APPENDIX A

WHAT DOES THE BIBLE SAY ABOUT MARRIAGE AND SEX?

The Bible speaks often about the marriage relationship and about sex. Read through these Scripture passages, and allow them to guide you and shape your marriage.

God’s Intentions for Marriage

God looked over all he had made, and he saw that it was very good! GENESIS 1:31

Then the LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper who is just right for him.” GENESIS 2:18

“At last!” the man exclaimed. “This one is bone from my bone, and flesh from my flesh! . . .” This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one. Now the man and his wife were both naked, but they felt no shame. GENESIS 2:23-25

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New Testament Thoughts about Marriage

The husband should fulfill his wife’s sexual needs, and the wife should fulfill her husband’s needs. 1 CORINTHIANS 7:3

Do not deprive each other of sexual relations, unless you both agree to refrain from sexual intimacy for a limited time so you can give yourselves more completely to prayer. Afterward, you should come together again so that Satan won’t be able to tempt you because of your lack of self-control. 1 CORINTHIANS 7:5

Among the Lord’s people, women are not independent of men, and men are not independent of women. For although the first woman came from man, every other man was born from a woman, and everything comes from God. 1 CORINTHIANS 11:11-12

A husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of his body, the church. As the church submits to Christ, so you wives should submit to your husbands in everything. For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her. . . . As the Scriptures say, “A man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.” This is a great mystery, but it is an illustration of the way Christ and the church are one. So again I say, each man must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. EPHESIANS 5:23-25, 31-33

In the same way, you wives must accept the authority of your husbands. Then, even if some refuse to obey the Good News, your godly lives will speak to them without any words. They will be won over by observing your pure and reverent lives. 1 PETER 3:1-2

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Warnings about Behavior in Marriage

You must not commit adultery. EXODUS 20:14

I made a covenant with my eyes not to look with lust at a young woman. JOB 31:1

Drink water from your own well —share your love only with your wife. Why spill the water of your springs in the streets, having sex with just anyone? You should reserve it for yourselves. Never share it with strangers. Let your wife be a fountain of blessing for you. Rejoice in the wife of your youth. She is a loving deer, a graceful doe. Let her breasts satisfy you always. May you always be captivated by her love. Why be captivated, my son, by an immoral woman, or fondle the breasts of a promiscuous woman? For the Lord sees clearly what a man does, examining every path he takes. PROVERBS 5:15-21

Anyone who even looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. MATTHEW 5:28

Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. ROMANS 12:2

Don’t you realize that all of you together are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God lives in you? God will destroy anyone who destroys this temple. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple. 1 CORINTHIANS 3:16-17

Run 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. Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body. 1 CORINTHIANS 6:18-20

Give honor to marriage, and remain faithful to one another in marriage. God will surely judge people who are immoral and those who commit adultery. HEBREWS 13:4

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Guidelines for Healthy Relationships

Some people make cutting remarks, but the words of the wise bring healing. PROVERBS 12:18

Awake, north wind! Rise up, south wind! Blow on my garden and spread its fragrance all around. Come into your garden, my love; taste its finest fruits. . . . I am my lover’s, and my lover is mine. He browses among the lilies. . . . I am my lover’s, and he claims me as his own. SONG OF SONGS 4:16; 6:3; 7:10

Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. 1 CORINTHIANS 13:4-7

Anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! 2 CORINTHIANS 5:17

Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. EPHESIANS 4:29, KJV

Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, and slander, as well as all types of evil behavior. Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you. EPHESIANS 4:31-32

Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too. PHILIPPIANS 2:3-4

Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. PHILIPPIANS 4:8

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Promises for God’s Help

Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a loyal spirit within me. PSALM 51:10

How can you say the LORD does not see your troubles? . . . How can you say God ignores your rights? Have you never heard? Have you never understood? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of all the earth. He never grows weak or weary. No one can measure the depths of his understanding. He gives power to the weak and strength to the powerless. ISAIAH 40:27-29

Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” MATTHEW 11:28

I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns. PHILIPPIANS 1:6

Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. PHILIPPIANS 4:6