Let’s go to the source and check out what the Bible has to say on the subject of sexual conduct. Did you know that in nearly every book of the New Testament we’re commanded to avoid sexual impurity? Here’s a selection of passages that teach God’s concern for our sexual purity.
—adapted from Every Young Man’s Battle
Amber is a twenty-year-old single woman attending a Christian college. “I wish I would have been told more specifically what ‘sexual purity’ really meant when I was growing up in the church,” she said. “I was always taught that sexual purity meant ‘no sexual intercourse,’ but then I read and loved the definition given in Every Man’s Battle: ‘Sexual purity is receiving no sexual gratification from anything or anyone outside of your husband or wife.’ That’s a black-and-white definition that young people need to be taught. If you don’t do anything else, please stress this definition.”
—adapted from Every Young Man’s Battle
It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God.
1 THESSALONIANS 4:3–5, NIV
But immorality or any impurity or greed must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints.
EPHESIANS 5:3, NASB
Away then with sinful, earthly things; deaden the evil desires lurking within you; have nothing to do with sexual sin, impurity, lust and shameful desires; don’t worship the good things of life, for that is idolatry.
COLOSSIANS 3:5, TLB
And that means killing off everything connected with that way of death: sexual promiscuity, impurity, lust, doing whatever you feel like whenever you feel like it, and grabbing whatever attracts your fancy. That’s a life shaped by things and feelings instead of by God.
COLOSSIANS 3:5, MSG
What I meant was that you are not to keep company with anyone who claims to be a … Christian but indulges in sexual sins.… Don’t even eat lunch with such a person.
1 CORINTHIANS 5:11, TLB
I appeal to you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
ROMANS 12:1–2, RSV
Run away from sexual sin! No other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does. For sexual immorality is a sin against your own body.
1 CORINTHIANS 6:18, NLT
For if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
ROMANS 8:13, NASB
Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, do; and the God of peace will be with you.
PHILIPPIANS 4:8–9, RSV
But if you give yourself to the Lord, you and Christ are joined together as one person.
That is why I say to run from sex sin. No other sin affects the body as this one does. When you sin this sin it is against your own body.
1 CORINTHIANS 6:17–18, TLB
As for the Gentile Christians, all we ask of them is what we already told them in a letter:… they should stay away from all sexual immorality.
ACTS 21:25, NLT
Abstain … from sexual immorality.
ACTS 15:20, NIV
Beloved, I implore you as aliens and strangers and exiles [in this world] to abstain from the sensual urges (the evil desires, the passions of the flesh, your lower nature) that wage war against the soul. [Live] as free people, [yet] without employing your freedom as a pretext for wickedness; but [live at all times] as servants of God.
1 PETER 2:11,16, AMP
You are to abstain from … sexual immorality.
ACTS 15:29, NIV
See that no one is sexually immoral.
HEBREWS 12:16, NIV
Do not practice homosexuality; it is a detestable sin.
LEVITICUS 18:22, NLT
Don’t you know that those who do wrong will have no share in the Kingdom of God? Don’t fool yourselves. Those who indulge in sexual sin, who are idol worshipers, adulterers, male prostitutes, homosexuals … none of these will have a share in the Kingdom of God.
1 CORINTHIANS 6:9–10, NLT
In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.
ROMANS 1:27, NIV
But don’t think you’ve preserved your virtue simply by staying out of bed. Your heart can be corrupted by lust even quicker than your body. Those leering looks you think nobody notices—they also corrupt. Let’s not pretend this is easier than it really is. If you want to live a morally pure life, here’s what you have to do: You have to blind your right eye the moment you catch it in a lustful leer. You have to choose to live one-eyed or else be dumped on a moral trash pile.
MATTHEW 5:28–29, MSG
Turn your back on the turbulent desires of youth and give your positive attention to goodness, integrity, love, and peace.
TIMOTHY 2:22, PHILLIPS
Don’t allow love to turn into lust, setting off a downhill slide into sexual promiscuity, filthy practices, or bullying greed.
EPHESIANS 5:3, MSG
Remember all the commands of the LORD, that you may obey them and not prostitute yourselves by going after the lusts of your own hearts and eyes.
NUMBERS 15:39, NIV
Lust not after her beauty in thine heart; neither let her take thee with her eyelids.
PROVERBS 6:25, KJV
You have heard that the law of Moses says, “Do not commit adultery.” But I say, anyone who even looks at a woman with lust in his eye has already committed adultery with her in his heart. So if your eye—even if it is your good eye—causes you to lust, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your hand—even if it is your stronger hand—causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.
MATTHEW 5:27–30, NLT
For God has not called us to be dirty-minded and full of lust, but to be holy and clean. If anyone refuses to live by these rules he is not disobeying the rules of men but of God who gives his Holy Spirit to you.
1 THESSALONIANS 4:7–8, TLB
For they mouth empty, boastful words and, by appealing to the lustful desires of sinful human nature, they entice people who are just escaping from those who live in error.
2 PETER 2:18, NIV
But a man must examine himself, and in so doing he is to eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly. For this reason many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep. But if we judged ourselves rightly, we would not be judged. But when we are judged, we are disciplined by the Lord so that we will not be condemned along with the world.
1 CORINTHIANS 11:28–32, NASB
For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world.
1 JOHN 2:16, NKJV
Let’s say you do something stupid, like stick your hand into a fire. If you leave your hand in the flames long enough, you’ll feel the immediate consequences of excruciating pain. An even dumber action, however, would be to think that you’re different and stronger than everyone else, believing you can put your hand in a campfire and not be burned. Since everyone knows that fire’s consequences are instantaneous, few men play with fire.
Sin has a different timetable, however. You might sin for years and never experience the consequences, but they will come.
