Tag: Hosea 2

Is Marital Sex for Personal Gratification?

No.

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.

In all seriousness, the answer is ‘no’. Of course it’s okay if you enjoy sex (within the bounds of Biblical marriage), but enjoyment is not why God created it. Sex actually serves two purposes. One is the production of children. God told Adam and Eve (and by extension, the rest of us) to “be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and steward it” (Genesis 1:28). The second — the one I want to highlight today — is union. This is also rooted in creation. “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and the two shall become one flesh” (Genesis 2:24).

This second reason is what Hosea is highlighting in today’s reading. God (via Hosea) uses a sexual metaphor to talk about the re-union of Israel to Himself. This is meant to help us understand that our commitment to God is singular, intimate, and eternal. It is an act of devotion. Obviously with God these adjectives describe a NON-sexual encounter, but nonetheless our refusal to be devoted in this way is compared to prostitution!

In the same way for our marriages to be Biblical, the primary reason for sexual union should not be an orgasm. The primary reason is an expression of singular, intimate, eternal devotion. That’s why we’ve called it “making love”. This brings me back to my pity opening statement…

The title of today’s devo asks, “Is Marital Sex for Personal Gratification?” and my response, “No”, while technically true does not tell the whole story. The answer is, of course, that while personal gratification IS an outcome of the sexual union, it is not the primary or even secondary purpose. Instead, that gratification is a reward for our faithfulness and devotion.

Getting it Twisted

One of the more surprising things in the Gospel of John is when Jesus says that He must be lifted up by God in the same way that Moses lifted up the snake in the desert. If we go back to that snake in the desert, we see that God used the instrument of destruction to bring about healing. We call that “redemption”. But here we see that King Hezekiah (the most righteous king of Judah) had to DESTROY the bronze serpent because people began to worship it. Seems like we will worship just about ANYTHING, if it doesn’t get the in way of us doing exactly what we want to do. And so the people took a thing originally designed for good and twisted it for evil. To the point where it had to be destroyed for the salvation of those very people.

Just because something was designed for good or accomplished good, doesn’t mean it will always be good for all time. We still need to evaluate those things. I know as a pastor I have done events that were a huge success the first time, but didn’t yield the same results the following year. I think it’s important that we bring everything back to God. And if that event, or job, or thing, or dream that God gave you has become twisted… it might be time to destroy it and start fresh.