Intimate Covenant Podcast

Unmasking the Roots of Sexual Taboo in Christianity, part 1 -- It's Greek to Me!

• Intimate Covenant -- Matt & Jenn Schmidt • Episode 176

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Matt and Jenn explore how ancient Greek philosophy has shaped modern Christian attitudes toward sexuality, creating an unbiblical culture of shame and stigma around sexual desire.

• Plato's dualism in the 4th century BC separated body and soul, viewing bodily desires as inferior to spiritual pursuits
• Stoicism further emphasized suppression of passions, teaching that sex was only acceptable within marriage and solely for procreation
• The Apostle Paul directly confronted these philosophies, calling those who forbid marriage and require abstinence "liars" devoted to "deceitful spirits"
• Paul teaches in 1 Timothy 4 that everything created by God is good and should be received with thanksgiving
• The biblical solution to misdirected desire isn't suppression but redirection toward what truly fulfills
• Proverbs 5 instructs husbands to "be intoxicated" by their wives' love—language of abundance, not restraint
• Sexual desire isn't worldly or dangerous but God-designed to teach us about our need for connection
• Modern Christians must examine where their beliefs about sexuality come from—Scripture or Greek philosophy

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  Cherishing,
  Matt & Jenn

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Speaker 1:

Hey, jen want to talk about Plato and Stoic philosophy.

Speaker 2:

It's all Greek to me.

Speaker 1:

Great. Today on the podcast, we're talking about how ancient Greek philosophy has influenced our modern Christian attitudes and biases about sex. Let's do it. Welcome friends.

Speaker 2:

Welcome. We're Matt and Jen, and this is the Intimate Covenant podcast, where we believe the Bible and great married sex both belong on the kitchen table.

Speaker 1:

That's right. We're talking about godly marriage and hot sex with emotionally fulfilling oneness, and we are so grateful to have you joining us for this another episode.

Speaker 2:

That's right. Thanks for joining us. If you'd like to learn more about us, you can go to our website, IntimateCovenantcom, and we would always love to hear from you. You can email us at podcast at IntimateCovenantcom.

Speaker 1:

So today on the podcast, as we maybe alluded to in the intro, we're talking about Greek philosophy, Riveting.

Speaker 2:

Sounds riveting, riveting, sounds riveting, riveting conversation.

Speaker 1:

In reality, the intro is really there to pique your interest, of course, but I hope we're going to make it more interesting than a Philosophy 101 course. That's right, but before we get to the content, we of course want to remind you it is getting down to go time for the annual retreat, in terms of go time to register.

Speaker 2:

That's right, we still have some available spots. They are filling, but we do have some available spots, so if you would love to join us, now's the time.

Speaker 1:

Yes, we would love to have you. The retreat, of course, is September 18th through the 20th, that is, a Thursday night through Saturday afternoon. Among other exciting things happening at the retreat, we are so proud and excited to announce that we will have a live musical guest performance by none other than Trey Keller.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we talked about this on our episode a couple of weeks ago, super excited to have Trey joining us. He's done a lot of things in the musical world. His voice has been heard on how many Like it was a crazy high number.

Speaker 1:

Something like six billion times his voice has been downloaded or streamed, so that's pretty impressive and we're very excited to have him joining us and performing. It will be an incredible set of love songs and just some fun feel-good songs to kick off the retreat, so we're very excited about that. We are talking this year at the retreat about oneness. In fact, that's the title for the retreat. The theme for the retreat is One. We're talking about learning how to grow closer together in all aspects of your relationship, and so we're really excited about this material.

Speaker 1:

We're excited about some of the ideas we have to put it all together. In fact, jen and I just got back from a little weekend to really dig down into preparing some of that content. So we're just every time we look at it, every time we work more with it, we're getting more and more excited about how we're presenting it. A lot of it is foundational kind of material, but the presentation will be different and I think it will be at a level of depth that will be appropriate for you. Whether you've been married two days or two years or 20 years, there will still be something there, challenging for you to dig into and to wrestle with your spouse with we write the retreat material.

Speaker 2:

We try to balance it to where those that have come to every single retreat can still come and feel like they get something out of it that's new and fresh, and those that have never been can come and get the same. So I think we're doing that again this year, and so we really hope that you could be able to join us too. If you'd like to learn more about the retreat or to register, go to our website, intimatecovenantcom slash retreat, and that will get you all the information.