—Every Young Man’s Battle
That is why God let go of them and let them do all these evil things, so that even their women turned against God’s natural plan for them and indulged in sex sin with each other. And the men, instead of having a normal sex relationship with women, burned with lust for each other, men doing shameful things with other men and, as a result, getting paid within their own souls with the penalty they so richly deserved.
ROMANS 1:26–28, TLB
They don’t care anymore about right and wrong and have given themselves over to impure ways. They stop at nothing, being driven by their evil minds and reckless lusts.
EPHESIANS 4:19, TLB
For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.
MATTHEW 15:19, NIV
Stop acting so proud and haughty!
Don’t speak with such arrogance!
The LORD is a God who knows your deeds;
and he will judge you for what you have done.
1 SAMUEL 2:3, NLT
Even a child is known by his deeds,
Whether what he does is pure and right.
PROVERBS 20:11, NKJV
I said to myself, “In due season God will judge everything man does, both good and bad.”
ECCLESIASTES 3:17, TLB
I am afraid that when I come again my God may humiliate me before you, and I may mourn over many of those who have sinned in the past and not repented of the impurity, immorality and sensuality which they have practiced.
2 CORINTHIANS 12:21, NASB
You can be sure that no immoral, impure, or greedy person will inherit the Kingdom of Christ and of God. For a greedy person is really an idolater who worships the things of this world.
EPHESIANS 5:5, NLT
What comes out of a man is what makes him “unclean.” For from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, [and] adultery.
MARK 7:20–21, NIV
When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, your lives will produce these evil results: sexual immorality, impure thoughts, eagerness for lustful pleasure, idolatry, participation in demonic activities, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, divisions, the feeling that everyone is wrong except those in your own little group, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other kinds of sin. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God.
GALATIANS 5:19–21, NLT
So put to death the sinful, earthly things lurking within you. Have nothing to do with sexual sin, impurity, lust, and shameful desires. Don’t be greedy for the good things of this life, for that is idolatry. God’s terrible anger will come upon those who do such things.
COLOSSIANS 3:5–6, NLT
Don’t you know that those who do wrong will have no share in the Kingdom of God? Don’t fool yourselves. Those who indulge in sexual sin, who are idol worshipers, adulterers, male prostitutes, homosexuals, thieves, greedy people, drunkards, abusers, and swindlers—none of these will have a share in the Kingdom of God.… But our bodies were not made for sexual immorality. They were made for the Lord, and the Lord cares about our bodies.… Run away from sexual sin!
1 CORINTHIANS 6:9–10,13,18, NLT
There’s more to sex than mere skin on skin. Sex is as much spiritual mystery as physical fact. As written in Scripture, “The two become one.” Since we want to become spiritually one with the Master, we must not pursue the kind of sex that avoids commitment and intimacy, leaving us more lonely than ever—the kind of sex that can never “become one.”
1 CORINTHIANS 6:16, MSG
For God wants you to be holy and pure, and to keep clear of all sexual sin so that each of you will marry in holiness and honor—not in lustful passion as the heathen do, in their ignorance of God and his ways.… For God has not called us to be dirty-minded and full of lust, but to be holy and clean.
1 THESSALONIANS 4:3–5,7, TLB
But you are not in darkness, brethren, for that day to surprise you like a thief. For you are all sons of light and sons of the day; we are not of the night or of darkness. So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober. For those who sleep sleep at night, and those who get drunk are drunk at night. But, since we belong to the day, let us be sober, and put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation.
1 THESSALONIANS 5:4–8, RSV
Evil plans are an abomination to the LORD,
But pleasant words are pure.
PROVERBS 15:26, NASB
The LORD hates people with twisted hearts, but he delights in those who have integrity.
You can be sure that evil people will be punished, but the children of the godly will go free.
PROVERBS 11:20–21, NLT
How can a young person stay pure?
By obeying your word and following its rules.
PSALM 119:9, NLT
For God has not called us to impurity but to consecration
[to dedicate ourselves to the most thorough purity].
1 THESSALONIANS 4:7, AMP
If you don’t ram a stake into the ground and declare, “This is as far as I go, and I won’t go any further,” then you’ll lose your footing on the slippery slope of sex. It’s amazing how easily we can make sweeping rationalizations for our behavior:
• “It’s okay because I really love her. I know I’m going to marry her anyway.”
• “Why wait until marriage? We’re already married in our hearts.”
• “Sex isn’t wrong for everyone. God is really concerned only about adultery.”
Maybe you’ve said the same things to yourself … the same things that non-Christians say to themselves! That alone should make you feel a bit uncomfortable.
—adapted from Every Young Man’s Battle
Because we have these promises, dear friends, let us cleanse ourselves from everything that can defile our body or spirit. And let us work toward complete purity because we fear God.
2 CORINTHIANS 7:1, NLT
As I said when I left for Macedonia, please stay there in Ephesus and try to stop the men who are teaching such wrong doctrine. Put an end to their myths and fables, and their idea of being saved by finding favor with an endless chain of angels leading up to God—wild ideas that stir up questions and arguments instead of helping people accept God’s plan of faith. What I am eager for is that all the Christians there will be filled with love that comes from pure hearts, and that their minds will be clean and their faith strong.
1 TIMOTHY 1:3–5, TLB
Do not lay hands on anyone hastily, nor share in other people’s sins; keep yourself pure.
1 TIMOTHY 5:22, NKJV
Yes, dear friends, we are already God’s children, and we can’t even imagine what we will be like when Christ returns. But we do know that when he comes we will be like him, for we will see him as he really is. And all who believe this will keep themselves pure, just as Christ is pure.
1 JOHN 3:2–3, NLT
Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.
PHILIPPIANS 4:8–9, NIV