So, I believe that fornication is not simply “sex before marriage”. Rather it is unfaithfulness. Does this mean I am saying it’s fine for a couple to have sex before their wedding ceremony? In a sense, yes. However, I wouldn’t recommend it. I still believe a couple should reserve sexual activity, even kissing for after their wedding ceremony, after commitment is certain. In this article, I’ll explain why.
Nature and Nurture
Our behaviours, attitudes, beliefs, and worldviews are all influenced by nature and nurture. Nature means the things that naturally flow out of us because of internal or external stimuli. Internal stimuli are hunger pains, horniness, tiredness, anxiety, euphoria etc. External stimuli include receiving a hug, gift, affirmation or bad news, having a rock thrown at us, being falsely accused, and coming out into the sun after being in a dark place. Our ‘knee-jerk’ reactions to these stimuli come from our nature.
Nurture produces our learnt behaviours. These behaviours may be taught to us by parents, friends, movies, social media, community culture and ourselves. Many of our learned behaviours are so ingrained in us that we can easily believe they’re a part of our nature. A good way to tell the difference between your nature/nurture actions and reactions is to analyse the thought process behind your actions. Any action that is instinctive and you can’t pinpoint in your memory when you learned it, is in your nature. In contrast, any behaviour that is followed by thought or memory is nurtured behaviour.
What does nature and nurture have to do with waiting till marriage to have sex? Most if not all our best behaviours flow from nurture. Selfishness and pride occur naturally within our nature. The behaviours and attitudes necessary to sustain a marriage are mostly nurtured. They must be learned and cultivated over time as we develop emotional maturity. Without emotional maturity we are predisposed toward behaving however our hunger, horniness, fear, tiredness, and joy tells us to behave.
It is within our nature to procreate. We don’t have to be taught or encouraged to have sex. Intentional abstinence is learned behaviour and so is faithfulness. If left up to our sinful nature marrying and being sexually exclusive with one person is not what most of us would naturally do. Marriage requires discipline, even within Muslim culture which still allows polygamy today. It’s not fornication for a man to have multiple wives, but it is fornication if he sleeps with another woman without the consent of his wives. We can ponder, “Why would a man with 5 wives need to take another woman?” There is no end to human greed and ego there is no limit to our natural sexual urges and curiosities, especially when we know we can have what we want. Just ask Kings David and Solomon.
For this reason, for us to uphold the standards of sexual exclusivity we must develop the discipline of controlling our sexual urges. The reality is our one wife or husband may not be able or available always to satisfy our sexual urges, which never remain satisfied for long anyway. Under no circumstances is it ever morally acceptable for a man or a woman to cheat on their spouse (fornicate). However, EVERY marriage at one point or another experiences dry spells. This could be for emotional reasons like bitterness and trauma, or physical reasons like right after childbirth, pain during sex or erectile dysfunction.
When you and your spouse hit these dry spells, the relationship is extremely vulnerable to infidelity. Three things are needed to successfully get through dry spells. 1 is a commitment to your spouse regardless of how neglected you feel. 2 is confidence that the dry spell will come to an end soon. And 3 the mastery of your natural urges. Without these nurtured and trained attitudes/behaviours, marriage will chew us up and spit us out. I speak from experience on this. My ex-wife and I had a rough start to our marriage. A mixture of physical and emotional obstacles led to our downfall. Quite frankly I didn’t have the level of understanding, patience, or empathy I do now.
Spirit Vs. Flesh
One of my missions through my writing is to demystify and disinfect our perception of sex. It is not bad; nor is it sinful, please be reminded that it is how we were all brought into the world. We would not be alive today without sex. God made it and he made it good. It's really good too if you know what I mean(wink), thank you, Jesus! However, there is no denying that it is a fleshly thing. Sex is driven and motivated by our flesh, which if left to its own devices will wreak havoc in our lives. In the same way, fire is good, but unbridled fire will turn everything to ash.
“So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other so that you are not to do whatever you want.” Galatians 5:16-17 (NIV)
To feel the urge of the flesh and successfully resist its pull is the ultimate power granted to us by the Holy Spirit. It’s the fruit of the Spirit called self-control. But this power must be nurtured, this is why we fast, pray, meditate, abstain, and give. Our flesh would rather we eat, play, be busy, sex down the place and keep our possessions for ourselves. As Paul said in the scripture, the spirit desires the opposite of what the flesh desires. God is a spirit and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth. There is no fleshly worship, meaning there is no worship that we give to God that is motivated by our flesh. Our flesh would rather stay home than go to church. Our flesh would rather play it safe than risk embarrassment by evangelizing to people. Our flesh would rather have sex now, every day than wait on solidified commitment.
Becoming One Before Becoming One Flesh
So, if fornication is not just “sex before marriage” why wait? Can’t we have sex and then have the wedding ceremony after? Yes, you could, and many couples do, but it’s a gamble. We must examine our reasoning for this. Remember the heart of the matter is the matter of the heart. Any reason that is flesh-motivated is bad. You see once sexual interaction starts in a relationship our judgement is impaired. We may deeply connect ourselves to someone we have no business being married to. Sex is the marrying act. Spiritually speaking it holds more power to connect 2 hearts than the wedding ceremony itself. The sexual bond between husband and wife ought to be a powerful one and one that should never be broken. The breaking of this bond is extremely damaging to our psychology as humans. It makes us less trusting, less loving, and therefore less capable of bonding firmly with our next sexual partner.
Giving into our sexual urges too soon as we move from relationship to relationship will have us making multiple soul ties. We typically become more cynical about the opposite sex further damaging our ability to connect deeply with the one we wish to marry. This aspect of us can be healed but it takes intentionality, discipline, and time. The same discipline will be needed during marriage. So, it is best to cultivate our discipline before the wedding ceremony.
You see we all have been raised in this modern culture, not in biblical times. The thought that “wedding is marriage” has already been driven deep into our psyche. It heavily influences how we operate as a society today. Nothing is intrinsically wrong with what we have come to understand and accept about the beginning of marriage today. It’s just incomplete that’s all. All people seeking to marry need to come to an understanding of what commitment is. Ring or no ring, ceremony or no ceremony, sex or no sex inside of all these things must be commitment. Because the legally married couple who is having sex is no better than the sexually active courting couple if both have not fully embraced commitment.
The man or woman who moves from one sexual relationship to the next is no worse than the person who has been married 3 times and is currently in court going through their 3rd divorce. A wedding is not marriage, and no marriage is solid without commitment. Without the understanding that no matter how hard things get I will fight for us. I will humble myself; I will take the “L” if it means “we” win in the end. I will feel the fear of a possibly miserable future and still stay. If you and your partner are not BOTH more committed to your union than you are to your happiness or rightness. You have no business having sex with each other. Sex is the culmination of the 2 becoming 1. Before you become one physically, please become one mentally, emotionally, and spiritually through conversation, prayer, and shared experiences.
What if the sex is not good after we marry?
I understand this is a major concern among most people. Even some Christians surprisingly are of the opinion that ‘dem nah buy nuh puss inna bag’. I too have gone back and forth in my mind on this topic. But given my experience I am now more convicted than ever before that waiting till after commitment is solidified aka your wedding ceremony is the best way to go.
For those of you who feel you need to try it out first. What if your experience is a bad one? Does this now cause you to rethink marrying the person? If your answer to that question is yes. What makes you think you would survive marriage even if the sex was good? Many couples have great sex and still break up/divorce.
Can you recall what I said in my article about the 5 foundational ingredients for a happy and healthy relationship? Two of the ingredients are unconditional love and unwavering commitment. Making sex before your wedding ceremony a requirement that influences whether you commit fully or not. You are removing 2 of the 5 components that are necessary for your relationship to be healthy. If you love your partner on the condition that the sex is good, what will you do when it's bad? Trust me it's never good every single time. Especially with high frequency the potency of the 1st time doesn’t hit the same the 10th time around. How will you show up when pent-up resentment brings on the dry spell? Will you still love and honour your spouse amid your frustration?
If you and your partner have a strong mental and emotional bond sex will not be an issue. Trust me there is no need to sample the fruit. The emotional energy between you two should be enough to let you know if y’all will have a good time or not. If the emotional connection is off and you cannot figure out a way to fix it. Then this is not your person. Keep it pushing.
Closing Remarks
I know this was a lot to take in and ponder. I hope this article challenged your thinking and gave you deeper reasoning for abstinence besides “sex before marriage is a sin”. Fear has long been a tool used by the church to curb our behaviours. But “it is for freedom that we have been set free…” (Galatians 5:1). It’s much better to live from a place of understanding than from a place of fear. Sex in and of itself is not a bad or sinful thing. The sin of sex is only attached to the context and motivations behind it.
Check out the related video that dives deeper on this topic:
My next article will be a continuation of this one. This is THE WORST RELATIONSHIP ADVICE EVER. You definitely should not take what I say to heart unless it makes sense to you in some weird way.
Blessings to you and your family.
Darren O. Salmon
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