Lessons #195 and 196
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+ 1. It is best to use this note after you have listened to the lessons because there are +
+ comments given in the actual delivery not in the note. +
+ 2. The Bible abbreviations are as follows: CEV =Contemporary English version, +
+ CEB = Common English Bible, ESV= English Standard Version, +
+ GW = God’s Word Translation, ISV = International Standard Version, +
+ NAB=New English Bible, NASB= New American Standard Bible, +
+ NEB= New English Bible, NET = New English Translation, +
+ NLT = New Living Translations NJB = New Jerusalem Bible, +
+ NJV = New Jewish Bible, TEV = Today’s English Version. +
+AMP = Amplified Bible, UBS = United Bible Society +
+ 3. Notes have not been edited for grammatical errors. +
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Guidelines for sexual relationship among believers (1 Cor 7:1-7)
1Now for the matters you wrote about: It is good for a man not to marry. 2 But since there is so much immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband. 3 The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. 4 The wife’s body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband’s body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife. 5 Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. 6 I say this as a concession, not as a command. 7 I wish that all men were as I am. But each man has his own gift from God; one has this gift, another has that.
The entire seventh chapter of 1 Corinthians is concerned with the subject of marriage and problems related to it. However, in this section of 1 Corinthians 7:1-7, we are concerned with guidelines for sexual relationship among believers. The guidelines we will focus, based on what the Holy Spirit gave in this passage, deal with sexual relationship before and after marriage. Thus, by the time we finish this passage, you should be clear as to the general rules about sexual relationship before and after marriage that should govern believers. But before we get to this, let me consider important application principles that are necessary in dealing with problems in a local church by a pastor since 1 Corinthians contains problems that existed in that local church that Apostle Paul was aware and which the Holy Spirit guided him to address.
Excluding a pastor’s personal observation, there are at least two ways a pastor learns about problems in the local church that he needs to address. The first is that someone with firsthand knowledge of the problem should inform him. Our use of the phrase “someone with firsthand knowledge of the problem” is an important one. This is necessary to avoid gossip or slander. As we indicated in the past, to ensure that an information passed to another person who can do something about a specific problem is not a slander, certain factors should be true. First, there must be no hostility or hatred on the part of the informant towards the individual involved in a problem that is to be reported. Second, the information given must be true. Third, the intention of the informant must not be to destroy the reputation of another. These factors are the reason we stipulated that the one who provides the information to a pastor of a problem that he needs to address must have a firsthand knowledge of the problem as that is the best way to ensure that a specific information is true. We have an illustration of this point with the first church council in Jerusalem about the fate of Gentile believers as it relates to the Mosaic law. Apostles Paul and Barnabas brought the matter to the church in Jerusalem because they had a firsthand information about the problem, as implied in Acts 15:1–2:
1 Some men came down from Judea to Antioch and were teaching the brothers: “Unless you are circumcised, according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved.” 2 This brought Paul and Barnabas into sharp dispute and debate with them. So Paul and Barnabas were appointed, along with some other believers, to go up to Jerusalem to see the apostles and elders about this question.
This aside, this first way of a pastor learning of problems in a congregation he needs to deal is based on what we learn from the Apostle Paul. In the first six chapters of this epistle of 1 Corinthians, the apostle had dealt with three major moral failings of the Corinthians. The first is division in the local church. The apostle learned of it because some individuals in that local church with firsthand knowledge of the problem informed him, as we read in 1 Corinthians 1:11:
My brothers, some from Chloe’s household have informed me that there are quarrels among you.
The second is sexual immorality in the local church. This, the apostle learned because those with firsthand knowledge informed him, as we gather from what he wrote in 1 Corinthians 5:1:
It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that does not occur even among pagans: A man has his father’s wife.
The third problem the apostle addressed in this epistle so far is lawsuits among believers. The apostle was not in Corinth to have this knowledge; so, it is a problem, we can safely assume, he received information about from the same individuals that provided him the information regarding the first two failings of the local church in Corinth. It is because the apostle received that information that he addressed the issue of lawsuit by stating that it should not happen. Nonetheless, he referenced the problem of lawsuits in Corinth in 1 Corinthians 6:6:
But instead, one brother goes to law against another—and this in front of unbelievers!
The point is that a first way a pastor learns about a problem in a local church that he must address is that someone with firsthand knowledge of the problem should inform him.
A second way a pastor learns about a problem in a local church that he should address is that someone asks him a question about it either verbally or in written form. This second way is based on what the apostle states in our passage of 1 Corinthians 7:1-7 we are about to consider. The authority of this assertion is the first sentence of verse 1 Now for the matters you wrote about.
