What does the Bible say about masturbation?
Hi, welcome to today's Little Lesson, and this is actually a second look, part two,
on the topic of masturbation.
So if you missed the previous Little Lesson, you might want to look up that one first because
this is a continuation.
We're building on some things that we covered in that first Little Lesson.
The main point that I made last time is when we're asking the question, "What does the
Bible have to say about masturbation?" the Bible has nothing to say about masturbation.
The word isn't found in Scripture, there's not a synonym that's found for it in Scripture,
and I pointed out that that's a little bit surprising in light of all that Scripture
does have to say about human sexuality and what is pleasing and not pleasing to God.
I mean, he tells people don't have sex with animals.
You wonder why he ever had to cover that.
Well, if he covers that, if masturbation was so grievous in God's eyes, then you'd think
that he'd cover that.
So that's just a little food for thought.
Now, some viewers are going to say, "Oh, but wait a second.
There's this guy that masturbated in the Old Testament, and God killed him."
So we're going to read that story, just a couple of verses.
We won't go into every single detail about it, but it's found in Genesis chapter 38.
This is something that happened even before the law of Moses was given.
Let me just read it to you, and then we'll talk about it as we go here.
Genesis 38:7, "But Er," that's the guy's name, E-R, "Judah's firstborn."
We have heard of Judah.
He's in the lineage of Jesus, and his firstborn son was named Er.
"Er," I'm going to call him Er, "Judah's firstborn, was evil in the sight of the Lord, so the
Lord took his life."
Well, I think to myself, "Wow, he must have been pretty evil for the Lord to take his
life."
A lot of people I know that wonder why God doesn't take their life, but maybe they're
not quite as evil as Er was.
So anyways, there's Er.
Now he's dead.
"Then Judah said to Onan," which is another one of his sons, not his firstborn but his
other son, "'Go in to your brother's wife,'" that would be the widow of Er, "'and perform
your duty as a brother-in-law to her and raise up offspring for your brother.'"
Judah says to a surviving son, "Have sex with your sister-in-law, who's now a widow, so
she can have children.
They'll be raised up, and they'll be children that will belong to your brother."
Now, this was something that was actually stipulated in the law of Moses.
I have actually run into at least one tribe in Africa, not a Christian tribe, that they
actually practiced this.
It's kind of like the practical solution.
What do you do for young widows?
This is what they do.
The story continues, "Onan," that's the one who's been ordered by his dad to go have sex
with his sister-in-law.
"Onan knew that the offspring," or the children, "would not be his, so when he went into his
brother's wife," so he had sex with her, "he wasted his seed on the ground in order to
not give offspring to his brother."
He understood enough about sex to understand the mechanics of it and how to practice birth
control in something that's called coitus interruptus.
I'm not joking.
That's actually what it's called.
You know, he doesn't inseminate his sister-in-law and spills his seed on the ground.
Verse number 10, "But what he did was displeasing in the sight of the Lord, so the Lord took
his life also."
Bam.
First, we've got Er, Judah's firstborn dying because the Lord was displeased with him.
Then we've got another one of Judah's sons dying because the Lord takes his life.
Specifically, we know what he did that was so displeasing to the Lord.
This is where some folks claim, "There it is.
You see, that's masturbation.
He spilled his seed on the ground.
He didn't inseminate his sister-in-law."
Well, can I just ask you for a moment to consider the fact that that is not masturbation.
That is something maybe in some small way similar to masturbation, but masturbation
is solo sex.
This was sex with a woman.
He just pulled out prematurely and didn't inseminate her.
What was so displeasing about God was not the spilling of his seed.
It was the fact that he was unwilling to honor his deceased brother and raise up children
for his brother.
Again, I have a hard time wrapping my mind around everything in this story, personally,
myself.
Maybe you've got it figured out and you can write to me and help me understand all this,
but it's a stretch to say that we know that masturbation is wrong because of the sin of
Onan.
I remember one time years ago when I was a young Christian, I was in a Christian bookstore
and I saw a track, a little pamphlet that they were selling there.
The title of it was something like The Sin of Onanism: A Very Common Sin in the Body
of Christ.
I looked at that and said, "The sin of Onanism?"
You know, picked up the track and read it.
Then he referenced this story.
Suddenly, I realized that Onanism is a synonym for masturbation.
Therefore, it's wrong.
This is the proof that the physical act of masturbation is wrong.
I can't remember what my reaction was at that time, but nevertheless, I don't buy into it
now because I know that's not what we're reading about here.
Show me a story in the Bible where it says so-and-so masturbated and God killed them
because it displeased him.
You're not going to find that anywhere in the Bible.
It's just not mentioned.
I guess I'm saying all that to say this.
Maybe, just maybe, it's not quite as wrong as some people have portrayed it to be seeing
as how God never mentioned it in the Bible.
Now, again, I know someone's saying, "What about lust?"
Okay.
I'm going to get there in the next Little Lesson, but anyone who says that the Bible
teaches that masturbation is wrong, you need to ask them, "Just give me the chapter and
verse on that because my Bible, I haven't found that yet."
I only have just a few seconds left, and we'll continue more.
Can we also acknowledge that God is the inventor, the Creator, the one who dreamed up the idea
of sex?
It's desirable to people because God made it desirable to people.
I'm not giving excuses for sin here.
No, no, no.
I'm just trying to look at a bigger picture than sometimes what I hear portrayed by people
who are really good at making other people feel guilty.
We're going to talk about those people too, I think, before we're all done here.
All right.
Hey, thank you so much for joining me.
I'm sure there will be comments pro and con.
I love you all.
Hope to see you next time.