Ep. 240: Let’s Talk About Sex (Part 1)

Welcome to the indoubt podcast where we explore the challenging topics that young adults often face. Each week we talk with guests who help answer questions of faith, life, and culture, connecting them to our daily experiences and God’s word. For more info on in Doubt, visit indoubt.ca.

Erika:

Hey, it’s Erika. Welcome back to another episode of indoubt. Based on the title of this episode I’m sure you’ve guessed what we’re going to be talking about today. Sex. I should clarify, the biblical understanding of sex. Here with us is our host, Isaac, and pastor and author, Paul Carter. Paul has dedicated much of his time to understanding sex with a biblical perspective. We’re so grateful he’s here to help us understand a little bit better, what sex means within the context of marriage and what the Bible has to say about it. We’re so glad you’re here and hope you enjoy part one of our conversation with Paul Carter.

Isaac Dagneau:

Hey, welcome to indoubt. My name is Isaac, one of the hosts of indoubt, as well as the pastor at North Valley Baptist Church in mission British Columbia. It’s a privilege to have with me on the show today Paul Carter. Paul is the pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church in Orillia, Ontario. He’s on the board of the Gospel Coalition Canada, and he’s also a podcaster himself. So he’s used to this, right? So yeah, he teaches the Bible on his Into the Word podcast. So it’s great to have you with us today, Paul.

Paul Carter:

It’s good to be here. Thanks for having me.

Isaac Dagneau:

Yeah. Before we go any further, I would love for you to share with us a little bit about who you are and maybe particularly you can think of it as how’d you come to know Christ. You can share that. And then what does your life look like right now?

Paul Carter:

Well, interestingly, I came to Christ in a couple of ways that might be considered old fashioned or traditional in today’s church. My parents actually came to Christ late in life through an evangelist, the Sutera Twins. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of the Canadian Revival in the ’70s. And my parents were out West for work. My mom went to a revival meeting and came to Christ. And then she came home and told my dad that he needed to go heat this evangelist. My dad went. My dad is a little more deliberate, I suppose, than my mom. And so he went many times and had several follow-up meetings before he gave his life to Christ. But then as a result of my parents coming to Christ, I was raised in the church and in the Christian context. So I actually went to Backyard Bible Study. There’s another one of those weird things from the past, but I went to backyard Bible study in 1980 and I heard about Jesus and learned about the gospel. I remember praying to receive Christ as my Lord and savior with Mrs. West in the back steps of her house at Backyard Bible Study. I was raised in a good Bible … believing in church. And in terms where I am now, I think there’s never been a time in my life when I haven’t loved Jesus. Certainly in my adolescent years, there was lots of battles with sin and with Lordship and authority and all that kind of stuff like is fairly common for young people, but there’s never been a time since I was six years old that I didn’t love Jesus, didn’t trust Jesus, didn’t want to follow him with my life. Anyway, the Lord has led me into ministry. I’m the pastor now, as you say, of Cornerstone Baptist Church. And really, I’ve been here for 14 years. I like to write and the podcast has been an interesting journey. The podcast was weird. We started the podcast basically to help our commuters. I could tell by the way, you needed some help there without a say, it’s not a really well known town. It’s the Northern most sort of bedroom community associated with city of Toronto. Yeah, so basically you can’t work in Toronto and live anywhere further North than us. So there’s kind of a Northern limit and Eastern limit and a Western limit. We’re the Northern one. So we had a number of folks who were driving a long way for work and were having a hard time keeping up with their Bible reading, so I just thought, “Well, gee, I could probably do this. I could probably read the Bible to you.” We use the RMM plan here, and I could provide a few pastor level comments. I imagine there might be a hundred people using that from our church and it’s just kind of exploded. Now we have more listeners in South Carolina most weeks than we do here, really, but it’s just been funny how God has used it.

Isaac Dagneau:

Yeah, that’s great. I saw quickly on your bio, just so people might be interested, so you are married and you have some children. So maybe share a little bit about that.

Paul Carter:

Yeah. My wife and I have been married for 24 years actually. Yeah. It’s important to remember that. Coming up on 24. But we have five kids. One of our children is adopted. My wife and I did have fostering for years and years and years and years. So that’s always been a passion of ours. We had the great joy and delight of adopting one of our foster children as well. So that’s just been a really cool experience. It’s a gospel metaphor that we’ve been privileged to live from the inside. So yeah, I’ve been really excited about that. That’s been a joy and a blessing. We have a dog, I suppose that’s the other thing you need to know.

Isaac Dagneau:

That’s good. I didn’t read that on the bio. So that’s important, right? That’s good.

Paul Carter:

Yeah. I’m wearing my Toronto Blue Jays-

Isaac Dagneau:

There you go.

Paul Carter:

… golf shirt right now. So that’s important for people to know as well. I’m a big baseball fan.

Isaac Dagneau:

Okay. Okay. That’s good. That’s good. Well, we won’t talk about baseball and all that stuff right now. That’s okay.

Paul Carter:

That’s a bit of a sore spot. Yeah.

Isaac Dagneau:

It is a little bit of a sore spot, yeah. I got that. All right. Well, Paul, let’s just jump in here. A couple of years ago, you did write this article for the Gospel Coalition Canada. The title of it is five surprising things that the Bible says about sex. And if someone’s listening right now and you didn’t know what this conversation was going to be on, that’s it. Obviously, more than that and obviously we’re looking at it with gospel godly, biblical lens. But firstly, maybe a good question would be, why do you think it has been so popular? This question. Maybe that’s an easy question because I mean, we live in a very sexualized culture. So anything with sex, people are interested. But yeah, how have you thought about this fact that this article has just always been there?

Paul Carter:

Well, it’s a funny question to be honest with you. I was joking around with a couple of guys on the Gospel Coalition, one of the other writers and the editor. It is weird that this article has been … it’s been our most read article for the last two years consistently, almost every week. It’s the most read article, which is weird because the Gospel Coalition, we kind of self identify as this egg head club. Like on the continuum of Christianity we’re not the ones you might have expected to be waving the flag on this issue. We write a lot of articles on deep theological truths. So for this article to be the one that most people come and find us for has been odd. Now, in truth, it was not a complete accident. It was a bit of an experiment. One of the things that we learned through our American friends, the Gospel Coalition in the States has been just tremendous with us in terms of helping us understand web ministry. One of the things they made us aware of is that there is a huge surge in Google searches on Christian topics. It’s something that we haven’t entirely wrapped our heads around. I think most of us sort of imagined that if our unsaved neighbor had a question about faith, he would call up a Christian friend or she would call up a Christian friend. The reality is now that they’re Googling those questions. So we were challenged by our American friends, that the gospel coalition to produce some articles that were really less for the standard Gospel Coalition reader who’s either a pastor or a lay person involved in leadership and interested in thinking more deeply about the faith and more for that seeker on the internet. So we wrote a bunch of articles that were basically engineered for Google searches. We had a list of very common Google searches. So the fact is people have questions out there about sex. I don’t just mean that in a kind of an adolescent way, like a curiosity. There is confusion out there. We’re in the midst of a massive sexual revolution, the likes of which we’ve never seen before. Everything is up in the air. All the old assumptions have been thrown out the window. And interestingly, people want to know what does the Bible say? So that’s how we styled the title, what does the Bible say about sex, but five surprising things that the Bible says about sex. Because I think people have preconceptions they’ve been told, right? One of the other factors, I think, driving traffic on this article has been the amount of disinformation out there in the media about what the Bible teaches about sex. A ton of media folks who loosely identify as Christians, whether they’re on CNN or Glee, characters in Glee. There’ve been a number of these incidents where people have sort of said, “Hey, listen, I am a Christian of sorts. And here’s what the Bible says about sex.” It sounds wrong to people. That’s not what they remember hearing the Bible says about sex. So there’s this curiosity, what does the Bible actually say about sex? So anyway, it’s certainly struck a chord.

Isaac Dagneau:

Yeah. No, absolutely. It’s awesome. And just for listeners sake, I’d encourage you to read it. I read it with my wife and it was great. We were learning a lot. And just to kind of cause you not to be in fear, it’s not written for a scholar. You purposely wrote it I’m sure very, very simply.

Paul Carter:

Yeah, very much so.

Isaac Dagneau:

So it’s very digestible and it’s great. We actually really enjoyed it. It was really helpful. And yeah, just to validate your point too, there are lots of Christians, especially Christian young people that are interested in matters of biblical sexuality and biblical sex, not in any intentionally lustful way, but in serious ways. Like they actually really want to know what is permissible, what’s not, what’s the point, all these various things. So I really appreciate that. So yeah, let’s dive into this. So maybe a way we could start off, obviously people can go read it, but also could you just share with us what these five things are. Just briefly just share with us, go through them. I think it’ll pique people’s interests. And then maybe after you could say which one is the one that you would think is most surprising and then listeners can judge that.

Paul Carter:

Sure. Well, so as the title indicates, it wasn’t an attempt to provide like an exhaustive theology of sex or everything the Bible says about sex. Let’s address some of either the disinformation or the counterintuitive things that the Bible says about sex. So there are things I could have said that I think probably most people would know like sex should happen within marriage, for example. We make that point along the way, but we wanted to address, again, some of these misunderstandings and maybe some of the counterintuitive stuff that you’d be surprised to discover. So first thing we said is that it is good. I think there is a notion out there that Christians are the no people or they’re the sexual downers, don’t have fun, lie back and think of the empire, right? So we wanted to counteract that. So we go to the scriptures where it talks about how the husband and wife were both naked and not ashamed, Genesis 2:25. And how it’s part of the created order. That it has nothing to do with the fall, that sex was an original sin. There’s lots of urban legends about what Christianity believes about sex. Maybe people have heard of parody of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel, the Scarlet Letter, as opposed to actually reading it. So there’s all these misconceptions out there that the Christians are opposed to sex. So we want to start there. It’s good. And then the second thing that we say is that husbands owe it to wives, meaning it’s reciprocal. And in fact, many historians who don’t love Jesus, meaning they’re not Christian historians, they’re just historians, consider what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 7 to be the most radical statement in the ancient world on human sexuality. So 1 Corinthians 7:3-4, Paul says, “The husband should give to his wife, her conjugal rights, her sexual rights. And likewise, the wife to her husband. For the wife does not have authority over her own body.” Now that clause in the verse wouldn’t have been a shock to anybody in the ancient world. Everybody understood that the husband had rights over his wife’s body, but this next statement was radical, “Likewise, the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.” This is the first time in the ancient world that there is a statement about the reciprocal nature of sex. This is also the first time where women are legitimized in having sexual needs. So, I mean, that’s a radical statement. I think historians who study sexuality look at that with wide eyes and raised eyebrows, and just think, “That’s a remarkable statement.” I think most people don’t know that that’s in the Bible.

Isaac Dagneau:

Yeah, absolutely.

Paul Carter:

Yeah. Nobody knows that. I mean, again, it’s one of those misconceptions, one of those blind spots. Third thing we said is that couples should have it often. That’s another thing that the apostle Paul said that I think most people are surprised. He said, “Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time that you may devote yourselves to prayer, but then come together again so that Satan may not tempt you.” So Paul says, for a married couple, you ought to be having sex on a regular basis. And he says, “You could make an argument, I suppose, for a two or three day gap in your sexual life if you both need some concentrated prayer time, but then other than that, it ought to be regular, it ought to be consistent. It’s part of how you care for one another and it’s part of how you ward off temptations.” Another interesting thing that Paul says that again, this was our fourth thing, was it’s not just about the kids. I think there’s an idea out there in the culture that Christians believe in sex, sure, but only so as to have babies. But that’s not what the Bible says. The Bible absolutely makes the connection between sex and babies, but actually even before it makes that or more primary than that, it talks about companionship. It’s not good for the man to be alone. So there’s this idea that sex in the Bible is first and foremost, intimate friendship. That is the way that we comfort each other. I do a lot of weddings. One of my favorite quotes … it doesn’t go off very well with young people because it’s kind of in King James version language, but I like it so much. I throw it in and then I just explain it. But Matthew Henry has this great line where he talks about receiving comfort and it’s from Ecclesiastes 4:9-11. He talks about just having a welcoming … it’s Victorian language, pre Victorian era, but Victorian language. He talks about receiving comfort, warmth, and a generous welcome in the marital bed is a great guard against sexual immorality. I just thought, “That’s a great expression.” Like comfort, warm welcome, generosity, that’s a vision of sexuality that I think most of us are surprised to discover in the Bible.

