{"id":1744,"date":"2025-08-08T20:52:46","date_gmt":"2025-08-08T20:52:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/2025\/08\/08\/pastor-dont-skip-the-sex-talk\/"},"modified":"2025-08-08T20:52:46","modified_gmt":"2025-08-08T20:52:46","slug":"pastor-dont-skip-the-sex-talk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/content\/pastor-dont-skip-the-sex-talk\/","title":{"rendered":"Pastor, Don\u2019t Skip the Sex Talk"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cI wish I had heard this 60 years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She was in her 70s, wiping her eyes as she approached me after the worship service. I\u2019d just preached on the holiness of sex out of 1 Corinthians 6.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI came of age in the \u201960s,\u201d she said. \u201cI was force-fed the \u2018free love\u2019 stuff. Sex was like shaking hands. It meant nothing. All that mattered was consent. And I bought it all. The church was backwards; Marilyn Monroe and Hugh Hefner were the future. They were the liberators. But it only gave me decades of suffering, waste. I know God gives grace\u2014I\u2019m not insecure about that. But I\u2019m a bit angry. Why didn\u2019t the church I grew up in teach me these things?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If pastors want to love and disciple their people well, they must talk about sex. This isn\u2019t just a matter of faithful presence in an ever-changing culture. It\u2019s shepherding. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are five ways to describe sex if we want to be both faithful and helpful: compassionate, creational, covenantal, congruent, consecrated. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Compassionate<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The people in your church have been harmed by the spirit of the age\u2014some by the sexuality of others, some by their own, most by both. They carry wounds\u2014self-inflicted and others-inflicted. There is shame. Secrecy. Years of suffering tucked behind church smiles. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One in four women and one in 26 men<\/a> have lived through sexual assault. Spouses have watched pornography or committed adultery. Children are exposed to explicit material long before they even have a category for it\u2014innocence shattered, no way to unsee those things or take it back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a gut punch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Jesus \u201csaw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd\u201d (Matt. 9:36). That\u2019s the posture we need when we look out at our congregations and consider the weight of their stories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Without compassion, we betray the significance of the Incarnation. We strip Christ\u2019s passion of its meaning. Our words ring robotic\u2014truth without tenderness\u2014because to love well requires knowing the people in front of you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lies of the sexual revolution have left deep wounds in the people of your church. We cannot overstate the damage. The topic of sex is charged with secrecy, shame, confusion, dehumanization, and dopamine doom loops, patterns of pleasure and pain that now run on autopilot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And this where the compassion of Christ stretches further than our own, reaching both the one who was sinned against and the one who sinned\u2014the one who was harmed and the one who harmed. Our preaching must do the same. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Creational<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sex was God\u2019s idea. He could have designed humans to reproduce asexually like some corals or split through mitosis-like cells. Yet he chose to create a sexually dimorphic species\u2014male and female. He stamped both men and women with his image, and he tethered the begetting of new life to an act of covenant love, reflecting the Trinity\u2019s own overflow of love that called the cosmos into being. Sexual differentiation is on page one of the Bible: \u201cMale and female he created them\u201d (Gen. 1:27). And then in almost the next breath comes the blessed command to reproduce: \u201cBe fruitful and increase in number\u201d (v. 28). What a lavish gift God gave our first parents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why does oxytocin flood the brain? Why the crescendo of orgasm? Why the magnetic pull of sexual attraction? Why does the Song of Songs revel in mutual delight without any direct reference to procreation? Because the blessed God loves to bless his creatures, and the whole of creation is a theater of his glory. The sexual revolution did not invent sexual pleasure (nor its abuse and perversion) in the 1960s; it merely rebranded what God had already called good and debased it, twisting it out of its intended shape. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Covenantal<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe two will become one flesh\u201d (Eph. 5:31).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To truly know a person\u2014intertwined not just physically but legally, publicly, emotionally, spiritually, financially, and geographically\u2014is an incredible privilege. Hookup culture and \u201csex-positive\u201d slogans peel sex away from a sense of self. In contrast, Scripture fundamentally welds sex to unity and service. Instead of sex being a product or service that we consume, it is a mutually edifying act that bonds a man and a woman at the height of their togetherness. They have \u201ccleaved.