This review is written as a speech, to be presented to my Toastmasters club March 15, 2024.

Let’s talk about sex.

Now, that I have your attention, Mr. Toastmaster, ladies and gentlemen, why would an upstanding, uptight member – namely, me – broach this subject?

It’s a popular topic. Everywhere you go in America and the Western world, you learn that sexual freedom is regarded as one of the greatest goods in Western society. The modern citizen considers it the pinnacle of our personal expression.

As we all know – sex sells. It’s all over the magazine covers in the checkout lines at the grocery store. Those Cosmopolitan covers would have been behind the counter in the ‘70s. The ‘family hour’ on television – that quaint expression – disappeared when Friends debuted in 1994, 30 years ago.

During this Lent I decided not to give anything up. Instead, I added reading devotional books. The latest book I’ve finished, Why Does God Care Who I Sleep With? addresses one of the most important questions any Christian can ask about Christian mores. The answers are deeper than you think. It’s not just a statement of “Thou Shalt Not!”

Orthodox Christian faith calls Christians to abstain from sex except in marriage. Moderns in our secular culture look at that and think – you Christians are weird. Those young Christians who are trying to live this way can feel completely alone, or worse, as if the world sees them as a bunch of dried-up nerds.

Christianity: the first sexual revolution

But Christians have ALWAYS been out of step with the culture. Think back to the earliest days of Christianity, two thousand years ago. The sexual ethics of the Roman Empire were built around the status of the male property owners. Most women, minor children, and certainly slaves, had no agency. The Roman patriarch could have a wife, as well as a mistress or concubine, or have his way with any slave or prostitute. It was just the way things were – so much, that Christianity was called by writer Kyle Harper “the first sexual revolution.”

Tell a Roman man he couldn’t sleep with whomever he wanted? Unthinkable! Adultery in that society was considered bad only because a woman was considered the property of her husband – adultery wasn’t shameful; it was akin to stealing property.

Into this world came a new sect proclaiming that men were just as obligated as women to maintain purity. Imagine the shock to first-century men! A free-born Roman male was the Lord of his realm. Yet Paul wrote in his first letter to the Thessalonians (4:3-4) “avoid sexual immorality – each of you should learn to control your body in a way that is holy and honorable.” Each – both men and women.

Not only that, but the new Christian faith taught mutuality. In 1 Corinthians, 7, v2-4, the following verse would have made perfect sense to Romans: “The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband.” But listen to the next verse – “In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife.”

What?? That would have made a Roman’s head spin. As well as the teaching that couples could abstain or come together by mutual consent – or that women could CHOOSE to be married or single. Roman women had no choice about it. Theologian Beth Felker Jones sums up the differences: “Truly consensual sex was a rarity in the world in which Christianity got its start. Christianity, we might say, invented consensual sex.”

But back to our main question, why? Why is it so different? Why does God care so much?

To answer that, let’s look at the way Jesus taught about adultery. In the book, author Sam Allberry explains that Jesus spoke about it as he did because the sexual integrity of a person is so precious that it shouldn’t be violated – even in another’s thoughts. To look upon a woman “with lust in your hear” – is to commit adultery just as much as the act itself. To covet someone – is to reduce them to a commodity. It negates their personhood.

It’s easy to look back on the practices of the ancient Romans and think we’re not like that. But this message challenges us today and reveals our own hearts. As it did with King David and Bathsheba, covetousness starts with a lustful look. Our society’s ready access to porn makes that all too easy. As Allberry says – lust “reduces how we see others, and in the process dehumanizes us.”

God knows us fully, and still He loves us.

Again – why does it matter to God who we sleep with?

Because, in our messed-up way – that’s where we’ve invested our identity.

First – we all want to be known and loved. This is part of the reason that romance and sexual experience seem so important to us. But too often our broken relationships force us to choose – we can be known, or loved. Often, we’re afraid to be truly known. But God knows us fully and still He loves us.

Second, Jesus does not give us this love out of a sense of duty – but out of his deep desire for us to know Him. The Christian story is one about our deepest desires being fulfilled by knowing him – not through any fantasy being realized.

And third, as we grow closer to God, and know Him more, His love reshapes how we see ourselves. Today’s secular world has made sexual identity the key to our self-understanding. How much better to be defined by the One who loves you more than anyone ever could.

To sum up: today, we think too much of sex – and at the same time, too little. We focus on pursuing our temporary pleasures. We ignore what sex points to – the yearning for a greater union, one that will not be satisfied in this life, but in the world to come.