Speaker 1:

Yes, and, of course, email us if you have questions that can't be answered on the website. Okay, so again, today's episode really more than just Greek philosophy. This episode is really about this culture of sexual shame and taboo that surrounds the topic of sexuality, particularly in the church.

Speaker 2:

Exactly, and it comes. The idea for this comes from an email that we received, so I'll read that email to us. It says this your podcast is great. Oh well, thank you very much. Thank you for what you do.

Speaker 2:

I've tried to listen to a few other sex podcasts as well. They sometimes have interesting topics, but most of them end up being somewhat vulgar or they aren't done well. We do need words to describe sexual things or body parts, so it's not really the words used, but more. I don't enjoy the general tone of those podcasts. They clearly have a non-biblical focus in how they discuss it all, or it's filled with filth and perverted topics too, so I have stopped trying to listen to those. I appreciate your godly focus, even when discussing highly sexual topics.

Speaker 2:

Goes on to say when I've heard it discussed among Christians, it's almost like it's a negative, almost like it's worldly or too sex-focused. And then he asks this question so why does it seem so stigmatized to consider new ways to feel pleasure? You do great with topics that are sometimes stigmatized and in some ways all of these are. Either they seem kind of extreme or maybe it's embarrassing or shameful to talk about for some reason. I know you have touched on some of these before, but there are likely other topics too that seem stigmatized, especially by Christians. I think it's great when you bring these kinds of things up, so it's actually a longer email and so we've paraphrased and summarized it just to really get to the heart of what this reader is asking.

Speaker 2:

He does go on to name some specific sexual practices which he believes have been unjustly avoided like we just seem to condemn them, or many Christians seem to condemn them, and so he talks about that. But his general question is where does the stigma of talking about sex come from?

Speaker 1:

Well, I would agree with this reader and I think many of us have probably experienced something similar that there is a culture of shame and stigma surrounding sex, especially in the church. I mean just looking around, like the idea of celibacy in the Catholic priesthood to the Puritans in the 16th century, to even the purity culture of the 1990s.

Speaker 2:

Right, which we've done, some episodes kind of digging into that.

Speaker 1:

Exactly. I mean, there have been so many religious influences throughout Western culture which have really taken sort of this outspoken, sometimes very severe view of sex and sexual desire.

Speaker 2:

And I think for a lot of us who have grown up in a Christian culture, so to speak, we think that this is biblical, like in our minds. This goes hand in hand. I think we, often, many of us maybe I'm just speaking for myself I did think that there was somehow some sense of shame tied to sexuality, and that that came from the Bible itself.

Speaker 1:

Right, right, and I think what we want to try to do with this episode and at this point we're probably going to turn this into a couple of episodes is to take a little bit deeper look into history and some of the cultural and religious views of sexuality throughout history. Now, to do that in real depth, to do a real deep dive, would certainly require maybe the rest of the year of episodes.

Speaker 2:

We are not going to do that. We're not doing that.

Speaker 1:

But I do think it's worth recognizing, and I think this is really where we want to kind of land. All of this is to recognize that not all of our, either individually or our as in culturally, or when I say our, perhaps even if we're just talking about the religious world or the church, it is worth recognizing that not all of our perspectives, not all of our assumptions and not all of our opinions about how to handle sexuality are based in Scripture alone. Our modern, quote-unquote Christian ideas about sex are a view of scripture through the lens of both modern and ancient secular philosophy, ancient sociopolitical ideology and even the evolving Western cultures that have influenced kind of who we are and where we are today.

Speaker 2:

And that's what I think we don't really recognize where our assumptions and our perspectives and our opinions are coming from. So it's worth digging into, it's worth saying what does the Bible really truly say or not say about sexuality and how we should approach that topic individually and collectively as a church.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, absolutely. One of the hardest things to know and to see and to recognize about oneself are our biases, and that's what I want to try to maybe lift the curtain on a little bit is to see and to examine and challenge. Why do we think the way that we think about sexuality in particular? Right?

