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The attraction between the sexes probably produces the strongest attachment in human experience. It probably arises from the fact that they are complementary, and need one another to be complete. This is doubtless intended to give us an experience akin to that between the Creator and the creature. It is perhaps the closest tie in the realm of nature, and so the best adapted to display the greatest of the graces.

A.E. Knoch (1874-1965)
Studies in Genesis, pages 231-236
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The Song of Solomon is an erotic love poem. In some places, the meaning of the poet can hardly be missed, and for prudish Christians, the clarity of the point is all the more embarrassing. But embarrassment is not an appropriate response for Christians; all of Scripture is inspired, and is profitable for instruction.

It is legitimate to read and learn from the erotica of the Song. This erotica is clearly and unambiguously sexual. Put another way, the Bible contains literary passages which we may read, in which another couple is engaged in passionate lovemaking.

Douglas Wilson
Reforming Marriage, pages 104-105

Under the Mosaic Law the husband was not to abuse or neglect his wife, and was to assure that her physical needs (food, clothing and sex: Exodus 21:10) were adequately provided.

Under the Pauline revelation, love is added as the husband’s preeminent responsibility – not just any love; the new standard is the love of Christ. Beyond that, it is Christ’s love for the Ecclesia that is the model: sacrificial love.

This new Christ-like standard goes far beyond anything that the law ever could have imagined. Fitting for those destined for the celestials, the husband/wife relationship has been elevated to a new divine dynamic never before revealed.

Clyde L. Pilkington, Jr.
(Excerpted from his upcoming book, Wife Loving)

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One sex is the complement of the other. Each is imperfect alone, and each supplies what the other lacks. Self-reliant as man may suppose himself to be, yet divine wisdom has said, “It is not good for the man to be alone”; he needs a “helpmeet” in woman.

Still less is it good for the woman to be alone, for “she was created for the man,” and every woman wants a man to love; for love is her life, and it is only while she loves, or hopes to love, that she lives to any happy or useful or honest purpose.

It has been said that as woman was taken out of man in her creation, so it is man’s instinctive desire to seek her and to reclaim her as his own counterpart, or that portion of himself which is required to complete the symmetry of his nature and the happiness of his life.

For this love the youthful heart longs and pines until it attains the object of its desires, or until it has become so sordid, so hard, and so profligate, as to be, at once, unworthy of possessing it, and incapable of enjoying it.

James Campbell (1863-1945)
A History and Philosophy of Marriage (1869; reprinted 2007, Patriarch Publishing House)
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Centuries of old Puritan and Victorian practices have stained the intention of our Creator, marking the body as the enemy of the spiritual life. But no such thing is true. Our body was elaborately fashioned by God, created as the dwelling place where we reside with Him.

Contrary to common religious traditions, we are not to deny or despise the body. While speaking to husbands and wives, Paul matter-of-factly states, “no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it” (Ephesians 5:29). It must have brought God deep sadness to cover the beauty of Adam and Eve’s bodies with animal skins after they sinned. His glory is dimmed when we loathe or ignore the magnificence of the human body.

Bill Ewing
Rest Assured (2003), pages 136
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Paul’s marital instruction is very clear: the consummated husband/wife relationship is to function on the basis of a perpetual state of marriage (uniting as “one flesh”).

Conjugal Duties

The covenant (promise) of marriage (physical union), among other things, binds the husband and wife to the on-going act of marriage. This sexual activity is called “due benevolence” in the King James Version. The Greek word translated “benevolence” is eunoia, which is a euphemism for “conjugal duty,”[1] while the Greek word translated “due” is opheilō, meaning “to owe … to be under obligation.”[2]

James Moffatt (1913) translates the King James phrase as “conjugal dues” as does the Riverside New Testament (1923).

Thus the husband and wife are under a covenant of obligation to conjugal duty (sexual responsibility). The husband is responsible by the covenant of marriage to “render unto the wife conjugal duties” The wife is also responsible by the same union covenant to render to her husband “conjugal duties.”

