The most famous twins in history were Chang and Eng,
born in Siam in 1811. They toured Europe and America
repeatedly. They became so well known that all twins whose
bodies are physically connected have ever since been called
Siamese twins. By their early thirty's they had traveled the
world, and amassed a fortune. They decided to settle
down in North Carolina and become farmers. One of their
neighbors, David Yates, was a Quaker, and a part time
clergyman. He had a 19 year old daughter Adelaide, and a
20 year old daughter named Sarah Ann. Believe it or not,
these two girls started courting Chang and Eng. Everybody
thought it was insane, and both families were threatened by
town folk who were sure it was evil.
Nevertheless, there was a double wedding in April of
1843. Naturally they moved into the same house, and
unbelievably, they had happy and fruitful marriages. Eng
fathered 7 boys and 5 girls. Chang fathered 7 girls and 3
boys. All 22 children were normal except for a son and
daughter who were deaf mutes. Chang and Eng lived to age
63, and they were buried in the cemetery of the Baptist
church of White Plains, which they helped to build, and
where they and there family worshipped for many years.
Many of their descendants still attend this church today, and
over one thousand people trace their descent from these
original Siamese Twins.
You would think if anyone should remain single it would
be people like this, who had such an enormous handicap.
But the fact is, Frederick Drimmer, in his book Very Special
People, reports that 90% of human oddities, who use to be
called freaks, marry normal people, and have normal
children, and very few of these marriages end in divorce.
How can these people make it, and have happy marriages,
when so many people without their handicaps cannot? We
can only conclude with the Apostle Paul, these people have
the gift of marriage. In verse 7 Paul states that each person
has a special gift. His is the gift to be single and satisfied,
but if one does not have that gift, then he has another, and
that is the gift to be married and satisfied.
Just as some people can be happy and fulfilled single, so
others can be happy and fulfilled married. Paul no where
forbids marriage to anyone, for he writes to Timothy
that it is heresy and the doctrine of demons to forbid
marriage. Paul's concern is to prevent those with the gift of
singleness from entering marriage. We will see why as we
continue our study.
Since the key element in each of these gifts is the sex
drive, there is no way Christians can escape examining their
sex drive, and still be obedient to God. One's sexual
motivation, or lack of it, is a gift of God. If you have the gift
of self-control, and can abstain from sex, you have the gift of
singleness. It is foolish to be intimidated by all of the clamor
of the world that life and sex are synonymous. Consider
yourself gifted to pursue other goals for the kingdom of
God. If, however, you have a strong sex drive, consider
yourself ungifted to remain single, but gifted to make a
happy marriage. The rule here ,says Barclay, is, "No man
should attempt a way of life for which he is naturally
ungifted."
The key theme of this whole chapter is prevention. Paul's
advice here is to prevent those with the gift of singleness
from marriage, and to prevent those with the gift of
marriage from staying single, and to prevent in all cases the
immorality that the sex drive can lead to, if not brought
under self-control. Paul is no ivory tower mystic who
responds to all problems with the pious advice that Christ is
the answer. Of course, Christ is the answer, and obedience
to His will is the key to all of life's problems, but the question
is, what is His will, and how do I submit to His Lordship in
specific cases? It is to general to say Christ is the answer, or
pray about it. Paul is getting very specific, and actually
deals with the issues of sex so practically, that it has taken
centuries of study to bring the world up to the point where
they recognize this old bachelor knew more about sex than
most of the married people of history.
Most of the blunders of church history were caused by
Christians not taking Paul seriously as a sex counselor. This
one paragraph could have prevented centuries of darkness
and heartache in millions of Christians lives. When
Christians do not walk in the light that God gives, they are
condemned to walk in darkness, and make the same
mistakes over and over. If we are going to let the light of
God's Word guide us, we need to lay aside a false spirituality
that tries to hide the reality of lust. A retired pastor was
once asked by a friend, "How old do you have to be to stop
struggling with lust?" He responded, "Why ask me? I'm
only 70." That is realism, and Paul was a realist.
Paul is trying to help Christians to be moral people in a
very immoral world, and to do that he has to focus on the sex
drive. In chapter 6 he makes it clear that the Corinthians
were still visiting prostitutes. He writes in verses 15 and 16,
"Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ?
Shall I therefore take the members of Christ and make them
members of a prostitute? Never! Do you not know that he
who gives himself to a prostitute becomes one body with
her?" Prostitution was a way of life in Corinth, and Paul is
fighting to change the lifestyle of these pagans who have
become Christians, and who did not realize all of the
implications of what it means to be a Christian. This is why
Paul is not dealing with marriage on the level of the mystical
union of Christ and the church. He is on the level of lust and
the sex drive, because that is where the people are he is
trying to help.
