Be fruitful and multiply...but stick to one fruit please.

I love sex!

So stop the presses...right? No, a man declaring he loves sex is not exactly breaking news. But the fact of the matter is making the same enthusiastic proclamation with the addition of the words with my wife at the end creates a number of typical, although different, reactions from most people.

First, the socially conservative types (read Christians) squirm just a bit with discomfort because such things are just not declared in front of others. It's very unbecoming and impious...somehow. Let's ignore the facts already stated this week God create Adam and Eve as companions (including sexually), and He created all that is involved in the science we know as biology. God made us sexual beings. Deal with it and embrace the fact.

The second reaction usually involves repulsion on a different level....a much more secular level. It's just not chic or provocative enough to publicly proclaim such monogamously insinuating things. After all, the lure of the forbidden or the challenge of the chase drives these people. Sex isn't just function of reproduction or expression of intimacy...heavens no! Sex is erotically playful and most interesting when not caged in the confinements of civil union and certainly no place for religion. Don't you remember the great rebellion from sexual repression in the '60's?

Next comes the skeptic. Sure, you love sex with your wife now...but what about 10 years from now? 25 years? You've got your priorities all wrong if you're enjoying sex with your wife and telling people about it. Either that...or you're lying! You're trying to present your marriage as the perfect union and one-up everyone else. No way anyone having great sex with their wife is talking about it...no way. You're hiding something. I don't know exactly what...but something. You call yourself a Christian! Hypocrite is what you are!

Pervert! I'll bet you're one of those internet porn junkies! You've got sex on the brain. I see you on your little phone. Bet you're checking out www.hootywho.com or some other sick website just planning on taking out your sexual frustrations on your poor, faithfully loyal wife. You make me sick! She'll get tired of your abuse and put a bullet in you one day. Just wait and see. Janie's got a gun you know...

Six words. Just six words can create a firestorm of reaction or repulsion. But why and why especially among Christians? God is the author of sex, and He even defines some specifics about the act of sex in His Word. Song of Solomon? Now there's an erotic story if ever there's been one right in our own Bible. Granted, I've never compared my beautiful wife's hair to that of a goat, but hey...those were different times and a different culture!

I'm convinced God wants His children to be happy, and there's tons of evidence to support my hypothesis. Sex is just one of those many reasons, as long as, the primary focus is always on Him and not on the flesh itself. Yet somehow, our society has managed to dilute the most intimate act possible between a husband and wife, an act of complete submission and delightful ecstasy, by shifting the focus away from being a wonderful gift from God to a celebration of temporary self-indulgence and evolutionary luck of the draw exemplified by the popular motto if it feels good do it.

I love sex with my wife, and I thank God for that! But, I'd still thank God just as exuberantly for my wife if sex wasn't part of the deal...

It doesn't have to be Either - Or

One of the things that drives me nuts about America Christian culture is our weird attitudes toward sex!

On the one hand you've got the world thinking everything is about sex. Look at how so many women dress or just look at most advertisements. A favorite Christian teacher had me really laughing as she related how she was shopping at a drug store with her 2 young adult daughters recently and when they got up to the counter to make their purchases she saw that they were selling "sexy mints". To the complete chagrin of her daughters, she starting asking the clerk what made these mints sexy and how could one mint be more sexy than the other? The poor clerk simply admitted that she didn't know. The woman's daughters dragged her from the store before she could really start preaching!

On the other hand you've got Christians being strangely silent for the most part on the topic of sex. Occasionally you'll hear that sex belongs in marriage. But somehow the Western Christian church has managed to give off the vibe that sex not exactly "right". I think it may be a case of the proverbial throwing out the baby with the bathwater; the thought process going something along the lines of - since the world over emphasizes and misuses sex, it must therefor be wrong.

But how on earth could sex be wrong?

God created sex just like He created everything else. Are mountains wrong? Is fruit wrong? Is oxygen wrong?

I actually think the enemy has lied to the Western church about sex so that we'd remain silent concerning it and there by jeopardize our marriages. Because let's be candid, there's nothing more nourishing to a marriage than a flourishing sex life.

But can't we love God, be modest people, have appropriate boundaries, refrain from sharing too personal of details, and still have a great sex life in our marriages?!

I believe that we can. What about you?

Two Anniversaries

On August 24, 2007, Nikki and I got on our knees before God and each other and dedicated our love for Him and each other.  We didn't take it lightly, and we had refrained from sex while dating because we both had been a part of relationships that had started out with sex or were based upon sex. And those were all failures.  We knowingly and willingly allowed sin into a relationship.  Or we had begun a relationship with sex and selfishness and instant gratification and shallowness and stupidity and......

On September 21, 2007, Nikki and I stood before a Justice of Peace so our marriage would be recognized by the state of Iowa and my employer. Nikki took Logan as her son and I took Naomi as my daughter. A mere formality, but it was still cool to include both kids.  It was definitely a Jesus thing, because both Naomi and Logan were supposed to be with their bio parents that weekend.  Nikki and I had known we were gonna get married.  When her employer dropped Nikki's health insurance coverage, we pushed the date up and dropped the notion of an all out wedding.