Husband and wife are in the bonds of sexual unity: as the wife’s body belongs to her husband, so the husband’s body belongs to his wife.

The wife has not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband has not power of his own body, but the wife (I Corinthians 7:4).

Marital Fraud

Because of these “conjugal duties,” if the husband or wife denies sexual intimacy, they defraud the other.

Defraud not one another, except it is with consent for a time, that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again, that Satan tempts you not for your incontinency (I Corinthians 7:5).

Noah Webster defines “defraud” as,

To deprive of right … to withhold wrongfully from another what is due to him.

Our English word “defraud” obviously comes from the root “fraud,” which is defined by Webster as,

Artifice by which the right or interest of another is injured.

For this reason, the Greek word apostereō translated “defraud” is also rendered “kept back by fraud” (James 5:4, King James Version).

At the core of the marital covenant is the union of two as one. Central to this union is the sexual bond of coitus. This is the meaning of “marriage”: “the act of uniting.” Unless prohibited by genuine physical limitations, anything less than consistent[3] sexual union between a husband and wife is a defrauding of the marriage covenant (the promise of physical union).

Much fraud takes place in marriage relationships. Many “marriages” could be scripturally declared fraudulent – the couple being in a state of fault (i.e., “an omission of that which ought to be done”). Their relationship is merely a pretense of “marriage” – an upscale roommate arrangement, a social partner – but not a biblical marriage.

Sole Exception

Outside of genuine physical limitations, there is only one scriptural exception for the suspension of regular sexual intercourse between a husband and wife. Conjugal intimacy is to be set aside only for the purpose of “fasting and prayer.”

Defraud not one another, except it is with consent for a time, that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again, that Satan tempts you not for your incontinency (I Corinthians 7:5).

Clearly stated, “fasting and prayer” is the only biblical purpose for not actively engaging in marital sexuality. No other reason is given.[4] The principle therefore is quite simple: no sex, no food; no intercourse, no eating. I would dare say that if many couples followed this simple scriptural principle they would already be dead from starvation!

Fasting and Prayer

This fasting is not for medical or health reasons, for it is coupled with “prayer” – “fasting and prayer.” This fasting is a response to overwhelming grief, sorrow and heaviness – all an atmosphere of a heavily burdened soul.

This example given to us by Paul is of a couple who is overwhelmed and overburdened of heart and soul to such an extent that there is a mutual loss of physical desire and drive. They are in mutual harmony – “with consent.” They have agreed to devote themselves to working through their trials by giving their attentions to spiritual rather than physical matters. They will take the time that they usually spend in eating and intercourse and apply it to their struggles. This would be such a natural process for situations of extreme circumstances; but this unique time that they share together before the Lord is only to be “for a time.” The expression of their sexual intimacy will be resumed at the same time as their dietary life is reinstated. There is a clear correlation between the need and pleasure of eating and that of sex.

Mutual Consent

Defraud not one another, except it is with consent for a time, that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again, that Satan tempts you not for your incontinency (I Corinthians 7:5).

This abstinence for the purpose of “fasting and prayer” is to take place only by mutual consent. Both the husband and wife are to be in agreement to this purpose.

For a Time

Defraud not one another, except it is with consent for a time, that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again, that Satan tempts you not for your incontinency (I Corinthians 7:5).

Not only is this “fasting and prayer” and sexual abstinence to be by reciprocal approval, it is also to be only for a limited, agreed-upon period of time – “for a time.”

Even in the most extreme trials of agony, there comes a time to rise up from the sorrow and continue with life. This can be seen in the life of King David who, after his grieving process at the death of his young son, it is written:

Then David arose from the earth, and washed, and anointed himself, and changed his apparel … and he ate (II Samuel 12:20).

