NOTE: After being challenged by a couple people to really begin seeking out what the Scriptures say about things, I have decided to really look into the matter of what the Bible says about pornography. So I will reveal what I learn though I am primarily preaching and talking to myself.
1 Thessalonians 4:3-5 states, “For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God.” (NASB).
To me, this verse is very straightforward…maybe too straightforward.
So what is “sexual immorality?” To understand this, I believe it is imperative to understand the Greek world. So what does Paul mean when he says, “like the Gentiles” (A Gentile was someone who was not a Jew by birth.)? The ancient Gentile world was just as sexualized as America is today. In nonChristian society, a man had 5 or 6 sexual outlets: slaves, mistresses, concubines, wives, harlots/prostitutes, younger boys, and possibly even other men. A man may have slaves who performed regular house duties (but was open to sexual exploitation since they were mere property or spoils of war), a mistress who could provide him intellectual companionship (a sort of emotional relationship per se; from the hetaerae class, basically an educated prostitute), concubines could provide sexual pleasure (children from concubines would be considered bastards) and were subject to the authority of the wives, wives who managed the household and bore legitimate children/heirs (typically they stayed at home), and harlots/prostitutes who also provided only sexual pleasure (street girls, widows, sometimes connected to worship, e.g. Cabiri, Aphrodite). Even beyond these heterosexual choices, a man would often times have a younger “lover boy” who really had no love for his older companion (i.e. pederasty).
And it is in this culture that Paul writes, “For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God.” (NASB). So Paul was commanding Christians to avoid and abstain from any and every form of sexual practice that lies outside the circle of God’s revealed will, namely adultery, premarital and extramarital intercourse, homosexuality, fornication, and other perversions. This is the meaning of the word porneia, translated “sexual immorality,
