TRIAL MARRIAGES

I just met an ex-Christian, ex-Sunday School teacher. I asked him why he had renounced Jesus, and he gave me this answer:

·       I found out that the Church has been lying about many things. For instance, there is no verse in the Bible that prohibits premarital sex.

He rejected the various verses that gave general prohibitions against sexual immorality (Galatians 5:19-21; 1 Thessalonians 4:3-5) as not pertaining specifically to pre-marital sex. While he is right to say that there is no verse that specifically prohibits pre-marital sex, there are many verses that suggest this prohibition:

·       Now concerning the matters about which you wrote: “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.”  But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. (1 Corinthians 7:1-3 ESV)

Paul only allowed for two options – celibacy or marriage. The Bible had allowed polygamous marriages, but it never sanctioned an intermediate option – a trial marriage or any other form of sex outside of marriage:

·       To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is good for them to remain single as I am. But if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion. (1 Corinthians 7:8-9)

Notice that Paul didn’t write, “Well, if you cannot ‘exercise self-control,’ give a trial marriage a fling.” Instead, there was only one other option available – marriage:

·       If anyone thinks that he is not behaving properly toward his betrothed, if his passions are strong, and it has to be, let him do as he wishes: let them marry—it is no sin. But whoever is firmly established in his heart, being under no necessity but having his desire under control, and has determined this in his heart, to keep her as his betrothed, he will do well. So then he who marries his betrothed does well, and he who refrains from marriage will do even better. (1 Corinthians 7:36-38)

Had a trial marriage been an option, Paul would have mentioned it in this context, but he did not, since it was never an option. Why not? It seems that the sexual act itself was intended to consummate the two parties as one:

·       Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, “The two will become one flesh.” But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. (1 Corinthians 6:15-18)

It didn’t matter if the unmarried had sex with a prostitute or a virgin. In either case, he would become “one” with her as God had made Adam and Eve one and inseparable (Matthew 19:4-6), and as we become one spirit with the Lord. According to Paul, sex outside of marriage was “immorality.” Besides, sexual immorality created more defilement than did other sins.

However, the apostate young man assured me that he had left the Christian faith because of other irreconcilable teachings. I responded that I too had had many struggles to believe the Faith. However, these led me to seek out answers. Therefore, I asked why he hadn’t sought and found.

He could not answer me directly. I therefore asked if he had been engaging in any sins that might have motivated him to find problems with the Bible? Unconvincingly, he denied it. Instead, he explained that there was no one at his church who was able or willing to walk him through his objections.

I therefore asked if he might still be open to that. He answered, “I’m good.” I guess that ship had already sailed, but perhaps it had never been at port.