Category Archives: Ethics

Is It Biblical to Use Birth Control?

Dan Vander Lugt
Bible, Ethics, , , , , ,

It’s important to understand that the Bible neither advocates birth control nor condemns it. The Bible was written long before modern methods such as a vasectomy or tubal ligation were developed. Consequently, its silence cannot be used to argue for or against birth control.

One viewpoint that some try to use to argue against the use of birth control is that God will limit the number of children when He decides we have enough. This way of thinking, however, seems to border more on presumption than faith. Faith advocates wise choices and responsible living. Presumption advocates testing God, over which He grieves ( Mark 8:11-13 ) and can encourage foolish, reckless, and irresponsible choices ( Matthew 4:5-7 ). Others use the argument that God wants every husband and wife to have a “full quiver” ( Psalm 127:3 ). The dilemma is that the Bible never specifies how full is full.

Like many other issues in life, God leaves it up to us to decide how to honor Him in all that we do. God could have plainly stated: “All families must have 5 children; no more, and no less.” That would have ended the issue. But He chose not to, because He allows for personal choice in the matter.

The freedom to choose, however, also takes into consideration why a choice is made. There is a big difference between choosing to use birth control for selfish reasons versus responsible reasons. If a vasectomy or other forms of birth control are chosen mostly out of convenience, then a couple should question their decision. On the other hand, if their decision is made out of an attempt to be responsible by recognizing their unique limitation as parents, then it is likely a wise choice.

Realistically, almost every couple must practice some form of birth control. Otherwise, most married couples would conceivably have an inordinate number of children. Although God does not oppose limiting the size of a family to the number of children that parents can wisely raise to serve Him, He never intended parents to use birth control devices to prevent having children completely. Children are “a heritage of the Lord” ( Psalm 127:3 ) and a great source of blessing.

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Are There Any Biblical Grounds for Divorce and Remarriage?

Dan Vander Lugt
Bible, Ethics, , , ,

While the Scriptures take the marriage covenant very seriously, they permit divorce and remarriage in some situations. To learn exactly what these circumstances are, we’ll begin with the Old Testament regulations of divorce and remarriage. Then we’ll consider the words of Jesus on this subject. And finally, we’ll look at the instructions given by the apostle Paul.

Deuteronomy 24:1-4 tells us that when a man finds “some uncleanness” in his wife, divorces her, and they both marry new mates, they cannot ever undo this new marriage to remarry each other.1

We know little about the rate of divorce in Israel between the time of Moses and the exile into Babylon over a thousand years later. However, at the beginning of the New Testament era, men were divorcing their wives for the most trivial reasons imaginable. In the rabbinical literature of that time, burning a husband’s food was listed as grounds for divorce! While the conservative school of Shammai taught that the provision of Deuteronomy 24:1-4 required a serious moral violation, most rabbis belonged to the far more lenient school of Hillel. In their view, any man who wanted a divorce should be able to obtain one easily. Even the rabbis who followed Shammai believed that it was violation of a man’s masculinity to live as a celibate. In practice, therefore, both schools advocated remarriage for any single male, no matter what the grounds for his divorce were. 2

Of course, while this may have been the rabbinical consensus, it certainly doesn’t reflect the biblical view of marriage! The rabbinical schools of Christ’s day were often wrong in their interpretation of the Old Testament. They made the Law into a works system for salvation and created loopholes by which clever people could get away with terrible wrongs. It appears that these Jewish scholars, all of whom prided themselves on their loyalty to Moses, were often out of tune with the deep spirituality of the Law.

In this cultural and religious context, the Lord’s statement that people who divorced on lesser grounds committed adultery when they remarried was shocking. It even amazed the disciples, as evidenced by their response 3 ( Matthew 19:10 ). Jesus’ teaching clearly ran contrary to the easy-going divorce and remarriage customs of His time. He declared that the only grounds for a valid divorce was porneia (sexual immorality—Matthew 5:32 ), a term that encompassed a broad range of sexual sins. Later, Paul added another legitimate reason for divorce—the willful desertion of a Christian by a non-Christian mate ( 1 Corinthians 7:15 ).

While the New Testament explicitly makes both sexual infidelity and desertion by an unbeliever grounds for a Christian’s divorce and remarriage, it doesn’t offer a detailed description of how a Christian should deal with an intolerable marital situation that doesn’t involve either of these circumstances. It appears that Paul had such situations in mind when he wrote:

To the married I give this command (not I, but the Lord): A wife must not separate from her husband. But if she does, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. And a husband must not divorce his wife (1 Corinthians 7:10-11).

