don't care what naseebers can think about me That's my private life i was not talking about my experience but in general what is the position of Islam about sex before getting married?

Is it haram or not? But why always talking about girls, guys are allowed to make sex before wedding? I see so many of my american friends getting screwed over by their boyfriends LOL yes i feel you Sure i am agree with you But why always womene women women why not men!!??

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Men have to be virgin until the wedding, haven't they? PS i like your Of course, marriage is no guarantee either. But if your partner is willing to take that step with you, it does give greater assurance that he or she is just as committed to the relationship as you are. The Bible simply presents some of the issues and consequences involved in sex without the intent to marry vs.

These are very personal issues, and very personal choices. No one else can make them for you. However, before you decide to go all-in physically, do consider what you want from the relationship. If you simply want to enjoy sexual intimacy with someone you feel close to, that is quite doable. However, if what you really want is a long-term, committed, faithful marriage, consider the possibility that starting out with sexual intimacy early in the relationship may make the kind of marriage you long for less likely rather than more likely.

That inner oneness is at the heart of every true and lasting marriage. This article is a response to a spiritual conundrum submitted by a reader. Lee Woofenden is an ordained minister, writer, editor, translator, and teacher. He enjoys taking spiritual insights from the Bible and the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg and putting them into plain English as guides for everyday life. The father has the option of utterly refusing to give the daughter in marriage to the rapist. This is only for virgins. Now read Judges 21 and see what happened there. A married man sleeping with a virgin was not considered adultery.

Deuteronomy 21 also speaks about taking wives from among women who were captured during a battle, and how to treat them honorably. Yes, in those times it was customary for a woman to stay a virgin before she was given to a man in marriage. But the norms were different. Then she was given as a wife to either the head of the household, or one of his sons, or perhaps a manservant. In addition, men would have multiple wives. In their genes, men are more promiscuous than women, and throughout history this went hand in hand with groups sending men off to battle.

A great article on this is http: Jesus nowhere explicitly rebukes polygamous families. Why would Jesus be using an institution he disagreed with? In addition to wives who had a marriage contract , there were also concubines pilagshim in Hebrew. However, they were free to go and did not need a bill of divorce, which wives needed. Jesus did in fact say that divorce is something that was allowed to Israelites because of the hardness of their hearts. However, he did not say anything about taking a second or third wife, while continuing to provide for the first.

In Judaism, and especially in the time Jesus lived and taught, conjugal relations were considered one of the basic rights of a woman in a marriage. If a husband could not take care of all his wives sexually, financially, etc. So, rather than divorce, I would imagine Jesus would have advised a rich man to marry a second wife. I do not see any explicit rebuke of premarital sex, nor of a married man sleeping with other women, by Jesus.

Thanks for heading over here, and for your good and thoughtful comment. I had forgotten all about the comment I left on your blog back in April. For now, I just want to say thanks for the link to the Roy Baumeister article. It makes a great deal of sense, and I greatly enjoyed reading it.

Thanks again for your long and thoughtful comment. I do at least want to comment on the issue of polygamy vs. By the same token, though we can speculate about what Jesus might have done in a particular situation, there is no actual record in the Gospels of his advising anyone to marry an additional wife. In the incident of the question about the resurrection based on the law of levirate marriage Matthew He simply used it as a jumping off point to talk abut the reality of the afterlife.

He is simply using the way people actually behaved as vivid examples pointing to deeper, spiritual principles. Personally, I happen to be a vegetarian. But back to the point about polygamy, the reality is that the Middle Eastern cultures of Bible times accepted polygamy really, polygyny as normal and acceptable behavior.

And it was not something that was going to be rooted out of the culture any time soon. In fact, 2, years later, polygyny is still practiced in some parts of the Middle East. It is therefore simply taken as a given, similar to the institution of slavery, and no serious attempt is made to oppose it because it would be useless to do so in that context.

