Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - What Does the Bible Say About Sex? | Torah | Leviticus 18

Episode Date: August 9, 2022

What's with all the rules about sex in the Bible? Do we still have to follow Old Testament laws about sex? Does the Bible talk about modern-day issues dealing with sex? Tanya uses Leviticus 18 to explore these questions and more in today's episode. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Leviticus 18

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Tanya Wilmeth. Hey, TNBT audience. Today, we're in Leviticus 18, and your Bibles call this the laws about sex, or some of them call it unlawful sexual relations. So we're talking about sex today. If you have little ears in the car, you might want to save it for later.

Here we go. Do you put your pronouns on your email or do you not? How do you as a Christian respond when friends or family members are struggling with their sexual identity? How do you navigate school or sports where the lines of male and female are blurry? Or maybe they're altogether gone? I sat down with a group of Christ following college students the other day and I asked them about the issues their friends and classmates are talking about or the things they're struggling with. And they said, you know, it used to be the big. for underage drinking, drugs, sex, and porn. But now those things have taken a backseat to

conversations about sexual identity, hormone replacement, and what kinds or types of people you're sexually attracted to. A couple of students said they had classes last semester where questions about sex assigned at birth versus current sex and which sex or sexes you're attracted to was just common information or something that they were expected to share. one of the girls talked about a class that she took where students who were going to be teachers were encouraged to use something called a genderbread man as a teaching tool in their future classrooms. And it kind of looks like a coloring picture of a gingerbread man, except it has a place to label

the sex in your brain, the sex in your heart, and the sex in your genitalia. Just for reference, these early childhood education majors are certified to teach ages birth through eight. And she said she was the only person in her class that spoke up about her hesitation to teach the genderbread man to her future kindergartners. And I think the heart of what these college students are saying is twofold. One, the culture and the way it views sex, it's shifting and it's happening very quickly. And two, the world is watching and scrutinizing the way Christians respond to the shifting culture. Today we're going to look at how God's spoke to his people to Israelites about sex and its cultural influences in their time.

And we're going to see if it can help us navigate some of the things happening in our daily lives. Now, for a refresh, we are in the book of Leviticus. And Leviticus is the story of God making his people holy through the shedding of blood and animal sacrifices so that they could be in his presence. God wanted to live among them, but sin had damaged that relationship. So God provided a way through animal sacrifices. for sinful, corrupt people to be in His Holiness.

And then God told them how to live in that holiness. Beginning with Leviticus 17 and then for the next few chapters, we have something that's like a holiness code. It's God saying, I've made a way for you to be holy. Now here's how you live in holiness. But it wasn't just a list of rules. It wasn't just a set of boundaries meant to keep them at odds with their culture. It wasn't meant to make their lives more difficult.

there was a why behind God's instruction. Listen to the opening verses and see if you can hear it. Leviticus 18, beginning verse 1. And the Lord spoke to Moses saying, Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, I am the Lord your God. You shall not do as they do in the land of Egypt where you lived. And you shall not do as they do in the land of Canaan to which I am bringing you.

You shall not walk in their statutes. You shall follow my rules and keep my. statutes and walk in them. I am the Lord your God. You shall therefore keep my statutes and my rules. If a person does them, he shall live by them. Now when I talk to my kids about their boundaries, I ask them about their why. I say something like, you say you're not going to fill in blank, whatever it is, but what's your why? And if they just tell me it's because they don't want to get in trouble, I know that's not quite good enough. Last week, I read a an article published on a Christian website.

The author was responding to a House vote last week that would make same-sex marriage rights equal in all 50 states. Now, citing the overwhelmingly popular vote in favor of that in a house where 80% of representatives apparently called themselves Christians, the author said this, said House representatives who identify as Christians have allowed polls to speak louder than Scripture. Now, if you ask me, that's really not that surprising. Now, while it is a right place to start, I would argue that there has to be a bigger reason than just the Bible says so, to cause an elected official to vote against the majority of the people who they need to reelect them.

Now, honestly, stay with me for a minute. If you're going to vote against a bill, if you're going to say you're not going to have sex outside of marriage, and your only reason is because the Bible says not to, I don't think we're doing justice to the whole story that's God gives us in the Bible. And here's why. We just heard the Lord say to his people, I am the Lord your God. You shall therefore keep my statutes and my rules. If a person does them, he shall live by them. I am the Lord. When we choose to follow scripture, we aren't just following a set of rules or an outline. We're choosing to make Yahweh the Lord of our lives. we're saying to him that we want to abide in him and we want to live in the life that he promises.