To sum up, there is general agreement among evangelicals that apart from the death of a mate, the New Testament gives only two situations in which a marriage can be terminated with the right to remarry: illicit sexual activity, and abandonment by an unbelieving mate. There are no other rightful grounds. Although it may be necessary in some other situations for a Christian to separate from or divorce his or her mate, Scripture requires him or her to remain unmarried until reconciled. From the very beginning, God recognized the profound value of unconditional commitment between spouses in marriage. He mercifully provided a way out of relationships that have already been shattered by adultery and abandonment, but He never intended an “easy out.”

  1. This raises three questions:
    a. What is the “uncleanness” that apparently gave the husband grounds to divorce his wife?
    The meaning of the term “some uncleanness” is not clear. The expression is often translated “nakedness” or “something shameful.” Basically, we don’t know all that the term represented, but it must have been a serious matter short of adultery.b. What is the reason for the restriction that they could never remarry each other?
    No reason is given for the restriction forbidding the remarriage of two people once they had entered a new marriage. It certainly would prevent a man from divorcing his wife and marrying another woman as an experiment, thinking he could obtain a second divorce and return to his first mate if he chose to do.

    c. Why did the Law of Moses permit this disruption of a marriage?
    Jesus Himself stated that the Mosaic law allowed divorce “because of the hardness” of men’s hearts (Matthew 19:8). Because of the strongly patriarchal nature of ancient Israeli society, if a man disliked his wife for any reason, he had the power to make her life unbearable. He could marry other wives, treat them with respect and favoritism, and treat his first wife like a slave. If he did, she had no recourse other than to call upon the support of her family. Back To Article

  2. In Kittel’s Theological Dictionary of the New Testament under the discussion of porneia, we are given evidence that even the strict school of Shammai believed it to be shameful for a divorced man to remain unmarried. Interestingly, according to Kittel, the school of Shammai taught that a sexual offense of some kind was the only grounds for divorce, but it advocated remarriage for all divorced men, even for those who obtained their divorce on trivial grounds. It appears that these Jewish scholars were convinced that almost all unmarried men would find sexual release somewhere, and that the best solution was a new marriage. Back To Article
  3. Since Jewish culture considered it shameful for a man to remain unmarried after either the death of a spouse or a divorce, divorced men of that time quickly married new mates, regardless of the circumstances of the divorce. Back To Article
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Why Shouldn’t Sex Be Casual?

Dan Vander Lugt
Contemporary Issues, Ethics, , , , , , , , , , , ,

Because it was the Creator’s intention that human beings have the freedom to make their own decisions, everyone has to come to terms with the basic issues of life. One of these issues is that outside of certain bounds some of the most profoundly pleasurable and meaningful things can become the most destructive.

The emotions connected with human sexuality are so powerful and multi-faceted that we can only begin to describe them. The complementary spiritual and physiological components of male and female find unique fulfillment and intimacy here. Significantly, this profound experience provides the context for the conception of new human life.

Tragically, some in every generation make the sensations of sex the goal of the experience. They neglect the legitimate bounds for sexual experience and eventually face the consequences of that neglect.

Mankind has long been aware of sexual attraction’s tremendous potential for destruction. In The Odyssey, the great Greek poet Homer pictures its power as almost irresistible. In order to avoid being lured to his death by the enticing song of the Sirens, Ulysses commands his men to lash him to the mast of his ship, to plug their ears, and ignore his cries.1 The Old Testament, too, contains solemn warnings regarding the danger of illicit sexual attraction.

When wisdom enters your heart, and knowledge is pleasant to your soul, discretion will preserve you; understanding will keep you, to deliver you from the way of evil, . . . from the immoral woman, from the seductress who flatters with her words, who forsakes the companion of her youth, and forgets the covenant of her God. For her house leads down to death, and her paths to the dead; none who go to her return, nor do they regain the paths of life. (Proverbs 2:10-12,16-19)

For the lips of an immoral woman drip honey, and her mouth is smoother than oil; But in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword, her feet go down to death, her steps lay hold of hell, lest you ponder her path of life—her ways are unstable; you do not know them (Proverbs 5:3-6).

Jesus also portrays the destructive power of sexual immorality with great seriousness:

“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell” (Matthew 5:27-30).

The apostle Paul wrote:

So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more (Ephesians 4:17-19 NIV).

The Bible says that God is the source of all of the love we know in life ( 1 John 4:7 ). It declares that if we don’t know love, we don’t know God ( 1 John 7:8 ). Because we are created in God’s image and love is God’s primary way of making Himself known to us, the longing for love is deeply rooted in our nature. We usually encounter God’s love first in the context of relationships with people. But many people have become so focused on immediate pleasure, they have fallen for the lie that sex is “just a physical function,” romanticized and taken too seriously by earlier generations.