Verse 1 of 1 Corinthians 7 begins with a Greek phrase that is often translated now about in the NIV usually to relate one teaching to another. Thus, the apostle used the phrase to relate the problem of virgins in relationship to his teaching on marriage in 1 Corinthians 7:25:
Now about virgins: I have no command from the Lord, but I give a judgment as one who by the Lord’s mercy is trustworthy.
Sometimes, the Greek phrase may be used to link materials that although do not relate to the same general topic but are related in the sense that they form closely linked teachings. For example, the apostle used the phrase to link his teaching on marriage to the matter of idolatry not because the two are related but they are part of the same problems the Corinthians wrote him about, as we may gather from 1 Corinthians 8:1:
Now about food sacrificed to idols: We know that we all possess knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.
In our passage of 1 Corinthians 7:1, the Greek phrase that is often translated now about in the NIV is used in the sense of relating what is immediately discussed to what preceded it. The sixth chapter ended with teaching regarding sexual immorality in that it was forbidden and the reasons for such prohibition. But the seventh chapter is concerned with marriage, so it is fitting to consider what the apostle instructs in the beginning of chapter 7 to be related to the preceding chapter.
The apostle was certainly concerned to address the various problems of concern with the Corinthians because of the sentence Now for the matters you wrote about. The phrase the matters refers to the various topics the apostle handled in the rest of this epistle. However, he began with the subject of marriage, covering several issues related to marriage such as singleness or celibacy, sex in marriage, divorce, and remarriage of widows. These topics he dealt with in detail to help the church of Christ, not only believers in Corinth, in dealing with such problems. We have argued at the introductory part of this epistle that the Holy Spirit had the church universal in mind in the teachings found in this epistle not just its first recipients. Therefore, we are correct to assert that the subject of marriage as discussed in the passage we are studying is one that is intended for the church at large and not just the local church in Corinth.
It is often difficult to fully explain what God is doing on this planet and in the church, but He is certainly behind the scenes to bring about His purpose. Strange as it may sound to some, if the Lord was not directing every event of this planet, we would not have the failures of the Corinthians that were necessary for the Holy Spirit to provide guidelines in this area of marriage. I am saying that the failure of the local church in Corinth is part of God’s grand plan to lead to the teaching about the things in which they failed or things they were ignorant, for the benefit of the church of Christ throughout the period of her stay in this planet.
Anyway, the apostle would not have written the section we are considering if the Corinthians did not let him know of their problems in written form as in the sentence of 1 Corinthians 7:1 you wrote about. We do not know when the letter that apostle referenced was written. It could have been carried by those who gave firsthand information regarding the various moral problems in the church, or it could have been sent to the apostle before such people arrived. Although we cannot be certain, it is most likely that the individuals from the household of Chloe might have carried the letter to the apostle. Furthermore, we do not have a copy of the letter the church wrote to the apostle that contained their questions, but we can learn of its contents through the apostle’s teaching in the passage we are considering and the rest of this second epistle of the apostle to the Corinthians that we refer as first Corinthians since we do not have the first letter he wrote them. The point is that the apostle learnt the problems of the church in Corinth because they wrote him. Hence, the second way a pastor should learn about problems in a local church that need to be addressed is through questions raised to him either in written form or verbally. It is true that in the case of the apostle and the Corinthians, he received a letter but that is not necessary in a congregation and pastor relationship today since both are in the same geographical location unlike that between the apostle and the Corinthians at the time of this epistle. In any event, our concern is with the guidelines the Holy Spirit gave through the apostle regarding sexual relationship as it pertains to believers.
Guidelines for sexual relationship before marriage (1 Cor 7:1-2)
Sexual relationship, as it is today, was probably one of the challenges believers in Corinth faced because of their newfound faith in Christ. Corinth, like many western nations, was one that many things revolved around sex. Look at the commercials on TV, you will see that many things revolve around sex. In Corinth, people were preoccupied with sexual relationship and had attitudes towards sexual relationship that were clearly not biblically based. Many sexual relationships were permitted that the Scripture would not permit such as sex outside marriage or living together without being married as we find today. It was tolerable for a man to have mistresses or for single men to have sexual relationships with prostitutes. Thus, there was uncertainty regarding sexual relationship as ordained by God among those who once have been steeped deep into idolatry as to how they should conduct themselves.