Speaker 2:

So I think, without getting too academic, matt, or too philosophical, I think it's worth exploring the historical influences of our modern Christian approach to sexuality. So this is going to be a little bit of a different episode than what we normally put out. You're probably going to hear Matt talking a little bit more than me, because he's the one who's really been digging in deep and to taking some time to really parse this out for us. But I think this is going to be a great couple of episodes to help us reframe again. Why is it? I think, the way that I think.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and why do we believe what we believe? Why do we teach what we believe? And again, it is critical, in every facet of our worldview, that we would be willing to acknowledge where our biases might be and especially, where are our non-biblical influences.

Speaker 2:

Right. We should always be willing to challenge why we believe, what we believe and how it is that we got there. The challenge of that is not wrong. That is how you develop and build your faith, right.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely.

Speaker 2:

You should be able to give a defense right.

Speaker 1:

Why do we do what we do Right and then, once we've examined that, it is so critical then to go back and to hold on to what Scripture says yes, and then be willing to let go of everything else that doesn't serve us.

Speaker 1:

Let go of everything else that is especially contrary to what scripture teaches, that is contrary to the attitude that God has, in this case, about sexuality. So most of us don't realize how much our core beliefs and how much our attitudes are shaped by societal influences, and those societal influences have in turn been influenced by centuries of, in some cases, non-biblical philosophy or other ideology that comes from a secular worldview. The historical Christian approach to sexuality, which includes tendencies towards silence and taboo and shame and moral regulation of sexuality, the historical Christian approach, is definitely a product of historical layering, and it is layering that goes all the way back to ancient Greece, maybe even further back than that, but at the very least we're going to start our conversation with ancient Greek philosophy, and I think most of us will be a little surprised to realize that our modern thinking about sexuality has roots even going back to the fourth century. Yeah, we still think like.

Speaker 2:

Greeks, we think we're so modern and so with it, no.

Speaker 1:

So we're going to start by acknowledging these influences, greeks and beyond, and hopefully some of us can be compelled to shift our mindset toward a view of sexuality that is purely biblical and lets go of the Greek philosophy and the other secular influences as we go through this. So, with your indulgence, we want to take an episode or two to kind of broadly investigate some of these influences, and again, we're going to start with the ancient Greeks in this episode. At some point we're going to move on to other influences, like Augustine and the early Catholic Church as it had influence through the Middle Ages. We're going to see how Protestant groups like, for example, the Puritans in the 16th century, and then how the Victorians in the 19th century still influence our modern attitudes of sexual shame. And then more recently, in the 20th century, thinkers like Sigmund Freud of course had a great deal of influence in how we think about sex today.

Speaker 1:

And then the sexual revolution of the 1960s of course brought about a whole nother wave of thinking. That maybe well, and I think what we'll see is it both influenced the churches thinking about sexuality, but also influenced an extreme reaction to sexuality, starting in the 1960s that culminated most recently with purity culture, like we've talked about. So, again, these are history lessons, so to speak, but I'm no historian, I don't even really like history that much, right? But we're going to hopefully be able to look at these different philosophies and, I hope, to try to point out where do they differ with how the Bible views sexuality? Where do these ideas differ from even ancient Jewish attitudes about sexuality? So sounds exciting, right.

Speaker 2:

I feel like you should be like hi, I'm Matt, Welcome to my TED Talk.

Speaker 1:

Well, okay, so maybe history and philosophy is not your thing. Not your thing, right? Jen?

Speaker 2:

That's yes. Don't worry, though. The goal is not for us all to become sex history experts. Nope, Like Matt is no.

Speaker 1:

We're going to try to go light on the boring stuff, yeah, okay, like Matt is. No, we're going to try to go light on the boring stuff, okay, yeah, and we're going to try to bring it all around to. Why is this important for me today?

Speaker 2:

And I think that's the biggest thing. Why does this matter to me today? And I think what you'll see is that you will be shocked, as Matt has already alluded to. You will be shocked at kind of what has gone into why we think, how we think within the broader Christian world today when it comes to sexuality. So I think you're going to be surprised that some of the ways we think and talk about sex in the church today aren't actually necessarily based on biblical attitudes, even though we think they are. Yes.

Speaker 2:

All right, Matt. So without further ado, get into it for us. Let's start with some ancient Greek philosophy.

Speaker 1:

Okay, and I know if you are a regular listener, you probably never would have imagined that we would be talking about ancient Greek philosophy.