Come Together Again

Defraud not one another, except it is with consent for a time, that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again, that Satan tempts you not for your incontinency (I Corinthians 7:5).

At the end of the mutually agreed upon period of time dedicated to “fasting and prayer,” the couple are to “come together again.” The Greek word here translated “come together” in the King James Version is sunerchomai, meaning “cohabit (conjugally).”[5] The Greek word for “again” is palin, and is defined as “oscillatory repetition.”[6] Webster defines oscillatory as “moving backward and forward like a pendulum; swinging; as an oscillatory motion.”[7]

This entire passage on the marital relationship is exceptionally plain: the consummated husband/wife union is to function on the basis of a continuous state of marriage (uniting as “one flesh”). Violating these principles places the believer in a state of rebellion to God’s most basic marital foundation. Other than for this rare exception of “fasting and prayer,” there is no place for sexual abstinence in the life of the married believer. Operating “marriage” in such abstinence is a contraction of terms; it is an oxymoron, denying the very biblical meaning of “marriage.” Couples living in such a state of fraud are breaking their marriage covenant – they are marital covenant breakers.

Intimacy of sexual relationship is designed by God to be the great bond of joy between husband and wife. This is not just a physical issue, but a spiritual one as well. Its importance and value are to be protected at all lengths – “that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency.”

Clyde L. Pilkington, Jr.
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Gabriel Olds
Why Men Crave Real (Not Perfect) Bodies
Glamour/March 2008

Clyde L. Pilkington, Jr.

Think you have read all that there is on the subject of sexuality from the Bible? Think again!

Religious moralists have taken the wonderful gifts of human beauty and sexuality and made them something dirty and sinful. Much is at stake regarding truth, as well as the nature and character of God Himself.

A groundbreaking work providing …

• A refreshingly honest and uninhibited look at sexuality.
• A breath of fresh air from the religious and Victorian mentalities.
• A daring and valuable glimpse at the wonderful light just outside of sexuality’s prison-cell door.

Did you know …

• That our sexuality is a gift from God?
• That God provided for the temporary sexual needs of servants under the law of Moses?
• That God did not make Eve from Adam’s “rib”?
• That God’s Word encourages men to be sexually intoxicated?
• That one of God’s prophets to Israel prophesied in the nude for three years?
• That the Scriptures talk about men being genitally hung like horses?
• That King David of Israel danced publicly in the nude?
• That one of God’s great servants had sexual intercourse with his wife outdoors, in view of others?
• That Martin Luther was known by his enemies as the “Sex-devil Incarnate”?
• That there is a connection between the words “testify,” “testament,” and “testicles”?
• That the words “moral” and “morality” never occur in the Bible?

Did you ever wonder why …

• Many men of the Scriptures had multiple wives, with God’s blessing?
• The female breasts are so prominently placed?
• God’s covenant sign with Israel was on the male penis?
• When King David was dying, the most beautiful virgin of the kingdom was selected to lie with him?
• Of the 7 things in Proverbs 6 that are an abomination to God, there’s not a sexual sin in the bunch?

http://www.duebenevolence.com

We feed our self-righteousness with this illusory contrast by ascribing our worth at the expense of others. But “the others” we feed off of see the self-serving hypocrisy of the self-righteous and self-serving exercise, even if we don’t.

To illustrate, more than a few have noticed the comic irony in the fact that the group most vocal about “the sanctity of marriage,” namely evangelical Christians, happens to be the group with the highest number of divorces in the United States, which itself had the highest divorce rate in the world! Numerous explanations have been offered by Christians to minimize this embarrassment, but none of them are convincing – or even relevant. Whatever our excuses, outsiders legitimately wonder, “If evangelicals want to enforce by law ‘the sanctity of marriage,’ why don’t they stop … worrying about laws to regulate others’ behavior and spend their time and energy sanctifying their own marriages?”

Gregory A. Boyd
The Myth of a Christian Nation (2005), pages 136-137