Terms of Biblical Sexuality

Very few people seem to understand the meaning of these words. I think a brief dictionary of Biblical sexuality is in order. The definitions here are based on Biblical usage, and these words may be defined differently in law or other texts. Most of the words in this list are not used in the Bible at all, but I have included them anyway, because they are useful in discussing Biblical topics.

Adultery - Any sexual act between a married woman and a man who is not her husband. Every use of the Hebrew and Greek terms for adultery refers to a man with another man's wife. It might be immoral for a married man to have sex with an unmarried woman, but it is not adultery according to Biblical usage.

Bestiality - Any sexual act between a person and an animal. Biblical law requires the death of both the person and the animal.

Betrothal - Agreement to a future marriage. In the Bible a betrothal is as binding as marriage. The rapist of a betrothed woman receives the same punishment as the rapist of a married woman: death. The rapist of an unbetrothed virgin receives a heavy financial penalty.

Bill of Divorcement - A document given by a husband to a divorced wife to prove that she has been lawfully divorced.

Bride-price - Something of value usually given to the father or family of a woman in exchange for her marriage. Sometimes the bride-price might be given to the woman. In ancient Hebrew culture, if a bride-price is given without receiving a dowry, then the woman would become a concubine. She would be a wife, but would also have been purchased, making her a slave. See dowry.

Consanguinogamy - Marriage to relatives who are not Biblically forbidden. Cousin and uncle/niece marriages are consanguinogamous.

Divorce - The dissolution of a marriage by repudiation or abandonment. See putting away and bill of divorcement.

Dowry - Something of value brought into a marriage by a woman. Usually it consisted of property given to the husband by the bride's family. It might be reserved for use by the woman and might return to her family if she is divorced. See bride-price.

Endogamy - Marriage within one's own social group, clan, or tribe.

Exogamy - Marriage outside of one's own social group, clan, or tribe.

Fornication - Any sexually immoral act. Fornication includes adultery, homosexuality, bestiality, prostitution, incest, etc.

Harlotry - Prostitution or sex for pay.

Homosexuality - See lesbianism and sodomy.

Incest - Sexual relations with a close relative. Sexual relations with any of the following persons would be incest: parents, children, siblings, grandparents, grandchildren, aunts, nephews. Marriage to cousins, uncles, and nieces might be considered incestuous in modern, Western cultures, but they are not forbidden in the Bible.

Lesbianism - Female homosexuality. Alluded to once by Paul, but otherwise is not specifically addressed in the Bible.

Levirate - The practice of a surviving male relative--usually a brother--marrying the childless widow of the deceased. The purpose was to ensure the continuity of inheritance by providing the deceased with an heir in the firstborn of the new marriage. If a man had several wives and at least one of them had children, then the law of the levirate would not apply.

Marriage - A permanent union between a man and a woman, consummated by sexual relations. I do not believe that the sexual union in itself constitutes marriage. It must be accompanied by an agreement of permanency between the marrying individuals, and the consent, whether implicit or explicit, of the woman's guardian if she is not a widow or divorcee.

Onanism - Male masturbation or "pulling out" to prevent conception. Named for Onan, the son of Judah, because he was killed by God for spilling his seed on the ground to avoid giving his deceased brother an heir according to the levirate. I believe that the term is misnamed and misapplied, because Onan was not killed for spilling his seed, but for denying his brother an heir. It might be more appropriate to apply the term to the modern aversion to the levirate and to onerous inheritance taxes.

Polyandry - A more or less permanent sexual relationship established between one woman and more than one man. A form of polygamy that is not allowed by Biblical laws.

Polygamy - A more or less permanent sexual relationship established between one person and multiple persons of the opposite sex. Bigamy (one person with only two persons of the opposite sex), polyandry (one woman with multiple men), and polygyny (one man with multiple women) are sub-categories of polygamy.

Polygyny - A more or less permanent sexual relationship established between one man and more than one woman. A form of polygamy that is allowed by Biblical laws.

Putting Away - Repudiation and physical removal of a spouse, almost always of a wife by her husband. See divorce.

Sodomy - Male homosexuality, especially homosexual prostitution or ritual homosexuality. All male sodomy is clearly condemned in the Bible, which prescribes the death penalty for all sodomites.

Sororal Polygyny - The marriage of one man to two sisters, as in the case of Jacob with Leah and Rachel. Prohibited by Leviticus 18:18, but the prohibition might be limited to situations in which the second marriage is likely to cause a great deal of strain on the first, for example if the sisters are already hostile or very competitive toward one another. Could also be called "sororal polygamy."

Whoredom - Pretty much the same as fornication. Whoredom might imply prostitution or illicit heterosexual activity as opposed to other forms of fornication.