Speaker 2:

Stick with us, because it does matter.

Speaker 1:

Even and especially if you're a new listener, you're like oh, that's a podcast about married sex. I wonder what the topic is today. Ancient Greek philosophy. Probably not ancient Greek philosophy, but let's just dig in, Hang with me for just like three minutes and then we're going to see how this influences even how you think about this today. We're going to see how this influences even how you think about this today. So in the 4th century BC, there was a guy named Plato. Everybody's heard of Plato, right?

Speaker 2:

That's right.

Speaker 1:

Not talking about the toy clay stuff Plato, plato Plato and a whole other group of philosophers who we won't get into, but Plato's the most popular. One of them brought about this thinking called dualism, and dualism was this idea where the body was seen as the prison of the soul. So in Plato's thinking, the soul was primary, the soul was most important, and the body was this fleshly prison, if you will, that contained the soul lines up with a biblical worldview, but in other ways it has influenced even how we think about how the mind and the body and the soul are all connected. We won't dig too deep into all of that, but let's just say, though, that, because of this idea of dualism, desire any physical desire, but especially sexual desire, or at least including sexual desire, any kind of physical desire, was associated with this lower and irrational nature of human beings, whereas the soul, especially the soul in terms of thought and reason and logic, all of that was seen as higher and was seen as more divine. In other words, the body and things that were physical were disregarded and thought of as more animalistic, whereas the things of the soul and things that were spiritual, as it were, were seen as closer to deity, closer to God, if you will.

Speaker 1:

And so true virtue for Plato and other dualists. True virtue required mastery over the body. Okay, now, on some level that's maybe even consistent with what is biblical, right, we have to have control over our bodies, and there is some aspect of Christianity which embodies this idea of self-control, right. But this laid the groundwork, then, for dualists to begin to associate sexuality with weakness or with irrationality, where sexuality and sexual desire was seen as inferior and something that needed to be mastered not even just mastered, but also even transcended. Okay, mastered. Not even just mastered, but also even transcended, okay.

Speaker 1:

And so you get to. So Plato again, 4th century BC. You move the following centuries, the 3rd century BC and onward, even up until the time of Christ. Plato and dualism evolved into this idea of Stoicism. And there were Stoics, there were also Epicureans and there's a lot of other kind of facets in different directions that Greek philosophy goes.

Speaker 1:

Again, not going to bore you with a lot of those details, but maybe to boil it all down, there were Stoics who emphasized, then kind of working off of Plato's idea of sexuality and sexual desire and any kind of physical desire being weak and lesser.

Speaker 1:

They began to emphasize rational thought and self-control and even began to emphasize and prioritize suppression of passions. Not just that passions were something that needed to be transcended or elevated above, but even to the point of suppressing passions, suppressing desires, suppressing any kind of physical pleasure, including sexual desire, especially sexual desire. And so they began to hold views that sex was acceptable, but only within marriage and only for procreation, not for pleasure. And so this idea that not for pleasure, and so this idea that sex was something that was kind of necessary but something that needed to be handled only occasionally and handled only with caution and care, and suppressed to whatever extent Stoic ideas, and you may have heard of the term asceticism. Asceticism is this idea of denial of pleasure. So any kind of pleasure it was thought of you were virtuous, the more pleasures you denied yourself.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and this is all in the time before Christ, right. Correct, just to set the stage for those of us who are not history buffs. This is all the thought and the common beliefs, if you will, before Christ comes into the world. That's exactly right, because Christianity, so this isn't coming off of Christianity at this point is what I'm trying to say, that's exactly right.

Speaker 1:

It was born of Greek pagan philosophy, but Christianity. It's important to recognize that Christianity is introduced into a world that is steeped in dualism and Stoicism. So the people in the world at the time of Christ are all dualists. They are all Stoics to some extent.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, this is the culture that they're living in. So they're affected by it, whether or not they do or don't fully buy in or believe it. They're not all practicing it of course.

