My boyfriend says times are different now for Christians
Question:
My boyfriend and I have been together for over a year. After receiving the grace of God, I have come to the knowledge that sex before marriage is a sin, and I do not want to partake in this anymore but my boyfriend is not on board.
I am a born again Christian who began this life of faith around two years ago.
He has been a Christian his whole life since a child, or so he tells me. His mother is very religious and she teaches Sunday school. He prays every morning and night, reads parts of the Bible and attends church. This really confuses me because he says he is a believer, he says all these Christian-like things such as quoting from the Bible or making affirmations, but he refuses to believe that premarital sex is a bad thing. His mother is very religious and active in the church but also does not think it is wrong to have sex before marriage. She allows her own daughters to sleep around before marriage. They are really nice people, probably the kindest people I’ve met, but this is not OK.
Every time I tell him this is a sin I don’t want to partake in and explain to him passages from the Bible that clearly state an opposition to sexual immorality, I get a myriad of opposing responses like:
- that was just the old times things are different now,
- you can’t just keep focusing on rules and being strict that’s not what the gospel is about,
- it’s more important to love because of the verse in I Corinthians verse that says love is patient and kind. He says a greater commandment and the greatest commandment is to love one another
- if I don’t get intimacy, I’m going to get mad at you and you will regret it
- I’m just a man. Every man is like this. We all want sex
- he starts attacking me as a Christian saying I’m a bad Christian for making him feel bad and what I’m doing is not what Christians are supposed to do
- that I am such a mean person
- or some other response. I’ve honestly heard them all.
I’ve been trying to explain it to him for three months (even though I brought up this about a year ago and randomly throughout since then). During the past three months, I have not slept with him once. He is getting really aggressive with me at this point in terms of his temperament. These responses are usually said with anger or irritation because he says he has not been getting what he wants and that is sex.
I send him Bible verses, biblical videos and he just tunes them out. Our relationship has been deteriorating and every day he calls me a mean person and tells me I shouldn’t judge him because I call him out on his sexual sin because it affects me as well. He tells me that in the Bible it says not to judge, but actually, it is the opposite. I read somewhere that we are the judge the injustices. Marriage is an option I would not oppose but for some reason, although he was the one who proposed the idea of wanting to get married to me first, he does not want to get married now at this moment but later, after a couple of years.
I do not think that he is a true believer, but I do not know for sure. When I do ask him, he is offended and starts to verbally attack me, calling me a mean person and other things.
I just want us to be free of this sexual immorality because I care about him, and he had just recently been admitted into the hospital. He had extremely low hormone levels, like testosterone, and had a tumor in his stomach which was taken out. Now he is home. I want to help him recover through Bible study, but how can I be close to God's word when committing sin makes me want to run away from the Lord?
I’m in my early twenties, and I don’t want to have sex before marriage anymore. It’s destructive and my boyfriend won’t accept that, even though I suffered every time we did it because of the guilt and consequences.
- Should I just break up with him and leave and go about my life?
- Is he even a true Christian or is he a child of the devil?
- Is what he is saying heresy?
- How should I respond?
- What are your thoughts?
Thank you for reading and listening to me. I eagerly await your reply
Answer:
Jesus said, "You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they? So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So then, you will know them by their fruits" (Matthew 7:16-20). When words and actions disagree, we note that actions are closer to the truth.
Your boyfriend and his family are not the first to try to blend Christianity with fornication. In Thyatira, Jesus had harsh words to say about a woman who was misleading Christians. "But I have this against you, that you tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, and she teaches and leads My bond-servants astray so that they commit acts of immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols. I gave her time to repent, and she does not want to repent of her immorality. Behold, I will throw her on a bed of sickness, and those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation, unless they repent of her deeds. And I will kill her children with pestilence, and all the churches will know that I am He who searches the minds and hearts; and I will give to each one of you according to your deeds" (Revelation 2:20-23). "Immorality" in this verse is translating the word porneia, which means fornication.
