When the Sex Should Stop

Sometimes sex should stop in marriage.

The sometimes is really important. Not all the time. It’s not what is normative or typical. It’s sometimes. And, at the same time, be sure that sometimes really means sometimes. Real times. These are actual moments, or seasons, that never present themselves as the anomaly they should prove to be in the long run. We’re talking about a tangible pause from sex, however brief and limited the stopping may be.

The biblical text on this topic is 1 Corinthians 7:1–5, and though the meaning is pretty straightforward, the way this text plays itself out in the life of the church can run askew in two different directions. One error is to use this passage to support a pattern of self-fulfilling sexual demands; the other is to use this passage to fuel a culture of fear in the marriage relationship — and both combine to produce damaging implications.

Let’s expose these misuses and then chart a course for the gospel-empowered sometimes of sexual abstinence in marriage.

 

Look at the Passage

First, here’s verses 3–5 of 1 Corinthians 7:   Continue at Jonathan Parnell