Read: Romans 1:24-32
24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. 26 For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; 27 and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. 28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.
In our Adult Discipleship Course entitled “Knowing the One True God,” we spend three weeks focusing on explaining God as Creator. As the Creator of humans, He made choices about how they could operate. In April 2021, the late pastor Tim Keller picked up this concept of God as Creator and Designer as he wrote the following:
If you never change the oil in your car you will eventually ‘de-car’ and ruin it. Why? You are violating the design of the car-written in the owner’s manual by the car’s creators. Violating God’s will for sexuality, as it is written in the Scripture will de-humanize you.
This sentence raised quite an uproar. Many who read it responded to him in shock. “De-humanize?” Isn’t that what moralistic restrictions are doing to humans – restricting them from being who they truly want and desire to be?
To these responses, Keller replied:
Because of the more-than-usual antipathy toward my tweet about sex only within marriage, I think some response is warranted. First, many disagree with the term ‘dehumanize’. We obviously mean very different things by this term & lots of my critics disagree among themselves.
Many of the hostile responses assume a highly western, white, individualistic, therapeutic understanding of the self—in which sexual expression is a key part of authenticity. It is the reason one finds sexual boundaries oppressive.
This therapeutic view of identity has been imposed on you by your culture. It turns sex into a commodity. It is not good for you or for society. . . .
Christians believe we were purposed to live in certain ways by God, and to violate God’s design is to violate our own natures. Secular culture says we determine our own purposes-but that fails.
We believe sex was not created just for pleasure but for mutual self-giving toward a deep, permanent union that creates character and new human life. In sex outside of marriage, we maintain our independence and fail to give our whole selves to the other person. We believe sex was created for persons to say non-verbally but powerfully to one another: “I belong completely and exclusively to you.” It must not be used to say anything less than that or you are not respecting sex’s power, depth, and force. We believe that, because sex was created as an agent for self-giving, when you have (even consensual) sex outside of marriage, very often one or both gets exploited, the sex drawing you toward deep union as it was made to do.
If you cultivate sex for self-affirmation instead of self-giving, you diminish sex’s power to function as a commitment apparatus and covenant renewal agent within marriage. You harden or dehumanize yourself.
Ultimately these beliefs about sex are grounded in the Bible. But after 45 years of pastoral work speaking to countless people and seeing their experiences of sexuality, all these beliefs have been held up by my experience as well.
If one person does self-giving within a marriage covenant, but the other spouse is exploitative, the damage can be great. That is why a) enormous care should be taken in who you marry and b) why Jesus granted divorce because of “hardness of heart.”
Since some persist in thinking that my use of the word ‘dehumanize’ here is problematic, please consider: The definition of “de-humanize” – from Oxford Languages is–“to deprive of positive human qualities.” To say “this dehumanizes” might mean “since you have deprived yourself of positive human qualities I can demean and mistreat you.” I don’t mean that at all. That’s not the ordinary use of the word either.
To say “this dehumanizes” might mean “you are hurting yourselves and so depriving yourself of positive human qualities.” That is what I meant and mean by the word.
Finally, Keller responded to the opposition of the very idea that Christians would even be talking about such things. Should Christians really be telling other people what to do with their bodies?
Some have said: “Telling people that they are doing wrong is an effort to control and demean them.” But, with all due respect–are you not at that moment telling me that I am doing wrong? So are you trying to control me? No, I give you the benefit of the doubt. You are trying to influence me to see things rightly. That is what I’m trying to do too. Therefore, let’s remember all truth statements desire to sway and influence.
As an engineer, I am drawn to the idea of a designer who has intentions. I have seen my inventions misused and abused, resulting in failure and destruction. What about you: Do you think God, the Creator, could be like a designer who knows what is best in terms of how His creation should operate?
Do you believe that operating outside of God’s design can be destructive?
Do you believe it’s fair that one person who is repeating God’s word may try to help another to see things rightly? Even on an issue so charged as sexuality?