Regarding his excuses for ignoring God's commands, we first need to acknowledge that he is strongly biased. As you noted, he badly wants to have sex, but he doesn't want to get married, so he grasps at any excuse to get what he wants.
Things Are Different Now
"Is there anything of which one might say, "See this, it is new"? Already it has existed for ages Which were before us. There is no remembrance of earlier things; And also of the later things which will occur, There will be for them no remembrance Among those who will come later still" (Ecclesiastes 1:10-11).
What this line really means is that your boyfriend has little knowledge of history. Just exactly what has changed that would make sexual sins like fornication no longer a sin? Did God declare a change in His laws? As Saul was told, "the Glory of Israel will not lie or change His mind; for He is not a man that He should change His mind" (I Samuel 15:29).
The Gospel Is Not About Rules
"For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome" (I John 5:3).
Thus, we learn that your boyfriend doesn't love God. It is strange that the Gospel contains so many rules, if it is not about rules. "Let us behave properly as in the day, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and sensuality, not in strife and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts" (Romans 13:13-14). "Sexual promiscuity" is again translating the Greek word porneia.
Let's take note of what Jesus said about His teachings:
"He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him" (John 14:21).
"My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand." (John 10:27-28).
It Is More Important to Love
"If you love Me, you will keep My commandments" (John 14:15).
Your boyfriend is playing words games. "Love" is not getting naked and crawling into bed with someone. When it involves someone you are not married to, such behavior is a sin. In the same chapter where Paul said, "But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love" (I Corinthians 13:13), he also defined love as "does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own ... does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth" (I Corinthians 13:5-6). So what we see here is that even when quoting the Bible, he skips over the phrases that he finds inconvenient.
If I Don't Get Intimacy, I'm Going to Get Mad at You
"Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails" (I Corinthians 13:4-8).
And threatening is Christ-like behavior? What happened to patience? How is he not seeking his own way? How is threatening violence a demonstration of love? "A man of violence entices his neighbor and leads him in a way that is not good" (Proverbs 16:29).
Every Man Wants Sex
An exaggeration, but regardless the only place where sex is allowed is in marriage. "Now concerning the things about which you wrote, it is good for a man not to touch a woman. But because of immoralities, each man is to have his own wife, and each woman is to have her own husband" (I Corinthian 7:1-2).
"Marriage is to be held in honor among all, and the marriage bed is to be undefiled; for fornicators and adulterers God will judge" (Hebrews 13:4).
Christians Should Not Make Someone Feel Bad
"For though I caused you sorrow by my letter, I do not regret it; though I did regret it -- for I see that that letter caused you sorrow, though only for a while -- I now rejoice, not that you were made sorrowful, but that you were made sorrowful to the point of repentance; for you were made sorrowful according to the will of God, so that you might not suffer loss in anything through us. For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation, but the sorrow of the world produces death. For behold what earnestness this very thing, this godly sorrow, has produced in you: what vindication of yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what avenging of wrong! In everything you demonstrated yourselves to be innocent in the matter" (II Corinthians 7:8-11).
A Christian's job is to help people grow, which means you have to tell people at times that they are in the wrong. "A wise son accepts his father's discipline, but a scoffer does not listen to rebuke" (Proverbs 13:1). Your boyfriend doesn't believe anything that he doesn't already believe, he doesn't listen to any correction but rather makes fun of anyone who tries to correct him. That makes him a scoffer.
You're so Mean!
This is an indication that he doesn't have any real point to make in his favor so he attacks the messenger of the bad news he doesn't want to hear.
The sad thing is that there has always been a simple solution to this disagreement. "But if they do not have self-control, let them marry; for it is better to marry than to burn with passion" (I Corinthians 5:9). He stopped considering marriage when he got the sex he wanted without having to make a commitment. He wants his free hand-outs to continue. You gave him three months and he still refuses to consider that he is sinning. It sounds to me that it is time to move on. Perhaps he will change later, but you shouldn't wait for such a slim possibility to happen.
When you find another boyfriend, don't repeat the mistakes made in the past.
