Pre-Marital Sex Is Not Fornication

Of course i proved your point - the sex~raving "intelligent people" are getting themselves some groupie lu.v up in Tittie Bar!

@ topic,

why are most people on the thread preaching instead of answering the question logically? so since the bible says an eye for an eye, how come most people around are not blind?

if you object to trini's opinion why not object with logical proofs instead of trying to justify your insecurities with some biblical preaching?!!!

getting married just so you can have sex and not call it fornication is the biggest lie you will ever tell yourself. because if you fantasize about the person and think about what sex will be like with person, and then go ahead to get married to relieve your fantasies, then your 'fornication' is even double.

premarital sex is what ever you choose to see it as.

 

though u might try to logically prove your point but I want to remind you that marrige is a GOdly/divine institution and sex is a blessing to married couple.
Sex is like an identity card for married couples and when u talk about marrige you also talk about its sacredness because it is divine.
What i want to tell u is that sex can b a weakness when it come before a scred marrige or a blessing whwn it comes after marrige.So that one finds somethig difficult to do does no mean it is not possible .i will like to tell everyone that for enery action of a man there can be many good suitable reasons but are they all right.
Being touched by Jesus and being led by Holy spirit is the only strenth we have to do the right thing.
Not to argue but to encourage from my heart sex before marriege is wrong and we should look upon chrit to overcome it and other immoral acts and dressings that have come to stay in our time.God bless u

the time is right within marriage

at least someone knows

Not such a thing as sin. So, there is nothing wrong with pre-marital sex 

Keep the Bible out of the bedroom and enjoy a healthy sex life. Married or Not 

@Gbade

Great, profits are better than ever 

I corinthians 7:36

But if any man thinks that he is behaving improperly towards his virgin, if she is part the flower of her youth, and thus it must be, let him do as he wishes. He does not sin; let them marry.

Now, thou must note that it does not say let them marry then they can do as they wish. It says let them do as they wish. Let them marry.

What this shows me is that as long as they are certain they are going to get married, and they know they can't control themselves anymore, they should run things then when the time comes, they get married. Nothing spoil.

But what if they don't get married because nothing is sure until its done. no matter how long you have dated you can still break up.  and don't forget it can happen again and again and again again and again and again. and that makes you what

someone with multiple sexual partners.
Someone who is at risk of having sexual related sickness or HIV 
Someone who is scared of getting pregnant or impregnanting a lady (why should u be scared if u are sure of you are doing, why do u still do it behind locked doors with no one around even though they all know are engaged to be married)
sorry someone who is not single but joined to many people through sex.

I believe that pre-marital sex is sin no matter how you look at it. If you try to see as: we are going to get married eventually so why wait?  think about this what if the wedding gets cancelled. Listen, some Guys will say anything to go all the way with a girl even promising marrige. girls/ guys need to wise up and get that sex before marrige is a SIN!!!!
Girls get the wedding and then give it up!!!

No such thing as sin,  Only a word 

SIN is a man made principle and has been used by man to control man for thousands of years.

SIN is a tool for manipulative humans to control the weak minded people on this planet.

All in the name of an invisible pretend God that live above the clouds 

Sex at anytime is a wonderful thing 

Those of you who connect the act of lovemaking with a pretend God and a stupid fairy story book like the bible should be ashamed.

Make your own decisions and keep ypur mind free from the manipulation of corrupt, religious bigots.

PREACH, Reverend!

Guys, (and i use that term generically)

As the topic is at its core one of translation, has anyone read the article by Bruce Malina, ‘Does PORNEIA Mean Fornication?’, Novum Testamentum 1972.
I apologise if this has been discussed in previous posts but the topic is now, what, 18 pages long?  A couple of hundred posts?  I admit I haven't had time to read all of them yet.  I hope to in the next few days.  Before anyone jumps on me as being liberal and ignoring scripture, I am an evangelical urban missionary, firmly in the traditions of reforming theology (Semper Reformata! ), baptist trained and presbyterian by association, with an interest in Emerging/postmodern theologies.  Now that you have the context of my thoughts,

To summarise Malina's article:

Malina asks if the word group 'porneia' covered all the meanings attributed to it in this contemporary time, or are these later usages placed onto the word group in later times and later cultures?

The clear meanings are: cultic sexual practices, idolatory, incest and, commercial harlotry.

Other meanings attributed to the word group are doubtful and disputable in general usage.  Using scripture to interpret scripture, Malina adds the sins of homosexuality, beastiality, sex during the menstrual period, and sacrifice to Molok  (mixed marriages) from the Levitical lists (perhaps adding polygamy at a stretch).

