I have read a lot of your articles that deal with sex and fornication.\u00a0 In my mind, I agree that sex does not create a marriage.\u00a0 However, it seems my heart believes that sex does create marriage.\u00a0 I have deep feelings my marriage is an adulterous relationship because neither I nor my wife were virgins when we married. So is the devil trying to confuse me, or is the holy spirit trying to correct me?\u00a0 Just to clarify, I love my wife and I am not trying to seek a loophole to get out of my marriage.\u00a0 I just want to be right in God’s eyes.<\/p>\n
I believe that in the Old Testament, sex outside of marriage was not lawful, as a punishment was enforced if two people were caught having sex (Exodus 22:16-17).\u00a0 However, did I Corinthians 6:15-16 change this to restore the original intent, as Jesus changed the reason for divorce?\u00a0\u00a0Malachi 2:14 does say the wife of your vows, but again was this changed when Paul said you become one flesh with a harlot?\u00a0 When he asks, Do not you know, is he implying that most people don’t realize that sex is a marriage?<\/p>\n
When I study the Bible, I try to discard teachings that have been already placed in my head from other people.\u00a0 I was always taught fornication means sex outside of marriage.\u00a0 However, I’ve learned it could mean, illegal sex, or the act of having sex with a harlot.\u00a0 What I am suggesting is that sex before marriage is not a sin.\u00a0 And that fornication refers to illegal sex, i.e. adultery, homosexuality, bestiality.\u00a0\u00a0However, sex would\u00a0create a marriage, and any other relationship after that would be adultery.<\/p>\n
So when Paul says to avoid fornication, get married, could he be saying, to avoid homosexuality, to avoid adultery, to avoid bestiality, to avoid using a harlot, get married?\u00a0 A lot of times, a harlot is referred to as an adulteress.\u00a0 Is this because she is married to the first person she had sex with, and all her other sexual experiences are adultery?\u00a0 I have also been taught that marriage and one flesh is the same thing. Is that so?<\/p>\n
I do understand that this thinking means rape causes marriage.\u00a0But in the case of Tamar and Amnon, Tamar says Amnon putting her out is worst than him raping her. Why did she say this?\u00a0 Did she think she could not be married because she was not a virgin?<\/p>\n
I know I asked a lot of questions, but I’m really torn on this issue.\u00a0 I’m scared because if sex is marriage, I am living in\u00a0sin.\u00a0 But if I divorce my\u00a0wife, and sex is not marriage, I sin, causing her to be an adulteress.<\/p>\n\t
Feelings are never enough to make the right decisions. To ascribe your feelings to the Holy Spirit is to walk the path of deception.<\/p>\n
What you have done is artificially narrowed the definition of fornication. The Old Testament was God’s law. It wasn’t replaced because it was wrong. It was replaced because it could not bring salvation. “Therefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good. Has then what is good become death to me? Certainly not! But sin, that it might appear sin, was producing death in me through what is good, so that sin through the commandment might become exceedingly sinful<\/em>” (Romans 7:12-13). Terms of the covenant changed with the New Law, but it doesn’t mean we can’t learn from it or that meanings changed. “For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope<\/em>” (Romans 15:4). Thus, Genesis 34, Exodus 22:16-17, and Deuteronomy 22:28-29 prove that sex does not create a marriage. If rape created marriage, then there would be no need to command marriage or seek out marriage after a rape. Nor could a father refuse what supposedly already happened. Fornication includes two virgins having sex without being married. Attempting to define it away doesn’t make it so.<\/p>\n In classical Greek,\u00a0porneia<\/em>\u00a0was used to refer to prostitution. As the word evolved, it denoted unchastity or illicit sexual relations\u00a0of any kind<\/strong>\u00a0in later writings. [Source:\u00a0The Complete Biblical Library: Greek-English Dictionary<\/em>].<\/p>\n Walter Baurer’s\u00a0A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature<\/em>\u00a0defines\u00a0porneia<\/em> as “unlawful sexual intercourse, prostitution, unchastity, fornication … the sexual unfaithfulness of a married woman.”<\/p>\n If sex created marriage and all subsequent attempts at marriage is adultery, then you end up with God commanding Hosea to commit adultery. “When the LORD began to speak by Hosea, the LORD said to Hosea: “Go, take yourself a wife of harlotry and children of harlotry, for the land has committed great harlotry by departing from the LORD”<\/em>” (Hosea 1:2). Gomer was not a virgin when Hosea married her. Yet, you are claiming that this makes it an adulterous relationship. But “Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone<\/em>” (James 1:13). What God commanded Hosea to do was not wrong.<\/p>\n