Appreciating God’s Gift of Sex

Last night we talked about Appre­ci­at­ing God’s Gift of Sex, and I ref­er­enced a few dif­fer­ent resources and sta­tis­tics. Since this is a top­ic of such inter­est, I thought I should post some relat­ed resources in case you want to do some fur­ther reflec­tion.

Here’s the sound-byte ver­sion of my mes­sage:

Sex was God’s idea, and He’s giv­en it to us as gift. We need to under­stand how to receive His gift with respect and grat­i­tude. The first thing we need to know is that sex is fun­da­men­tal­ly rela­tion­al and not mere­ly recre­ation­al. The goal is inti­ma­cy in rela­tion­ship, and puri­ty paves the way to inti­ma­cy. Research shows that the best sex is monog­a­mous sex, and that if you’re promis­cu­ous, you’re actu­al­ly sac­ri­fic­ing qual­i­ty for quan­ti­ty. Main­tain­ing puri­ty in a pol­lut­ed world requires wis­dom and self-hon­esty, and God can restore our puri­ty when we have lost it.

Some of the pas­sages of scrip­ture that I ref­er­enced: 1st Corinthi­ans 6.12–20, Colos­sians 3.5, 1st Thes­sa­lo­ni­ans 4.3–8, Matthew 5.27–30

, and Hebrews 13.4.

Here are some online resources you might want to check out:

First, some data:
* Cohab­i­tat­ing Does­n’t Lead to More Com­mit­ted Mar­riages, Study Finds
* Mis­sion­ary Cohab­i­ta­tion, Mis­sion­ary Cohab­i­ta­tion Part 2
* The Best Sex
* Lead­er­ship U Spe­cial Focus: Amer­i­ca’s Sex­u­al Rev­o­lu­tion

Sec­ond, some com­mon-sense via arti­cles by J. Budziszews­ki:
* Going All The Way (this is the con­ver­sa­tion I quot­ed from last night)
* Sex At The Edge of Night (why sex out­side of mar­riage is not a good thing)
* What If We Love Each Oth­er? (why “being in love” isn’t suf­fi­cient jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for extra­mar­i­tal sex)
* Ordi­nary Lust (prac­ti­cal tips for win­ning the war with­in)
* Who’s On First? and The Moves (arti­cles about dat­ing)

I hope these resources help you as you reflect on sex and devel­op­ing a Chrisian per­spec­tive on it!