Marriage-purity-sex-family are all topics close to my heart and ones on which I’ve spent much time so when I read the Scriptures I’m always on the lookout for deeper understandings on these topics. I’ve read way too many books on these topics and in amongst them I have read a number of Christian teachers say that a wife should never withhold herself from sex and I have seen women damaged and part-way to deranged from their efforts to live out such teaching.
It does have a Biblical origin, but like everything, should be taken in context which is strangely often absent. Anyway there is an angle on this that occurred to me a few years ago.
The verse that teaching comes from is below. It is presented here as an island which is the form it is often in when taught. Please look it up and read and absorb the whole chapter and other things God has to say on sex and love and respect, but for now, the island approach is deliberate. Here we go:
1 Corinthians 7:3-5 “The husband should fulfil his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband.The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife.Do not deprive each other except perhaps by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.”
After my Great Soul Cleanse that took place when our tiny baby grandson came and left the world in the space of 22 days, I went to the Bible in a totally new way, in particular devouring the Old Testament.
In the law I now saw picture after picture of God’s character and of course prophetically of Jesus. But also, restriction after restriction, including restrictions that affected people’s sex lives. This was often to do with purification times – days of abstinence and waiting.
After a couple of years reading the OT almost exclusively, I wandered back into the New Testament and saw something brand new in 1 Corinthians 7:5… something that I’m cautious about expressing in case I’m totally wrong buuuuut – what if, what if those words about not withholding ourselves from each other (not depriving one another) were to do with the putting away of the Law?! What if, at least in part they were to grant a brand new freedom?!! What if they were saying – “go for it – there are no more restrictions on the basis of the law”!? What if it was never meant to become the source of misery and condemnation in the form of something very like another law?! What if those words are meant to be a release to freedom instead of something so often held over as a rule?
It is for freedom that Christ has set us free!