Now, why are we talking about any of this? We're in Leviticus, for goodness sakes. Well, the Israelites lived in cultural battles as well. Why else would God tell them not to be like the culture where they'd been in Egypt and not to be like the one where they were going in Canaan? And they also had circumstances that made daily life challenging. They lived in tents with several family members and in very close proximity to their neighbors. They had very little privacy and a whole lot of together time. God gave them boundaries to protect them. He gave them boundaries around their sexuality for the protection of their families. He also gave them boundaries because they were set apart as His holy people. Sex is a good thing, created by God, given by God.

And as his people, we get the privilege of enjoying sex in the way he designed with the person and the context he designed for us as he describes in Genesis 224. So what God gives in Leviticus then is not a comprehensive manual regarding sex, but a list of boundaries around sex for the good of the individual and the family. So first, in verses 6 to 17, God prohibits incest. Now, this isn't something many of us would argue with today, but it was countercultural. While the surrounding cultures did have laws against marrying your own daughter, this was a new level of protection for the familial relationship. Second, in verse 18, God,

prohibits taking a rival wife. In verse 19, God prohibits sex that makes you unclean. Now, in Levitical times, blood was considered unclean and those who touched blood were unclean, so men were not to have sex with their wives during their menstrual cycle. Now, this is probably more than you want in a 10-minute Bible talk, but this is a prohibition that was not mentioned again in the New Testament when animal sacrifices were no longer necessary. Fourth, in verse 20, God prohibits adultery. Fifth, God prohibits, God prohibits, child's sacrifice in verse 21. Now there is historical evidence that suggests pagan cultures had their children walk through fire as a sacrifice to a God called Molok. So God would have been speaking against

that practice. And while this isn't explicitly against or a boundary about sex, it is something that is good for families. And that's a lot of what we're seeing here as well. Sixth, God prohibits homosexual sex. And then Paul is going to repeat that command in the New Testament as he writes to the Romans. And finally, God prohibits sex with anything other than another human. Now, in other words, the Israelites were supposed to live sexually against the culture, keeping in line with God's intention for sex inside marriage, as he outlines in Genesis 2.24. Now, when I first looked at this passage, I thought it was just about sex. Then I realized it's about a life that he wants his people to live with him.

Now, there are a couple of ways that we like to get around these boundaries. Here's one. We say something that sounds like this. We're having sex, but it's okay because we love each other. Now, the problem with this view is that it's an inaccurate view of the cross. Let me explain. It means we love what we want more than we love what God wants. So our view of something or someone else is bigger than our view of what Christ

has done for us on the cross. Therefore, we place what we want above our holiness and above what Jesus did to make us God's people called to live out His holiness. Now, the other view is that God's rules are like wearing a straight jacket. They're restrictive. They're uncomfortable. They're outdated. We even call them unhealthy. God's boundaries, well, they're in the way of our happiness. Now, the problem with this view is that it's based on a false security. We may think that sexual freedom is good for us. I've heard a lot lately about people talking about how commitment-free sex is good for women. But this throws women, children, men into a war zone that God intended to keep us out of. Now I am not going to get my wording perfectly in this podcast. I'm not going to navigate

conversations well with my kids or my friends on these topics all the time. I absolutely have not lived my life perfectly, not even close. I might upset my friends when I talk about the biblical view of sex on why God gave it to us. Here's the thing, though. Jesus didn't botch it. Jesus entered the culture and loved it perfectly and taught it perfectly. He engaged with a woman having an affair while he stood up to self-righteous men. One of his longest conversations in the Bible is with a woman who was despised and outcast for her multiple sexual relationships. He called out the ones who thought they were powerful and religious because they kept the law perfectly, or because they thought they did.

And he asked piercing questions to get people to realize what was really happening in their hearts and how he could heal their greatest disease, the sting of sin. Jesus became our why. We get to be in God's presence because Jesus was the future Levitical sacrifice that cleansed us once and for all. And the holy life God called his people to live in Leviticus is positive. for us every single day because of Jesus and because God sent his spirit to live within us. The world tells us we have to choose.

We either embrace the culture and we miss out or we miss out on life and true love. But Jesus gave us a better option to find our security and our peace in his boundaries and his life. And we don't have to worry as much about what we're following when we ask him to help us follow him. Before you forget, sign up for the brand new TMBT newsletter. Hit the link in the show notes and you'll get an email every Wednesday that will help you beat the midweek slump and go deeper in your walk with Jesus. Thanks for listening.