11/21&11/28 Premarital Sex
	Notes and references for Sunday School 11/21/99 and 11/28/1999 Premarital Sex: “Take Possession of Your Body!” From our Bible Lesson of 11/21 we read about the attempted seduction of Joseph by Potiphar’s wife: Gen 39:11-15 11 And it came to pass about this time, that Joseph went into the house to do his business; and there was none of the men of the house there within. 12 And she caught him by his garment, saying, Lie with me: and he left his garment in her hand, and fled, and got him out. 13 And it came to pass, when she saw that he had left his garment in her hand, and was fled forth, 14 That she called unto the men of her house, and spake unto them, saying, See, he hath brought in an Hebrew unto us to mock us; he came in unto me to lie with me, and I cried with a loud voice: 15 And it came to pass, when he heard that I lifted up my voice and cried, that he left his garment with me, and fled, and got him out. Joseph refused out of an ethical responsibility to his boss. The story doesn’t comment on what Joseph’s behavior would have been had the same thing happened between him and a single girl. What do you think would have been appropriate in that case? Would there have been a moral reason for refusing the woman even if she were single? Well, let’s look at that situation. Mrs. Eddy was not unfamiliar with the subject physical temptation, lust, etc and dealt with them bluntly. She asks in Mis 250:3, “By what strange perversity is the best become the most abused,--either as a quality or as an entity? Mortals misrepresent and miscall affection; they make it what it is not, and doubt what it is. The so-called affection pursuing its victim is a butcher fattening the lamb to slay it. What the lower propensities express, should be repressed by the sentiments. No word is more misconstrued; no sentiment less understood. The divine significance of Love is distorted into human qualities, which in their human abandon become jealousy and hate.” At one point in her writings she also defended British barmaids (prostitutes, one presumes). Mis 296:25-28 “And the barmaids! Do they enter this line of occupation from a desire for notoriety and a wish to promote female suffrage? or are they incited thereto by their own poverty and the bad appetites of men?” MBE provides some hint of the problem in the words, “bad appetites of men”? History, as written by men, gives little or no credit to women whether in art, science or politics. Might makes right and as long as the male ego can dominate then the woman is left to submitting to a male world. Is that the kind of relationship Christian Scientists look for. In the Glossary (Chapter 17and last chapter in our textbook, and the 3rd chapter of the Key to the Scriptures section) she defines the four rivers in the Bible. These four rivers are the four cornerstones to humanity gaining an understanding of divine Science. (They are: (1) The Pison, (2) the Gihon, (3) the Hiddekel and (4) the Euphrates. The second one, the river Gihon is defined by our Leader as, The rights of woman acknowledged morally, civilly, and socially. (S&H 587:3). Imagine the importance she placed on women’s rights to include it as one of the four major cornerstones needed by humanity. When we lower our concept of womanhood to the object of physical pleasure and sex appeal we attack the very basis of man’s spiritual identity and individuality. In doing so we weaken our own ability to express spiritual dominion. Now this flies right in the face of what we are being told by television sitcoms, movies, and magazines. In our media today we are told that premarital sex is acceptable, fun, normal and abstinence, purity and high moral standards are passe, belonging to some other generation. These are the 90’s after all. One needs only to watch Ally McBeal and Friends or read the articles in Vogue to find that there is nothing wrong with living together out of marriage, to have casual sex or worse, be totally indiscriminate. The question I pose to each of you is, “Are you willing to hold yourself and your relationships to a higher standard then what the material world holds before you?” The purpose of Sunday School is not to discuss sex per se but to learn of our spiritual identities and how to have dominion in our human experience. Isn’t that what we all want? Dominion over matter and not matter’s dominion over us? Mrs. Eddy writes on page 260 of Science and Health: “If we look to the body for pleasure, we find pain;...Now reverse this action. Look away from the body into Truth and Love, the Principle of all happiness, harmony and immortality.” There is no such thing as selfless sex. It is not a good deed you are doing for someone else. Sex is always selfish. It is the seeking of physical pleasure from another and sometimes at the expense of another. Prior to marriage it represents a larger part of the relationship. Marriage involves selflessness. It requires a real investment into the good of the home, the family and your partner. Sexual activity after marriage is still fulfilling a physical need but it is balanced in the relationship with a great deal more selfless giving not getting. Look at how Mrs. Eddy links the words sensuality and selfishness in the following sentences from the textbook: Mis 293:27 Truth talked and not lived, rolls on the human heart a stone; consigns sensibility to the charnel-house of sensuality, ease, self-love, self-justification, there to moulder and rot. S&H 22:4-6 Vibrating like a pendulum between sin and the hope of forgiveness,--selfishness and sensuality causing constant retrogression,--our moral progress will be slow. S&H 260:24 Selfishness and sensualism are educated in mortal mind by the thoughts ever recurring to one's self, by conversation about the body, and by the expectation of perpetual pleasure or pain from it; and this education is at the expense of spiritual growth. If we array thought in mortal vestures, it must lose its immortal nature. Notice in the last sentence how selfishness and sensualism are at the expense of spiritual growth. Why are you in Sunday School if not to learn how to grow spiritually? Whether or not you choose to be sexually active out of wedlock is your business and no one else’s. Just remember that your ability to have dominion in your life is a function of the quality (the purity) of your thought. Your healing effectiveness depends on your moral courage and holding yourself to that higher standard I mentioned earlier. Do you have the courage to take a stand against the compromises being rationalized by the world’s opinion? Sexual activity can be put into five categories. On the one extreme there is promiscuity and pornography. On the other extreme there is abstinence. See Mrs. Eddy’s absolute condition required for total spiritual unity: S&H 61:29 The formation of mortals must greatly improve to advance mankind. The scientific morale of marriage is spiritual unity. If the propagation of a higher human species is requisite to reach this goal, then its material conditions can only be permitted for the purpose of generating. The foetus must be kept mentally pure and the period of gestation have the sanctity of virginity. What about the middle ground? Casual sex, sex in a committed relationship and sex in a marriage are varying levels of activity that fall between promiscuity and abstinence. The first three levels of sexual activity (all before or outside of marriage) are filled with problems. You will start a series of dominoes that make things very complicated and weaken your ability to heal. Why? Because is changes your priorities toward finding pleasure in matter and building relationships on what you can get from a another person. You must then deal with birth-control, unwanted pregnancy, sexually transmitted disease, insecurity, lying, and on and on… Just one example: How does a girl depend on spiritual healing in Christian Science while at the same time she depends on a drug (the pill) to keep form getting pregnant? Marriage is a legal provision for the protection of the woman. The woman should never give up those rights. The man may offer “I love you” to get sex and the woman, more times than not, will give sex to hear those words. It’s a minefield. Don’t buy into such nonsense. Be man enough to respect the rights of women and be woman enough to defend your rights. The higher example of manhood and womanhood you exhibit the better the partner you ill attract into your life. So follow Mrs. Eddy’s advice from S&H 393:10-13: “Take possession of your body, and govern its feeling and action. Rise in the strength of Spirit to resist all that is unlike good.”
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