Isaac Dagneau:

It’s interesting just to put it in there, the way that you explain it there, Matthew Henry. I love that because just the way he described it, there’s a purity around that. Because Our culture will show sex and they’ll try to attract us with its lustfulness and it’s almost this dirtiness. That’s the way the culture tells us this is why it’ll be good. But what Matthew Henry just said, what you just quoted, was it’s this cool reversal where it’s like, “No, no, we’re going to enjoy it, but it’s in this generous, it’s pure, it’s lovely, it’s beautiful.” I think that’s important. So I like that.

Paul Carter:

Yeah. I like what you said there about the culture always depicting sex in terms of, it’s sort of baser or crass or nature. I think that’s one of the reasons why Christians are sometimes loathe to talk about sex at all, because we’re worried that oh, here and here comes the sex conversation. It’s going to get crass. It’s going to get inappropriate. We have something beautiful to say. The Bible doesn’t say that sex is wrong. The Bible just talks about sex so differently you almost think you’re talking about something else. And what we have to do is instead of just not having the conversation, we just have to have the conversation on biblical terms. But that’s a challenge in today’s culture because all of our assumptions about sex come from the culture, not from the text.

Isaac Dagneau:

Yep. That’s right.

Paul Carter:

So even for Christians, even in the church. I mean the reality is we learn most of what we think about sex comes from movies, not from the Bible. So there is this kind of crass view of sex that you almost have to unteach in order to say what the Bible says about sex. But anyway, just to finish answering your first question there, the fifth thing we said in the article is it’s not what makes you truly human. I think a lot of people resonated with this because there’s an assumption in some parts of the evangelical world that if you’re not married and if you don’t have three, four, five, six kids, you’re not really living the Christian life. Right? Which puts a lot of pressure, of course, on single people.

Isaac Dagneau:

Oh, totally.

Paul Carter:

Yeah. And people wonder like, “Am I less than?” What’s interesting to help people understand is that actually that bias was completely opposite in the early church. The early church bias was towards celibacy. In fact, there were so many celibate characters in the Bible, right? I mean, think of Elijah, Jeremiah, Jesus, of course, John, the Baptist, the apostle Paul. There were so many celibate characters that actually this idea started going around in the early church that if you really wanted to follow Jesus, if you want to be on the inside lane, then you needed to be a lifelong celibate. And Paul actually had to push back against that and relegitimize marriage in 1 Corinthians 7 and said, “No, no, no, no, no, no, both are gifts from God.” He says, “I wish more people were like me.” Right? Meaning lifelong celibates with the gift of celibacy, able to serve God without any division of interest, without any worry or anxiety. I mean, Paul could have a dream one night and pick up and start a mission to Europe the next morning. I can’t do that. I’ve got five kids and a mortgage. Right?

Isaac Dagneau:

Yeah.

Paul Carter:

If I had a dream that God wants me to go to Europe, that’ll take me like three years of planning. But for Paul, he had the dream at 4:00 AM, he was on the boat at 6:00. He says, “I wish there were more like that, but each has a gift from God.” Marriage is a gift. It’s got unique blessings, unique opportunities, but celibacy is a gift too. I think that conversation needs to be had in the church. We need to talk about it. These are both good, but you can be fully human as a spouse and you can be fully human as an unmarried celibate individual. It’s not intrinsic. Sexist is beautiful. It’s wonderful. But it’s not necessary in terms of your humanity or your mission as an image bearer of God.