The guidelines regarding sexual relationship, as we indicated, concerned two states: before marriage and after marriage. The guideline before marriage is simply put, there should be no premarital sex or sex outside marriage. To make the guideline practical, the Holy Spirit indicates through the apostle that men should keep their hands to themselves so as not to cause sexual arousal on themselves or on any woman, single or married. This guideline is given in the second sentence of verse 1 of chapter seven of 1 Corinthians that reads It is good for a man not to marry. The Greek does not contain the expression it is since it simply reads good for a man not to touch a woman.
The sentence as given in the NIV presents two problems. The first concerns how to understand it in terms of its source. The second is how to translate the Greek words used as it is seen from the literal translation that uses the word ‘touch” and “woman” in place of the word “marry” of the NIV. We deal first with the first problem of how to understand the source of the sentence as given in the NIV It is good for a man not to marry or literally good for a man not to touch a woman. There are two possibilities. It could be interpreted as a quotation from the letter the Corinthians wrote to the apostle, or it could be a statement from the apostle. Most commentators take the sentence as a quotation from the letter of the Corinthians to the apostle and have vigorously defended their position. That notwithstanding, the interpretation that the statement is from the apostle is more likely because the apostle would be instructing the Corinthians as to what they should do in keeping with their letter about marriage related issues. Furthermore, there is nothing in the statement that would have been objectionable to the apostle, so it is more likely he made the statement instead of quoting the Corinthians. In the passage of which the apostle probably quoted the Corinthians in the sixth chapter, there seems to be misconception on the part of the Corinthians in what they said, as for example, in 1 Corinthians 6:12–13:
12 “Everything is permissible for me”—but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible for me”—but I will not be mastered by anything. 13 “Food for the stomach and the stomach for food”—but God will destroy them both. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.
But in 1 Corinthians 7:1, there is nothing that could be construed as a misconception on the part of the Corinthians. It is for this reason that we believe the apostle is the source of the sentence of the NIV It is good for a man not to marry and not a quotation from a letter from the Corinthians. This notwithstanding, in the final analysis, it does not matter if the apostle wrote the words that we are considering, or he quoted the Corinthians because what is stated is truth that the apostle intended for the Corinthians and the church at large to act upon. This brings us to the second problem of the translation and so the interpretation of the sentence.
We indicated that the second problem concerns how to translate the Greek word used that is translated “marry” in the NIV. I do not believe that the translation “marry” is a good one in verse 1 of 1 Corinthians 7. If the apostle meant to convey the concept of marriage as to use the word “marry,” he would have used a Greek word (gameō) that means to marry that he used nine times in this seventh chapter, as for example, in 1 Corinthians 7:9:
But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.
The apostle used the Greek word that means “to marry” three more times in his first epistle to Timothy. So, one wonders why he would not have used the Greek word with the meaning “to marry” in the sentence that is our concern. Furthermore, such meaning causes problem with the fact that the apostle beside the second verse of 1 Corinthians 7 encourages marriage in general in agreement with what is stated in Genesis. Furthermore, he stated that forbidding of marriage is that which characterized those teachers directed by demons, as implied in 1 Timothy 4:3:
They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth.
Thus, from the doctrinal standpoint of Apostle Paul, he could not have meant that believers as a general principle should not marry to warrant the reading of the NIV It is good for a man not to marry, so we do not believe that the word “marry” is appropriate in 1 Corinthians 7:1. Our position is also supported by a study of the Greek word used in our passage.
The word “marry” of the NIV is translated from a Greek word (haptō) that may mean “to touch” something or someone in a general sense of making contact as it is used to describe the woman with bleeding that touched Jesus’ clothes and was healed in Matthew 9:20:
Just then a woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak.
The word may mean “to light” a lamp as in the Lord Jesus’ teaching in Luke 11:33:
“No one lights a lamp and puts it in a place where it will be hidden, or under a bowl. Instead he puts it on its stand, so that those who come in may see the light.
The word may “to kindle” fire as it is used for starting a fire in the cold night of Jesus’ arrest in Luke 22:55:
But when they had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and had sat down together, Peter sat down with them.
The word may mean “to cling” or “to hold on to” as in the instruction of the Lord Jesus to Mary Magdalen after His resurrection, as stated in John 20:17:
Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”
The word may mean “to harm” as in the assertion of what Satan could not do to believers eternally, so to say, as recorded in 1 John 5:18:
We know that anyone born of God does not continue to sin; the one who was born of God keeps him safe, and the evil one cannot harm him.