What is kinda ironic is if I woulda had a gay lover named Nick, I coulda added him to my health insurance coverage no problem. But since I was dating a woman, a very wonderful woman, I could not put her on my coverage. In the eyes of Jesus, Nikki and I were already married. Its just that the state of Iowa and my employer didn't recognize us as husband and wife. And most importantly, Nikki and I recognized the importance of honoring Jesus in our relationship and asking Him to be a part of our lives before we became one.

But if you don't have enough self-control, then go ahead and get married. After all, it is better to marry than to burn with desire.

1 Corinthians 7.9

It Started in the Garden

Faith and sex huh? When I first heard the topic I though oh, okay, that’s great! Now when it is time to sit and write the blog, I’m thinking maybe it wasn’t so great after all. David did a great and cautious job yesterday. Caution is always a good thing the first part of the week with a topic like this. Since I am the first female to share on this topic, caution probably would be good for me too. We’ll see when I get to the end of this how well I do with that. Candor is pretty much my style so we’ll see????

I’m old. I’m well churched. I’ve been in church all my life. I like to joke that I cut my teeth on Pentecostal pews. I don’t know if there were teeth marks there, but you get the idea. My mother was quite Puritanical in her views on sex – in fact, she’d probably have been a Shaker if she could – you know the ones that preached abstinence and preached themselves out of this world with no reproduction?

The first intersection of sex and faith came at church camp. NO I wasn’t in the bushes making out with one of the boys. Three of us in the room were having a conversation about sex. Given my mother’s views on sex, I knew about it, but firmly maintained that “Christians don’t do such a thing. God gives them their babies." I guess I thought every child born to a Christian was an immaculate conception. One of the older wiser girls – I think she was about 16 took me aside and clarified things for me.

David’s right, we don’t hear much about sex in church. We’ve left sex education to the public schools. We fight to keep our children from hearing such things. Okay, I agree, sex education has gone too far in many ways – I heard the other day that some school was going to do sex education in Kindergarten. The point isn’t that the schools do it; I think the point is more that we are not doing our jobs to give a godly perspective of sex. As David says, sex is for marriage. It's also basic to our humanity to desire sex and have it.

I’ve seen a lot of interesting interpretations on scripture as well. Take the interesting book of Song of Songs (or Song of Solomon). In the late 70’s there was a book, a sex manual to compete with the burgeoning market of sex manuals, Solomon on Sex. It had some rather interesting ideas. Christian couples flocked to their local Christian bookstore for this one. Finally a way to find out more about sex while still being spiritual!

Another interpretation of Song of Songs is that it is an allegory of Christ and His church. In certain circles of church this is really popular. I don’t disagree with this interpretation – I’ve preached it myself! However, a preacher who was well known for preaching this topic once said to me, Joyce, the young really like all that talk of kissing so it’s a good topic. I wasn’t sure that was a good way to put it. I think he sold a lot of books that way.

Most of the time, the church just buries its head in the sand when it comes to sex. We five Kingdom Bloggers that God put together to talk about things with candor, honesty and with the Kingdom of God in mind, seem to be the ones to start this conversation. Let’s face it, people have sex. Christian people and non-Christian people – it has been that way since Adam knew Eve and it isn’t going to change. The Bible is pretty direct about sex. Why aren’t we?

Stuff Christian Don't Like to Talk About - Yes, That!

There are lots of "rules" in the Bible pertaining to sex. There, I said it: sex. One of the body's strongest natural desires is that for reproduction. We call it: making love, sex, "that" and a few other things. Along with our desire to stay alive, and eat, it is up there at the top of the list.The Bible doesn't make too many distinctions about eating - it's not like  we put it off until some day in the future.I don't believe it says anything about keeping our desire to stay alive in check - so what's the deal with sex?

This week the topic is sex and faith - thanks Tracy - I haven't been this uncomfortable around church folks for a long time!

I have heard a little teaching about sex in the church. Wait 'til you're married, and don't have it with yourself. Now that I have passed that one - I think I am done.

All kidding aside, there has been little good teaching in the church regarding sex. It more often falls on the list of don'ts unless you are married. Occasionally someone will give a few reasons why not, and the purpose of reproduction is clouded by "the enjoyment of sex, and "it's my body" and other Hollywood type pressure - as if they've got it all together!

Look, sex is great and it feels good - and it gets all mixed up with love, and feelings and stuff like that. As Christians we do not rely on feelings to know how to act. I never really understood that like I do now. Feelings aren't facts. In truth, abstinence protects us from STDs and unwanted pregnancies. Even if those weren't consequences, it still would be against the "rules" unless you are married - but how to we connect with God, and enjoy something which is so obviously abused.

The truth is that sex, is, and should be part of the marriage experience. It is designed to be one facet of marital intimacy - the other two emotional and spiritual. And truthfully, it doesn't fit well in other places.

I was on vacation last week, and there was a 6-year-old flipping out at pool-side. My older girls both said they were never having kids after witnessing the event. I was thinking the same thing, but it's too late for that. So I wished children on them to the extent at which they have cost me discomfort as a parent. Somehow, the world seems to leave sex disconnected from reproduction. It appears to be one place we get into trouble.

The good marriage, is like a good church. You feel safe in being vulnerable, and transparent.

There are all sorts of issues with sex outside of marriage that are damaging to both parties. These are covered in Galatians 5, in the 10 commandments, and may other places in the Bible.

For me, I am very glad that I am married and don't have to manage my desires.

How about you, is the Bible realistic about sex, and how do you manage?