However, looking at the Bible as a whole, we do see a general pattern of the story starting with monogamy, descending into polygamy, and then moving back in the general direction of monogamy—a direction that took several centuries after the beginning of the Christian era to come into full fruition. In both the first and second Creation stories in Genesis, there is a spirit of monogamy. Then in Genesis 2, God creates Adam, and then Eve from his rib, and they become a monogamous couple, so that a man is to leave his parents and cleave to his wife not wives.

Lamech married two wives, Adah and Zillah. And he is presented as having committed a homicide. Moving forward to the Patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, we see that there is a tendency toward monogamy. Abraham had only one wife at a time: Sarah, and later Keturah. Isaac had one wife, Rebekah. Jacob wanted one wife: But through the trickery of his father-in-law, he ended out with two wives: And due to the struggles between those two wives, he also fathered children through their respective slaves, Zilpah and Bilhah.

So the example of the Patriarchs is that even though polygamy did occur, monogamy was preferred. And ironically, in these instances, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the men, are presented as preferring monogamy.

Still, the men are presented as favoring monogamy. However, over time polygamy became established as a common practice for men who were rich enough to support more than one wife. The apex of this was Solomon, with his wives and concubines: Turning to the New Testament, polygamy was still allowable, but the New Testament is notable for its general lack of mention of polygamyous relationships. And Jesus affirms the ancient saying that a man should leave his parents and be united to his wife not wives, see Matthew Though it is not stated explicitly, the New Testament generally speaks in monogamous terms, referring to a husband and his wife, a wife and her husband, as if there were not multiple wives.

But there is a general atmosphere of monogamy in the New Testament. And in Titus 1: So while it is true that the Bible never explicitly requires monogamy, the general trend is that in early, pristine times monogamy was the practice, and polygamy entered only after humankind had fallen away from its original pristine state. Polygamy was then practiced throughout the lower spiritual states represented by the bulk of the Old Testament. And with the New Testament, after the Incarnation, when God began lifting humankind out of that low spiritual state, that old trend toward polygamy as humankind fell away from God and spirit was reversed.

As humanity began moving back upward toward God and spirit, we moved away from the polygamy of our fallen state and back toward the monogamy for which and in which God originally created us. That may have been why the passage in Titus required that the Elder have only one life. However, I think that is an overly harsh assessment of polygamy. But in cultures where it is allowed and common, it is an ordinary thing, not a scandal as it is in monogamous cultures.

I would say, rather, that polygamy indicates a culture that has a low, unspiritual view of marriage, and that views women as secondary to men. There is also no possibility of a true partnership, because women are seen as secondary and inferior to men. And there is therefore no possibility of a true oneness of heart, mind, and spirit, as exists in a true, God-given monogamous marriage.

Keep in mind also that polygamy existed in ancient cultures in which men commonly fought and died in wars, and women could achieve social status and security only by being married and having children, especially sons. If polygamy were not allowed in those cultures, many women would remain single and childless, and would therefore have a very difficult life. So although polygamy does indicate a low level of society and of spirituality, in such a society it is not an unmitigated evil.

Monogamy was re-established in Christianity, I believe, because Christianity was meant to bring humanity to a higher spiritual level, and eventually to return humanity to the state of equality in which God originally created man and woman. On that, please see: I know this topic is quite old, but I was wondering what the backing is exactly for the claim. Thanks for stopping by, and for your question.

But in general, as stated on the About this website page:. This particular article draws most heavily on the Bible itself. Thanks for the reply! But as the above article points out, the Bible itself is nowhere near as clear-cut on the issue as many Christians, and Christian churches, seem to think. The Bible unequivocally condemns adultery. As I said in the article, although this may be upsetting to many Christians, it is the fact of the matter. Yes, some Christians interpret the verses in which it appears as prohibitions against premarital sex.

But those verses are not very specific, and their meaning is a matter of interpretation. For those who believe in and follow a particular orthodoxy, such as the Roman Catholic Church, yes, going against it is potentially hazardous to their soul. For such people, violating orthodoxy involves violating their conscience—which is the real problem for them. And still others as you know, and as the same Internet searches will show have arrived at a very different conclusion.