Isaac Dagneau:

Yeah, absolutely. I totally concur. That’s a great point. I remember on the show, about two years ago now, we had Sam Allberry. he’s obviously committed to celibacy. And one thing he said, I always remember, he said, “My married friends, there is a depth of friendship that they have that I can’t experience.” Because they’re married with their spouses. Right. But he said, “But there is a breadth of friendship that my married friends can’t experience like I have.” He was just kind of showing that there is a gift here that I am able to fly all over the place. Well, this is obviously pre COVID. And be with all these sorts of people and have these rich, rich friendships that are hopefully not as deep as your friendship with your spouse. But there is a breadth and it’s a beautiful thing. So I think that’s a great point you make, Paul. So that’s good.

Paul Carter:

Yeah. Well, you think of guys like John Stott, right? There’s all the things that he was able to do. And the breadth, that’s a great word. The breadth of his involvement in the evangelical world before he was passing. That’s not something a married person can do.

Isaac Dagneau:

No.

Paul Carter:

That’s something a married person should aspire to do. And to be married, you have to take the multigenerational look. You have to say, “I am going to have a lasting deep impact in my children, but I am by necessity going to have a less deep, less impactful relationship to the wider church, to the body of Christ as a whole.” You can’t be John Stott with five kids and 15 grandkids. It’s not a thing.

Isaac Dagneau:

Oh, for sure. Yeah. We won’t talk about how Spurgeon seemed to be able to do it all, but we’ll just leave that for another day. God gave him a big capacity.

Paul Carter:

Unless you’re Spurgeon … is the last sentence in a whole bunch of arguments.

Isaac Dagneau:

Okay. That’s good. I like that. I like that. That’s good. All right. So we’ve already touched on this a little bit, but let’s dig in a little bit more here. So it’s true that our unchurched culture that we live in has been … I believe it’s been a lot more open and it’s been a positive about sex, talking about it in movies, music, all that stuff. But it’s always in a more damaging degree. So we talked about the sexual revolution. While the church though has had this reputation, like you’ve already suggested and said, of being a little more quiet about it, or if it does speak, it’s more anti on issues of sex. So from your studies and from your life, what do you think is the correction to this? What the antidote to give to Christians who have heard all about the stuff from the outside and then the inside of the church, they’ve just sort of experienced this like, “Oh, I don’t know, sex before marriage.” What’s the antidote to that?

Paul Carter:

Well, as is so often the case in the church, there’s a narrow road with a huge ditch on either side. And I say that to just say, I want to be gracious to everybody and I hope people are gracious with me, because we will find the ditch on both sides of this narrow way. And partly it’s just because this is a conversation that’s fraught with cultural tensions, right? We’re not having this conversation in a vacuum, we’re having it against the pervasive influence of media and culture on this topic of sexuality. So it’s very hard to maintain a steady course on the narrow road on this one. But I would say in general for most of my childhood and, I would probably argue, for most of recent Christian history, we have fallen into the ditch of simply saying nothing and only opening our mouths on the topic of sexuality when we needed to say no. I don’t think that’s helpful because then the only thing people hear from us is no. So again, we’re kind of associated with this no, Debbie downer kind of approach to sexuality, which is not helpful. Then of course the ditch on the other side is to become crass and insensitive to the matter of sexuality and to talk in ways that lack decorum and dignity. That’s not helpful either. But I would say somewhere in the middle, there is this place where we simply speak gladly and confidently out of what the scriptures actually say. Well, first of all, I think this problem goes away somewhat if you develop a reputation in your church for simply preaching sequentially through the Bible. Meaning I think topical preachers get in trouble because if you’re choosing the topics, you’re either going to over choose topics of sexuality if that’s your inclination, if you’re inclined to that ditch, or you’re going to undertalk about sexuality if you’re inclined to the other ditch. Let me ask you a question, could you preach through 1 Corinthians without having several conversations about sex? I mean, of course you couldn’t write. In 1 Corinthians 5, you’re going to talk about how to discipline sexual sin in the church. In 1 Corinthians 6, you’re going to have to talk about sleeping with prostitutes because apparently that was a big issue in the early church, right? You’re going to have to talk about what the Bible actually says with respect to chastity. You’re going to have to talk about why sexual sin excludes people from the kingdom of God if we persist in it, if we don’t repent of it. And then of course that’s not even … we haven’t got to 1 Corinthians 7 where we’re going to have to talk about sexuality within marriage. I mean, you’re going to have multiple sermons on sexuality just by making the decision to preach through the Corinthian correspondence. So I think if we did that, that would be very helpful if more churches just preach through books of the Bible. But I think also, we need to do a better job of giving the why. I think a lot of times we just tell people, “Well, you can’t do this. You can’t do that.” And they ask why, we just say, “well, because the Bible system.” I think there’s a point in the Christian life where that’s a compelling argument. I think a mature Christian is content with that answer. Right? Well, because God says so. Okay, sure. God knows things I don’t know. I’m an idiot and I’m subject to all manner of internal deceptions. I’ve got warped flesh and twisted desire. So yeah, sure. God says so is fine. But for those either inquiring or for those who are immature and just starting out, that’s not an adequate answer. So I think there needs to be more conversation around the beauty and the wisdom of all of God’s commands, but particularly God’s command with respect to sex. And here’s where I’m optimistic. I actually think this will be easier to do in the coming generation because I think the, dare I say, insanity of the current sexual ethic and culture is going to show itself and make a convincing argument for a return to biblical sexual ethics-