Speaker 1:

I mean they're obviously people are people. They're going to behave the way they want to behave and they're going to be hedonistic in whatever sense that that is practiced in that culture. Be hedonistic in whatever sense that that is practiced in that culture. But Christianity is introduced into a world where at least everybody has some sense of belief that suppressing your physical desires is somehow noble and virtuous. And so, just like, if you're familiar with your Bible, you know, especially if you've read the book of Acts, that there were Judaizing teachers in the first century. These are Jewish people who wanted to insert and influence the way that the Christian codes of ethics and morals were going to be taught. Just like the Judaizing teachers in the first century threatened to kind of insert their own man-made regulations on Christians, the Stoic philosophers and the Greco-Roman culture also threatened to impose things like asceticism and dualistic ideology on early Christianity.

Speaker 2:

Right, so Christ comes. He's born into that world lives as a man, dies. Church begins just setting the stage here.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and the apostles are trying to spread the gospel and spread godly Christian ideals, they're budding up against not just the Jewish people who want to shape Christianity into a Jewish religion.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker 1:

They're also butting up against the Greco-Roman philosophers and culture who want to make it shapes how we should be reading certain words of Paul. Absolutely, because Paul and some of the other apostles address this very directly in the New Testament, because this is exactly what they were up against. Think about 1 Timothy, chapter 4. Feel free to turn there if you have your Bibles, but I'm going to read it for you and just think about this context of Plato and dualism and stoicism when you read what Paul says to Timothy. Now, the Spirit expressly says that in later times, some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth For everything created by God is good.

Speaker 2:

Wow, when you read those verses in context of what is happening culturally, it definitely makes it. I don't know. It solidifies, like what is being said. It gives it more weight.

Speaker 1:

Well and remember. I mean, Timothy grew up among Greeks, His father was a Greek, he grew up among this culture, and so Timothy has been charged by Paul to spread the gospel through this Gentile world. But Paul tells Timothy and he says to those who insist on denying God's blessing, such as sexual pleasure or food, he says of those who want to deny those pleasures, that those people are liars and they are devoted to deceitful spirits and demons.

Speaker 2:

Whoa.

Speaker 1:

Whoa, that's a pretty serious accusation. Paul is dead serious, that these people are dead wrong, that it is not godly to deny pleasure just for the sake of denying pleasure. Instead, paul instructs that everything that God created is good. I mean, remember Genesis 1.31, at the end of creation, god specifically says that everything he created is not just good, he says it is very good.

Speaker 2:

Right and Paul is saying it's good and should be received with thanksgiving, Exactly.

Speaker 1:

And again.

Speaker 2:

I mean he's talking about marriage and he is talking about food in the same sentence there.

Speaker 1:

Exactly there.

Speaker 2:

So sexual pleasures and physical pleasures that are part of our being human being made in the image of God.

Speaker 1:

And further. Then he says that all things that are given by God are made holy through the word of God and through prayer. We can be sure that God frowns on those who deny or suppress or degrade the blessing and the pleasure of married sex. God not just frowns on them, but again Paul calls them deceitful spirits. He calls them liars. If you say that what God has created is not good, you are a liar. Good, you are a liar. And Paul also says that if a married couple steeps their sexual relationship in prayer and in the word of God, then their sexual desires and their practices are holy and they ought to be and should be and can be enjoyed without shame.

Speaker 2:

Right, I mean just clearly. Scripture teaches us that expressing our sexuality is designed for marriage, so we're not saying that. This verse is saying just freely enjoy your sexuality anywhere and everywhere. This is about how do we use our sexual energy within the context of marriage.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, well, I think that's what he means, that if you receive it with the Word of God and by prayer, in other words, if you receive your sexuality through the lens of what God has planned for you and you involve God in that practice of your sexuality, then it is holy Right and you ought to be able to enjoy it and to do so with thanksgiving to God.

Speaker 1:

In Colossians, chapter 2, verse 16, it's a very curious kind of passage there. We can't get into the whole context, but Paul actually quotes one of the Stoic philosophers. When he says do not handle, do not taste, do not touch, he's quoting some contemporary philosopher at the time, or at least, at the very least, he's quoting some common cultural guideline that is based on this Stoic philosophy. In that same context, in Colossians 2, he's urging his readers to reject, quote the appearance of wisdom and to reject, quote self-made religion that is manifested as asceticism. It's manifested by what he calls severity to the body. Because he says that kind of approach, this approach of self-denial and asceticism and severity of the body, these are, he says, of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.