Many, if not most, articles on the subject will at least agree on that. For example the Catholic Church. I would certainly encourage you to follow your own conscience on this. And especially if that is also your belief, it would certainly be best for you to abide by that belief in your own life. However, I believe that most of the major religious organizations have taken far too hard-line a stance on sexual and relationship issues. This is one of the reasons many people are abandoning those old, established churches. It is fine and good for people to have high moral standards for themselves.

The Catholic Church and other churches are, of course, free to adopt moral standards that are stricter than what is presented in the Bible. Certainly the Bible condemns adultery. Keep in mind that the Bible was written several thousand years ago, in a very different time and culture. Many of the laws given in the Bible were designed for those very different times and cultures. For example, the Bible absolutely commands animal sacrifices on many occasions and for many purposes. But no Christian today believes that we must still engage in animal sacrifice.

Discerning and deciding which commandments in the Bible are still in effect and which were designed for a bygone time and culture is a complex task—and in many ways a very personal one. While church institutions can help us with that, they, too, are merely groups of human beings who share a particular attitude and perspective toward God, the Bible, and human life and behavior.

But in the end, you must still make up your own mind what you believe. Even many faithful Catholics disagree with the Catholic Church on some issues. We must think for ourselves, and consider whether that church, or another church, or no church at all, makes sense to us and seems worthy of our adherence. So I would once again encourage you to think out these things for yourself. If you are a member of a church that shares and supports your views of the Bible, God, faith, and life, then it is a good thing for you to live by what you believe in and what your conscience tells you is right, as your church teaches and guides you.

However, since you asked: The Bible forbids adultery. Of course, it does get complicated when people become sexually involved outside of marriage, but then end out breaking up and not marrying that person. This, I believe, is what the Bible is talking about when it condemns fornication: Rather, I believe that it is the good or evil character that we build up over our lifetime on earth that sends us either to heaven or to hell. Another article along these lines that might be helpful: What is the Unpardonable Sin? I do not see evil and good as a black and white thing.

Rather, I see evil as having many shades of gray.

Sex is Forbidden: A Novel (Unabridged)

There are some things that are very evil, and if persisted in and not repented from, will land a person in hell. Adultery is one of those things, since it is a direct violation of marriage, and breaks trust and promises between married partners. Non-adulterous extramarital sex, on the other hand, is more of a shade of gray. It, too, can be quite bad, if the people doing it are completely immoral and promiscuous, and have sex whenever the opportunity arises, with whomever happens to be available, with no regard whatsoever for marriage or faithfulness to a partner.

In that case, it is a very dark shade of gray.

On the other hand, it is a light shade of gray if two people who are in love with one another and who expect to get married to each other in due course have sex within that relationship, and do not have sex with anyone else. Though they are not married, they are in a quasi-marital relationship in that they are in love with one another and are faithful to one another. But the people involved do value what makes a marriage a marriage, even if for whatever reason they have not gotten married.

It sounds like your church thinks in fairly black and white terms about sex and marriage. I would suggest that an approach that recognizes the complexities and shades of gray that exist in human beings and in human relationships is a healthier and more realistic approach. And I believe such an approach is generally supported by the Bible—especially the New Testament, which takes much more account of the motives and intentions behind particular actions than the Old Testament does.

God, Forgiveness, Freedom, and Hell — Part 4. For a related article, see: I hope this clarifies for you more of the reasons why I believe the way I do about non-adulterous extramarital sex. However I was wondering if you could read this article:. I think that minister is building a big claim that all extramarital sex leads to hell on a very small foundation. Notice that neither article talks much at all about consensual sex between two unmarried people who are in love and who sleep only with each other.

The first article keeps talking about going to prostitutes—which your average unmarried sexually active couple these days thinks is just as terrible as your average married couple does. The author of the articles is glomming together into one big evil heap very different sexual behaviors that are quite distinct from one another.

