Journal: Emmaus Journal
Volume: EMJ 20:2 (Winter 2011)
Article: Intimacy—Don’t Leave Home Without It: Apostolic Counsel On Sex And Marriage An Exposition Of 1 Corinthians 7:1–7
Author: David J. MacLeod

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EMJ 20:2 (Winter 2011) p. 149

Intimacy—Don’t Leave Home Without It: Apostolic Counsel On Sex And Marriage
An Exposition Of 1 Corinthians 7:1–71

David J. MacLeod

Dave MacLeod is Dean for Biblical Studies at Emmaus Bible College and is Associate Editor of The Emmaus Journal.

Introduction

We live today in a sex-saturated society.2 It can be a bit embarrassing to browse at the magazine counter of your local bookstore these days. Of course pornographic magazines at the bookstore or at the magazine counter in the grocery store or pharmacy are not an isolated phenomena. They are the product of a culture in which sexual morality does not matter much and in which behavior is wide open.

Sexual freedom has become almost a religion. Its goddesses appear in larger-than-life sized advertisements, seductive and semi-nude, to sell everything from blue jeans to automobiles. Hollywood grinds out motion pictures that promise to show more on the inside of the theater than they do on the billboards. Television, in a determined effort not to be outdone, brings into our living rooms attractions that a few years ago were confined to porno-theaters and night clubs.

Cambridge University professor, C. S. Lewis, in his incisive book, Mere Christianity, asks us to imagine a trip to another country. You would be eager to know all that you could about its inhabitants. One day

EMJ 20:2 (Winter 2011) p. 150

you spot a group of people lined up in front of a theater waiting to purchase tickets. Curious about what is going on, you join them and soon you are seated inside. As the show begins, there is a musical fanfare, and as the curtain slowly rises, there on the center of the stage there appears—without a thing on—a lamb chop. You are startled as the audience stomps and cheers and whistles.3 You discover that you are at a strip-tease show. But it isn’t a girl undressing on the stage; it is a lamb chop!

As you drive down the highway, you notice billboards advertising soft drinks, television sets, refrigerators, tobacco, and automobiles. But on each one, no matter what is being advertised, you see prominently positioned a lamb chop. Before long you are convinced that something is terribly wrong in this country. It seems that the people must be starving for food.

What would someone from a distant planet think if he visited the United States and saw our preoccupation with sex? Surely he would conclude that we are sexually starved, that we are living in an era of sexual abstinence. But such is not the case. We are...

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