Can sex be hot and holy at the same time?
One of my big picture passions that I want people to understand is that sex is more than just physical–it’s supposed to be deeply intimate too. And maybe to understand that, we need to take a step back to see what God thinks about sex.
I addressed this a few years ago, but it’s worth talking about again, because this is the major thing I’m talking about in my books that launch on March 15–The Good Guy’s Guide to Great Sex and The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex.
So let’s jump in!
I received this fascinating question:
I need your help to correct my thinking patterns! I have been doing your 31 Days book and have been reaping benefits already. I am trying very hard to embrace my sexuality and learn that it is good to receive pleasure from my husband. But then, God brought some scripture to mind that seems to…not contradict…but I don’t understand how to embrace my sexuality, while still be this meek and quiet woman of God.
Titus 2:3-5
Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.
To be sexual, I have to release control, not be self-controlled. To be sexual, it seems too desirous, not reverent. To be sexual and to receive pleasure without tensing up and worrying about whether or not I’m being a good little Christ follower…I feel like I have to temporarily forget all I know about who Christ wants me to be. I know I’m missing something. I want to think correctly, but I don’t know how.
Wow.
I thought about how to answer this–how to do a big defense of sex that is both hot and holy.
But the more I looked at it, the more I realized that wasn’t the problem. It wasn’t that she didn’t understand sex; it was that she didn’t understand God. And I think many of my readers are in that same boat.
So let’s look at some theology today (and don’t worry–I promise this won’t be boring!).
Being self-controlled doesn’t mean being in control. It means not letting sin control you.
The Bible talks a lot about control, but I think we misunderstand what is meant by the term “self-control”. We think of someone who is always aware of their surroundings; who is always proper; who isn’t carried away by emotion or passion, but instead is calm and logical.
We think that to be self-controlled means to be in control.
But it doesn’t.
Who is supposed to be in control of our lives? It certainly isn’t US. It’s God. That’s what it means to walk in the Spirit–that God is in control.
When the Bible talks about self-control, it’s not asking us to be in control; it’s asking us to not let other things be in control.
Here’s another verse on self-control from the same chapter above:
For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age.
So to be self-controlled is to say no to ungodliness and worldly passions–or the passions that consume us and take us away from God.
Here’s another way to look at the same thing, from Ephesians 5:18:
Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit.
So instead of letting wine control us, we’re to let the Spirit control us. That is what being self-controlled means–that we live a life led by the Spirit. To try to be in control by ourselves is actually the opposite of what God wants, and He has another term for that: living by the flesh. Romans 7 and 8 are great chapters for seeing the difference between the two–Romans 7 is all effort; Romans 8 is all life by the Spirit.
And so let’s look at some opposites today–what words and phrases characterize a life led by the Spirit vs. what it means to live a life led by the Flesh.
Obviously this is the “grace vs. works” dilemma, but I don’t want to use those words, because most of us are used to that debate. I want, instead, to look at new phrases that would fall under each category, and see how this impacts our view of God–and ultimately our view of sex.
Life in the Spirit
- Passion
- Knowing God
- Pursuing God
- Having God’s Vision
- Living in the Moment
- In Awe at the Beauty of all of Creation–even our bodies
- Worship and Intimacy
- Gazing Up at God
- Purity as a Matter of the Heart
- Being Missional Matters
- “He’s not a tame lion, you know”
- Faith is Messy
- Valuing Extravagant Love
- Love is over all
Life in the Flesh
- Effort
- Understanding God
- Pleasing God
- Making Detailed Plans
- Being Constantly Disciplined
- Taking Satisfaction in Doing Things God’s Way
- Orderly and Understandable
- Looking Down to the Tasks at Hand
- Purity as a Matter of the Body
- Being Proper Matters
- God wants us to follow specific rules
- Faith is Quantifiable
- Valuing Being Right
- Truth is over all
If I could sum it up, I would do so with John 10:10:
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it abundantly.
Here’s the clincher: when we believe that the thing that God wants for us most is discipline, we will miss out on great sex.
But we will also miss out on intimacy with God!
I am not saying that the things in column 2 are wrong, by the way. Truth is good (Jesus, after all, is the Way, the Truth, and the Life). Discipline is good. Pleasing God is certainly good.
But these things must all be done in the light of column 1.
We cannot truly pursue God without also wanting to please Him; but many people are trying to please God without actually pursuing Him. They’re trying to live a life of rules without any relationship at all.
Do you see the distinction?
That’s why when you see verses like the ones this woman quoted that would naturally fall under column 2, we must read them in the light of column 1. It’s not that they don’t matter; it’s just that they must be viewed through the lens of an extravagant love for God and God’s extravagant love for us.