Devolution: the mechanism of speciation and adaptation

Every time an insect, plant, or strain of bacteria appears to develop an immunity to a pesticide or pollutant, the Darwinists rejoice and claim it as another proof of evolution. The really bizarre thing is that these events are actually better evidence against evolution.

Worms in Foundry Cove were exposed to high concentrations of nickel and cadmium for more than twenty years. Some of those worms had a genetic defect, which hindered normal controls on the creation of a particular protein. Those worms' growth is stunted, and they are generally less fit. Interestingly, this protein binds with the excess cadmium, preventing most of the metal's harmful effects. The defective worms were able to survive and reproduce, while the healthy worms were poisoned and almost died out. The defective worms are not more fit. They are inefficient, sickly, and weak. They did not gain any useful genetic information. In fact, they only survived because they lost information. They survived only by the destruction of a properly functioning system. When most of the pollution was removed from the cove, the healthy worms returned, and the inferior worms nearly disappeared.¹

Some antibiotics work because they have a similar molecular structure to some naturally occurring molecule in the target bacteria. The bacteria mistakes the antibiotic molecule for one of its own, and the particular system that would make use of the genuine molecule malfunctions. If a mutation slightly changes the way that the molecule is recognized or used, then the antibiotic might lose its ability to fool the system. Bacteria with the mutation are resistant to the antibiotic, and so will survive and multiply as long as its competition is under attack. Once again, this isn't evolution. Such a mutation never enhances the effected system, but always reduces its native effectiveness, sometimes severely. When the antibiotic is withdrawn, any unmutated strains will begin to out-perform and out-number the mutated, resistant ones.²

Suppose there is a human disease which attacks through the cuticles on your fingers and toes. The disease is almost 100% fatal. Also suppose that there is an inheritable genetic defect which causes some people to be born without fingers and toes. They can't balance very well, and they can't hold onto anything very well, but they aren't affected by the cuticle disease, because they don't have cuticles. If the disease can be eliminated, then people with all of their fingers and toes will quickly begin to outnumber those who have none.

No evolution has occurred in these examples. No new genetic information was created, only lost. Those that survived did so only by the loss of functionality and fitness. New species and new resistances are not created by evolutionary processes. They are created by the breakdown of order and the destruction of information, devolution.

¹ David Catchpoole, "Worm evolution in pollution?," Creation 26(3) at http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v26/i3/pollution.asp.
² Kevin Anderson, PhD, "Is Bacterial Resistance to Antibiotics an Appropriate Example of Evolutionary Change?" Creation Research Society Quarterly 41(4), 2005, at http://www.trueorigin.org/bacteria01.asp.

Yeshua in the Passover

(Sorry this one is so sloppy. I was tired and stressed. Excuses, excuses.)

Passover commemorates the day that God spared the Israelites from the plague against the firstborn. The blood of the lamb painted on the wooden door posts prophesied of the blood of Yeshua (the Lamb of God) on the wooden cross and how he is the only door through which anyone can survive the curse of death. The only thing required for that salvation is faith in God's promise of mercy for those who belong to him. Painting the blood on the door was an outward sign of that faith.

Passover is also a family celebration. It is supposed to be celebrated with your family. If the family is too small to eat a whole lamb, then you invite the neighbors over too. Together, the family is supposed to eat the entire lamb. Nothing is supposed to be left over. That sounds kind of gross, but it really is what God expects of us in the rest of our life, too. We don't get to pick and choose what parts of Yeshua to keep and which parts to reject. It's all or nothing, the conqueror and absolute ruler along with the servant and messiah.

The day after Passover is the first day of Unleavened Bread, which lasts for seven days. The Israelites had to leave Egypt with their bread dough unleavened and uncooked. All yeast is supposed to be out of the house by the end of Passover day. Sometimes yeast is used in scripture to symbolize sin, and seven represents perfection. Yeshua's sacrifice erases sin from the record of our lives, and that's how we start out our new life in God's eyes. It's a continual fight to keep sin out, though. There really is no way to eliminate all yeast from your home. It's in the air, and there were no hepafilters in ancient Egypt. There is no way to eliminate all sin from your life, either. Don't focus on being sinless. Focus on eliminating the sin as you find it, and as you are able.

The first day after the first regular Sabbath after Passover is called First Fruits. It's a day to dedicate the first of your early crops to God. The firstborn of every animal and every family also belongs to God. Paul called Yeshua the firstborn or the first fruits of the resurrection. First Fruits is always on the first day of the week, the same day that Yeshua rose from the dead.

All of the biblical feasts are prophecies of the Messiah in one way or another. Passover is the first feast of the year and the inauguration of the Kingdom of God.

What Puts Teens at Risk? And What Can Be Done About It?

