SEX TALKS 3: NEW TESTAMENT SEX

Sparta was an extreme case, and things were somewhat different in the Greek cities Paul visited, but it gives an illustration of the kind of thing he was up against. There was a huge culture clash between what was considered normal in a place like Corinth or Ephesus, and what Paul believed was right for followers of Jesus. Paul had a totally different view of God’s purpose for sex from the Greek world in which he was ministering.

And the thing was, for those Christians who came from a Greek background it was very difficult to break free from what they had always thought of as normal sexual behavior. So when we read what Paul writes about sexual immorality (especially in the first letter to the Corinthians) we need to understand that this is what is going on.

How does all this history relate to us, here and now?

Well, there used to be something called ‘Judeo-Christian culture’. What this meant was that while not everyone was a follower of Jesus, the way that society operated was more or less along the lines set out in the Bible. People might not always have lived in sexual purity, but the basic understanding was that sex was something that was only meant to happen in marriage. Now, that culture has almost completely disappeared. Our culture today is much more like the Greek world of the New Testament. And like the converts in those first churches, we also struggle to break free from what is now considered normal sexual behavior.