My heart is hurting today because I truly believe that this is the root of what is holding back so many marriages from greatness–a profound misunderstanding of God. We think that what God wants is for us to be proper and right. But what God wants is for us to be totally sold out for Jesus! And that’s going to be scary, and it’s going to be a leap of faith, and it’s going to mean you’re not in control. But boy is it fun!
Now let’s get back to sex for a moment.
Think about a few of those words from column 1:
Passion. Revelling in the Moment. In Awe at the Beauty of Creation. Intimacy.
You know what that sounds like to me? An orgasm. Seriously. If God made sex partly to reflect his relationship with us, then that orgasm is the height of being out of control; of being truly intimate; of becoming one with someone else; of revelling in relationship. That’s the picture of what our life with Christ is to be! Too many Christian traditions have focused so much on living a life of rules that we’ve missed the boat. We’ve focused on trying to understand God and trying to be the one denomination that is totally “right” that we’ve missed how to KNOW God.
And if you don’t understand how to have real intimacy with God, it’s very unlikely that you’ll be able to let go enough to have great sex with your spouse.
And this is my main message in both The Good Guy’s Guide to Great Sex and The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex!
Hot and Holy Sex
In both books, I have a whole chapter on how God made sex to be both hot and holy–and how being “hot” is actually very pure in God’s eyes! If this just doesn’t compute for you, please pick up the books. Don’t let yourself be stuck without really understanding how stupendous God wants sex to be in your marriage.
The All New Guides to Great Sex!
Launch March 15!
Imagine building a great sex life–from the ground up!
What would it look like to build a picture of sex that was MUTUAL, INTIMATE, and PLEASURABLE FOR BOTH–with no harmful messages?
Welcome to the The Good Guy’s Guide to Great Sex and the ALL NEW Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex.
Pre-Order Now! (Helps us out a ton)
And if you email your receipt, we’ll send you a special pre-order BONUS
This struggle with hot and holy can look different for men and women.
I’ve written before about how being a control freak won’t work in the bedroom, but it goes so much further than that today: The way we view intimacy with God and the way we view intimacy with our spouses is so inextricably linked.
God isn’t understandable. Jesus isn’t a tame lion, as C.S. Lewis said. He doesn’t want us living a nice, orderly life with rules. He wants us taking that leap of faith and walking out on the water! He wants us knowing His vision, but not necessarily His plans. He wants trust, and faith, and intimacy, not rules and discipline and head knowledge. The Pharisees had the rules and discipline and head knowledge, and Jesus came to show them they were wrong. And yet we have replaced our own version of it, especially within marriage, with demands for authority and rules and discipline and gentleness in a way the Bible never intended.
I think this is the thing that women often struggle with, though men can too.
And guys? They often struggle with vulnerability when it comes to sex.
The physical side tends to come easy for men with sex, and it’s really easy to replace emotional and spiritual intimacy with physical intimacy. The physical can mask any distance that we feel in other areas of our relationship, and we can push the physical so much that we actually end up further apart.
How do we do that?
We channel our emotional needs into sex, rather than making sex the culmination of our emotional connection.
And we do that because at heart we’re afraid of vulnerability. We’re afraid to really open up. So while women try to be proper to stay in control, men can often just focus on the physical to stay in control. And in both cases, you miss out on this real closeness that God wants for you–a closeness where you do lose control with your spouse not because of orgasm, but because of connection. And then the orgasm flows from that.
Women can also struggle in this direction, but guys tend to be more prone to it.
And then our books on sex focus so much on technique and orgasm that we forget that it’s actually emotional connection that is the biggest fuel for desire. We found that when couples feel emotionally and spiritually connected, they’re much more likely to be satisfied with the amount of adventure in the bedroom. They’re not seeking to make sex “hotter” by pushing boundaries, as much as sex becomes hotter because they’re real with each other. All the pretences are gone.
Let me end with an Old Testament story that speaks to this.
The ark of the covenant (the most holy piece of furniture that lived in the temple, where God’s spirit literally dwelt before Jesus came and gave us the Holy Spirit) had been captured, and wasn’t in Jerusalem anymore. David decided to bring it back to the temple, and he did so with great fanfare–parades and worship. Here’s 2 Samuel 6:13-16, talking about what happened when David’s wife Michal saw this:
When those who were carrying the ark of the Lord had taken six steps, he sacrificed a bull and a fattened calf. Wearing a linen ephod, David was dancing before the Lord with all his might, while he and all Israel were bringing up the ark of the Lord with shouts and the sound of trumpets. As the ark of the Lord was entering the City of David, Michal daughter of Saul watched from a window. And when she saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord, she despised him in her heart.
Afterwards David had a talk with his wife, and he said this (verses 21 and 22):
David said to Michal, “It was before the Lord, who chose me rather than your father or anyone from his house when he appointed me ruler over the Lord’s people Israel—I will celebrate before the Lord. I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes.
To follow God is not dignified. And marriage–the act of marriage–is not dignified. And that’s okay.
Let me suggest that if you can’t be undignified before God in worship (at least in private), AND/OR you have a hard time being undignified with your spouse about the deepest things that you’re thinking, then you will have a very hard time being undignified in the bedroom.
So let’s get a different view of God. It’s not about being right. It’s not about being proper. It’s not about keeping a safe distance. It’s about living a life in the Spirit, and that’s not controllable.
When we let go of the need to be proper, and we allow ourselves to be emotionally vulnerable in every way with our spouse, then real passion can flow.
Let me know in the comments: Do you get what I’m saying? Have you struggled with this in your church or your marriage? How did you resolve it? I’d love to chat about this more, because I really believe that THIS is the root of so many problems. Let’s help each other!
Sheila Wray Gregoire
Founder of To Love, Honor and Vacuum
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I agree. I do. But we might have to be careful to distinguish between being carefree, or more emotionally ebullient or the like, as a character trait, and being vulnerable and open and transparent in our sexual and non-sexual relationships. If you’re a gentle, even-keel person as a character type, you can still be that in the bedroom and still be expressing love and sexual affection in a passionate way. Does this make sense? I’m just thinking that introverts and others like us don’t need more shaming. Which I’m not implying you’re doing. But…it could take on that flavor.
Interesting analogies. New research question: do female orgasm rates correlate with hands lifted, tears shed, and dancing during worship songs? aka “letting go” I’m joking, but who knows, ha.
The lists confuse me a bit though. How would “taking satisfaction in doing things God’s way” be living in the flesh? Not sure what you mean there.
It’s like when your identity is that you did it by the rules, rather than living authentically and doing things out of that relationship. Hope that makes sense! It’s easier if they’re all side by side but it’s hard to format it that way–so that each element actually conforms to the other list!
While I basically agree with the gist of what you’re saying, I think we need to maintain a balance in discussion what God is like. While it is true that being untamed and somewhat messy is part of God’s nature, it is not a full picture of “what God is like.” Being orderly and logical are also equally part of His nature. We see this in creation- He took chaos and ordered it, He subjected the world to logical laws. Paul encourages us to imitate this aspect of God in being orderly in our church worship (1 Cor. 14:40). In light of that I wouldn’t put orderly-ness under the category of walking in the flesh (which the Bible equates with sin). But perhaps you meant something else by “walking in the flesh?” Please feel free to clarify.
The woman’s story is sad, but it reminds me in some ways of that associate pastor at my church, who says that sexual attraction is always a bad thing, since we’re ONLY supposed to see other people as children of God, and brothers and sisters in Christ, and nothing else, and sexual attraction, is his words, contradicts that.
As for a rules life, as Sheila has often said, it’s easier to do this rather than trying to be a truly good person.
Also, though, it may be about power. If I’m a pastor in a church, and I tell people that God has many rules that he wants us to live by, and that I’m one of the few people qualified to interpret how God wants us all to live, that gives me an enormous amount of power over other people’s lives.
Speaking of a rules based life, I know one person like that. He’ll tell you that he’s a good Christian because he doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke, doesn’t do drugs, doesn’t use dirty words, doesn’t watch dirty movies*, goes to church every Sunday, can recite dozens of bible verses at the drop of a hat, and so on. But not much about the good that he does for others.
* He won’t watch sexually suggestive movies, but he WILL watch slasher pics. Apparently, watching movies where (mostly) women get brutally murdered is okay, but watching a movie where a woman takes her shirt off for 10 seconds is the worst thing in the world.
Yes, thank you for pointing this out, it’s a widespread problem in the secular world also — we are much more comfortable with violence over women that depicting women’s pleasure. In the secular world it shows the most in how movies acquire their ratings, the line between R and NC-17.
That’s actually interesting. Yes, you’ll watch women get murdered and that’s okay.
I’ve seen that in our relationship when it’s been a while between sex. Because that’s also our time to be talking in a vulnerable way. Leading into and out of, we do a lot of honest talking. And when we have to hold off, because of business, we both tend to have clammed up a bit. Because you can only get so vulnerable through texts. I know it’s unintentional, but we start feeling less connected, and not because of the missed sex. It’s the intimate conversation that naturally flows.