In spite of misleading presentations in the media, most people intuitively recognize the ugliness of impersonal, promiscuous sex. At some level, most people realize that sex involves more intimacy, vulnerability, and meaning than shaking hands, having a conversation, or flirting. This is why most people who engage in extramarital sex try to rationalize it by claiming some “special feelings” for their current “partner.” But how long are their “special feelings” likely to endure in an uncommitted relationship? For that matter, are their feelings real, or only illusions projected by darker desires—perhaps for control over another person?

What about the next “lover”? Will someone new produce “special feelings” of equal intensity? And what of the third, the fourth, the tenth? How long before the sickening realization that the fading “feelings” that accompany uncommitted sex have no roots? Once a person reaches this point of awareness (and many will not, and simply continue a blind pursuit of satisfaction they will never find) there will be few options. One is to despairingly abandon oneself to sensuality with no pretense of seeking love; another is to go from affair to affair, despairingly seeking the “perfect love” (even though one knows in his heart that each new affair takes him farther from his goal); and the last is to recognize the profound relationship between personal commitment, genuine love, and sexual ecstasy.

Sexuality is intended to be a banquet of intimacy. But since sex can occur without love or real intimacy, it must never be expected to provide the basis for intimacy (Proverbs 5:15-20 ). If it is, it will very quickly become a mere addiction, just another way of trying to kill the longing inside that has been placed there by God for the purpose of leading us to Him.

A person who uses other people for his sexual pleasure will become coarse and hypocritical. Such a change of character is inevitable. Misused sexuality separates the heart from physical intimacy. When misused this way, the focus of sex moves from the expression of unconditional affection for the beloved to other things, such as mere physical stimulation, power, or even the expression of self-hatred. Such deviant sexuality often transmutes into increasingly bizarre, overtly vicious behavior.2

The long-term effects of a recreational view of sexual relationships will be seen and noted by other people. But only the sexual addict himself has a firsthand experience of his spiritual and emotional changes. A sexual addict perceives sexual pleasure so differently that it would revolt and terrify a genuine lover. From the outside, the pursuit of sexual pleasure by a sexual addict—whether a “Don Juan” or someone less outwardly glamorous—appears desperate and all-consuming. How ironic that an addict’s desperate pursuit of sexual pleasure shows how little satisfaction and fulfillment he is finding.

God designed sex to be pleasurable, but the tremendous power of sex doesn’t flow primarily from pleasurable physical sensations of sex and orgasm. It flows from something deeper—a longing for genuine love and intimacy.

  1. The German legend of the Lorelei on the Rhine River, immortalized by the beautiful poem of Heinrich Heine is remarkably similar to the portrayal of the sirens in The Odyssey.

    Die Lorelei

    Ich weiß nicht, was soll es bedeuten,
    Das ich so traurig bin;
    Ein Märchen aus alten Zeiten,
    Das kommt mir nicht aus dem Sinn.

    Die Luft ist kühl und es dunkelt,
    Und ruhig fließt der Rhein;
    Der Gipfel des Berges funkelt
    Im Abendsonnenschein.

    (I cannot determine the meaning
    Of sorrow that fills my breast:
    A fable of old, through it streaming,
    Allows my mind no rest.
    The air is cool in the gloaming
    And gently flows the Rhine.
    The crest of the mountain is gleaming
    In fading rays of sunshine.

    Die schönste Jungfrau sitzet
    Dort oben wunderbar,
    Ihr goldnes Geschmeide blitzet,
    Sie kämmt ihr goldenes Haar.

    Sie kämmt es mit goldenem Kamme,
    Und singt ein Lied dabei;
    Das hat eine wundersame,
    Gewaltige Melodei.

    The loveliest maiden is sitting
    Up there, so wondrously fair;
    Her golden jewelry is glist’ning;
    She combs her golden hair.
    She combs with a gilded comb, preening,
    And sings a song, passing time.
    It has a most wondrous, appealing
    And pow’rful melodic rhyme.

    Den Schiffer im kleinen Schiffe
    Ergreift es mit wildem Weh;
    Er schaut nicht die Felsenriffe
    Er schaut nur hinauf in die Höh’.

    Ich glaube, die Wellen verschlingen
    Am Ende Schiffer und Kahn
    Und das hat mit ihrem Singen
    Die Lorelei getan.

    The boatman aboard his small skiff, –
    Enraptured with a wild ache,
    Has no eye for the jagged cliff, –
    His thoughts on the heights fear forsake.
    I think that the waves will devour
    Both boat and man, by and by,
    And that, with her dulcet-voiced power
    Was done by the Loreley.)

    Heinrich Heine (The English translation used above can be found in many different sites in the Web.) Back To Article

  2. Why else would sado-masochism in all its forms, promiscuity in spite the risk of AIDS and other STDs, and other such deviations from healthy sexual behavior occur? Back To Article
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Does the Bible Set Limitations on Age Differences for Men and Women Who Want to Marry?

