The First Sexual Revolution

Well, good morning to you all.

This morning, we typically in our church,

we follow the lectionary.

And so this morning, we come to this reading

in 1 Corinthians chapter six.

And this is one of those passages

that because of all of the things

that have been attached to it in recent history,

it's almost impossible for us to understand

what this would have been like

from a first century perspective.

What was really going on when Paul wrote these words?

So what we're going to spend time doing this morning

is to look at this passage through that lens

and recognize that what we really see here,

what we're really gonna be talking about

is the sexual revolution.

When we hear the term sexual revolution,

most people think of the movement,

the events that happened in the 1960s onward in the West.

But according to Kyle Harper, the classics professor,

the first sexual revolution,

or what he would refer to as the real sexual revolution,

actually happened in the 60s,

as in in the first century onward.

And it was all the direct result of the Christian gospel.

From the moment it was first proclaimed,

the gospel began to transform

every aspect of human life,

including and really especially the realm of sexual ethics.

And the lifestyle of the early Christ followers

was a radical departure

from the surrounding cultural norms

in ways that we have a very hard time appreciating.

But it was a radical departure from the norms,

and the church grew rapidly in the first few centuries,

largely because of this.

Largely because people found this new way of life

to be breathtakingly beautiful and attractive.

Again, hard for us to imagine

with all of the lenses that we bring to this,

but that was the reality

in the first few centuries of the church.

And what this did was to lay a foundation

for much of what we take for granted

in the modern West

when it comes to everything from human dignity

to universal human rights

to justice for the vulnerable.

So what made this revolution possible?

1 Corinthians chapter six shows us

that it was a result of at least three things.

A revolutionary view of desire and identity,

a revolutionary view of sex and the body,

a revolutionary view of marriage and singleness.

Let's pray.

Lord, we thank you for your word,

and we recognize, we have to recognize every week

that this is your word,

and that we're here to sit under your word.

You promise that wherever your word goes,

you send it out, and it accomplishes

all that you desire for it to accomplish

in us, in the world.

It never returns to you void,

and so we pray that this word this morning

would be living and active,

that it would challenge those of us

who may be complacent,

that it would comfort those of us

who may be here

and be facing extraordinary challenges.

We pray that you would speak to us as your children

in the ways that you promise to do.

In the power of your spirit,

and in the name of Jesus, amen.

So a revolutionary view, first of all,

of desire and identity.

Our society today, in some ways,

feels very distant from the first century world,

but in many ways,

we actually have a lot in common with Corinth,

and I think arguably we have more in common

in this last century with Corinth

than many previous centuries.

In verse 12, Paul quotes a common phrase

that you might just as easily hear

on the streets of D.C. as in Corinth.

He quotes this slogan,

all things are lawful for me.

In contemporary terms,

my body is my business.

What I do is my business.

It's not anyone else's business,

and I have a right to do as I please.

Most everybody operates that way in our society.

But look at what Paul does here.

He quotes the saying,

all things are lawful for me,

and then he says this,

all things are lawful for me,

but I will not be dominated by anything.

Now that's a key insight

into the nature of desire.

He's not saying,

no, I don't want you to be free.

He's rather challenging them,

are you as free as you think you are?

Desire can be extraordinarily powerful,

and if we're not extraordinarily careful.

Our desires can,

Paul says,

come to enslave us.

And in the previous section,

verses 9 through 11,

Paul gives us a list.

And this is not meant to be comprehensive,

but it is meant to make a point.

Here's what Paul is saying with this list.

Regardless of what your particular desires

or proclivities might be,

whether we're dealing with sexual desire,

and he includes several examples

that encompass both heterosexual

and same-sex examples,

whether it's the realm of sexual desire,

whether it's the desire for other people's property,

kind of a material desire for money,

food and drink,

or whether it's the passions within you like anger,

whether it's something like anger

that leads you to revile other people,

in other words,

to speak abusively to other people.

There's always a danger, he says,

of our desires coming to dominate

and then define us.

So it may start out

with occasionally drinking too much here and there

or occasionally sort of fantasizing about adultery,

what would it be like to be with that person,

or occasionally your temper gets the better of you

and you say hurtful things

that obviously you don't mean.