The Problem

As a teenager you know that something is not right with the world, and you are always certain that you know exactly what it is, even if it is something different from one day to the next. As an adult, you may still know that something is not right, but you might be a little less certain of what it is, except that it has something to do with those teenagers. I am joking, of course. Well, maybe a little.

The difficulty is that some problems, like those of teenagers in trouble, are so hard to define. Teenagers today are at risk from any number of potentially life-wrecking alternatives. Most of them successfully avoid the worst pitfalls, but why and how? What causes violent, criminal, and other severely antisocial behaviors in teens? Are they just emulating their parents? Are they driven to despair by broken homes and absent fathers? More importantly, what can we do to minimize the risks for our young people?

I wish I could say that the answers are obvious. Unfortunately, the problem is clouded by the lenses that we all build up over our own eyes throughout our lives. It is not enough to say what worked or did not work for you or me. We have to look beyond our own family cultures, religions, and circumstances to identify whatever common factors there might be among troubled teens. Let us begin by defining the scope of the problem.

The Scope

Every place has its unique combination of culture, religion, politics, language, etc, making it unreasonable to attempt a global answer for these questions. Our first step should be to limit ourselves to a geographic and cultural boundary which we can reasonably address. I have decided to limit my analysis to the United States. I know its culture better than I know any other, having lived in it for better than thirty-five years to date.

There are a few common elements to the stories of most troubled youth across the entire country. They experience roughly the same entertainment in the forms of movies, television, radio, music, sports, and literature. With some qualifications, they live within the same pop culture, which is informed by those same entertainment media. A great many of them grew up in relative poverty, and at least as many of them grew up in broken homes, with one or both parents absent.

Entertainment

Of those four elements, entertainment is probably the most widely mutual. Every teenager does not have a Showtime subscription or an Xbox, but most of them have a friend who frequently shares. They all occasionally have an opportunity to spend time at a movie theatre or video arcade. Most know the same bands and music. Most know who played in the last Super Bowl or NBA finals.

The link between violent video games and movies and juvenile crime has been in the news frequently in recent years. I do not think anyone would honestly argue that playing video games forced anyone to commit murder or any other crime, but it may not be such a stretch to say that those games might influence some people in that direction.¹

On the other hand, violent crime seems to be generally on the decline, while virtual violence is on the rise. There is certainly a link between violent entertainment, including music and literature, and some juvenile crime, but a broadly applicable connection has not been established.² We cannot categorically say that virtual violence causes real violence, but I think we can safely say that it does not alleviate it either.

Poverty

Not as ubiquitous and certainly less fun, poverty-technically economic inequality-is another common denominator among troubled youths. Crime and poverty seem to go hand in hand. Wherever there is a concentrated economic disparity, there seems to be more crime, more gangs, more drugs, and more social problems of almost every sort. Once again, a firm causal connection cannot be established. Most likely crime, poverty, drug abuse, sexual promiscuity, divorce, and a whole host of other social ills probably feed off of each other.³ They all contribute to a general feeling of hopelessness that keeps people from climbing out of the mess, and the whole cycle starts over again.⁴

Divorce and Broken Families

The fourth common element is a broken home, and its tragic nature is such that I have to resist giving it more weight than it may be due. The causes of single-parent homes range from unwed mothers to divorce, but the latter is be more closely associated with teenage behavioral issues.⁵

Divorce, poverty, and antisocial behavior among teens are inextricably linked. Seventy-five percent of female-headed, single-family homes live below the poverty level, and eighty-five percent of children with behavioral disorders⁶ and ninety percent of all homeless and runaway children⁷ also come from fatherless homes. Similar statistics can be found to correlate almost every social problem imaginable with the absence of fathers. Even those researchers and pundits who do not believe that absent fathers are a significant risk to teenagers admit that fathers are necessary for proper socialization and discipline of children.⁸

The Solution

Any solution to the problem of teenagers at risk must address these three issues: the negative influences of pop culture, poverty, and broken families. They must be addressed on two levels: correction and prevention. We must restore those who have already been harmed, and we must prevent the same thing from happening to more children.

The first step in any effective program is to start at the beginning, in infancy. The primary influences over every child are his own parents, and then his extended family. Parents must take responsibility for their own children. This means teaching strict morals from the earliest age, enforcing them consistently.⁹ Since children learn standards of behavior by example more than by any other means, parents must enforce those same strict morals for themselves.

Extended families need to be encouraged to stay close together to provide the support networks that parents have depended on for millennia. Professional childcare services should be used as a last resort. As much as possible, moral standards should be consistent across generations. Grandparents and other relatives can be depended on to maintain that consistency. When family is not available, people in the community, such as members of the same church, can perform much the same function.

Churches and other community organizations need to be willing to help families stay together, and to provide refuge for those already in trouble. When possible and desirable, they should help restore broken families and alienated youth, teaching them how to resolve problems and have healthier relationships.

