the rambling missionary

by erika haveman

What I have quickly realized about this series, and not like I didn’t know this already, but the Bible has a lot to say.  The most important thing I need to remember through it all is to be sure that I, the writer, inform you, the reader, correctly of what the Word of the God says.  It my responsibility to not take something out of context.  There is a danger in me saying, “The Bible says this!” because if I haven’t used integrity and done my part to understand what was originally being said or what was going on, I’m going to fail you – big time.  With this series I am going to commit to making sure what I say is Biblically accurate, and how it should be applied today is also done in the Spirit of honouring Scripture as God’s infallible words to us.

That said, we get to beg the question this week: What does Exodus say about sexuality?

As many of you know Exodus is the story of God’s chosen people, the Israelites, being led out of Egypt and towards to the Promised Land.  This land that God has promised means everything in the Old Testament.  It is the physical manifestation of God’s faithfulness, and here we see some of the first movements of going to that land.  It started with Abraham in Genesis when God promised that “all the families of the earth shall be blessed” through Abraham (Gen. 12:3).  Not some people, but all people, were included in this promise.  It just so happens that God had to start with someone, so He chose Abraham and now there is a whole nation of people called the Israelites.  This story continues in Exodus with God leading the people out of Egypt.  He rescues them from slavery.  He saves them from their life of bondage.  Freedom is theirs because God made a way.  God even made it possible for the Israelites to leave set up for success – the Israelites asked the Egyptians for silver and gold and clothing and the Egyptians obliged (Ex. 12:36).

Before God tells the people not to commit adultery (Ex. 20:14), and all the other commandments, He saves them.  He saves them first.  Not committing adultery doesn’t save them.  Not stealing doesn’t them.  Not coveting doesn’t save them.  Not following the law doesn’t save God’s people.  God saves God’s people.  That same truth stands today: living a life of obedience doesn’t save you.  God has saved you and you live a life of obedience because you are grateful for God’s saving of your life.  This was the expectation when God told the people not to commit adultery.  You are saved; now live like you belong to God in order to show the world to whom you belong.

So what does it mean to commit adultery?  In short, adultery has everything to do with sexual relations with someone who is not your spouse.  Jesus even says that looking at someone lustfully is adultery (Matthew 5:28).  Any time your sexual energies are channeled intentionally and with no self control towards someone who is not your spouse, you are committing adultery.

This doesn’t mean you’re okay if you’re sleeping with your boyfriend because one day he will be your spouse.  No ring, no “I do” with witnesses = not your spouse.  Period.

I’ll stop sounding so dictator-ish at some point, but I wanted to share just a few more direct things that Exodus says.  Different parts of the Law say different things (yes, the Law is more than the 10 Commandments).  One part of the law says that a man who seduces a virgin must make her his bride – unless her dad refuses, then the man just pays money (the bride price) for what he did (Ex. 22:16).  This is bizarre, yes.  Note this is talking about consensual sex.  A guy likes a girl, she likes him too, they have sex, parents find out and aren’t approving of the match.  Sucks to be both the guy and the girl.  Or, parents approve, and guess what boy if you have enough maturity to have sex you have enough maturity to be a husband!  Plain and simple.  How many of us really view sex as something that is done with maturity?  Probably not many of us because sex is so depicted as something done casually with hardly any ramifications (no thanks to a day and age where contraceptives are easily accessible and plentiful).  Sex isn’t viewed as something for someone with a maturity that would be expected for a marriage, yet this tiny little piece of the Law seems to suggest that there is something bigger going on than just a guy liking a girl enough to have sex with her.

Another self explanatory command within the law is to not have sex with animals (or commit bestiality; Ex. 22:19).  In short, yes this still happens today.  Sorry if this disgusts you, but this is a struggle for some people.  In the spirit of allowing people to find a safe place for things they wrestle with, I want to make sure we make each other aware that grace is needed and necessary for every single person and whatever kind of choices they’ve made.

Ex. 22:21 doesn’t have specifically sexual connotations, but to many of you as my readers I know you’d agree that no widow or orphan should ever be taken advantage of.  Yet we live in a world where slavery is at its highest.  An increase in the demand for pornography can fuel this, with thousands of children being forced into sexual slavery across the globe.  This isn’t something that happens far away from you – it happens close to home and you need to be aware.  How can you help?  I will quickly shout out Operation Underground Railroad.  They’re an incredible organization that I’ve recently started following, and if my dreams come true I’ll some day get more involved with them.  Check out their website at www.ourrescue.org for more information.

In Exodus God goes on to command Moses to be careful to not intermarry with the other people of the land they are going into.  Why?  Because those people do not worship the God of Israel.  If the Israelites were to intermarry, they would easily be sucked in to worshipping other gods.  Why would this matter?  Besides the obvious “an idol isn’t Yahweh God,” a lot of religions and cultures  of the Old Testament were driven by sexual immorality.  Prostitution, orgies, and rape were all a part of worship and God in no way wanted His people to ever be confused with the heathens that were in the land.

So why did God need His people set apart?  Why did God want someone to only have and sleep with one spouse?  Why can’t you sleep with your boyfriend because you know you’ll be married to him some day?  Great questions.  I’m actually going to answer those when we look into Leviticus next week.  Until then, I encourage you to start wrestling through these questions on your own.  Ask God to reveal to you His holiness, and you’ll probably start to find this is the foundation of all of the”why’s.”