And it starts out like that,

but what Paul's saying is that over time,

the more you indulge those desires,

the more you let them have their way in you,

the more you will cross boundaries

and the more you will take liberties

and the more you will push limits

until one day you realize,

as you look back on your life,

you've become a full-blown alcoholic

or a serial adulterer

or a reviler,

a verbally abusive person.

And even if we're not aware

of being dominated by any particular desire,

you can hear this and think,

well, I don't see anything like that

at work in my life.

We all live kind of in this constant oscillation

between pleasure and pain.

Right?

And that's its own kind of domination.

This inescapable pendulum between pleasure and pain.

I escape the pain of sadness

with the pleasure of junk food.

I escape the pain of boredom

with the pleasure of scrolling on Instagram.

The pleasure-pain cycle is sort of never-ending.

And one of the things that set the early Christians apart

was their apparent ability

to transcend

and to overcome their desires.

It wasn't the extinguishing of desire.

This wasn't Buddhism.

It's not Stoicism.

This is something more.

This is people who have the ability

to have desires,

to choose to indulge those desires,

or to choose to not indulge.

The desires had no control over them.

They were the ones in charge.

And that was extremely appealing.

So God's desire for us is freedom.

It's true freedom.

And people in the world

begin to look at this Christian community

and realize these people seem to be free.

You know, if you want to read a great paper

on this particular point,

Father Jeff Bailey,

who's a member, part of our church,

actually wrote a fantastic paper on this.

I'm sure he'd be happy to send it to you.

But the question that we want to ask is,

how was this kind of freedom possible?

And the answer that Paul gives is very clear.

Through spiritual transformation

that brought about whole life transformation.

So Paul says, you were washed.

You were sanctified.

You were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ

and by the Spirit of our God.

He's saying, you used to be dominated by these desires,

but then you came to Jesus.

You admitted your spiritual brokenness.

You admitted to Jesus that everything about you,

every part of you needs to be redeemed and healed.

And what did Jesus do?

He welcomed you in.

He forgave all of your sin because of his sacrifice.

And then he gave you a new identity.

How do you know your baptism is a marker

of that new identity?

He said, no longer belong to the world.

You no longer belong to your desires.

You belong to me now.

And in the love of Christ,

people began to find something greater

than anything they might desire

in the material world.

These lesser desires began to be displaced

by the greater desire of the love of Christ.

And then the Spirit begins to work.

He says, you were sanctified.

The Spirit begins to work this new life out in us

to sanctify us.

The early Christian church took this very seriously.

And that's why they were committed

to transcending desire

and to not being mastered by it.

So the first point is this.

God's desire for us is freedom.

True freedom.

And one of the greatest threats to our freedom

is not external.

It's not laws that determine

what we can and cannot do.

We can have lots of laws.

We can have no laws.

One of the greatest threats

to our freedom is actually in here.

It's the dominating power of desire.

And I actually think there is a longing

for this kind of freedom in our culture today.

There's a rise of what we might refer to

as neo-stoicism in our culture today.

Just one example of this,

if you look at the many young men in our culture,

and it's up to you to determine

whether or not you fit that category,

many young men follow people like Ryan Holiday

or there's a Navy SEAL, Jocko Willink,

I think is how you say his name,

or Tim Ferriss or Jordan Peterson.

And all of these gurus are advocating

for self-improvement centered on seeking

a more virtuous life.

Right?

There's a term among some people, simping.

Don't be a simp.

Right?

You know, if you're a young man,

and you know, don't show or demonstrate

or display your interest in women.

Focus on, you know, your goals.

Focus on improving yourself.

Let them come to you.

Right?

But there's a spirit,

there's an undercurrent,

right, in all of this

that people are responding to.

And what is that undercurrent?

It's people, I think,

realizing we live in a culture

where everybody around you is saying,

indulge your desires,

indulge your appetites,

let your desires define you,

give in to them.

That's what true happiness is.

And I think people on an instinctive level

know that's a lie.

And they're tired of being dominated

by their desires.