Isaac Dagneau:

Of reformation of sex. Yeah.

Paul Carter:

We’re headed for a train wreck in culture with respect to the things that we’re believing and proclaiming about sex. So I think it’s going to be very easy to point to the biblical sexual ethic and see its beauties, see its stability, see itself. I think instead of just saying, “Listen, God says you can’t have sex until you get married.” Just use one example. I think there’s an opportunity to actually have a conversation about why sex within a covenant relationship is such a kindness. That it’s kind to children. Numerous studies have been done indicating that if you have your children, after you get married, their outcomes, their life outcomes are so far ahead of those children that were born out of marriage and before marriage. In fact, it’s made its way into something called the success formula, which your listeners should Google. It’s written from a non Christian perspective. These four things, if you do them, it’s almost impossible to be poor in this culture. And one of them is get married before you have babies. It’s such a kindness to the children and it’s the kindness to women. I mean, ask your average single mom how much she enjoys working 50 hours a week to earn a living for her family, and then going home and also tie in hockey skates, and cutting grass and putting out garbage. Ask how much fun that is. So the biblical mandate to have sex within a covenant relationship between two people is a kindness to women and children. I think we need to make that argument. It’s a beautiful argument. We should make more of an effort to show the why behind the things that God says.

Isaac Dagneau:

Yeah. No, that’s good. So I feel like you’re setting yourself up for it. Let me just ask then why? What is the beauty? What is that kindness? I’m thinking if people are listening right now and this is all new to them and I’m sure there are lots of listeners right now. Paul, this is not the way that I’ve understood it. I’ve only known what the culture says about it. My parents just tell me not to do it before I’m married. So then why? What is this purpose?

Paul Carter:

It’s a good question. We’ve already touched a little bit on the why of sex within a covenant relationship, but just to explore that a little further, one of the things that I would say … I’ve been a pastor now for 26 going on 27 years. It’ll be 27 years in September. In my counseling, one of the things that I have encountered is that, not exclusively, but generally, couples that were sexually active, let’s just say, in the normal cultural way before coming together in covenant marriage, they have a harder time experiencing the fullness of what sex is intended to be. Sex is intended to be an experience of total knowledge and acceptance, right? There’s an old saying, “What we all want is to be fully known and completely accepted.” If we’re fully known, but not accepted, I mean, obviously that’s heartbreaking. That’s to be rejected, right? If we are not fully known, but accepted, then that’s very difficult to maintain because we’re hiding, right? We’re playing a role. So we’re always worried. We’re going to be found out. But to be fully known and fully accepted, and more than accepted, to be completely delighted in, is every human’s desire. It’s one of the things we were made for. It’s One of the things we want most. And basically, that is a harder state to achieve in covenant marriage if you have had a variety of sexual experiences before marriage, because each one of those sexual experiences obviously didn’t result in marriage. So there was some rejection there. There was some dissolution. So that makes us wonder whether we are lovable and that makes us more inclined to hide. If we’ve been rejected numerous times, we’re more inclined to hide. If we’re aware that the person we’re with has been with many others, then we’re constantly worried that we may not measure up. And it puts a lot of pressure, and fear, anxiety. All those things don’t make for great sex. Vulnerability, trust, and openness make for great sex. So I would just say just on that one plane, and we haven’t even got into why does God say don’t commit adultery? Why does God say for sex to be heterosexual as opposed to homosexual? But just on this one aspect of God’s design, I think it’s relatively easy to understand why not following God’s instructions make it more difficult to experience the fullness of what God has in store. Now to speak a word of grace, I would say that’s not to say that we can never achieve or realize what God has in store for us if we’ve made these past mistakes. Certainly we can be forgiven. It is important to remind people that to be completely forgiven is not to have all consequences erased. If I got drunk and ran over a mother with her children in my car, I could be forgiven if those people extended me great grace. I could be forgiven by God as well. I still might go to jail. And rightly so. So there can be consequences in our bodies. I have a friend who, let’s just say, he indulged in sex in its cultural form and norms prior to becoming a Christian. Became a Christian and unfortunately had picked up a disease that made having children with his wife extraordinarily difficult. That was a massive issue for them to process in their marriage. So consequences can follow us, but I would say, there’s grace, there’s forgiveness. And then as God heals us over time, we are able to enter in at the full depth and experience, but it is simply, it is harder. And like a good parent wants to save their children, I always say to my kids, “Why do you insist on making all the mistakes that I made?” Learn from my experience. Let me save you a few painful missteps.” And of course, God doesn’t make mistakes, but he does know what a painful misstep is and he’s able to guide us in the right way. So trusting God with respect to your sexuality brings blessing and joy, and saves from a great many hardships and heartaches.

Isaac Dagneau:

Yeah. That’s good. I appreciate you. I was going to ask you about the whole aspect of how the gospel fits into those that maybe are listening and they’ve made some mistakes and I’m just glad that you just organically went there because it is so important. Because I’m sure as you know, because we all have sexual struggles, that there is heavy shame when it comes to this. So the message of grace on that, and I really appreciate what you were doing, delineating between forgiveness and consequences. I think that’s important. We have to recognize that and deal with that. God will give us grace through working through the consequence too. Absolutely. But I think it’s so important to know that that forgiveness is there and that’s just a beautiful thing. And especially when you do get together with a spouse who is also spirit filled and they are able, Christ in them can extend that forgiveness. It’s one of the most beautiful, beautiful things ever. I mean, it comes back to that fact of, I know everything about you and I accept you. It’s freeing, it’s beautiful, and it’s wonderful. Thanks, Paul. Well, unfortunately, we’re going to have to cut our first conversation short, but we’re going to continue it on in a second part. So let me just say from what we’ve already talked about already, from what you have brought to the table, Paul, thank you so much for discussing this important topic with us.

Paul Carter:

Well, it’s my pleasure. Thanks very much for having me.

Erika:

We hope you enjoyed this episode of indoubt. Thanks for joining us. Even though sex is something that is talked about all the time in our culture, it’s often skewed when it comes to talking about it from a biblical point of view. Hopefully, you learn some new ways to view, respect, and understand sex during this episode. And thanks so much to Paul for joining us today. If you’d like to hear more from Paul, you can find him on social media @pastrpaulcarter. It’s like pastor without the O. We’ll have all his social channels linked on the episode page on our website. And if you’re still wanting to hear more from Paul you’re in luck, he’ll be back next week with Isaac again to finish up their conversation on sex, why it’s so important in the life of a Christian and how we can better understand it. See you then.

Thanks so much for listening. If you want to hear more, subscribe on iTunes or Spotify or visit us online at indoubt.ca or indoubt.com. We’re also on social media, so make sure to follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.