Hebrew 13:4 -> You only have to wait until you're engaged

[moreorlessnu]

Someone posted this on Facebook:

godrite.com/post/29398581710/my-aim-at-the-moment-hebrews-13-4-source

Doesn't this imply that you only have to wait until you are engaged to have sex? If they had just added a wedding ring to the engagement ring, then I think their (supposed intended) message would have been more accurate.

[Buzzard]

Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.

This quote doesnt say anything about engagement or marriage. Are they just pulling random quotes out of their ass?

[jenny_islander]

IIRC, historians' best guess at the original custom of the Israelites is that marriage = they slept in one bed; everything else was parties and barter. So if you declared your intent to marry, then had sex, you were married.

Of course, this only works in small communities in which everyone knows everyone else and everyone has the same expectations regarding the duties and privileges of married couples, childrearing, inheritance, etc.

[2xx1xy1JD]

IIRC, historians' best guess at the original custom of the Israelites is that marriage = they slept in one bed; everything else was parties and barter. So if you declared your intent to marry, then had sex, you were married.

Of course, this only works in small communities in which everyone knows everyone else and everyone has the same expectations regarding the duties and privileges of married couples, childrearing, inheritance, etc.

Having sex was one method of getting bethrothed/married. It was later frowned upon by rabbis to use that method.

Technically, however, if you go strictly by OT biblical law and not any Talmudic/rabbinic injunctions, it's fine for an unmarried virgin woman to have sex if she goes skinny dipping first and if the couple subsequently gets married.

[MamaJunebug]

Hm...I wonder if this is what BigMJB was quoting when she told me, shortly after my engagement was announced, that "the Lutheran Church Misouri Synod considers engagement just as binding as marriage." :( At the time I took it as a gently delivered threat ("You break up now you've got the diamond, your dad is gonna lay down and die of shame, etc. etc."), and in no way as an ok to do the deed with my future-TSU.

Srsly. It was 1970-something and that sort of thing Did Not Happen in my family (or my dad would lay down and die of shame....right on this floor we're standing on.... :? )

I'd ask the pastor of the LCMS church where I still attend services, but I'm 90% sure he would have no information. And he's got lots bigger fish to fry, like tending to real spiritual needs of his congregants. ;) Most of whom are way past the getting-engaged-for-the-first-time stage.

Anyway, it's more important to me right now to talk with the pastor of the UU church where I also attend services about other things. Since my TSU and I have muddled along to a mutually agreed-upon good place after all these decades, it's SUCH a moot point.

But very interesting to me personally. Thank you OP for broaching the subject!

[philanderinganus]

My ex fundie boyfriend said this..and believed it whole heart. :shock:

[yewchapel]

The Bible doesn't say ANYTHING on sex before marriage. Seriously. It says that when two people want to be married, they have sex and then they are married - but there has to be the intent to want to be married. There's nothing about 'purity' or 'giving your heart away'. Certainly, a relationship where the couple has sex but has no intent to marry does not become marriage just because they had sex.

[treehugger]

Having sex was one method of getting bethrothed/married. It was later frowned upon by rabbis to use that method.

Technically, however, if you go strictly by OT biblical law and not any Talmudic/rabbinic injunctions, it's fine for an unmarried virgin woman to have sex if she goes skinny dipping first and if the couple subsequently gets married.

Well, you learn something new every day. That is really interesting.