Key Bible Passage(s):
Matt.5:27-30; Eph.5:25-32
Tier 1:
It’s the covenantal relationship between the Lord and His people that gives shape and structure, determines the dynamics of our human experience of marriage. It is Christ’s faithfulness as the Heavenly Bridegroom that provides the logic for the prohibition on adultery in all its forms. Whether we personally experience it or not, the experience of marriage in human society is designed to reflect the relationship between Christ and His Bride the Church.
Tier 2:
Christians aren’t anti-sex. Sex and human sexuality is part of creation, and something God declared good. But fallen sexuality can easily distort God’s vision for us and for marriage. In the drama of marriage as pointing us towards the covenant relationship of Christ and His bride, our experience of sex plays the part of worship. This in part explains the connection in the Bible between idolatry and adultery! It is also telling that we are tempted to approach worship with the same egocentric, selfish way that demands our own affirmation and satisfaction, rather than our giving of ourself to Another.
Tier 3:
Only those who are pure in heart can relate properly to sex and marriage. Only the pure in heart can reflect the faithfulness of God in their own covenant relationships… in thought and word and deed. This requires a recalibrating of humanity and a desire for righteousness that eclipses our desire for sexual fulfillment. Only the pure in heart can allow others to be attractive without that becoming an occasion for our imposing our disordered sexual desire on someone created in the image of God. How we look on other people in this age will determine whether we will see the face of God in the next.
Passion is the evil in adultery. If a man has no opportunity of living with another man's wife, but if it is obvious for some reason that he would like to do so, and would do so if he could, he is no less guilty than if he was caught in the act.
Augustine of Hippo
Group Discussion:
How does our own experience of sexuality and sexual activity affect how we think and feel about the Bible’s teaching on adultery?
Why is polygamy tolerated in the Bible in a way that adultery isn’t?
Why are people willing to disregard other areas of the Bible’s sexual ethics, but still seek to uphold its prohibition on adultery?
After his adultery with Bathsheba, and the subsequent murder of Uriah, why does David then say: Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight (Ps.51:4)?
and later in the session
Is Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount realistic?
In what sense is it to be taken literally? …and in what sense is it to be taken metaphorically? How should it be applied by us today?
Do you think God can / will forgive someone who commits adultery? What does forgiveness mean? ...and what does it not mean in this context?
Why does Jesus warn of hell (lit: gehenna) in this passage?
How do you reconcile Jesus’ teaching here with how He deals with the woman ‘caught’ in adultery in John 8:1-11?
Homework
Over this half-term we are working to memorise Matthew 5:21-26. You will have to keep refreshing Matt.5:1-20, Matt.6:5-15 and Matt.7:7-12 whilst you do this.
(we’ll memorise the whole of the Sermon on the Mount over the 3 years of DTP)
To Be A Christian: Q&A 317-329
Watch this lecture by Matthew Mason. It will likely stretch you, but is worth the effort. He is exploring the question of whether ‘desire’ in itself can be sinful. It is the first of three talks we’ll be following over the next few weeks:
