Well I can tell you what's it not; sex before marriage. But that's not really the question. The question is "What is it?"
We'll get there but we must start with this one fact, it's not sex before marriage. This is completely impossible and even a little silly when you look into it. Now I know that is counterintuitive for some of us. After all, the literal definition of the word fornication is in fact sex outside of wedlock, at least it is in English dictionaries. Unfortunately we don't have any inspired English dictionaries and so we have to check the definition against Scripture. I will be happy to wait while you check but so far I have been unable to find anything in the Bible that suggests that there is a sin of sex before marriage. I know that some can argue that it is implied but I can argue much more convincingly that those instances are referring to something else that we won't go in to right now because it's a theological equivalent of China; probably relevant at some point but for the moment just a big distraction.
Okay, so what is fornication? Well most of the time we see fornication used in our English Bibles it is the translation of the Greek word porneia. There may be exceptions. I haven't made an exhaustive search. Now you may recognize this word porneia, or it at least should sound familiar. You probably ran across it when you were reading articles and jokes in some magazine you can't recall the name of. Some of us know it from pornography or porn. But what does it mean? Well it doesn't mean "sex before marriage."
The consensus, and I know the risk I'm taking when I say that here, is that it means something like "prohibited sexual acts." It's not defined anymore than that. Now I know this isn't the Hebrew roots section but the only exhaustive list of prohibited sexual acts is in the Old Testament. Since they aren't listed out anywhere in the New we must refer back to that list to find out what porneia is.
This isn't just an academic question. When the Apostles sent Paul out from Council of Jerusalem the list of rules they said gentile believers had to follow was VERY short. The sexual laws were reduced to some version of "abstain from fornication(porneia)." You see what happens if fornication only means "don't have sex outside or marriage". A whole host of things become permissible, including bestiality and incest which is not mentioned in the New Testament. It's patently ridiculous that the Apostles would have told the gentile believers that the only thing they had to do was not have sex outside of marriage. That didn't even begin to address a whole host of things like homosexuality and incest. Think about it you could have just "married" your sister and been fine. It's silly.
So there you go, I believe the word translated as fornication is pointing us back to The Law for the list of sexual sins and has nothing to do with the unlisted sin of "sex before marriage." Feel free to share your opinions.
We'll get there but we must start with this one fact, it's not sex before marriage. This is completely impossible and even a little silly when you look into it. Now I know that is counterintuitive for some of us. After all, the literal definition of the word fornication is in fact sex outside of wedlock, at least it is in English dictionaries. Unfortunately we don't have any inspired English dictionaries and so we have to check the definition against Scripture. I will be happy to wait while you check but so far I have been unable to find anything in the Bible that suggests that there is a sin of sex before marriage. I know that some can argue that it is implied but I can argue much more convincingly that those instances are referring to something else that we won't go in to right now because it's a theological equivalent of China; probably relevant at some point but for the moment just a big distraction.
Okay, so what is fornication? Well most of the time we see fornication used in our English Bibles it is the translation of the Greek word porneia. There may be exceptions. I haven't made an exhaustive search. Now you may recognize this word porneia, or it at least should sound familiar. You probably ran across it when you were reading articles and jokes in some magazine you can't recall the name of. Some of us know it from pornography or porn. But what does it mean? Well it doesn't mean "sex before marriage."
The consensus, and I know the risk I'm taking when I say that here, is that it means something like "prohibited sexual acts." It's not defined anymore than that. Now I know this isn't the Hebrew roots section but the only exhaustive list of prohibited sexual acts is in the Old Testament. Since they aren't listed out anywhere in the New we must refer back to that list to find out what porneia is.
This isn't just an academic question. When the Apostles sent Paul out from Council of Jerusalem the list of rules they said gentile believers had to follow was VERY short. The sexual laws were reduced to some version of "abstain from fornication(porneia)." You see what happens if fornication only means "don't have sex outside or marriage". A whole host of things become permissible, including bestiality and incest which is not mentioned in the New Testament. It's patently ridiculous that the Apostles would have told the gentile believers that the only thing they had to do was not have sex outside of marriage. That didn't even begin to address a whole host of things like homosexuality and incest. Think about it you could have just "married" your sister and been fine. It's silly.
So there you go, I believe the word translated as fornication is pointing us back to The Law for the list of sexual sins and has nothing to do with the unlisted sin of "sex before marriage." Feel free to share your opinions.