If it seems unspiritual to you, it is because you have a
limited view of spirituality. True spirituality is being able to
deal with people where they are, and to help them bring
every aspect of their lives into conformity with the will of
God. Sex is a major part of life, therefore, to help people
deal with their sex life is being spiritual. The question is
often asked, how do I know if it is God's will that I marry?
Paul says the answer may be very simple, as simple as this:
Know thyself. Examine your makeup. Do you have a strong
sex drive that is constantly pushing you toward fornication?
That is a sign you are made for marriage. If the temptation
is easy to handle, that is a sign you may be gifted for
singleness.
It may sound like a very low motivation to get married,
just to satisfy the sex drive. You find a wife or husband just
to prevent your sex drive from leading you to prostitutes
and others outside of marriage. This makes marriage a sort
of corral to tame and limit the wild horses of passion. That
may seem like a low motivation, but the fact is, the
difference between ordered civilization and anarchy is the
control of the sex drive. Marriage provides men with a
means by which they keep their power under control, and
thus maintain a stable society. There can be no orderly
moral society without marriage, which limits the sex drive.
Every time a civilization has tried to ignore this God-ordained
principle, that civilization has lost its foundation, and crumbled.
Sex is not a mere side issue. It isvital to regulate it for survival and
success in any society.
Doctor J. D. Unvin, of Cambridge University, studied 80
civilizations covering 4000 years, and he concluded that any
society which chose sexual promiscuity declined, and those
that chose sexual discipline developed creative energy. Sex is
like fire, under control it is a wonderful resource of energy,
but out of control, it is a most destructive power.
Paul is saying, if you can regulate your sex drive, do not
feel the pressure to get married. So many young people
panic because they see their friends getting married, and
they feel left out. Their family and friends add to the
pressure by suggesting they may not be normal by staying
single. This kind of social pressure forces many to marry,
who ought not to. They marry out of the desire to conform
to a public image, and not because of sexual passion. This
lack of passion leads to a cold and mechanical relationship
that often leads to an affair or divorce. Paul is right, and
one should not get married just because it is the popular
thing to do. You should get married when you do not see
how you can live a normal life without a mate.
The question of the Corinthians was, how can we live in a
sex saturated society, where the sex drive is constantly
stimulated, and not be immoral? Paul says, get married.
Doesn't that make marriage a sort of legal lust? Yes it does,
but legal and controlled lust is far superior to illegal and
uncontrolled lust. It is the only way to build an orderly
society, and the only way to develop a Christian life style in a
pagan world. But notice, Paul is not so superficial as to
assume that marriage would end the problem of lust. He did
not say, get married and all your problems are over. On the
contrary, he recognized that married people still struggle
with the temptation to be immoral. He goes on to give
married people advice that will help them prevent lust and
promote love.
Here is the Pauline sex manual, written almost 2000 years
ago. If modern Christians would heed it, it would take care
of their needs. This is just what all the modern books are
saying. If you want to prevent sex outside the marriage,
make sure there is so much within the marriage that there is
no left over energy for Satan to work with. No Christian can
be effectively tempted to get into an affair if all the sex
energy he or she has is regularly released within the
marriage bond. Marriages may be made in heaven, but
their upkeep is done here on earth, and sex is the oil that
keeps the machinery of marriage from breaking down. This
gives us a clue as to why Paul did not want those with the
gift of singleness to get married. They have little interest in
sex, and, therefore, they make their mate a target that
Satan's fiery darts cannot miss.
Imagine one of these Corinthian young men who has
grown up following the pagan custom of going to a temple
prostitute. He now becomes a Christian, and decides to
marry this sweet Christian girl he met at church. She
became a Christian at a young age, and has been pure
sexually. In fact, she has no interest in sex at all. She is, in
other words, a gifted single. These two get married, and
very quickly the husband begins to feel rejection, because he
is very active sexually, and she is trying to avoid it as much
as she can. You can see the tremendous tension this puts on
the marriage. That man is going to go through enormous
conflict as to whether or not he will go back to visit the
temple prostitute. In other words, the act of marriage, or
merely becoming husband and wife, is not the cure for
immorality. The cure is in sexual satisfaction, and if a
person marries who does not have this gift, it only makes
matters worse. Those gifted to be single are a curse to their
mates, who are gifted for marriage, and need sexual
satisfaction.
So you can see why Paul urges people to stay single if they
do not have the gift of marriage. Lacking this, if they get
married, they just change the sphere of temptation from
fornication to adultery, and this is hardly an adequate
motivation for marriage. The principle is simple: If you
can't carry to tune, don't join the choir. If you faint at the
sight of blood, don't become a nurse. If you can't add, don't
become an accountant. If you don't life sex, or don't feel the
need of sex, don't enter a partnership where sex is basic to its
success.