Even when he does talk about unmarried couples who have sex only with each other, he paints a picture of their inevitable ruin, going through more and more partners, and going on to marriages that almost inevitably end in divorce. But he provides no evidence or statistics whatsoever to support his claims and implications. Some people do follow the downward path he describes.

But many people who have premarital sex do not. They go on to get married, and stay married. Meanwhile, marriages in evangelical Christian circles are no more stable than those in society as a whole. And unfortunately, conservative Christians, including conservative Christian pastors, are often caught in sexual scandals. The very black-and-white nature of their thinking, and their overly heavy focus on the evils of divorce, tends to cause them to stay in failing marriages, but then succumb to their sexual drives and have extramarital affairs or even use the services of prostitutes.

In other words, the black-and-white thinking of this pastor is not only wrong and not well-founded in the Bible, but it actually does real damage. So they go on a downward spiral and think of themselves as totally lost and damned to hell. For some examples of this, read through the comments on my article: Thinking in terms of shades of gray avoids that sort of absolutism and people falling away from morality in a big way just because they committed some relatively minor infraction. For those who think that there are gradations of evil, so that some things are only a little evil, whereas other things are very evil, when they step over the line and do something wrong, they have an easier road to getting themselves back on the strait and narrow.

This minister who is making broad-brush claims that all extramarital sex is terribly evil, and will result in eternal hell for those who engage in it, is doing precisely what Jesus accused the scribes and pharisees of his day of doing:. They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others; but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them. These pastors cause their followers to believe that all sorts of actions that the Bible gives no clear teaching about are terribly evil, and will send one straight to hell. And they attack and disparage anyone who steps over this artificially harsh line that they themselves not the Bible have drawn in the sand.

And the same thing happens to many of these pastors themselves. This is precisely the sort of thing Jesus criticized the religious authorities of his day for doing. In short, I believe that these conservative Christian pastors, who lay heavy, non-Biblical burdens on their followers, are our modern-day scribes and Pharisees. But many conservative Christians around the world would call you a heretic and a Pharisee of modern day. The appeal of these conservative pastors and churches is precisely that people feel they can turn off their brains, believe what the minister says, and think that this makes them good with God.

But God gave us a thinking mind for a reason. At the core of Christian belief is the idea that each one of us has a direct relationship with God in Jesus Christ. Christ himself is the only true authority, and in the end, as Christians, our faith and our salvation is between each one of us individually and Jesus Christ. Sometimes I even get called those things in person, to my face. As for the people who say such things in comments here on Spiritual Insights for Everyday Life , I mostly just delete their comments before they even appear on the site, in accordance with our comments policy.

There is no benefit in wrangling with them. They are the product of two thousand years of human misunderstanding and misinterpretation of the Bible. My belief is that the Bible is very plain about things we are to believe and do that are critical to our salvation. Yes, there are many other issues on which the Bible does not give clear guidance. On those issues, it is necessary for us to engage in study and interpretation, with the help of human teachers and guides. But when it comes to what is required of us to be saved and go to eternal life in heaven, the Bible is very clear and plain, and no human interpretation is necessary.

Unfortunately, the basic teachings of Protestantism about salvation simply are not stated plainly and clearly in the Bible, if they are stated there at all—as the above-linked article points out, and as the articles linked from it show in more detail. And I challenge them to quote me any verses from the Bible that actually teach those doctrines in clear language. They cannot do so. They have had their minds confused by the teachings of human theologians that are not in or from the Bible.

In fact, in my experience, their minds have been so profoundly shaped and molded by these human doctrines that they cannot even read and understand the plain words of the Bible anymore. All they see there is their own human-invented doctrines, even when the plain words of the Bible clearly and explicitly deny those doctrines. I have spent many hours with some of these believers, quoting passages in which the Bible plainly denies their beliefs. But they still hold firmly to those beliefs anyway. For more on this, see: As far as your conscience is concerned, does what other people say have an weighing effect on how you think and feel?

