04 October 2022
When you collate the teachings of Jesus and the Apostles in the New Testament, you come up with a very harsh and demanding standard regarding sex and marriage. I mean, it must be harsh, because too few churches are willing to stand on that teaching.
Let me try to summarize: Once you are under the Covenant, you get one shot at romance and sex. If you get it wrong, it's over. You are now celibate for the rest of your life. It's one man, one woman, for life.
What happened before you came under the Covenant isn't the issue. It's what you have in your life when you join the Kingdom of Heaven. Any spouse you bring with you is your last, until that person dies. Sure, if they leave you or kick you out, it's over. If your life or safety is at risk staying with them, then you should leave. If your convictions say you cannot serve God while living with them, then leave. But either way, that was your last romance until the Lord takes them away.
None of this has anything to do with secular marriage laws. Being together as husband and wife before the Lord is the point. It's a factor in terms of how you navigate the human mine field, but it has no effect on Covenant obedience.
Right away, this should shout loudly at us that we need to change things, to build a covenant context for living so that young people can get off to a sane Covenant start when the hormones start raging. Any sex without a formal declaration of marriage is simply a defacto marriage, and it's the only one you get. Any departure from that standard defiles not just the couple, but the entire covenant community. It's a serious major threat to shalom.
Now, Paul's dealings with the church at Corinth and that wild mistake where a fellow latched onto his father's discarded trophy babe, that has an additional issue of even more serious defilement: two men in the same family having sex with the same woman. That goes way back to the days of Noah. That has always been evil.
But Paul makes it clear what he's trying to get the church to do. They have to press the man to repent. If he doesn't, then he's not just an outsider, but an actual threat to the church's shalom. He can't be treated like family any more. Notice that nobody says anything about the woman's spiritual condition; it should be obvious she was a pagan concubine. Throughout the history of Israel, one driving issue had always been that a woman marrying into the nation must convert by the Covenant, or she's not a valid covenant wife. Her children cannot inherit. So Paul says nothing about this woman repenting; apparently she has little choice in the matter. It's the man who has to repent in this case, because he holds all the cards.
Our understanding is that the man was kicked out of the church, and then he repented later and Paul said they should welcome him back. We can be sure it was a lot of drama and trauma on everyone.
But notice something else: Jesus has already said that concubinage is not a valid practice in the first place. He said that, from the beginning, God intended it be one man, one woman, for life. He noted that Moses allowed polygamy, concubinage and divorce only because Israeli men were nasty horn dogs. By the way, the Law of Moses elevated women tremendously against the common Ancient Near Eastern background. The divorce law protected the woman so that she would not be simply tossed out on the street. Rather, the divorce certificate set her free to marry another man, which was a much better deal than most women got in that part of the world.
Still, it wasn't what God really had in mind, and Jesus said so. He raised the standard very high. And most American churches either make it silly and legalistic, with lots of unjust restrictions, or they simply don't bother. Instead, they link it to westernized civil law standards as if that were God's Law.
I've not seen a church yet that rises to the biblical standard on this issue.
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