At no point, prior to the 2nd century did porneia mean pre-betrothal, non-commercial, non-cultic, hetrosexual intercourse, and even in the second century it was considered so only by a single Jewish rabbi.

That was Malina's contention. I haven't been able to trace it that far back in christianity.  It would appear that the translation of porneia in greek to the fornix word group in latin might have been one of the culprits.  Fornix, at the time of translation, appears to have taken the idea of 'arch', a place prostitutes normally spent their time waiting for customers, and become a word meaning commercial harlotry,which was then translated into the good ol KJV and others as 'fornication' and thus the modern view of pre-marital sex was entrenched.

The idea's were there long before the KJV, don't get me wrong.  Jerome seem to be the earliest I could find, but the exegetical methods he used are suspect to say the least, and he was waxing polemic when he produced statements like, 'The truth is that, in view of the purity of the body of Christ, all sexual intercourse is unclean.' Adversus JOVINIANUS Some of his era suggested that the only good thing about sex, inside or outside of marriage, is that it produced more virgins and that God would not hear the prayer of a man unless he abstained from any sexual intercourse once he became achristian.

Anyway, the up shot of that little sidetrack is that there is no thought that pre-marital sex was included in the 'fornication' verses until well into the 4th Century AD.  You'll get no help in defending the ides that pre-marital sex IS fornication unless you read those passages with the preconcieved notion that it is, butthen again, I've seen the idea of re-incarnation 'proved' from the bible in the same way. 

That pre-marital sex is/is not necessarily fornication is rightly a debatable question.

Again, sorry if this doesn't add to the discussion.  I hope to catch up with the rest of the debate soon.

Whew,

I'm up to the end of page 9 of this thread.  It's not too bad.  A lot of passionate discussion interspersed with a bit of humour and not a small amount of flirting.  Good to see some 'play' amongst antagonists in a thread, and not constant condeming to hell. 

A few points:

To those who deride the idea of looking at the'roots' of the words used:

This is a legitimate, and necessary endevour when you are talking about words written 1900+ years ago.  The historical context of something written gives us information about the intention of the writer, and how the readers would have taken it (thanks for pointing that out debosky).  Eg. If I were to write, 'I am gay,' in 1700, I would be expressing strong emotions of happines. But in 2000, I would be probably expressing strong emotions of love for people of the same sex.  The historical and social context of the writing is greatly important, even for the word of God.  He may not change, but we do, so the way he relates to us will also change.  Not in content, but in form.

Second, the statement of the thread isn't 'Pre-marital sex is not sin'.  It is 'Pre-marital sex is not fornication'.  It is quite legitimate to suggest that pre-marital sex is not fornication, but could be still sin.  That pre-marital sex is/is not sin would be a different thread, no?   Unless that is where Trini_girl is hoping to take the thread?  I'd like to see that discussion, because I've been researching it for a book (which is part of what lead me here), as sort of 'theology of sex', and the passages supporting the idea that pre-marital sex is sin seem to be quite thin on the ground, especially when we consider how much time and space is taken up, and how much passion is produced over the question.

Having said that these are questions perhaps for a different thread, there are other disputable elements which I think we need to sort out that will inform the discussion.  Chiefly, what constitutes a marriage?  We can't speak helpfully about what 'pre-marital' sex is without describing what 'marital' or marriage is. 

The posts suggesting that there can be no pre-marital sex because sex constitutes a marriage are, frankly, nonsense.  Sorry guys.  No malice intended there.   I know there is a semi-popular belief that sex creates a marriage of some sort, but it's a battle that has been fought before and that ship just doesn't float (ahh the joys of mixed metaphors ).  As far back as the middle ages (when theologians and the church turned their thoughts seriously to 'what makes a marriage?')  it has been articulated that it is 'consent' that makes a mariage.  There can be no marriage without the consent of the parties to marriage.  'Consummation' strengthens the position of marriage and gives it that metaphoric representation of Christ and his church, but to quote Chrysostum (as Nicholas I did when first articulating the principle around the mid 800s), 'Marriage is not brought into existence by intercourse but by consent.'

An interesting thread might be for someone to ask, 'What is marriage?' and to look at the different views over the ages, and to ask whether they got it biblically right, but it's enough for this thread to use the current orthodox view, and for that, sex does not create a marriage. Not in historical catholic, nor in Roman Catholic, nor in orthodox Protestant theologies.

To re-articulate my considered opinion, implied in my last post: Is pre-marital sex fornication?  No (unless we canfind some 'law' passage, eg. Leviticus or Exodus, that states otherwise).

Back to reading the rest of this prolific thread. 

My Trini neighbour, I see you've opened a can of worms .  This is some serious bachannal wey,