The use of the Greek word in the Septuagint gives the meaning “to touch intimately” in the sense of having sexual contact with a woman. It is in this sense that our Greek word is used in the Septuagint when God indicated to Abimelech that He did not allow him to touch Sarah in Genesis 20:6:
Then God said to him in the dream, “Yes, I know you did this with a clear conscience, and so I have kept you from sinning against me. That is why I did not let you touch her.
It is not merely physical touching that is meant here but a touch that suggests sexual contact. In our passage of 1 Corinthians, although it is used in the sense of making physical contact with a woman but there is the sense that the nature of such contact would eventually lead to sexual intercourse. Although the experts tell us that the word is unquestionably used for sexual intercourse, it is probably better translated “touch” with the understanding that it is used to refer to arousing a woman sexually and ultimately to lead in sexual intercourse. The translators of the NIV revised their interpretation of this word in that in the 2011 edition, they did not use the word “marry” but translated the Greek as “to have sexual relations.” Those who use the meaning “to marry” imply that the question of the Corinthians that the apostle addressed was whether it is good to live a celibate life and so not to marry. Anyway, before we examine the interpretation of the sentence It is good for a man not to marry as the basis for the first guideline regarding sexual relationship among believers, we should examine the word “good” used in the sentence.
Aware of this, Jesus said to them, “Why are you bothering this woman? She has done a beautiful thing to me.
The phrase a beautiful thing may be understood as “praiseworthy deed” or “good deed.” The word may mean “right” as in the instruction of the Holy Spirit through Apostle Paul in Romans 12:17:
Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody.
The word may mean “desirable” or “advantageous” as in the apostle’s advice for those who are single to remain that way because of the situation of things in Corinth at the time of his epistle to them, as indicated in 1 Corinthians 7:26:
Because of the present crisis, I think that it is good for you to remain as you are.
The word may mean “excellent” as it is used to describe the standing of a deacon who serves faithfully in 1 Timothy 3:13:
Those who have served well gain an excellent standing and great assurance in their faith in Christ Jesus.
The range of meanings of the Greek word suggests that it is used here in the sense of “sensible”, “right”, and “morally pleasing to God.” Thus, it is morally pleasing to God and right for a man not to touch a woman that is not his wife.
We should remember that the sentence It is good for a man not to marry is literally good for a man not to touch a woman. To be sure we understand the object of the touching here, let us consider the word “woman.” It is translated from a Greek word (gynē) that may mean “woman as an adult female person” as it is used in the prohibition of such a person from teaching adult males as recorded in 1 Timothy 2:12:
I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent.
The word may mean “wife.” that is, a married woman as it is used in the qualifications of elders in Titus 1:6:
An elder must be blameless, the husband of but one wife, a man whose children believe and are not open to the charge of being wild and disobedient.
In our passage of 1 Corinthians 7:1, it is used in the sense of “an adult female person” regardless of the marital status. We should make this point because there is the tendency for some to think that the guideline is limited to an unmarried man touching an unmarried woman. No! The guideline is against a man touching any woman that is not his wife, regardless of her marital status. With this understanding, we can now examine the guideline the Holy Spirit gave to believers regarding sexual relationship before marriage.
There are certain factors we should understand regarding this first guideline and to some extent the second that we will get to at the appropriate time. First factor, the guideline reminds us of the importance of translating a given command in the Scripture into forms that make them easy to implement. You see, many times, pastors and teachers present the command of the Scripture but do not go any further to help believers in practical way by giving guidelines of how to carry out the command. Take for example, many pastors or preachers tell believers to “yield” so they say “yield brothers or sisters” but they do not tell us what it means since they are merely quoting from the KJV of Romans 6:13:
Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness.
The command Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God is translated in the KJV as Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God. Therefore, many preachers who use the KJV tell believers “to yield” but do not help them to understand what it is that they should do. A good guideline that will help the believer to know what to do regarding the matter of “yielding” is to tell believers to not allow their tongues to say things that are sinful or to allow their eyes to watch things that would lead to sinful thoughts or to use their hands in a way that could lead to sexual sin as in the passage of 1 Corinthians 7:1 we are considering. Such explanations would be practical guides to what it means not to yield or not to present parts of the body to sin. Anyway, the Holy Spirit through the apostle had given a command to believers to avoid sexual immorality in 1 Corinthians 6:18:
Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body.
The apostle did not say much about how one flees from sexual immorality but in the first few verses of the seventh chapter, he gave guidelines that if followed would ensure that a believer flees from sexual immorality.
