Birkdale Baptist Church

Life, Heart and Hope in Jesus

I was asked the question at our EYMB study group last week whether sex is an essential component of marriage. At the time i said that yes it was, but after thinking about it afterwards i feel that there are some important qualifications that need to be made.

There are plenty of marriages where one or both of the partners is unable to have a normal sexual relationship due to some physical disability such as birth defects or injury. A friend of our family has just been engaged to a guy who is paralysed and will need constant care all his life. My guitar teacher when i first started learning guitar was the same - he was wheelchair-bound due to a motorcycle accident when he was a young adult.

There is no reason to assume that these are not strong, legitimate, successful marriages. (These people may find means of enjoying one another physically other than intercourse, or perhaps they are satisfied with a mostly non-physical relationship - i've never asked.) If anything, the relational aspect of these marriages needs to be stronger, in the absence of "God's glue" (as Allan Meyer calls it in 'Valiant Man').

God could require this of any married person at any time. Who is to say that my wife won't be in a car accident on the way to work this week that leaves her a vegetable as far as mental faculties go? I believe God still expects people to be faithful to their spouses in that sort of situation, and if that were to happen it would mean an end to sexual expression in my life. (A similar situation is elderly people whose spouses suffer from dementia.)

However, those are what i would consider exceptions to the rule. If you are both physically competent, the normal and expected situation is that sex be a part of the relationship, and for most of us guys, it's an extremely important and enjoyable part! The Apostle Paul's requirement of married persons is that each consider their body the property of their spouse and therefore generally should not withhold it from them. You can read his treatment of the whole subject in 1 Cor 7:1-11.

In my experience, women are more willing to enter a relationship like those mentioned above without any expectations of sexual fulfilment but as guys we need to deal with the fact that we may end up in a relationship where sexual expression is not possible, and accept this as God's purpose for our life at that time. I pray for myself and all of you that this will never be the case, but God is wiser than we are.