Chapter One
A BIBLICAL PERSPECTIVE
ON OUR SEXUALITY God blessed them and said to them, "Be
fruitful and increase in number.". God saw all
that he had made, and it was very good.
-Genesis 1:28, 31
As a Christian gynecologist, I have had the privilege of treating thousands
of women in my community over the past two decades. Many of
them have had the courage to ask questions about one of the most private
aspects of their lives-their sexuality. The issues have ranged from the
values of virginity to sexually transmitted diseases; from wedding night
romance to the challenges of geriatric sexual relations; from birth control
to plastic surgery.
Over time, these women also have asked questions regarding issues of
concern for their husband such as how to be a better lover, how to know
appropriate boundaries for Christian sexual activity and how to find
answers for erectile dysfunction.
IT'S OK TO HAVE QUESTIONS
The majority of couples struggle with these sensitive and important issues
of marriage in a spiritual vacuum. They wonder how their faith in Christ
and their human sexuality can peacefully coexist. Sensing that there must
be more to their sexual lives than they are experiencing but wondering if
God really approves of these secret desires, they ask themselves: Is sex the
forbidden fruit after all, except in the most plain and sterile variety?
Many of my patients struggle to be holy and righteous, while their flesh
floods them with feelings and desires they don't think Christians should
have. Men and women often argue with their spouses about this area of
their lives; it seems they may never be truly satisfied. As individuals, they
feel that this battle over sex may be the one area of their lives that threatens
their personal relationship with God more than any other.
If you identify with these couples, you know what I am talking about.
Your thought life intrudes into your quiet time with God. It seems you are
bombarded with "messages" about sex from the secular world that cause
you to doubt your integrity regarding your sexual life.
Courageously seeking for answers
To whom can you turn with your fears and frustrations? If you approach
your pastor, will he or she think you are less spiritual and holy than they
once believed? Would your friends understand your struggles and guard
your secrets, or will they "share" their concerns about you with others?
Will your spouse think you are demonized? Could you ever pray to a holy
God about the struggles you are having, being the man or woman you think
you are supposed to be-and have faith to receive an answer? Giving in to
these fears, you have kept quiet, thinking this is your "thorn in the flesh,"
your cross to bear. So you turn to this book, hoping for an anonymous consultation
with a Christian gynecologist. I congratulate you for having the
courage to seek answers that will satisfy your most sensitive questions of
life, and I do not plan to disappoint you.
Over the years, as I sought answers for my patients who have had the
courage to ask these questions in my office under the cover of confidentiality,
I began looking for Christian resources I could give them in addition to
the acceptable answers my medical training provided.
In my search, I attended a meeting where Dr. James Dobson introduced
a Christian gynecologist, Dr. Joe McIlhaney, who had dedicated his life to
teaching abstinence-based sexual education for our youth from a medical
perspective. As I sat there in a room filled with gynecologists, Dr. McIlhaney
displayed graphic slides showing the horrors of sexually transmitted diseases
and told shocking statistics of the epidemic of these diseases, of which
I was unaware even as a practicing physician.
Armed with his slides and outlines and a passion to protect our young
people, I presented this material to our local Christian high school biology
class. As word spread of the effectiveness of this presentation, the public
demand for me to provide biblically based, scientific information on sex
and sexuality increased dramatically.
Diana Hagee, wife of television evangelist John Hagee, asked me to speak
to a group of five hundred women whom she was mentoring. I solicited
questions in advance and discovered an honest hunger for knowledge on
very practical sexual issues with which these lades were grappling, either as
single adults or in their marital lives. The help these women received
resulted in my being asked to share these biblically based, scientific answers
for our sexuality as Christians at a men's conference, which followed shortly
thereafter. Their honest response was similar to that of the ladies.
Recognizing the needs of her church, Diana Hagee asked me to contribute
to her book, The King's Daughter. Two television interviews followed on the
Hagees' national interview show, John Hagee Today, which brought a tremendous
response from viewers. I realized that for most of the church, questions
about sex and sexuality were pressing issues, which have been sparsely
addressed from the pulpit. I understood that most Christians do not have a
source, other than the secular media, as a model on which to base their sexual
relations.
GOD IS INTERESTED
IN YOUR SEX LIFE
Of the many hundreds of questions I have been asked, the fundamental
theme remains: Is God really interested in my sex life? What does He think
about sex? The answer I give is the response I received from my pastor in my
youth when I asked the same question: It's God's idea!
God created the sexes and sexual intercourse. He instilled the sexual
drive into our bodies, knowing it would work its way into our thoughts and
minds. He is not ashamed of our sexuality, nor does He regret creating it.
From the beginning of Scripture, in the second chapter of Genesis, we can
read how God weaves His plan for our sexuality, which continues throughout
the pages of Scripture. And from one passage to the next, the theme is
one of pleasure, joy and fulfillment within the boundaries He has created.
No one would suggest that just because God commanded that Adam and
Eve not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, making its forbidden
fruit off-limits to them, that the rest of the garden ceased to be
Paradise to them. The beautiful flowers
and majestic creatures the Lord had created
still filled Adam and Eve with wonder
as they discovered a new aspect of the creation
each day and began to take dominion
over all the Lord had given them.
Paradise was filled with joy and delight for this first couple. If this were not
true, I do not believe being banished from this garden would have caused
them such sorrow. (See Genesis 3.) Yet, many Christians mistakenly perceive
that the few hedges of protection that God placed around our sexuality
indicate that God is against sex; they feel that sex represents ourforbidden fruit.
SEX IS NOT A FORBIDDEN FRUIT
While few areas of our lives have been as distorted since the Fall as our
sexuality, it is still God's desire for us to experience all that He had in
mind for our sexuality when He created us. He hasn't changed His mind,
nor does He secretly wish we had never been introduced to sex. Our sexuality
is still God's gift to us, not just for reproduction, as many in the
church seem to believe, but for intimacy and pleasure in the comfort of
marriage. And yes, He knows how much fun it is. He made it feel that way!
The faulty perception of thinking that God is against sex is like thinking
He is against music because of some musical expressions that are unacceptable,
such as music with violent, satanic lyrics. God demonstrated His
desire for music when He ordained that King David and others write the
Book of Psalms, reminding us that music was meant for a higher purpose-the
praise and worship of our Lord. And the world is full of wonderful,
heart-inspiring hymns and songs, both traditional and contemporary, that
give us but a glimpse of the heavenly worship we will someday enjoy
around the throne of God. But for so long, the church has looked at the way
the fallen world has expressed itself sexually and closed its doors to all discussions
of sex, seemingly fearing that the influences of the secular world
would corrupt the holiness of the church.
The sometimes irresponsible approach of the church to human sexuality
has left many sincere Christians sitting in their church pews each Sunday
wondering if God is for or against sex. Is God condemning them as they
struggle with questions for which they desperately need answers, and for feelings
that threaten their very walk with Him? The answer is, absolutely not!
I can tell you on the authority of the Word of God that He is definitely
interested in your sexual life-and not just so He can say, "Don't do that!"
He longs for you to experience all He has created you for from the beginning.
While we may not achieve what we would have had in the Garden of
Eden, we can surely take hold of a lot more than we currently enjoy, and we
can do it without the guilt and condemnation that has so often hounded
the sincere Christian.
Consider God's motivation for creating a companion for Adam and His
ultimate design for their relationship. During God's creation process, He said:
"It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable
for him" . Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had
taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. The man said, "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh." . For this
reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his
wife, and they will be one flesh. The man and his wife were both
naked, and they felt no shame.