Second factor, the first guideline as well as the second is based on the concern that believers should be careful about their spiritual life in the sense that we are to be careful about the purity of our souls. If we may put this factor in another way, it is that there is the concern that believers should enjoy the filling of the Spirit so to have the power to live victoriously over sin. Any believer who is careful about guarding the purity of his/her soul would be eager to embark on any steps necessary to keep the soul uncontaminated by sins. It is not a matter of what people see us do or do not do that is important, as it is a matter of the state of our soul as it relates to sin. Hence, anyone who is concerned with purity of soul should be concerned with not giving Satan an opportunity to tempt the person to sin in keeping with the command of Ephesians 4:27:
and do not give the devil a foothold.
Hence, if a person is not careless about his/her spiritual life then the person would want to know any possible step to take to avoid giving Satan the opportunity to cause spiritual havoc on the individual. So, the guideline the Holy Spirit gave regarding sexual relationship before marriage is one that is given with the concern that believers should maintain spiritual purity of their souls. Of course, I recognize that many of us Christians are not that much concerned about the purity of our soul, that is why we are careless in what we say or do. Nonetheless, the Holy Spirit is concerned that we be careful about our spiritual life. That is one of the driving factors for the guidelines we have in 1 Corinthians 7:1-7.
Third factor, the first guideline as well as the second recognized that sexual sin is unbecoming of believers. It is easy to be drawn into it either mentally or physically. It is because of how easy it is to be involved in it that our Lord explained first that it could take place in the mind so that no one would think he/she cannot be guilty of such a sin as in the exposition of the sixth code of the Ten Commandment against adultery that the Lord Jesus gave in Matthew 5:28:
But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
Then the Lord followed this teaching with strong metaphors to tell believers that we should do everything to avoid anything, in particular, sexual sin, that will cause us not to be under God’s rule, as He stated in Matthew 5:29–30:
29 If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. 30 And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.
The Lord Jesus is not here advocating the maiming of the body in a physical way, but He used the strong metaphors of gouging out the eye and cutting of the hand to convey how serious it is for a believer not to allow anything to cause such a person not to be ruled by God on this planet in the sense of not being controlled by the Holy Spirit so that one obeys God’s word. The fact remains that sexual immorality is unbecoming of those who are believers in Christ. We can see this in the guidelines given by the Holy Spirit through the early church to Gentile believers that required they should not be involved in sexual immorality, as we read in Acts 15:20:
Instead we should write to them, telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood.
Apostle Paul conveyed that sexual immorality is unbecoming of believers throughout his epistles. He indicated it is not something that should even be hinted among believers in Ephesians 5:3:
But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people.
Unfortunately, what the apostle stated is ignored in many local churches today that it is not uncommon for scandalous sexual relationships to exist in some local churches, and nothing is done about it. This is again because we fail to pay heed to what the apostle said also regarding God’s will for us in 1 Thessalonians 4:3:
It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality;
The human author of Hebrews not only described that it is unbecoming of believers to be involved in sexual immorality, but he conveyed it attracts God’s judgment, as we read in Hebrews 13:4:
Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.
Fourth factor, the first guideline regarding sexual immorality is intended to protect the unmarried from God’s judgment that results from sexual immorality. In OT times in Israel, premarital sex was punished by death under certain conditions as indicated by the instruction to stone to death those involved in it as we read, for example, in Deuteronomy 22:23–24:
23 If a man happens to meet in a town a virgin pledged to be married and he sleeps with her, 24 you shall take both of them to the gate of that town and stone them to death—the girl because she was in a town and did not scream for help, and the man because he violated another man’s wife. You must purge the evil from among you.
True, this concerns the case of a lady who is engaged to be married but if there is premarital sex then the lady become a damaged good, so to say, and so the punishment is a mandatory marriage of the girl by the man involved as indicated in Deuteronomy 22:28–29:
28 If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered, 29 he shall pay the girl’s father fifty shekels of silver. He must marry the girl, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives.
It does not seem that there is punishment involved here but there is. If a man could not possibly divorce a wife no matter what she does, the man is in for a life of trouble because the woman could make his living very difficult, knowing that he could not divorce her. It is also possible that she could then because of how she was married decide to punish the man by withholding sexual relationship. He could not do anything about it. Of course, there is that principle of reaping what one sowed. A person who is involved in premarital sex may indeed be punished by the Lord through the wife or husband withholding sex. The point is that premarital sex could lead to many difficulties later in married life. Hence, it is to safeguard against later headaches in married life that the first guideline becomes necessary. We are saying that an unmarried person should take to heart the first guideline that we are considering regarding sexual relationship before marriage. Anyway, with these four factors we have considered, let us then focus on the guideline in the sentence It is good for a man not to marry. However, for expounding on first guideline, we will use the literal translation that reads it is good for a man not to touch a woman. Using the literal translation, we recognize that there are two elements of the first guideline although there are three elements to the first guideline of sexual relationship before marriage. Remember, of course, that the first guideline is that there should be no premarital sex or sex outside marriage.
