Sex-How Does The Bible Inform A Parent's Conversation With Their Child?

1 Peter 2:11

Beloved, I urge you as aliens and exiles to abstain from the desires of the flesh that wage war against the soul.

 ‘Abstain’, cannot let that word pass.  What can Christian parents and their children do about sex??? 

This passage is used as one of many to support a 'Christian' point of view that the only valid method of birth control, the only valid personal sexual choice pre-marriage, is abstinence.  Abstain from the desires of the flesh.  Where I have a hard time is when it gets taken out of context.  Interpretation becomes a law unto itself, one that defines and controls behavior, one that causes families to split because of absolutist attitudes.  Peter was never absolute in this application. 

“I urge you…to abstain…”  He knows the struggles, he’s had them himself.  But when a relationship fractures because this verse is used as the defining tone of that relationship, a very serious conversation needs to be had.  The ground rules of the relationship need to be gone over once again, very carefully.  Sacrificing the child to enforce the rule is not Peter’s intent. 

So what is his intention?  Unsafe, random sex?  Certainly not.  It is assumed that adults have the right to make their own choices concerning their behavior.  Peter’s urging is to abstain from select behaviors.  Minors are generally assumed to be property and controlled from above when it comes to questions of sexuality. 

Sexuality should be an open topic of discussion and progression in Christian households today.  The notion that “Christians don’t talk about that” is plain wrong, because Peter is talking about ‘that’.  If we, as Christians, choose not to talk about sex and sexuality, we have fallen down on the vows we took at the baptism of our children to teach them of our faith.  God created people, God created sex, God gave us sex as a gift. 

The joy is that it is never too late to start the conversation.  It may be uncomfortable, sex talk being taboo and forbidden and surrounded by some weird mystical anti-discussion energy field, but it can happen.

And it needs to.  Our children need to know Christ’s message of sex because they are certainly getting the world’s message of sex every day.