It\u2019s striking that the church in Corinth could muster the courage to ask Paul about sex\u2014something so personal and delicate. It\u2019s something that\u2019s universally difficult to talk about, let alone address in a letter to an apostle. It is even more surprising that they ask about sexless marriages, to which Paul responds, \u201cDo not deprive each other except perhaps by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer\u201d (1 Cor 7:5). <\/p>\n
Our modern minds might react in any one of three ways to this statement. <\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t most people know that sexual intimacy is good within the context of a loving marriage? Does Paul really need to remind couples to prioritize it?\u201d \u201cOh great. Now I feel like I\u2019m a disappointment to my spouse and<\/em> to God.\u201d \u201cHow many times has this verse been misused to condemn and coerce a reluctant spouse into having sex more often?\u201d <\/p>\n Paul, too, would be dismayed to know how some have wielded this verse in selfish ways.<\/p>\n But Paul\u2019s actual words and tone are surprisingly beautiful. Four times in these brief verses (1 Cor 7:1\u20137), Paul presents a vision of radical mutuality and sexual equality in<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It\u2019s striking that the church in Corinth could muster the courage to ask Paul about sex\u2014something so personal and delicate. [\u2026]
\nThe post Sexual Intimacy in Marriage: A Joint Trust appeared first on Christian Counseling & Educational Foundation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":808,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[281],"tags":[669,408,1120],"class_list":["post-62110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christian-counseling-educational-foundation-ccef","tag-blog-posts","tag-marriage","tag-sex","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/808"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=62110"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62110\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62113,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62110\/revisions\/62113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=62110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=62110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=62110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}