We want our web site to reflect our cultural and Christian norms even though the Bible is more liberal than our culture in some areas.  Please let me explain this. The New Testament does not have lots of rules about sex. Most of the rules on sex are in the Old Testament.

In the New Testament instead of having lots of rules about sex, the author usually just says Christians should not engage in "Sexual Immorality". However the New Testament does not define what "Sexual Immorality" means.   So when the New Testament does not define something, we have to look to the Old Testament to find the meaning. 

There are two areas where the New Testament has additional teaching on heterosexual conduct.  One is where the Old Testament taught that it was wrong to "covet your neighbor's wife".  In the New Testament Jesus elevates "coveting" up to the level of "adultery" in Matthew 5:28.  The other is where Paul teaches we should not have sex with a prostitute.  But for the most part we have to go back to the Old Testament to see what Jesus and Paul and other writers where thinking when they used the Greek word for "Sexual Immorality".

In the Old Testament, there are the laws against incest, the condemnation of homosexuality and the laws about heterosexual conduct.  These would be included in the term "Sexual Immorality" in the New Testament. 

Old Testament Laws On Heterosexual Conduct

In the Old Testament, adultery for a woman was when an engaged or married woman had sex with any other man during the one year engagement period, or during marriage.  The penalty for a cheating wife or engaged woman and her lover was stoning to death.   For a man, adultery was when any man had sex with a married or engaged woman. 

There was no penalty for a virgin girl who was seduced before marriage, however her father could make the guy marry her or pay the dad the brides price.   It seems odd to me that if "sex" outside of marriage is the sin, then why did God have no penalty for premarital sex but a penalty of death when you have an angry husband or fiancé who you cheated on.  It sure looks to me like the men made up the law instead of God.  Since if "sex" outside of marriage is sin, then wouldn't it always carry the same penalty regardless of when?

It is also interesting that it was not adultery if a married man had sex with an unmarried or unengaged woman or his unmarried slave women.  Also odd, a husband could easily divorce his wife but a wife could never divorce her husband.  

Another odd thing in the Old Testament is where God condoned polygamy in 2 Samuel 12:8 when God said to king David, "I gave your master’s house to you, and your master’s wives into your arms. I gave you all Israel and Judah. And if all this had been too little, I would have given you even more".  Even though God condoned polygamy in the Old Testament, the New Testament teaches that elders and deacons cannot have multiple wives. 

The Old Testament has examples of God condoned, society condoned, and spouse condoned sex outside of marriage (One man and one wife). For example, Abraham and Sarah each had sex outside of marriage at the request of the other. Abraham told Sarah to have sex with the Kings of Egypt and Sarah told Abraham to have sex with Hagar. There are many other examples in the Bible also, for example King Solomon had 1500 of them and King David had 300 of them.

Interestingly, the Bible never condemns those in the Bible stories, who had sex outside of what we consider traditional marriage, when their spouse asked them to have the sex, or when God or society allowed the sex.   

So why point out that the Bible is liberal when it comes to sex? Three reasons. 

One is to point out that maybe as Christians we shouldn't say every word in the Old Testament was "God Breathed" and good for edification and given by God and inerrant.  Jesus in Matthew 19:8 said the Old Testament law on divorce was given by Moses, not by God.  And yet if you look in Deuteronomy the divorce law says it was given by God, not by Moses.  I believe Jesus, was refuting the Old Testament and pointing out the Old Testament law does not always reflect God and therefore in some cases was cultural.  This would include the laws on slavery that state slaves are a persons property, this would include the laws on divorce that Jesus refuted and the laws that suppressed women. 

We could go to the verses that our "inerrant" doctrine comes from and I could show you that the verses were not intended to create a "doctrine" but were rather for encouragement in a letter.  So the doctrine is founded on verses taken out of context.  The problem with this doctrine of "inerrancy" is that it paints us Christians into a corner where we technically have to defend things in the Old Testament we know are wrong - like slavery and polygamy, and divorce and male dominance or unfairness to women.   The civil war may have been prevented if Christians in the South would have not defended slavery.  And they defended slavery since it was condoned in the Old Testament.  And since every word in the Old Testament was "God Breathed", the south felt they had God on their side.  But they were wrong.

The second reason to point out that the Bible is liberal when it comes to sex, is to help us as Christians not be judgmental towards non-Christians and Christians who don't keep our "Christian norm" set of rules.  For example we should not condemn couples living together as God has no law in the Bible against that - if the woman's Dad approves.  And because the Bible does not condemn married couples who use erotic materials to help their marriage, we should not condemn Christian or non-Christian married couples who use erotic materials in their marriage with moderation to help add spice to their marriages.

The third reason is to point out that we as Christians can't use the Bible to support a lot of our judgmental attitudes when it comes to "sex", and so we need to remember what Paul taught us in Romans 2 verse 4, where he says that when we judge others we, "show contempt [to God] for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance."  So God wants us to not judge people but instead realize that God through his kindness, forbearance and patience will lead people to repentance.