"Christians Should Not Have
Sex Before Marriage"-
Truth or Tradition?

From the time I was very young, my parents instilled in me the teaching that Christians shouldn’t have sex before marriage. “It’s a sin,” they explained. And because I was a young child, I believed them and accepted this teaching as truth, as most young kids do when their parents tell them something.

Furthermore, this point of view was also taught and upheld by my church and the Christian school I attended. I even “looked down my nose” at those I knew were having sex outside of marriage… clearly they were sinning! Tsk tsk tsk!

And so I went through my childhood and teen-years happy and sex-free, absolutely convinced that I was living my life the right way… all because my parents had said so!

It wasn’t until I was in university that a very interesting fact was brought to my attention: it doesn’t actually say in the Bible that sex before marriage is a sin. *GASP*! Little had I thought to check this out myself in the past, but once I was made aware of this fact, I was in utter disbelief.

I was sure it had to be in there somewhere; that the acquaintance who had bestowed this information upon me was mistaken… and I was out to prove him wrong! So I went on a rampant mission through my Bible in search of the verse or passage that said (or even implied) that this is a sin. Guess what? Still couldn’t find it! Nope, not in there!

Aha, I had one on my parents! Triumphantly (okay, maybe a little hesitantly), I called my mother from uni and shared with her my new-found piece of knowledge. She was not thrilled! (Although I could tell from her surprised tone of voice that even she didn’t know that this isn’t in the Bible). She said she’d look through the Bible and get back to me soon.

She did, and this was her rebuttal: “In the Old Testament there were very clear marriage rituals that included the bride and groom not sleeping together until after they were fully married. Therefore we should follow suit.”

This explanation worked for me for a few days. Then I thought about it again and thought, “Wait a minute… in the Old Testament they also did crazy things like sacrifice goats and marry their cousins, and we don’t do that, do we?” Needless to say, this explanation went out the window pretty quickly!

Over the next year or so I kept wondering about this crazy sex before marriage question. Why would this view be held so strongly by so many Christians if it wasn’t in the Bible? I kept searching the Bible, trying to find books about it, and asking people I thought might have some wisdom on the topic, but really couldn’t find an answer that fully satisfied me.

The closest thing I could come up with was that sex outside of marriage (ie- extra-marital affairs ) are definitely wrong, and scarily punished in the Bible! But that still didn’t answer my query of whether it’s wrong for two unmarried people to have sex before marriage.

Even though I wasn’t sure anymore whether sex before marriage was really a sin, I wanted to play it safe because I hadn’t come to a clear viewpoint yet… and because I was stuck in tradition. All my life my parents had told me I shouldn’t (and believe me, they brought it up at every possible opportunity!)

After we were married I still wondered about this question, but not to the same extent as before. After all, I was now married and happily having sex, and the question really didn’t apply to me anymore.

However, over the next couple years I kept bumping into people in my life that I sensed had the same question. Or I would have Christian friends who I knew were having sex before marriage, but what was I supposed to do? Go up to them and say, “You know, you really shouldn’t be having sex before marriage because that’s what most Christians think. Although I’m not quite sure what the Bible says about it, you should stop having sex!”??

No way! If I was going to approach or teach anyone on this topic, I had to be well-informed with actual Biblical facts that held water (as opposed to my Mom’s response of “because that’s what they did in the Old Testament”!).

Then along came my friend Shane who is practically a Biblical scholar. This guy consistently studies the Bible like crazy, so I was pretty sure he'd have some answers for me.

Since he was teaching our weekly Bible Study at the time, I asked him to do a teaching on this topic to set the sex before marriage record straight, once and for all! I was not disappointed. The following sums up what he said:

Find out the answer in Part 2 of Sex Before Marriage.

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