At all levels fathers should be encouraged to spend time teaching and showing real interest in their children. Trends over the last forty years indicate that policies favoring no-fault divorce, sole custody, and default maternal custody increase divorce rates and the alienation of fathers from their children.¹⁰ Family and divorce courts must be restructured to encourage restoration and development rather than easy divorce. We must eliminate cookie-cutter divorce settlements-especially custody and child support rules-as unfair to everyone involved.

As children grow, it is important to control negative influences. Parents should pay close attention to their children's games, music, and video. Entertainers who promote unacceptable behavior need to be consistently shunned. Since the entertainment industry is driven by profit, the children of good parents will be sheltered from the worst entertainment, and the worst will get better. Media sources should offer parents better tools, such as more specific and detailed ratings without the often tempting wording of today's film ratings.¹¹ Parental controls must be honored by schools, recreation centers, and other youth-oriented establishments.

Community organizations, services, and businesses can also help children develop good habits and relationship skills by providing mentors in many areas. Extra curricular teachers, such as martial arts, dancing, religious, or music instructors, should work with parents to reinforce moral standards. They could provide teens with opportunities to expand their skills and horizons through mentorships, teaching more than just karate or piano, but also life skills. They could provide surrogate fathers and mothers to teens who have already lost one or both parents for whatever reason. They could provide hope and direction to teens who have never known those things.¹²

If minimum wages were relaxed for this purpose, local business could offer apprenticeships and internships as opportunities and incentives to learning. Teens who might otherwise simply drop out might find ongoing rewards for staying in school, while they learn real-life skills and purpose that will serve them for the rest of their lives. At the same time, they can help bring extra income to their families and perhaps remove their younger siblings that much further from poverty.

All of these solutions have two things in common: They are both local and national. They are all local, community-focused solutions that can adapt to the changing circumstances across neighborhoods, cities, states, and cultures. They are national in that they are present in every community in this country. Almost everyone is born into a family. Everyone exists in a community. Everyone has a church or a school or a business or a teacher nearby.

Teenagers are faced with serious trials no matter where they are, no matter how much money they have, and no matter who their parents are. Some of them just have better support networks. If communities work together to provide healthy options for their own members, those teenagers who do not have two parents or solid boundaries or money will have a better chance of beating the odds. They will have better and more numerous options. Most importantly, they will have hope for their future.

¹ Rebecca Hagelin, "Video Game Violence & Our Sons," WorldNetDaily, March 28, 2006. Last accessed on 3/28/06 at http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=49470. Also see Mona Charen, "Media Violence Puts Teens at Risk," Teens at Risk: Opposing Viewpoints, by Laura K. Egendorf, Editor. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press, Inc. 1999, pp 29-32.
² Benjamin Radford, "Reality Check on Video Game Violence," Skeptical Inquirer, December 04, 2005. Last accessed on 3/28/06 at http://www.livescience.com/technology/051204_video_violence.html. Also see Mike Males, "Media Violence Does Not Put Teens at Risk," Teens at Risk: Opposing Viewpoints, by Laura K. Egendorf, Editor. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press, Inc. 1999, pp 33-37.
³ Dr. Thomas O'Connor, "Poverty, Inequality, and Crime," Department of Justice Studies & Applied Criminology, North Carolina Wesleyan College. Last accessed on 3/29/06 at http://faculty.ncwc.edu/toconnor/301/301lect07.htm.
⁴ An anonymous drug/alcohol counselor and psychiatric worker in a teen hospital, known by the handle red_red_read.
⁵Richard Kuhn and Dr. John Guidubaldi, "Child Custody Policies and Divorce Rates in the US," Children's Rights Council, 1997. Last accessed on 3/28/06 at http://www.deltabravo.net/custody/divrates.php.
⁶ Gene Stephens, "A Variety of Factors Put Teens at Risk," Teens at Risk: Opposing Viewpoints, by Laura K. Egendorf, Editor. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press, Inc. 1999, pg 20.
⁷ U.S. D.H.H.S., Bureau of the Census, as reported by Getting Men Involved: The Newsletter of the Bay Area Male Involvement Network, Spring 1997, and fathermag.com. Last accessed on 3/28/06 at http://www.fathermag.com/news/2778-stats.shtml.
⁸ Stephanie Coontz, "The Absence of Fathers Does Not Put Teens at Significant Risk," Teens at Risk: Opposing Viewpoints, by Laura K. Egendorf, Editor. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press, Inc. 1999, pg 42.
⁹ Ray Harrison, pastor and retired high school teacher. Personal correspondence, March 17, 2006.
¹⁰ Kuhn and Guidubaldi, "Child Custody Policies"
¹¹ I have seen films that were "Rated R for intense martial arts action."
¹² Anonymous music academy owner. Personal correspondence, March 18, 2006.