I’ve never understood, but Im in awe of the mysterious connection between the two!
Sheila, this is so powerful. I’m one of those singles who loves your work that you were talking about in the last podcast, and it’s because I think you have a real gift for articulating truths that the church has forgotten. I wept reading this. I have operated with a functional ‘gospel of self-help’ for so long and struggled with having any appetite for God at all because I associate it with having to be more self-disciplined. I can often put Bible reading and prayer in a bucket with eating my greens and brushing my teeth, and I know, on an intellectual level, that it’s supposed to be so much more. The notion that those verses really mean to be Spirit-controlled was really freeing to hear. I have just prayed through them and hope to rediscover what trust, faith, and intimacy with God really looks like. Thank you.
Oh! And those verses about God’s Spirit dwelling in the Ark brought back to my mind the verses about how we are a temple of the Holy Spirit. Us! Me! A temple of the Holy Spirit! How have I never realised how mindblowing that is?! I have only ever heard ‘you are a temple of the Holy Spirit’ as something that made me feel guilty, as it’s often used to encourage women/girls to pursue certain diets or never ever do anything sexual. But with the Holy Spirit in control, I can know His perfect guidance on dietary and sexual matters without being defined by them or obsessive around them (I struggle with OCD so that’s a big thing.) Bless you, Sheila and team!
I love your theology posts!! One’s perspective of God really does affect so many aspects of life.
Sheila, I couldn’t agree more.
Looking back, my own sexual healing did begin the day I decided I would read my morning devotional in the toilet, because God is everywhere and does see me in the most awkward, undignified situations, so why would He be offended about someone praying when pooping?
The day I decided to open up to Him about how much my period hurts and how much I liked orgasm that came out of masturbation, and why the *** did He create me with a clitoris if he wanted be not having orgasm before mariage? And why did it hurt so much to feel alone, unwanted and ugly? (Me at 18)
So when I met my husband to be, I was able to open up about those undignified, bodily stuff – not only sexual stuff but also little shameful habits, weird fears, physical defects … If I could speak up to God about those, why not to my fiance?
Shaming myself about masturbating and reading erotica did NOT help me a bit to get out. Nor threatening myself with hell, or picturing God doing me emotional blackmail did.
What finally worked was a therapy on anxiety issues, but most of all learning how to trust God, to live on His live and love. If you don’t trust God, if you’re afraid of him, how can you be in an healthy relationship with Him ?
Romans 8 is a great chapter to read over and over again. Maybe that’s the Scripture that helped me the most over my sexual life, rather than marriage or self-control related ones.
And it works for other places in my life, actually everything.
Whenever I got stuck somewhere, I need to sit on the couch and start a real, deep-down conversation with God. Even if it’s just ranting at first. (Psalms are full of people ranting and grieving and letting all their emotions go freely before God. Not really dignified, partly sinful, but you can’t fix that without opening up to Him.)
I love that! (And I agree about the Psalms. Most of them are meant to be yelled at God.)
I don’t think I’ll ever get married because my view of sex is so tainted lol. I’m in my early 20s but I’ve gone from growing up under a very hushed, shame-laiden view of sex to one where it seems like everything revolves around physicality. The result is that I don’t believe men and women to be sexually compatible. The last straw was reading a Christian blog about sex written by a an who praised anal play and sex (including pegging) as fantastic with the reasoning that God designed the male body for it. It was such a pornographic view of sex and his writing on the so-called “male G-spot” and how it’s superior to traditional intercourse not only made me feel uneasy in my body as a woman but disgusted with the male body. Seems like God either can’t design human bodies properly or men are just meant to be gay. Coz evidently nothing compares to that act.
Oh, Anonymous, I’m so sorry. There are a lot of very gross blogs out there that call themselves “Christian” that aren’t. It’s okay to be a little traumatized after reading them. It really is. Take some time, breathe deeply, think about beautiful things, and ask God to heal your view of things. that may or may not eventually lead to marriage, but I hope at least this won’t be so tainted (and that would be seriously traumatizing! I get it!).
Thanks Sheila, for the gracious response. Sorry if I came across as a bit heated in my initial comment. I used to want marriage and a family and I used to think of sex as something beautiful and sacred before reading all that filth. I’m just still confused because it seems like sexuality is in flux and many Christian blogs are just as bad as secular ones (worse even because these same blogs tend to prioritize male pleasure over female pleasure). I can’t think of the male body the same way anymore. Especially the one that claimed men being penetrated was something better than the other way around.