Speaker 2:

Is that surprising? Is that simply denying, simply ignoring or suppressing our desires is actually of no battle, no value in battling lust and sin. But isn't that exactly how we tend to teach? How do you handle your sexual desire, especially those to unmarried people? How do you handle that? Well, you just deny it, you just stop thinking about it, you ignore it, you suppress it.

Speaker 1:

You just have to wait, just hold on and wait. But listen, silence is not the answer. Suppression is not the answer. Hiding sexual desires is not the answer. Pretending that we don't live with sexual desire is not the answer. Refusing to speak plainly about sexual desire is not the answer. Embarrassment, shame, these are not the answer.

Speaker 1:

This approach, paul clearly says, this kind of approach of severity to the body, of suppressing our desires, of ignoring our desires, this kind of approach, he says, is of no value in stopping indulgence of the flesh. What is the answer then? Right, well, if you keep reading, if you get past Colossians, chapter 2 and you get to Colossians chapter 3, paul admonishes these Colossians to not only put to death earthly things. Clearly, we have to put to death sinful practices, but the answer is not to get rid of desire. The answer is to change what you desire. It is to refocus what you desire. It's not to suppress your desire. It's to instead seek the things which are above, have desire for something that is actually of value. The solution to fleshly desire is to focus on something that is godly and holy. Again, desire is not the problem. Instead, we have to glorify what God's plan is for that desire, the Bible's solution to fleshly desire is to glorify the godly object of desire.

Speaker 1:

Again, I say this this is maybe a paradigm shift. This was a paradigm shift for me. Might be for you too, but I would suggest that the problem with our sexual desire is not that we don't have enough desire or that we have too much desire. The problem is not that we have too much desire. The problem is actually that we don't have enough desire. We don't have enough desire for what is actually real, what is actually the purpose for our desire. Instead, we have so little desire, we settle for things that aren't really healthy. We settle for things that aren't really helpful. We settle for things that aren't really going to be able to fulfill us. We don't have enough hunger for what is really going to fulfill us.

Speaker 2:

Well, and that's where we in the church ought to be proclaiming the beauty of married sex and the joy that exists within that expression of sexual desire expression of sexual desire which ought to be pointing us towards our desire for intimate relationship with our true beloved, with God, and that when we, as married Christians, fully embrace, live out and proclaim that joy, then it says to singles there's something better, that the marriage and married sex isn't the end-all be-all. It's a metaphor for the intimacy we ought to have with God, and singles can have that too.

Speaker 1:

Well, yeah, this is the problem with how we talk about sex in the church. We have, just like Plato, tried to separate the body and the spirit. We have tried to separate sex and spirituality. Right, and when you do that, then sex if you only can see sex as something that is physical, then you have no way of pointing someone towards the real value in sex, which is spiritual connection with each other and with God and our sexual desire, just like our physical desire for food, I mean, look, we don't shame people who are hungry or thirsty.

Speaker 2:

Right, how dare you be hungry again?

Speaker 1:

Unless your hunger is driving you toward unhealthy behavior or some unhealthy reliance on food, and so, similarly, there's nothing abnormal or immoral about having sexual desire right. Contrary to Plato and contrary to the dualists, sexual desire is not base, it's not weak, it's not profane, it's not something that needs to be overcome or transcended. It is God-designed, it is God-given, it is God-blessed.

Speaker 2:

God didn't mess up when he created us all to have sexual desire, whether we're married or not.

Speaker 1:

Exactly.

Speaker 2:

You know, I've heard some singles say before like. I've heard some singles say before like why did God make me with sexual desire when I don't have an outlet, I don't have a place for expression, unless I'm married?

Speaker 1:

Well, he did that not on accident, but on purpose? Yes, it is to—God gives us desire to teach us about something. God gives us desire to teach us about something, and in the case of sexual desire, the purpose of sexual desire is to teach me that I need connection, that I need something more than myself.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker 1:

Now, if I only focus on the physical manifestation of that, if I only focus on the physical outlet for that, then it becomes base and profane.

Speaker 2:

Whether you're married or single. Plenty of married people let their married sex life become base and profane because they make it just about the physical.

Speaker 1:

It's just about the orgasm, it's just about the pleasure, it's just about me myself, Instead of becoming about connection, something that draws me closer to my spouse, something that draws me closer to God in a way that I can receive it with thanksgiving. If I can't be thankful, if I can't pray to God in praise and thankfulness for my sex life, then I shouldn't be having it Right praise and thankfulness for my sex life then I shouldn't be having it Right.

Speaker 1:

So, again, our physical hunger and thirst should remind us of the living water. Our physical hunger and thirst should remind us of the bread of life, from whence we receive eternal fulfillment and from whence we receive true life. Again, if our food and drink becomes the focus instead of the loving provider, then our desire becomes carnal and sinful. But instead, if we receive our food and drink with thanksgiving, thanksgiving to the one who has provided it, then our desires are holy, then our desires are good, as Paul teaches again in 1 Timothy 4, like we talked about. And so, similarly, if we fulfill our sexual desires in godly ways, if we feel our sexual desire in a way that points us to God, the provider, to God, the one with whom we have eternal connection, then our sexual desires are made holy and good.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

You know, proverbs teaches that the way that we avoid the adulterous. If you read chapter five in Proverbs, the instructor there is giving instruction to young men and he says the way that you avoid the adulteress is not to ignore your sexual desire. That is not the advice that's given in Proverbs 5. Instead, in chapter 5, the reader is given instruction to, in fact, rejoice and be filled with delight in his wife. He is instructed to be filled up with his wife's breasts and to be intoxicated by her love. Yeah, does that sound like restraint? Does that sound like suppression?

Speaker 2:

No, does that sound like shame?

Speaker 1:

Or embarrassment. No, it's exactly the opposite.

Speaker 2:

Right, he's instructing toward excess.

Speaker 1:

Yes, not restraint, it's exactly the opposite. He's instructed to be intoxicated. That is specifically instruction to take more than you think you should, to be intoxicated to an irrational level.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker 1:

And yet do you feel like your church sometimes teaches that sexual desire ought to be pursued to excess in the marriage bed? Or is sexual desire treated with silence and shame Right?

Speaker 2:

Is sexual desire viewed like something dangerous or even worldly in the way that your church teaches about it or doesn't teach about it? Do you view sexual desire as dangerous or worldly, and where is that coming from?

Speaker 1:

Listen. The Bible rejects dualism. The Bible rejects stoicism, and you should too.

Speaker 2:

Right, I mean the words of Paul and the other apostles and New Testament writers were speaking into that culture, that common teaching and belief, and we need to read it in that context.

Speaker 1:

And very clearly and specifically about sexuality. Very clearly and specifically about sexuality. Sexuality is not at odds with spirituality. Sexuality is not at odds with virtue, Because God created sexual desire and he wants to bless you with holy fulfillment of your sexual desire so that you can receive it with thanksgiving and holiness.

Speaker 2:

All right. Well, you explained Greek philosophy, Matt, in a sex podcast. Well done.

Speaker 2:

Never thought we'd be here and I think that this again, I think this is great to help us understand what challenge, why is it? I believe what I believe and just this greater context of why is the idea of church and married sex so divorced for so many of us? Why is it treated with so much silence and shame? Where's that coming from? So I hope you find value in digging into this. We'll do a part two that kind of gets us a little bit more into modern times.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, well, I think we're going to see there's a lot of other ways in which we have been influenced, as a church and as a culture, in how we think about sexuality. Again, that is not coming from biblical influence. It is coming from other places.

Speaker 2:

So, matt, give us the wrap for this part of the episode at least Okay.

Speaker 1:

Modern religious attitudes about sex have deep roots in ancient philosophical and societal ideologies that have converged over the centuries, and so not all of our quote religious convictions are based on biblical concepts about sex. The ancient Greeks taught that physical desires were a sign of weakness and were based on inferior virtues. Therefore, they held that sexual desire ought to be denied and suppressed. But in contrast, the Bible teaches that sexual desire is given by God and should be enjoyed to excess in the holy marriage bed, with both thanksgiving and delight.

Speaker 2:

Now it's time to grab your spouse and your Bible and head to your kitchen table to have a conversation about your attitudes about married sex. Have either of you been exposed to, teaching or incorporated attitudes that treat sexuality like something worldly or inferior?

Speaker 1:

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Speaker 2:

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Speaker 1:

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