They're tired of being stuck

in the pleasure-pain cycle,

and they want a way out.

And so you have these gurus

who are offering a way out.

But the difference is,

the difference is,

there were two key factors

in the early church

that we need today

if we want to truly be free.

Number one,

they had the power

of the Holy Spirit

at work in them.

And you're not going to find

that in a book.

And then two,

they had a community

committed to this lifestyle

which made it much more plausible.

It's a lot more plausible

if all of the people around you

are advocating for the same thing

in your life

and in their lives.

So this is the first piece

of this revolution puzzle.

A revolutionary view

of identity and desire.

Number two,

a revolutionary view

of sex and the body.

People in the pre-Christian world

had a very low view

of the physical world

and the human body,

and that led to a very low view

of sex.

Paul quotes another common slogan

you might hear on the streets

of Corinth or D.C.

Food is meant for the stomach

and the stomach for food.

What does that mean?

Sex has no meaning behind it.

There's no bigger meaning.

There's no bigger story.

There's no spiritual component.

Sex is merely an appetite.

And like any other appetite,

if you have to,

satisfy it

in whatever way you see fit.

Now that really depended

on who you were in society.

If you were a high status man,

if you were a freeborn man,

a high status man,

there was no expectation

of sexual restraint

put on you.

There's actually not even a word

for male virgin

in either Greek or Latin.

Right?

The concept didn't even exist.

And so there was no word

needed for it.

So a high status man

was entitled to sleep

with his wife

or high end courtesans

or brothel prostitutes

or slaves

because they were property.

That was assumed.

Or other men

or young boys

or any combination therein.

And this was not seen

as a big deal.

Men need to satisfy

their appetites.

Food is meant for the stomach

and the stomach for food.

lower status people,

right,

in this kind of society.

Because of this,

the more vulnerable members

of society,

slaves,

women,

children,

were always at risk

of sexual exploitation.

But it was no big deal

because men have to satisfy

their appetites.

And there are,

I believe,

some clear similarities

between the ancient world

and our modern world

on this point as well.

In the name of individual freedom,

the modern sexual revolution

of the 1960s

sought to liberate sex

from all of its constraints.

And that means

disconnecting sex

from everything

that gives it meaning,

from everything

that might set limits

around it.

Right?

So,

so the modern sexual revolution

said,

there's no meaning

behind sex.

It's just a basic appetite.

And,

and the question is,

are we better off

as a society

when that's the case?

Are,

are we better off,

is the world a better place

when sex has

little to no meaning?

Louise Perry

is a feminist writer

who published a book

a couple of years ago.

And the book's called

The Case Against

the Sexual Revolution.

Very much recommend

you read it.

The main thesis

of her book is this.

She says,

the sexual revolution

was all about liberating

and empowering women.

And certainly,

she acknowledges

that there have been

many welcome changes

in the realm

of women's rights.

But if you actually

look at the data,

she says,

who are the people

who have suffered most

because of the,

the changes brought about

by the sexual revolution?

Who has suffered most?

It's women.

It's women.

Who are the true

beneficiaries

of the sexual revolution

of the 1960s?

Who truly benefits?

A small number

of high status men

are the real beneficiaries.

Now, to me,

that sounds a whole lot

like first century Corinth.

You know,

we love the,

the idea of progress.

We need to recognize

and be honest

when this may actually

be regress.

Not only,

well, here's Perry's point.

When we attempt

to disenchant sex,

when we,

when we strip away

all of its meaning,

we not only deny

that it is uniquely wonderful,

that also means

we deny that it can be

uniquely violating.

And the cost of that

low view of sex

always falls disproportionately

on women

and the vulnerable

of society.

It was the same

in the first century

as it is today.

You know,

G.K. Chesterton

has this great parable

that he shares

about progress.

And he says,

you know,

there are different ways

to go about reform.

And imagine a law

or a boundary,

you know,

or a more,

imagine that as like

a fence across the road.

And he says,

there's one approach

to progress.

The person comes along

and says,

here's a fence in the road.

I don't know why

this is here.

Therefore,

we should get rid of it.