Also as far as your guidance from the Holy Spirit, do you fee you arrived at this conclusion with Its help? Conscience is formed mostly from what we were taught and inculcated with when young. So yes, what others say does have an effect on our conscience.

Once we reach adulthood, we can rethink and revise our conscience. Yes, I think the Holy Spirit guided me. I generally think that the truth is able to speak for itself. Could I be wrong? Or perhaps the Pastafarians are right and we should all be looking to the Flying Spaghetti Monster for inspiration. But my understanding of the universe is based on a belief that God is all-loving, all-wise, and all-powerful. And from that flows the rest of my conclusions and beliefs about the nature of the universe, our place in it, and our purpose here on earth.

I wanted to basically lay out my entire situation as of this day and ask what you think I should do. I grew up in a Christian home and found myself on the Presbyterian side of belief and faith in God as I grew older. Just today I slipped up and ended up doing the acts I spoke of earlier with her, it was all out of love though. After she had gone I went to my room and prayed for Gods guidance on the subject and I opened an old devotional I received as a gift; the devotional is supposed to be across the span of one year so each entry is dated.

This has caused extreme cognitive dissonance and I was wondering how you as a minister and teacher of sorts would respond to something like that. It seemed clear enough from the beginning that your questioning on this subject was not merely abstract, but personal. The most I would hazard to say is that perhaps, at minimum, God is suggesting that you think carefully about how you wish to move forward, and that you should value sexuality as a gift from God, not to be entered into lightly, and to be treated with honor and respect.

Before going on, I would be remiss not to deal with a practical reality. As I just said, from what you describe, it is your girlfriend who is moving things forward on the sexual front. And like it or not, that is the general trend in Western society today. The wider society does not consider premarital sex to be evil or sinful.

Many people, in fact, consider it to be a good thing. But intercourse itself is the ultimate physical expression of union between two people.

KIRKUS REVIEW

And that could well lead to the breakup of the relationship. But it is the way many people these days think about sex and relationships. The other side of the coin is the standard response of many churches: Usually this is spoken of boys and men who want to have sex with their girlfriends. But these days, it can work the other way as well. If you and your girlfriend have already had sex, then that decision has already been made.

The only way you could stop, and salvage the relationship, would be if both of you came to believe that it was a mistake, and mutually committed yourselves to walking it back. But I doubt this would happen in your case, since your girlfriend seems to think that premarital sex is not a problem.

Plan B for you is having a sexual relationship before you get married. Ideally, you will do that with your girlfriend. Your marriage will succeed or fail, not based on whether or not you had sex before you were married, but based on your commitment to each other and to continuing to grow as a person. For a little more on this, see the final two sections of this article: Regardless of that, you must feel certain in your mind and heart that she is the right person for you emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. For more on that, see: How to Know if Mr.

Right is Right for You: Pointers from Gloria and Emilio Estefan. Even after having sex with her, if at some future time you come to the conclusion that she is not the right match for you, then believe me, you should not marry her. It will only lead to heartbreak and divorce. Yes, it will be more difficult. We humans are imperfect by nature. We rarely, if ever, get through our teenage years and into adulthood without making some serious mistakes.

The question is whether we learn from our mistakes, pick ourselves up, and get ourselves back on course. And that is possible even after we make sexual and relationship mistakes. The main thing, as I said earlier, is to maintain your belief in and commitment to ending out in a faithful, committed, monogamous marriage with a woman you love, who loves you in return—and with whom you share your basic values and goals in life.

I believe that God is well aware of our shortcomings, and forgiving of our mistakes. God does not just look at our behavior. God looks at our heart. And if we maintain a good heart that cares about things such as love and marriage, God will continue leading us forward toward that goal. About your question, I make a distinction between evil and sin.

