The Delightful Duty of Married Sex

For married Christians, sex is a strange combination of function and fun, discipline and desire, heaven and hobby. But for the Christian wife in particular, married sex can also represent mystery, frustration, or even shame.

Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 7:2–5 are wonderfully direct and clarifying, although they are sometimes misapplied or misunderstood:

Because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.

This passage brings to light an outrageous, joyous facet of married life. Paul does not deal here with sex as procreation — though we know from the whole testimony of Scripture that sex and procreation are blessedly intertwined. Instead, this passage highlights other purposes of sex. Here we see married sex represented in three ways.

1. Duty and Delight

Paul makes clear that married sex is a mutual duty for a husband and a wife. “The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband” (1 Corinthians 7:3). What a duty! A recreation, a romp, a heavenly joke and a heavenly feast! Does the word duty make you flinch? Or does the phrase conjugal rights make you uncomfortable? Don’t let it. Our modern sensibility may pit duty and delight against each other, but from the beginning it was not so. First Corinthians 7:2–5 is one proof among many that duty kisses delight in God’s world.

God commanding a husband and wife to have sex is like a master commanding his servants to throw a party out of his own larder, using the best wine and best dishes. It’s like a boss commanding his employees to give themselves a raise and a paid vacation to Bali. Here you have been commanded, as man and woman, to engage regularly in something that God designed to give you moments of literal ecstasy and unifying, self-forgetful delight. Of all the hobbies you could engage in together — tennis, chess, movies — this is the only hobby you’ve been told not to neglect.

I know you’re both tired. I know the kids will be up in the night. But revel in this. Laugh with your spouse about the strangeness and wonder of it all. Discipline yourselves to obey the spirit of 1 Corinthians 7:2–5, and there will be years of blessing hidden inside the obedience.

2. Expression of Mutual Authority

God also decided to assign authority over a husband’s body and authority over a wife’s body to the other (1 Corinthians 7:4). I’ll never forget the day I realized Scripture had handed me the keys of authority over my own husband’s body. What does that mean? I wondered.

Well, in Scripture, a right use of authority benefits those underneath that authority — as parents benefit kids or pastors benefit a church. Godly authority gives and tends life in others. So, while I cannot control his mind or his body, and he cannot control mine, we each can nevertheless take responsibility for cultivating the garden of our love so that it becomes a safe, inviting, even thrilling space for the other.

Having authority over each other’s bodies means that he approaches me as a cultivator, a master gardener, taking the lead and seeking to learn the ins and outs of pleasure for the woman God gave him. It also means that I, as a woman, come to the marriage bed with a similar sense of responsibility. Mutual authority calls for creativity, planning, and a sense of fun.

As the more complex partner, part of the wife’s joyous duty is to tend not only to her husband’s pleasure but to her own. A woman should not be afraid of this process. In fact, her own pleasure is part of the gift she gives her husband. He is blessed in the blessing of her. She is blessed in the blessing of him. They are mutually blessed in this singular act of intimacy, a priceless picture of eternal oneness between Christ and his church.

Of course, Scripture is also quite clear that neither spouse can use his or her authority to ask the other to sin against the law or one’s own conscience. Romans 14:13 directs us “never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother.”

The Song of Solomon is a wonderful primer for God-honoring forms of amorous language and behavior between a wife and her husband. Here you see a woman speaking of both her own body and his body as a source of mutual pleasure and wonder.

As an apple tree among the trees of the forest,
     so is my beloved among the young men.
With great delight I sat in his shadow,
     and his fruit was sweet to my taste. . . .

His left hand is under my head,
     and his right hand embraces me! (Song of Solomon 2:3, 6)

3. Protection Against Satan and Sin

Depriving one another of sex is expressly forbidden in this passage — “except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer” (1 Corinthians 7:5).

“Depriving one another” doesn’t necessarily look like one spouse (stereotypically, the wife) consistently saying no. Most often, it results from mutual laziness, which weakens and estranges couples over time. If a husband and wife are not tending sexually to each other, they make themselves vulnerable to temptation. Desire in marriage ebbs and flows, but this passage assumes humans are sexual beings: We long to be seen and touched, in both body and spirit. So, picture marital intimacy as two people standing together under one large shield that they both uphold, deflecting the arrows of an enemy.

Paul is not condemning couples in sexless seasons that they did not choose — due to sickness or unavoidable absence, for example. He is concerned for the sexless marriage that doesn’t need to be that way — one that is sexless due to indifference, avoidance, or false guilt. And why does he warn against depriving one another? Because when intimacy lags, temptation looks for an opening.

Cultivate the Gift

Surely, marriage is a painful topic for some of you reading. A woman who feels that she is in a loveless marriage probably needs more help than one short article can offer. If this is you, I would encourage you to seek godly counsel from a biblical counselor or a mature Christian woman in your life. I also have appreciated books like This Momentary Marriage.

But no matter your situation, I know that the word of God has been given for our instruction, and every gift given in obedience to this word is poured out as an offering before him. Obedience always bears fruit, in our own hearts if nowhere else. How many precious moments of sacrifice have been logged away in God’s sight by a faithful husband or a faithful wife who chose to bless a difficult spouse?

Cultivate this gift — God’s creative provision for procreation and recreation — and you engage in holy work.

Not a bad way to spend a Tuesday night.