True Love Waits
Series: What the Bible Says About Love and Sex
Tony R. Nester
1 Thessalonians 4:3-8
Unless you've been hiding out somewhere beyond the reach of television, radio, newspapers, the Internet, and local gossip, you've been hearing a lot about sex. All due, of course, to the Starr Report about President Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky. With all this talk about sex going on around us, what do you think the church ought to be saying about sex? Some time ago Josh McDowell conducted a survey of teenagers from evangelical churches and discovered they had learned about sex from the following sources (respondents could select more than one):
friends (28 percent)
movies (26 percent)
classes at school
(23 percent) parents (23 percent)
television (22 percent)
church (7 percent). (1)
The problem with those statistics is that there's far too much at stake in peoples' lives for the church to ignore the topic of sex. I think the church needs to be part of the conversation. That's why I'm beginning this three-part series entitled, "What Does the Bible Say About Love and Sex?" Let's begin by making clear two basic teachings the Bible gives us about sex. Everything the Bible says about love and sex are built on these two teachings. The first teaching is that sex was God's idea. The Genesis accounts of Creation make it clear that God thought sex was a good idea.
(Genesis 1:27 NRSV) "So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them." God could have made us androgynous - unisex - neither distinctively male nor female. That's what God did with earthworms. Flatworms have a complete set reproductive parts in each segment of their body and regularly fertilize themselves.
With all the turmoil, tension, and trouble that sex causes us it seems to me that we might have been far better off without being made male and female. But God didn't do that. God thought sex was a good idea. ...
Series: What the Bible Says About Love and Sex
Tony R. Nester
1 Thessalonians 4:3-8
Unless you've been hiding out somewhere beyond the reach of television, radio, newspapers, the Internet, and local gossip, you've been hearing a lot about sex. All due, of course, to the Starr Report about President Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky. With all this talk about sex going on around us, what do you think the church ought to be saying about sex? Some time ago Josh McDowell conducted a survey of teenagers from evangelical churches and discovered they had learned about sex from the following sources (respondents could select more than one):
friends (28 percent)
movies (26 percent)
classes at school
(23 percent) parents (23 percent)
television (22 percent)
church (7 percent). (1)
The problem with those statistics is that there's far too much at stake in peoples' lives for the church to ignore the topic of sex. I think the church needs to be part of the conversation. That's why I'm beginning this three-part series entitled, "What Does the Bible Say About Love and Sex?" Let's begin by making clear two basic teachings the Bible gives us about sex. Everything the Bible says about love and sex are built on these two teachings. The first teaching is that sex was God's idea. The Genesis accounts of Creation make it clear that God thought sex was a good idea.
(Genesis 1:27 NRSV) "So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them." God could have made us androgynous - unisex - neither distinctively male nor female. That's what God did with earthworms. Flatworms have a complete set reproductive parts in each segment of their body and regularly fertilize themselves.
With all the turmoil, tension, and trouble that sex causes us it seems to me that we might have been far better off without being made male and female. But God didn't do that. God thought sex was a good idea. ...
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