For more on evil vs. If they do not repent, and bring themselves back into line with their conscience and their beliefs, this course will lead them downward toward hell. They may also, however, come to believe that their conscience was wrong, and revise their beliefs. However, once again, the damage it causes is nowhere near as serious as the damage caused by committing adultery. As in so many areas of life, we humans commonly have to learn the hard way through painful mistakes.

But God can still raise us up to heaven if we learn from those mistakes, and re-commit ourselves to a spiritual path of love for God and love for our fellow human beings. So I was obviously taught growing up that it is a sin, and I think If I ever were to give in and have sex with here id have to treat the act as sinful and struggle through it until I could beat it or marry her if God permits it. We all have our struggles.

The acid test is whether or not we do the right thing in the end. This is clear in the book. That Adam and Eve were not supposed to have premarital sex. Adam was told not to eat of the tree in the center of the garden. So it clear that fornication took place. God then married them and sent them off. But was sleeping with falling Angels through fornication. Go back and read. I listened to the video. It is true that women can be gold-diggers, sleep around, take advantage of men, and so on. I would say, rather, that these represent the lower nature of women and of men, and the dominant nature in women and men who are driven primarily by self-interest, greed, and a desire for power.

The view of women represented in the video is just as unbalanced, partial, and cynical as is the view of men in some of the more strident and rather outmoded parts of the feminist movement. Are all men sexist pigs? Some men do view women primarily as sex objects. And some women do view men primarily as wallet objects. Many men and women have grown to love and respect the opposite sex for their own uniqueness and value. And many heterosexual couples operate on a much higher level, in which their mutual differences are complementary and make a greater whole together.

On some points the perspective promulgated in the video is just plain hypocritical. For example, men commonly sleep with multiple partners, either sequentially or concurrently. To attach highly insulting and pejorative names to women who do the very same thing is biased and wrong. If men want to criticize women for sleeping around, they should look in the mirror first.

Declaring that all women are bad and adopting a men-against-women gender-wars stance is the height of immaturity and a fine example of sour grapes. And the more we, both men and women, grow away from selfishness and greed toward mutual love and love for God, the more healthy and satisfying our relationships with one another will become. For more on this, please see: Laws do vary greatly in different countries, and even in different states within the U. However, in most U. It used to be that unless the mother was a complete basket case a junkie, down-and-out alcoholic, etc.

And in some cases, the mother is actually required to pay child support to the father if he has full custody of the children. Certainly there are still many injustices in our world, and in some cases men do get the short end of the stick. Instead, what we have is a spiritual body, made of spiritual substance. And that body feels and is just as real to us in the spiritual world as our physical body, made of physical matter, is to us here in the material world. Further, in the spiritual world men are still men, and women are still women, and our spiritual bodies have all the parts that our physical bodies do.

So yes, we can still have sex in heaven. And it is still the outward expression of the inner love that brings a married couple together. Jesus is coming to receive a virgin bride. Jesus is coming soon.

He is righteous demand everyone to be filled with the Holy Spirit that everyone would produce the right fruit and have self control over every emotion. He is our savior today but we will meet him as judge. And I continue to believe that this is the ideal for married couples: It has only been within the past years, or 1, years at most, that getting married meant having a religious ceremony that is witnessed and recorded in church registers—and later, in government registers.

And in the entire Bible, there is not a single description of a marriage ceremony, because such ceremonies did not exist. There were wedding feasts to celebrate marriage. But marriage itself was seen as taking place when the man had sex with the woman. Once a woman had sex with a man, she was considered married to him. And if for some reason she was not considered married to him, she was considered a prostitute. For men, the situation was somewhat more complicated. But the general principle was still that when a man had sex with a woman who was not a prostitute, he was considered married to her.

From this reality about the Biblical concept of marriage, we can draw various conclusions. This makes it tricky to draw hard-and-fast conclusions about premarital sex today based on the very different culture of sex and marriage in Bible times. Once again, I still believe that the ideal today is for people to first have sex with their partner in marriage after the wedding. It seems from what I read online that marriage rates in the US have been falling and that they are continuing to drop, is that true and if so do you think the government would impose something like a bachelor tax and try to force single men to marry?