And he says,

but the more intelligent

reformer

would look at that

same situation

and say,

well,

because you don't know

why this fence is here,

that's the reason

you should not remove it.

Right?

Go away,

figure out

why this is here.

Only when you really

understand why

this boundary is here

can you then decide

whether or not

you want to remove it.

Now,

we're coming out

of a period of time

where for decades

the kind of

postmodern aim

has been to

eradicate as many

boundaries as possible.

And now we live

in an increasingly

boundaryless society.

But most people

who are knocking

the walls down

really have no

understanding of

why they were there

to begin with.

And Perry's saying,

listen,

you're not getting

the results

that you think you are

by breaking

all of these

boundaries down.

And in such a climate,

the Christian gospel

was staggeringly beautiful.

Paul says in verses

15 and 16,

do you not know

that when you join

yourself to another

sexually,

you become one flesh?

And here,

flesh is not just

talking about

physical union.

It means the whole person.

See,

in the ancient world

and in the modern world,

people tend to separate

the spiritual

from the physical.

They assume that

the physical

is kind of down here

and the spiritual

is up here

and that's what

really matters.

But the Bible

says something

very different

about our bodies.

The Bible says,

listen,

you're not a person

with a body.

That's what

other people believe.

You are your body.

You are your body.

When God created Adam,

the first human,

he didn't create Adam

and then look around

for a body

to stick him in.

You know,

like a piece of Tupperware.

Right?

He formed Adam

from the material

physicality

of the dust

and the dirt

and the mud

and then he breathed

life into him.

At that point,

Adam came into being

as a physical being.

You are your body.

You don't just have a body.

So what that means

is that what you do

with your body

is inherently spiritual.

Right?

When the Bible

uses the word soul,

it typically means

the whole person,

not just a non-physical

part of us.

So another way

to say this

or make this point

is sex is a profoundly

spiritual act.

And there is no such thing

as casual sex.

And that's why,

by the way,

casual sex

never stays casual.

while subjectively

we might be able

to say about

a particular sexual encounter,

oh, it didn't mean anything,

Paul's saying

that there is

an objective way

in which sex

always means something.

Very profound.

And your body

knows this.

You may not know it

or want to know it,

but your body

knows it.

Your body knows it.

Over time,

sexual intimacy

leads to bonding

and oxytocin

and attachments

are formed.

And the people

who become better

and better

at shirking off

those attachments,

for them,

over time,

it becomes harder

and harder

for them to ever

make attachments.

Right?

Sex is meant

to be the full giving

of one's entire person

to the one

to whom you belong.

And this is why

Paul says

to flee from

sexual immorality

in verse 18.

And the word

he uses is pornea,

which is a broad

blanket term

for any and all

forms of sexual intimacy

outside of the

covenant bond

of marriage.

He says flee anything,

any kind of sexual intimacy

outside of the

bond of marriage.

Because what he's

saying is this,

if you understand

what sex is,

if you understand

what God has given us

in this gift,

you need to understand

that it's about

giving all of yourself.

So he says flee

any situation

where you might

have physical oneness

without whole life oneness,

without social

and emotional

and economic oneness.

And this is a revolutionary

view of sex in the body.

I mean,

in a world full of people

saying sex is just

an appetite,

it's just about

self-gratification,

Paul says no,

no, no, no.

It's not just about

self-gratification.

It's not just an appetite.

It's about radical

self-donation.

It's about giving yourself

fully and completely

to another human being.

It's our God-given capacity

to give ourselves fully

and completely

to another person

to such an extent

that we are transformed

by it.

So this was very radical.

Right?

So we have a revolutionary

view of identity and desire.

We have a revolutionary

view of sex

and the body.

The third piece of this

is a revolutionary approach

to marriage

and singleness.

Marriage in the first century

Corinth was very connected

to civic duty.

You were expected

to be married

and you were expected

to produce offspring

to build the population.

And it was inconceivable

that you would be

an unmarried adult.

You were seen as a drain

on the resources

of the community.

You could be fined

for that kind of thing.

And of course,

there were completely different,

it would not be fair

to say that there were,

you know,

there were

double standards.