A first element of the first guideline is that a man should avoid doing anything that is intended to arouse a woman sexually. In other words, a man should not kindle sexual passion on a woman that is not his wife. Practically, this guideline means that there should be no holding the hands of a woman by a man not her husband. He should keep his hand to himself since holding hands could lead to sexual arousal. There should be definitely no kissing as that also leads to sexual arousal. Kissing between those who are not married is considered by some as a sign of being in love with each other. I recall many years ago of a conversation I had with a young lady who narrated to me her conversation with the mother. She told the mother that certain young believing man loves her. The mother asked if the young man had kissed her, to which the young lady answered emphatically “no.” Then the mother said that the young man could not possibly love her otherwise he would have kissed her. That conversation led me to believe that many equate kissing between unmarried man and woman a sign of love for each other. However, the guideline we are considering indicates that regardless of what the society tolerates, that it is not biblical for unmarried men and women to kiss each other as that would violate the guideline of not touching each other in a romantic way that may lead to sexual arousal. There should be, no doubt, that kissing between men and women that is romantic in nature leads to sexual arousal. This we can gather from the kissing of the loose woman that is intended to entice a young man into sexual immorality, as we read in Proverbs 7:13:
She took hold of him and kissed him and with a brazen face she said:
The kissing mentioned here is intended to arouse a young man sexually and so to entice him into sexual immorality, as indicated in Proverbs 7:17–19:
17I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes and cinnamon. 18Come, let’s drink deep of love till morning; let’s enjoy ourselves with love! 19My husband is not at home; he has gone on a long journey.
It is true that some societies tolerate kissing between men and women that are not related but there are societies that do not. The societies that do not tolerate it are more in keeping with what we find in the Scripture as in the statement of the lover in Song of Solomon 8:1:
If only you were to me like a brother, who was nursed at my mother’s breasts! Then, if I found you outside, I would kiss you, and no one would despise me.
The lover’s statement I would kiss you implies a desire to kiss in an intimate way as an expression of love. The word “kiss” is translated from a Hebrew word (nāšaq) that may describe one object touching another or in contact with another as in the wings of the living creatures that touched each other in Ezekiel 3:13:
the sound of the wings of the living creatures brushing against each other and the sound of the wheels beside them, a loud rumbling sound.
The phrase brushing against is more literally “touching lightly.” However, its meaning in Song of Solomon 8:1 is that of a kiss that is an expression of love. It was certainly not accepted in Jerusalem or among the Hebrew people for such kissing between lovers to take place in the open as that would be shameful as indicated in the clause of Song of Solomon 8:1 and no one would despise me. It is not merely that it was not tolerated in the public for men and women to kiss each other romantically before marriage, but it was not to take place in private either. In fact, there is no room for such to take place in private since unmarried people were not allowed to be alone with each other. Thus, the point is that romantic kissing between men and women who claim to be in love with each other should not occur before marriage. The first element of the guideline simply forbids touching or caressing. Caressing is an activity that should occur between married people. The lone example of caressing given in the Scripture is between Isaac and the wife Rebekah, as we read in
Genesis 26:8:
When Isaac had been there a long time, Abimelech king of the Philistines looked down from a window and saw Isaac caressing his wife Rebekah.
Anyway, the first element of the practical guideline that is concerned with sexual relationship among believers is that there should be no touching of any kind that is intended to arouse or kindle sexual passion on those involved.
A second element of the first guideline based on the literal translation it is good for a man not to touch a woman is that there should be no sexual intercourse between those who are not married to each other. This element is based on the understanding that the Greek word that we considered that literally means “to touch” has the meaning also of to be engaged in sexual intercourse. Thus, as we mentioned previously, the translators of the 2011 edition of the NIV rendered the sentence as It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman instead of It is good for a man not to marry of the 1984 edition. So, no matter what the society permits or tolerates, the biblical standard is that there should be no premarital sex or sex outside marriage. Anyone who does so disobeys God’s word and so can be certain that the individual would be disciplined by the Lord at His own choosing and time.
02/14/20