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What is an orgy?
Since Christian married couples, these days, are using erotic materials in their marriages, I wanted to do some research to make sure that the Bible would not call this an orgy.
Paul in Romans 13:13 says, "Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy."
Then again in Galatians 5:19 to 21 Paul says, "19 The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20 idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21 and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God."
And in 1 Peter 4:3, Peter says, "For you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do—living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry."
What is an orgy?
Dictionary.reference.com has the following definition:
1. wild, drunken or licentious festivity or revelry.
2. any actions or proceedings marked by unbridled indulgence of passions: an orgy of killing.
3. orgies, (in ancient Greece) esoteric religious rituals, esp. in the worship of Demeter or Dionysus, characterized in later times by wild dancing, singing, and drinking.
4. Informal. a boisterous, rowdy party.
The definition 3 seems to be of special interest to us because it mentions that in ancient Greece, an orgy was a religious ritual. And so Paul and Peter were exhorting Christians to not participate in the worship of other gods.
Paul and Peter both combine the mention of orgy with drunkenness, and Peter also mentions idolatry.
Paul and Peter are obviously not talking about a husband and wife who have agreed on reading an erotic story or agreed to watching an erotic video, in order to help their marriage. The key here is "agreed". Paul and Peter seem to be saying two things. They exhort us a Christians to not live our life for "lust" and "idolatry" and "jealousy" and "selfish ambition" and "hatred" and "fits of rage" and "sexual immorality". Sexual immorality is defined in the Bible as committing adultery or cheating on your spouse.
And so Paul and Peter are condemning any life style that is selfish - this includes living for golf or hunting or the American dream or vacations or staying in shape. Our goal as Christians is to serve God and others. But God does allow us to take time out to have sex with our spouse. And so we can have a clear conscience when we spend romantic time with our spouse. If we need aids to help us with our sex life - that is honorable to God. Going out to dinner is a sex aid. Candles and romantic music are sex aides. A new negligee for your spouse is a sex aid. Sex toys and erotic stories and videos are sex aides.
But as Christians we should try and find moral sex aides. If we use erotic materials we should use ones that promote or depict moral sex. And of course, the husband and wife should both agree to try a sex aid, before they use it. Married couples should be willing to search the scripture to see that sex aides are not sinful and they should be willing to agree and try sex aides to see if they will help their marriage.
Using sex aides in a marriage is not an orgy. In Bible times an orgy was a non-Christian religious ceremony which worshiped foreign gods.
Recently I read an article about how "materialism" is destroying our children. Another article was saying how men are addicted to phones and ipods and trios and blackberries. Another article discussed an ongoing debate as to whether America is addicted to porn.
It seems every day there is a new article on how Americans are addicted to something else. It is true. Americans are addicted to many things - basically to self-gratification. The Bible says to "love not the world, neither the things of the world."
It doesn't do much good to single out one obsession to the exclusion of the others. The truth is that God wants us to be living a life with purpose, a purpose of building God's kingdom and loving others.
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