-Genesis 2:18, 22-25, emphasis added
It was God who created a beautiful woman and brought her to Adam as
His precious gift to him. When Adam looked upon her, he saw the differences
and knew what it was to be a man. He saw woman and, for the first
time, perceived himself to be man, with all the unique qualities created in
him.
What happened in the garden?
Eve was human yet different from Adam, and those differences revealed
the plan of God for each of them. When Adam saw how Eve was made, he
also learned how his body fit together with hers. The erect penis had a place,
designed by God, that it fit into, and it all made sense to Adam. The two
became one flesh, which is how the rest of
us got here! But God's plan also involved a
beautiful gift of intimacy, as Adam discovered
as he held Eve close to his flesh and
felt the two of them meld into one unit.
This was satisfaction that Adam could
find with no other creature on earth. Sex
is more than a physical union just as we are more than flesh and bones, as
we will discuss later. But it is a wonderful gift of God to be enjoyed.
God's first command to them was to "be fruitful and increase in number"
(Gen. 1:28). In other words, God told them to have intercourse; it was
their first assignment as a couple. It is difficult for us to imagine the Father
of all Creation peering down into the garden to watch Adam and Eve making
love. For some, it would seem like making God a "peeping Tom." And
yet we can be sure that God was present at this love scene.
When God presented Eve to him, Adam's physical body responded with an
erection, and either God explained to him what to do with it or Adam discovered
it for himself. As the two perfectly formed beings explored the different
parts of the other's body, they discovered sensitive areas created by God
for their pleasure, and they freely enjoyed themselves whenever they wanted,
without fear that God would catch them or feeling that what they were doing
was wrong or filthy. Sin had not yet entered the garden; there were no limits
placed on them except for the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Yet, even with this clear biblical picture of God's design in creation, we
struggle fiercely with the idea that a holy God could want anything to do
with our sex lives. We somehow pretend that He and all the angels flee to
the backside of heaven whenever we make love. There is no reassuring consciousness
of a loving Father standing by to give us wisdom and knowledge
about how He created this body we live in, or teaching us how to please the
partner with whom He has joined us-in holy unity.
For many, the very idea of God in our bedrooms is a shocking thought;
yet it is a reality. If we think otherwise, we do not understand the powerful
indwelling of Christ in the believer. Do we leave the Holy Spirit waiting in
the bathroom while we have intercourse? Do we ask the Son of God, who
promised He would never leave us or forsake us, to stay downstairs and
watch TV while we make love? Do we somehow think God would be
offended by what He saw, the uniting of two people into one, just as His
Word says He created us to become?
Though mankind's disobedience to God's command in the garden not to
eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil caused them to fall from
relationship with God, it did not change God's original intention for us,
that we have the very best in intimacy and sexual pleasure in our marriages.
There is other scriptural basis to support the fact that God intends for sex
to be more than simply for the purpose of reproduction. He intends for His
children to view themselves as sexual beings, filled with desires for their
spouse and possessing the need for those desires to be fulfilled. He created
the marriage bed for that very purpose.
A look at the Song of Solomon
Probably one of the least read or least quoted books of the Bible is the
Song of Solomon. Many Christians seem embarrassed that it is even in their
Bibles, and many clergy avoid all reference to it. To read it from the pulpit
opens up an area of life they would rather not discuss in church. And yet it
is exactly what we need to hear-the truth. The images of love and its verbal
expressions in the Song of Solomon affirm that we are created as sensual
beings with God-given sexual needs that are powerful. We are designed to be
desired by the other person with all the senses-sight, smell, taste, hearing
and touch. And in all these ways, we are created to give and receive pleasure.
What first attracted most of us to our spouses was what we saw.
Something (or everything) about the way they were formed drew us to them
like a powerful magnet. Most couples can tell you something about their
spouse that first caught their attention: broad shoulders, piercing blue eyes
or firm buttocks; a slender neck, flowing black hair or an hourglass figure.
For me it was the beauty of my wife's face and the shape of her legs.
Continues.