Paul knows a lot of problems can be prevented if gifted
singles stay single, but this is hardly the end of the
complexity of the issues involved. Paul is as up to date as
books rolling off the presses today. The first thing he deals with in
marital sex is, the equality of the sexes. For centuries the
church ignored Paul's insights, and developed the view that
only males have sexual rights. The male is the aggressor,
and female is the passive vessel designed to meet his need.
Wives were trained to believe it was wrong for them to enjoy
sex. Millions of Christian girls were warned by their
mothers that sex was a necessary evil, and they should be
prepared to endure it, but not enjoy it.
The sex revolution broke us out of that prison of man's
own making, and has revealed what Paul was stating
centuries ago. Sexual satisfaction is the equal right of the
wife as well as the husband. They are mutually obligated to
satisfy one another. Women have looked down on Paul,
assuming he was a male chauvinist, but they failed to see
that he is really the father of women's equality in marriage.
There is not the slightest hint in this passage that the wife is
secondary to the husband. Equality is all you see, and if
mates will honor that equality, they will experience the full
joys of married life. The more you know about the history of
sex in the church, the more you can appreciate the Apostle
Paul's realism. Never once in this passage, dealing with
marital sex, does Paul even mention reproduction.
I am amazed as I read Christian history, to see how many
Christian leaders were afraid to admit that sex had any
other function than that of producing babies. The thought
that it had psychological values, and could even be a means
of entertainment, was never allowed to enter Christian
theology. The Catholic church refused to let Paul play a role
in their theology of sex. They said sex was for reproduction,
period! This being the case, any form of birth control was a
resisting of the will of God. They said it was unnatural to
prevent child birth. Of course, it is unnatural to cut your
grass, and your whiskers also, but grass and whiskers never
became a theological issue like sex. Because of this limited
view of sex, millions of Christians have had to endure all
kinds of guilt.
All of it could have been avoided by listening to Paul.
Paul says sex is an appetite, and like hunger and thirst, it
needs to be satisfied. Mates do not decide we want to have a
baby, and so lets engage in sex. Mates have the hunger for
sex hundreds of times more frequently than they have a
desire for children. The sexual appetite has no connection
with the number of children you hope to produce. Animals
are built to have a mating season in which the sex drive
functions for reproduction. Man is not made like this at all.
There is no mating season for man. He has a sex appetite all
the time, and the sexual function of mates is not just to have
children, but to satisfy this perpetual hunger. If children are
the only reason for sex, then after you have the children you
want, sex should end. Unfortunately, some mates feel this
way, and it destroys the marriage. Sexual pleasure is meant
to be enjoyed just as long as the pleasure of eating is meant
to be enjoyed.
Paul says there are occasions when you can interrupt the
regular release of sexual tension. He gives the example of
devoting yourself to prayer. In our day it would be for
the sake of going on a retreat, or visiting loved ones, or being
in the hospital, or being in a job situation that demands
separation. Even so, Paul says let this be by agreement.
In other words, Paul expected mates to talk about sex and
their needs in terms of frequency. The only time it is
legitimate to refuse sexual satisfaction is by mutual consent.
One of the major problems in marriage is the tyrannical
role of each mate over their own body. They developed a
dictatorship, and say, I alone decide what happens with my
body. Paul says this is the wrong form of government in
marriage. Marriage is to be a democracy with each mate
having an equal voice in what is done with each others body.
Marriage not only makes two into one, it makes each one
into two. You can lose 50% control over your body when
you marry, for now it belongs, not just to you, but to your
mate equally. Refusal to submit to this arrangement has
hurt millions of marriages.
Those who give heed to Paul, however, find in this old
bachelor's advice the key to marital bliss. They are those
who can live in a sex saturated society and not worry about
the stimulus to lust all about them, for they know they have
a mate that will release all tension, and eliminate the dangers
of temptation. Mates, like Paul's ideal, will be like two
scientists who worked together in a laboratory to seek a
solution to a problem. They will be open to experiment to
keep the sexual flames alive in their marriage, knowing they
have an obligation to each other to prevent Satan from
getting a foothold in their lives through lack of self-control.
Mates who give heed to Paul will be aware of sexual needs,
and will take the necessary steps to meet those needs.
Prevention is the name of the game when it comes to sex.
The only cure for bad sex is good sex. To avoid doing it
wrong, do it right. The whole history of the church could
have been different, and history can yet be different, for
those Christians who will listen to Paul's wisdom, and look
upon marital sex, not as dirty, but as duty-delightful duty
that provides mates escape from the enticing power of the
world, the flesh, and the devil. Those who do so demonstrate
to the glory of God the blessedness of the gift of marriage.
