I have moved this article to my new site dedicated exclusively to the discussing sexual issues from a Biblical perspective. You can find the article here.
12 thoughts on “Does the Bible Allow for Premarital Sex and Prostitution?”
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Biblical Gender Roles 
I had already seen this argument.
I have also seen people say that it would not be adultery for a married woman to have sex with another person with the permission of her husband.
And the worst thing is that those who defend this are men..
A distinction should be made that pre-marital sex and non-marital sex are not the same thing. The former being what is described in the bible when passions went too far, and the latter being how people do relationship as a series of mini marriages where they become boyfriend and girlfriend and hookup without ever getting married. A series of those is not much better than a series of marriages and divorces.
God clearly desires a woman to be connected to her husband alone. His desire is that she is with one man, her husband, for her life. There is just too much scripture supporting this idea to think otherwise. Note that pre-marital sex might be compatible with this idea and non-marital sex is definitely not.
Perhaps that is why this topic is complicated. I despise false yokes, so when sex outside of marriage is not covered in Leviticus 18 where sexual immorality is literally defined, I find that very interesting. Some might say that Levitius 18 couldn’t cover every example such as obscure examples, but sex outside of marriage would have been the first and least obscure question! Yet, it is not there. It could have been, but it isn’t. Saying that the marriage bed is honorable is not the same thing as saying the opposite is sin.
All of this aside, we are weak and easily sifted by the enemy without our Lord leading us. Irregardless of whether it is defined as sin or not, we should strive for honorable and ideal. We should be wise. I encourage young men and women to remain virgins until married, but if they do not, it is my secondary hope that their only experience remains with their husband or wife even if that is before they are married.
One thing that is notable about this topic is how quickly a wife is to judge her husband for the things that they both did before they said “I do”, and how she will use that to damage their relationship post “I do”. I’ve read things like she doesn’t trust him because of his inability to be perfectly controlled before marriage, so how can she trust him post marriage? Feelings replace doing what is right. The truth is that sin has entered the picture and now she has found an excuse to shift blame.
I think the strongest argument against the use of prostitutes is the most direct one.
“Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, “The two will become one flesh.””
1 Corinthians 6:15-16 ESV
The act of sex consummates a mystical unity. I am convinced this is one of the reasons men desire their own wives; to be one with her. Sex is not just the celebration of oneness, but the means to building ones. It is fallacious to treat the act of sex as nothing more than pleasing friction. The church has erred in my opinion when they teach such non-sense that men separate sex from love; pure unadulterated hogwash. Sex is much deeper than the physical, it is profoundly emotional and mystically spiritual. God created sex to be practiced within the covenant of marriage for oneness- not as a quid pro quo lever of bargaining or for other forms of payment, those are prostitution, albeit common within many marriages, but prostitution non the less.
Now because sex creates oneness, Paul warns Christian men not to become one with what God finds detestable. Why then does God find prostitution detestable? Because marriage and therefore sex are to be an image of the relationship of Go to His people, in other words a covenant. Christ desires union with the church as the church desires union with Christ. In marriage this union is celebrated with sex, for the church the consummation is the wedding supper of the lamb. Until that time the church looks forward to union with the communion. Communion is a compound word from “common” and “union”. The individual members of the body come as on one common unit and celebrate union with Christ. There is a mystery as to how this occurs even as it is a mystery hoe sex creates union.
If then a man were to use prostitutes he would not be picturing a covenant of grace, but a lord whose providence could be bought with the currency of worship. The prostitute “loves” (has sex) with many men, like idolaters worship many deities. The prostitute does not love a husband as the idolater does not love the Lord. This relationship is strong in scripture, that is why idolaters are routinely called harlots. But just as profound is that when rejects the love of God they naturally pollute sex as meaningless pleasure rather than covenant oneness.
BGR I apologize for the typos, I was called away and did not proofread before I posted. I hope the intended meaning is clear to all.
I think that you are right with the conclusion that sex is in generally reserved for marriage or at least for a relationship that is established by contract (e.g. concubinage, etc.). However, this doesn’t resolve the passage of Exodus 22:16-17 where a man has sex with the daughter of a man.
Maybe I am missing something here and I wish to be corrected if so, but if the man who had sex with the daughter of someone is dependend on the decision of the father of the woman he had sex with and the father can decide whether his daughter is permitted to marry him or not, then there is nothing that tells us that this sexual act was illicit. If he marries her the marriage is initiated “retroactively” and if he doesn’t marry her because her father doesn’t allow it, he resolves the whole issue by paying the price for the lost virginity. There is no talk about this act being a sin at all.