Yes, marriage rates in the U. Collins, at Deseret News National. And I think a bachelor tax would be a terrible idea. As the article linked just above shows, it is among poorer, less educated people that marriage rates are lowest. To impose a tax on unmarried men would only make the situation worse by making their financial situation worse.

Beyond that, for a marriage to be a good and stable one, it must be entered into in full freedom, by personal choice, on the part of both partners. Measures that vitiate that freedom and choice by pushing people into marriage for external, financial reasons will only backfire. They will cause people to get married for the wrong reasons, resulting in more divorces down the road. Hi Lee, Thanks for your good work.

Its primary meaning is to be joined firmly together, as if with glue. You can read its full definition and derivation here. The verse is not talking about sex, but about being firmly and faithfully joined together in a relationship with one another. Hi Lee, Thanks for your articles. But on sex before marriage I have these questions. From the above definitions, one can safely conclude that all adulterers are fornicators but not all fornicators are adulterers.

The Bible stance is clear on adultry which is more or less like a branch of fornication , but for fornicators that are not adulterers, wether they are having sex with marriage in mind or not, it seem the Bible is not categorically clear. Paul addressed some of the works of the flesh of which fornication is a part in some of his writings. Kingdom of God and Heaven, are they the same or different? I certainly do not recommend engaging in extramarital sex. However, the Greek words used in 1 Corinthians 6: Beyond that, I do agree that fornicators will not go to heaven.

But I would interpret that as meaning that people who continue to engage in fornication in the afterlife, when they would ideally be preparing for heaven, will not go to heaven. There will be no need for them to fornicate, because they will be in a loving, faithful, committed marriage. Anyone who in the afterlife rejects such marriage and prefers promiscuous sex will be headed toward hell, not heaven.

That is why I emphasize in the article that the lightness or seriousness of extramarital sex all depends on whether we would prefer marriage and are headed toward marriage or whether we reject marriage and prefer to engage in promiscuous sex. It is not the sex by itself that sends us toward heaven or hell, but rather our inner attitude toward sex and marriage. So although extramarital sex can and does cause all sorts of complications for us here on earth, by itself it will not determine whether we go to heaven or hell.

About your second question, the kingdom of God includes not only heaven, but also all good, loving, and spiritual people here on earth. So the kingdom of God is broader than heaven, since it spans both worlds: People who love to engage in promiscuous sex are not in the kingdom of God because they are focused on their own physical pleasure rather than on loving God and the neighbor—which is the basic requirement for being a part of the kingdom of God.

People who have sex within committed but unmarried relationships are certainly in a gray area. I would only add that human sexual and romantic relationships are immensely complex. We do not know what is going on in the minds and hearts of other people.

In fact, in the final chapter of his book on marriage love, Swedenborg concludes by saying:. The upshot of this is that no conclusion must be drawn about people having marriage love or not, either from the way their marriage looks or from any immoral behavior they appear to exhibit. I know someone else already mentioned this, but passages from 1 Cor. As I say in the article, the goal and ideal is a faithful, committed, monogamous marriage.

Would it be better if they were? And as explained in this article, the Bible is fairly pragmatic when it comes to premarital sex. In 1 Corinthians 7 Paul also deals pragmatically with issues of sex and marriage. As he says, he prefers celibacy. I think he is wrong about that. Jesus himself said that God created created us male and female in the beginning to be joined in marriage Matthew Premarital sex is not the ideal.

If all things were equal, I I would marry her, however I do not want to be a deadbeat, especially if I croak 2 years into the marriage, she would be in very bad shape financially. It helps me to know that God may recognize our struggle and wish to love God and each other. This is exactly why Jesus said that marriage as we know it here on earth does not exist in the afterlife. These financial considerations are important here on earth, where we need the physical means of survival. But they often get in the way of real marriage, which is a union of minds and hearts.

