Scorching

Proverbs 6:27-29

Can a man hold fire against his chest
without burning his clothes?
Can a man walk on hot coals
without scorching his feet?
So it is with the one who has sex with his neighbor’s wife;
no one who touches her will escape punishment.

So yesterday in the middle school group we blitzed through Ecclesiastes, part of which was briefly remembering who Solomon was and what his life was like. I’ve been meaning to get back to this, and of course reading about everything the writer of Ecclesiastes says is “futile” (or “meaningless” or “vain,” depending on your translation) made me think of Solomon and how he probably would know, having wealth and prestige and wisdom and apparently babes by the boatloads.

And yet here’s the wisdom literature again, talking about how sex is intrinsically volatile stuff. This reminds me of the poor young woman terribly burned after using gasoline as a home remedy for lice. Injuries from gasoline are not unusual at all. Gasoline vapor is flammable, so when you’ve got liquid gasoline giving off vapors, a spark or other ignition source can cause the vapor in the air to burn, often leading to an explosion of the contained liquid. Gas isn’t evil, it’s just dangerous. It has to be treated carefully.

Likewise, your neighbor’s wife doesn’t have to be evil to be dangerous to you.

So today I’ll just answer the second standard question by saying: God designed sex to be useful and fun, but he also was good enough to describe for us how it can be improperly and harmfully used.