Best regards
Namra,
Consider these two passages side by side:
So here we have two passages about a young virgin who is not betrothed. In one instance the man entices the unbethrothed virgin to have sex, in the other he lays hold on her or in other words he rapes her. And in both cases the bride price is mentioned and the fact that he must marry her.
Are you trying to say that a man raping a virgin woman is not sin?
With all due respect sir when a man takes a woman without her father’s permission it is theft and damage to his property and it also a theft against God. This is why restitution was required.
The entire point of Exodus 22:1-17 is about making restitution for stealing or damaging another person’s property and yes that includes a man’s virgin daughter. It describing the restitution to made between men for sinning against one another in all these various ways.
It is absolutely false to take Exodus 22:16-17 out of the context of the verses that came just before it about restitution for stealing or damaging other’s property. You don’t need a neon sign there to say it was a sin what the man did in enticing the woman – he had absolutely no right to do so and it is clear based on the context of the entire first part of the chapter.
Besides this you are ignoring clear revelation from God in Hebrews 13:4 that the only sex God honors and calls undefiled or pure is that which occurs in the marriage bed. And he says he will judge whoremongers(pornos) which I proved beyond a doubt based on I Corinthians 5 that pornos is far more than just male prostitutes. It is all those who commit any kind of sexual immorality. And I Corinthians 7:2 tells us to avoid fornication, sexual immorality (porneia, associated with pornos in 1 Corinthians 5) we should marry. If having sex before marriage was not a sin as you are proposing that would make absolutely no sense.
Jonadab-the-Rechabite
Sad, because for a vast number of men in today’s western world, having a high libido has now become a curse.
@ Rick O.
As long as the church continues to support the unbiblical idea that women are the gatekeepers of sex, sex will be a weapon and bargaining chip to gain power and dominion over men. This is a significant portion of the rot of worldliness that is destroying the witness of the church and fruitfulness in the lives of its members.
But it gets worse. The church has embraced two other errors that make the first more noxious. Namely that male sex desires are an evil to be regulated especially by women. And two that women are more spiritual than men and less prone to sins of the flesh. There are even some Christian authors that treat female spiritual wisdom as the very voice of the Holy Spirit.
Preachers dare not teach against the sins common to women lest their fan-club… I mean congregation…might shrink in size or the tithes and offerings dry up. So they amplify male sins, degrade male characteristics, mock men and the women coo and are satisfied. The church has not only fueled the battle of the sexes, but has chosen sides. By its words and actions the contemporary church is fighting for female domination and urging a comeuppance for males. It has taught that the past injustice of the patriarchy oppressed women so grievously that only by promoting female domination, labeled “equality” can Christian men be saved from their sins of female oppression. The tools of the rebalancing of power are sex, amplifying perversions to hysterical levels (ie 39 flavors of abuse, trafficking, harassment, and the like), and invoking the civil magistrate into the family sphere to displace male headship.
The church agrees with the feminist battle cry “our bodies ourselves”. Because women are the gatekeepers to sex and authorities of their own bodies, the church is all but silent on fornication. To speak would violate a woman’s sacred sexual choice. When it speaks it is careful to blame men. The church may speak against abortion, but not against women who murder their children. The men who impregnated them are routinely singled out, but the murdering mothers are treated as victims.
Ironically, if one searches for writings on “Christian sexless marriages” the overwhelming focus is on women Suffering from sex withheld from their husbands. The comments are also mostly from females. The trend is clear, contemporary Christianity supports the idea that women alone should determine sexual activity, men are pervs after all.
The white-knights are fighting against the King’s decrees. Lancelot, who is ever popular with the maidens, is whoring with Guinevere and Percival is shamed for defending truth and righteousness. This is the current state of the church. Culture is rot, but what was supposed to be the ground and pillar of truth is rotting away with it. The salt has lost its saltiness, but it now has stage lighting and fog-machines. So there is that.
I searched for such an article. I can only find “both sides” articles that show favor to men.
Where is Hisboyness’ comment?
Rick,
I thought his comment was far outside the realm of even having a discussion. Men loaning out their wives to have sex with other men? And he was basically describing orgies being OK as long as the husbands were OK with it and the men were not having “penetrative sex” with one another. I try and leave room open for discussions – but that is just a bridge too far even me.
Fair enough, I just wondered where it went because I wanted to question his comment myself, and I can’t question what no longer exists. 🙂