There were two completely

different rule books

for men and women.

As we said before,

the paterfamilias

paterfamilias

had complete authority

over his wife

and over his wife's body.

And the paterfamilias

could freely engage

in sex with any number

of people outside the marriage

with largely with impunity.

But for women,

of course,

sexual purity

was heavily guarded.

When a woman was raped,

the great loss,

the great crime

from a male perspective

was not the violation

or the trauma.

It was the fact

that she had lost

her virginity

and thus would not

be desirable as a wife.

So that was the lens

that they had on it.

But again,

the early Christians

brought about

a revolutionary approach

to both marriage

and singleness.

Christian marriage

was a lifelong covenant

where both husband

and wife

were expected

to remain faithful.

So if we cheat

and look at the next chapter,

chapter 7, verse 4,

Paul says that

in Christian marriage,

I mean,

just think through,

do your best to imagine

being a first century

Greco-Roman person

hearing this.

Paul says,

the wife does not

have authority

over her body,

but the husband does.

Everybody would have been like,

that's right.

Then he says,

likewise,

the husband does not

have authority

over his body,

but the wife does.

That's where

everything would have

gone silent.

You could have heard

a pin drop.

See, Roman marriage

was about power

power and subordination.

Power and subordination.

A big part of what

made you a man's man

in this world

was your ability

to dominate

and thereby express

your masculinity.

But in a Christian marriage,

you have a man

and woman

giving themselves

completely to one another,

surrendering themselves

completely to one another.

And that's because

marriage itself,

in the Christian view,

is pointing to something

bigger than itself.

In Paul's letter

to the Ephesians,

he says that marriage

between a man and a woman

is a picture

of the kind of relationship

that God wants to have

with his people.

The heavens

and the earth

joining together

as one,

right?

Christ giving himself

completely

and dying on the cross

for the sake

of those he loves.

And then our calling

to give ourselves

completely to him

and to die to ourselves,

die to the life

that we had apart from him.

And as this Christian gospel

began to redefine marriage,

because it was

redefining marriage,

this was a completely new way

to understand marriage.

As that happened,

society began to change.

Now fast forward down

through the centuries

after this revolution.

There's a book

that came out in 2020

by Joseph Henrich.

He's a Harvard anthropologist,

sort of evolutionary biologist.

He's an agnostic

when it comes to matters of faith.

But he published a book in 2020.

It's like a 700 page

doorstop of a book

called The Weirdest People

in the World.

And he says that

when we look at the modern West,

much of what we take for granted,

ranging from our economic systems

and the prosperity

that we've enjoyed

to our love of democracy,

to our moral

and psychological makeup,

he says,

a lot of this

is the direct result

of Christian marriage

and family ethics.

Right?

The fact that Christians

didn't allow people

to marry their cousins

was a big deal,

because then you couldn't

just keep it in the family.

You had to go out

and you had to form alliances

with other tribes

and people groups.

And that begins to

lay the groundwork

for urbanization

and for economies to develop

and trade,

Christians enforced

lifelong monogamy.

They didn't let people go out

and it doesn't mean

that people didn't,

but Christians discouraged

it as much as they could.

They didn't allow polygamy.

And all of these things

laid the groundwork.

This is the central argument

of the book.

They laid the groundwork

that led to massive advancements

in Western civilization.

All right,

so this is a part of our story.

And much of what we love

about the modern West

is directly related

to this first century revolution

and the centuries that followed.

So that's marriage,

but I believe perhaps

the most amazing thing

that Paul says in chapter 7

comes after the verse

we just read

when he starts talking

about singleness.

And he talks about

his own singleness

and he calls it a gift.

And he's speaking to an audience

that would have thought of it

as a curse.

And he says,

this is a gift.

As we said in the first century,

it was unthinkable

to be an unmarried adult,

but Christianity,

for the first time in history,

the world encounters a religion

where both the founder,

Jesus,

and the first theologian,

Paul,

were single and celibate

all their lives.

And Paul's attitude

is essentially this.

He says,

if you have the gift of celibacy,

as I do,

Paul's saying,

that's actually preferable

to marriage.

