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Love In Marriage
In marriage love is earned. But in a Christian marriage husbands and wives should show each other God's love, which is unconditional love.
I Corinthians 7 verses 3 to 5 contain the most important and only instructions in the Bible to married couples about sex. The verses read, "The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife's body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband's body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife. Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control."
These verses instruct married couples to give each other sex regularly and the implication is that they should enjoy sex with each other.
Married couples should save all their sexual energy for their spouse, unless their spouse asks them to do otherwise.
Why did God allow men to have multiple wives? Why did God command men to marry their brother's wife even if they already had a wife? Why were men allowed to go to prostitutes and have live in prostitutes called concubines, and why could men divorce their wife but wives could not divorce their husbands? Why did God not condemn Abraham or his wife Sarah when she said she was his sister and slept with the kings? Why did God not condemn Abraham for having sex with Sarah's maidservant Hagar.
Sexual sins in the Bible can be divided into two groups.
The first class of sexual sins are those practices that God considers unnatural sex and are therefore wrong. These are sins like homosexuality and bestiality.
The second class of sexual sins are those that God considers a form of stealing or taking what is not yours. These sexual sins include taking another mans wife (adultery), taking a virgin (which was a sin against the father) and taking the spouse of a close relative which was a sin against the relative.
In the Old Testament, sex itself was not condemned, but rather unnatural sex was condemned and stealing sex from another man's wife or a virgin was condemned. In the Bible men could have sex with a virgin prisoner of war, a prostitute, or a non-virgin woman.
Why did God allow such a culture in the Bible and why did He not condemn these practices in the Bible?
The answer is that God does not consider heterosexual sex as sin, but rather God considers certain unnatural forms of sex as sin and God considers it sin to steal sex.
Adultery was stealing sex from another man's wife and having sex with a virgin was stealing the ability of the father to find a husband for his daughter (a non-virgin girl would have a difficult time finding a husband).
In our society today it is important that a husband and wife save all their sexual energy for when they are together.
God allowed Sarah to have sex with the kings because her husband Abraham allowed her to. Sarah's body was not just her own, but was also her husbands for him to control to some extent. Could Sarah have refused to cooperate? Sure.
Why did God not condemn Abraham for having sex with Sarah's maidservant Hagar. Abraham had sex with Hagar because his wife Sarah allowed him to. Could Abraham have refused? Sure.
Why did God allow men to have multiple wives? Because wives did not have any rights in the Bible times culture and so the wives allowed their husbands to have multiple wives. Could the husbands have refused to have multiple wives? Sure. Many did, but others took multiple wives.
Today we live under God's grace. He quoted 1 Corinthians 10:23 that says, '"Everything is permissible"—but not everything is beneficial. "Everything is permissible"—but not everything is constructive.'
Men and women and their desires and ideas of what is fun in the area of sex can be very different. Christian married couples should feel the freedom under God's grace to compromise with each other and do the things that each other want because God says they are permissible and then decide if they are beneficial to the marriage.
Married couples should save all their sexual energy for their spouse unless their spouse instructs them to do otherwise. Of course as Christians we should only do what is legal, and what is not harmful to each other.
For example, a married couple might give each other permission to masturbate when they are away from each other for an extended period of time. Or a husband might allow his wife to read a chapter of a romance novel before he gets home from work so she is ready for romance.
Too often Christian culture teaches that it is fine to be worldly in any way except in the area of freedom of sex with your spouse. For example men on average spend 100 times more time doing their favorite activities such as sports, TV, etc. than they do romancing and sharing intimacy with their wife. And yet sharing intimacy with their wife is something that is instructed by Paul and is the most important activity that God can use to keep strong bonds of friendship and love between the husband and wife.
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