Along those lines, you might be interested in this short for me! I want to do it by heart, and not because I want to be part of something. And thanks for the link. I did read the article. To make a long story short, the author of the article seems to be trying to say that poreia means all sex outside of marriage, including premarital sex. The author says that the word poreia has a variety of meanings according to the context in which it is used, and I agree with him about that. I do agree with the author that sexual intercourse is ideally meant to occur within marriage.

The Bible definitely prohibits adultery, and forbids temple prostitution, and prostitution in general—which commonly involves adultery. I have gone back and forth on the whole premarital sex thing. Growing up in a Pentecostal church, I was always taught it was wrong. Anytime someone says that it is, they are using verses that say sexual immorality, which to me could mean much more serious issues like rape or incest.

I may wait until marriage, I may not. I used to not feel guilty about thinking about sex before marriage. Most of my friends are Christians and had sex before marriage and they are all happily married now and some of that sex was engaged with men who they dated prior to their husbands. None of them dealt with terrible consequences and are still people that are Christians. So I keep going back and forth. But to answer your question—if you want to receive eternal life, keep the commandments. You must not commit adultery. You must not steal. You must not testify falsely.

Honor your father and mother. Love your neighbor as yourself. My point is, sometimes I think Christians are too hard on themselves and others.

We try to make it some hard and confusing path to make it to Heaven. And so I think the things I listed above are what it truly takes to be a Christian having faith in God, loving Jesus and trying to be like him, and following his teachings. And so I assume if we do these things, Heaven is there for us when we die. Earlier you stated it kind of depends on how you feel. What if a Christian screws up, feels lonely or whatever, and has a one night stand. And then they die before they can pray about it.

Will God have mercy on that person because He knows their heart and that person loves Him? Oh and I meant to add one more thing when I was talking about being taught it was wrong. Not questioning my belief in Jesus, I definitely believe in Him and have felt Him. I just wonder how much is true, how much of the Bible we can know for sure is accurate, and how much people might twist or wrongly translate His teachings. Interracial marriage deserves a whole article of its own.

The idea that the Bible prohibits interracial marriage is based no passages in which the Israelites are prohibited from intermarrying with the surrounding nations. However, the reason they were prohibited from those marriages was not that the surrounding nations were of a different race, but that they were polytheists and idol worshipers, and they would likely pull the ancient Israelites away from the worship of the one Lord who was their God. There are a number of important men in the Bible who married foreign wives and were not condemned for it because they remained faithful to God and to their religion, and the woman they married generally followed them in that.

For some discussion of these things, including several examples of major figures in the Bible marrying foreign women, please see this article:. Can Interfaith Marriage Work? As its title suggests, this article is mainly about interfaith marriage. But the same general principles apply to interracial marriages.

The important thing in marriage is not the race of the partners, but whether they share common beliefs, ideals, and values with one another. Marriage is primarily a union of minds and hearts. Your question about the Bible is a huge one, and not one that I can answer satisfactorily in a comment. However, here are some articles that I invite you to read about the Bible and its meaning and purpose:. Rather, I think the Bible is about leading us to believe in God, to repent from our sins, and to live a good life of loving and serving our neighbor, which puts us on the pathway to eternal life in heaven.

Compared to that, the literal accuracy of every statement in the Bible is unimportant. I would simply encourage you to read and consider what these articles have to say, and decide for yourself whether it makes sense to you. On that, I would only say not to let yourself get pressured into it. Once again, I believe the most important thing is whether you wish for a good, loving, and faithful marriage and keep that as your ideal.

And of course, adultery is a big no-no. But that depends greatly on your own personal situation, and once again, is a decision only you can make for yourself. Sin is not the same thing as evil. You can sin only by thumbing your nose at God. Everyone makes mistakes, and everyone does things that in a better moment they would not do.

God knows that we humans are weak and fallible, and God is very merciful. However, I have covered the subject of masturbation much more fully in a whole series of articles starting with this one:.

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