And he just straight up says,

I wish everybody

had this gift.

Now,

he's not denigrating marriage.

He has a very high view

of marriage.

We just talked about that.

What does he do?

He's elevating singleness.

Not only is singleness

a valid lifestyle,

in Paul's view,

it's actually superior

in some ways.

Down in verse 28,

he says,

you know,

married people,

they tend to be consumed

with worldly troubles.

I don't have to spend time

illustrating that.

You know exactly

what I'm talking about.

He says,

but if you're single,

you can devote yourself

much more fully

to the Lord.

He's not saying

that if you're single,

you don't have worldly troubles,

but what he's saying

is that married life

can tend to just

completely overwhelm you,

and you can tend

to just feel like

you're just doing your best

just to stay afloat

and just to keep

your head above water.

And, you know,

what's that,

is it Jim Gaffigan

who said that,

you know,

what's it like

having a third kid?

He's like,

well, imagine,

like, holding a baby,

you know,

having a baby,

or imagine you're drowning

and then somebody

throws you a baby,

right?

You can be overwhelmed

by worldly troubles.

He said,

if you're single,

you don't have

those distractions.

And what we see

in the subsequent centuries

is,

according to Kyle Harper again,

in the first few centuries,

the plausibility

of lifelong celibacy

as a viable lifestyle

in the church

was, as he says,

a blaring advertisement

for Christianity.

People say,

you mean I can,

this is an option for me?

And people flock

to the church

because of it.

So in Christianity,

what we see is that

we see a view

that holds a high view

of both marriage

and singleness

as lifelong vocations.

And Christianity says

you have,

either one

or the other calling,

right?

But they're both vocations.

And they both put

the gospel on display.

Marriage is a picture

of the union

between Christ

and the church.

But singleness

is a picture

of the single-minded devotion

that Christ had

to his Father's will.

And that was,

and I think,

continues to be revolutionary.

So let's pull

all this together.

The first sexual revolution

happened as a direct result

of the Christian gospel.

And it radically reshaped

all of society.

And it laid the foundation

for much of what we love

about the modern West.

Now certainly,

the church has failed

along the way

many, many times.

the sex abuse scandals

and cover-ups,

the misguided,

shame-inducing efforts

of the purity culture,

the stigmatizing

of anyone

not fitting the mold

of married with two kids

and a dog.

But I would say this,

the worst failure

by far

would be for us

to abandon the gospel

and the freedom

that it offers.

in the name of what?

Progress or relevance?

For all of the talk

of sexual liberation,

what has the modern

sexual revolution

actually given us?

A 20-year-old young man

who is incapable

of feeling desire

for another human being

because his brain

has literally been rewired

by years of pornography use.

A 38-year-old woman

who is watching

her biological clock

tick away

while stuck

in the purgatory

of a situationship

with a man

who feels no pressure

to commit to anything

beyond his own

immediate gratification.

Rapidly declining

birth rates

that will eventually

lead to collapse

in countries

around the world,

including ours.

What I believe

is that we have

something to offer

the world

that it desperately needs.

And we know that

because we've seen

a lot of this before.

We have a gospel-centered

sexual ethic.

We have a community

that makes

such an ethic

plausible

as a lifestyle.

And we have

the spiritual power

to live it out.

And I believe

that in our lifetime,

we're going to see

a growing hunger

and longing

for the freedom

that this brings,

just as we saw

in the first century

Greco-Roman world.

So as Paul says,

may we glorify God

in our bodies.

May we live lives

that provoke questions

only the gospel

can answer.

Let's pray.

Lord, we thank you

for your word

and we thank you

for the freedom

that you bring.

And we pray, Lord,

in the power

of your Holy Spirit

that there would be

a possibility

in our community

that would not be possible

with merely human effort,

that we would have

the kind of spiritual power

and oneness

that would make it possible

for us to embody

this otherworldly way

of being human,

that it would put on display

a way of being human

that people instinctively long for.

We pray that this would be

a community

where freedom

is taken seriously

and celebrated

and sought after

for the great

and precious gift

that it is.

We pray this

in your son's holy name.

Amen.