Dan Vander Lugt
Ethics, Relationships, ,

The Bible doesn’t offer any specific guidelines stipulating the age differences appropriate for marriage, but some things are implied. It is hard to imagine the lovers in the Song of Solomon being of widely disparate ages; and Proverbs 5:18, “Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice with the wife of your youth” seems to imply the marriage of a young man to a young woman. Yet the marriage of an older person to a much younger one is not forbidden by Scripture; and since Scripture doesn’t forbid it, such marriages would be within the realm of Christian liberty.

Yet there usually is something unsettling about the marriage of two people separated by many years of age. The greater the age difference, the more it seems likely that there might be an unhealthy motivation for the marriage. Does the older partner hope to recapture his/her youth through union with the younger spouse? Is the younger spouse seeking the security of a parent figure rather than risking a relationship with a peer? Are there selfish sexual or financial motivations?

Further, there are the consequences of such a marriage. If a young man marries an older woman, he may never experience the joy of fatherhood. A young woman married to an older man may find when her children are teenagers that she is closer to her children in temperament and attitude than with a rapidly aging, possibly infirm, husband. There are too many negative consequences—both possible and certain—to list here.

The basic principle of Christian love should be the foundation of any Christian marriage. Anyone who marries a much younger or older person with the wrong motivations will not escape the negative consequences. The greater the disparity in age, the harder it may be for others to believe that love is the motivation, and a married couple of widely different ages will face a greater challenge living a full life of testimony before a cynical, unbelieving world.

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Does the Bible Imply That Sex Is Wrong?

Tim Jackson
Christian life, Ethics, , , ,

It is easy to read the biblical prohibitions against having sexual relations outside of marriage and conclude that God is against sex and any form of sexual pleasure ( Exodus 20:14; Proverbs 5:1-6;6:23-29; Matthew 5:27-28;15:16-20; 1 Corinthians 6:18-20; Colossians 3:5-7; 1 Thessalonians 4:2-7; Hebrews 13:4 ). Further, many sermons on the topic of sex inevitably focus exclusively on the “don’ts” of sexuality. From these sources, we might get the impression that sex is an evil passion that God hates and that Christians must avoid. But this is not the case.

God is not against sex. He doesn’t view sexual desire as an unhealthy passion that Christians must despise, disable, or deny. In fact, He sees it as a healthy passion to be honored and enjoyed. In the right context, sex is delightful, desirable, and pleasing to God. After all, sex was His idea in the first place. It’s His design.

Genesis 1-3 records God’s creation of people. In 1:27 it says, “So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” It was after He made man and woman and placed them in the Garden of Eden that He proclaimed all He had made as being “very good” ( Genesis 1:31 ).

God designed sexual intercourse to be a dynamic part of a man’s and woman’s ability to express intimacy and love. Physical pleasure is an important part of God’s gift of human sexuality to mankind. From the very beginning of creation, God invented human sexuality and gave us our capacity to enjoy expressing ourselves through sexual intimacy. He proclaimed our sexuality “very good” as a part of expressing His creative genius.

Sex should never be viewed as something evil or dirty that must be denied. Rather, it is exquisite and delicate and must be honored and protected. If God invented sex and called it good, we dare not call it evil. Since sex and sexuality were born out of the mind and heart of God, He also has the best idea about how we can most fully enjoy it.

Jesus told His followers that God the Father delights in giving good gifts to His children ( Matthew 7:11 ; James 1:16-17 ). Sex needs to be viewed as one of those good gifts.

In the perfect environment of the Garden of Eden, the first husband and wife “were both naked, and they felt no shame” ( Genesis 2:25 ). Anything wrong with that? No. And that’s how God intended it to be. The first married couple enjoyed uninhibited freedom in a perfect “one flesh” union that honored each other as well as the One who made them ( Genesis 2:24 ). They simply lived out who they were made to be as a man and a woman with each other.

Although this perfect relationship was soon marred by sin ( Genesis 3:7-10 ), the opportunity for healthy sexual expression within marriage was not destroyed in the Fall. God still intends for shared sexual pleasure to be an essential facet of a healthy marriage ( 1 Corinthians 7:2-7 ; Hebrews 13:4 ).

In our post-Fall experience, we all have been exposed to or have experienced perverse and immoral distortions of our sexuality in a variety of contexts. From the media and personal experiences in destructive relationships, to sexual abuse and sexual violence, to the secret inner world of sexual fantasies, Satan is working overtime to mar the delicious taste of sexual intimacy with our spouse. Nevertheless, these distortions don’t nullify God’s original design, intent, or purpose for human sexual expression. God still wants us to delight in our sexuality as an exquisite gift from Him to us. How we handle our gift determines the depth of our enjoyment ( 1 Thessalonians 4:3-7 ).

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