\u201d (The Greek proskollao <\/em>in Ephesians 5:31 means \u201cglued, bound\u201d; the Hebrew counterpart, davaq<\/em>, in Genesis 2:24 means \u201cstick, cling, hold fast to.\u201d) This is covenantal language. In other words, you pledge your whole self to your spouse, and sexuality is only one slice of that covenant pie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Such mutual consent (as we see in 1 Cor. 7:4) would have been radically countercultural in the first century. The idea that a wife has the same sexual \u201crights\u201d as her husband was unheard of. Even Scripture\u2019s earliest divorce clause (Ex. 21:10\u201311) targets the husband who willfully deprives his wife of conjugal love, treating that neglect as grounds for dissolving the union.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Godly men do not ask women to act like wives without exchanging vows; godly women do not ask men to act like husbands without doing the same. People say good sex begins in the kitchen. It starts earlier\u2014with having a playful, warm, connected, vowed, loving, and covenantal marriage where the wife is cherished and nourished (Eph. 5:29) and the husband is respected (v. 33).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Congruent<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGo and sin no more,\u201d Jesus tells the woman caught in adultery\u2014and tells every one of us who seeks to follow him. That summons is wildly different from the overly therapeutic style of preaching that simply asks, \u201cHow does that make you feel?\u201d or says, \u201cLet\u2019s explore that,\u201d and leaves behavior untouched. A nonjudgmental shrug may sound compassionate, yet it is fundamentally incongruent with the Jesus who grants pardon and commands repentance in the same breath.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Abomination<\/em>. Shameful<\/em>. Unclean<\/em>. Defiled<\/em>. Whoring<\/em>. Fornication<\/em>. Lust<\/em>. These are biblical words, and as Bible people we should not be ashamed or afraid of properly using them. They are not hateful words; they are diagnostic. This is a matter of both faithfulness and helpfulness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Helping people name their experience with Scripture\u2019s own words is both good shepherding and good evangelism. If people never understand that they are unclean,<\/em> the invitation to be \u201cwashed \u2026 in the name of the Lord Jesus\u201d loses its meaning (1 Cor. 6:11). If they never learn to call a sin shameful or embarrassing, they won\u2019t rejoice when they hear, \u201cAnyone who believes in him will never be put to shame\u201d (Rom. 10:11).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Downplaying the serious nature of sexual sin\u2014or worse, gaslighting people about it\u2014might feel pastorally helpful in the short term, but in the long run it undermines the weightiness and splendor of the grace God freely offers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Consecrated<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Words summoned the world into being, and the Word still upholds the universe. Language is a vital component of good shepherding and formation\u2014sermons, counseling sessions, letters to the congregation\u2014but syllables alone cannot rewire desire or heal shame. Without God\u2019s involvement, this endeavor will ring hollow and not hallow. \u201cFor the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power,\u201d says the apostle Paul (1 Cor. 4:20). Good strategy has its place, but it won\u2019t solve our built-in inadequacy unless the Spirit works mightily through preachers, parents, and parishioners alike.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sexual discipleship of God\u2019s people is ultimately God\u2019s prerogative. Still, what an opportunity we have: to inoculate the saints against the spirit of the age, to tend to wounds before they fester, and to guide both sinners and sufferers into the abundant life found under Christ\u2019s reign. May neither our silence nor our passivity become the hindrance that causes \u201cone of these little ones\u2014those who believe in me\u2014to stumble\u201d (Matt. 18:6). Picture a day, decades from now, when someone who once sat under your preaching tells another pastor, \u201cI wish I\u2019d heard this 60 years ago.\u201d Such words would reveal we failed to love the flocks Jesus left in our care. Let\u2019s leave our congregants no cause to speak those words.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next time you talk about sex, whether from the pulpit or the counselor\u2019s chair, remember two things: The task is beyond you, and the Helper is with you. Lift your tired eyes to the Bridegroom, who laid down his body for his bride. Then speak with courage\u2014clear and unashamed of the Father\u2019s instruction to his people. Don\u2019t sacrifice clarity for cute and clever turns of phrase. We need to show our people how the Words of Life that we carry shape real choices, comforts real wounds, and calls them into real freedom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seth Troutt\u00a0is the teaching pastor at Ironwood Church in Arizona. His doctoral studies focused on Gen Z, digitization, and bodily self-concept. He writes about emotions, gender, parenting, and the intersection of theology and culture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cI wish I had heard this 60 years ago.\u201d She was in her 70s, wiping her eyes as she approached me after the worship service. I\u2019d just preached on the holiness of sex out of 1 Corinthians 6. \u201cI came of age in the \u201960s,\u201d she said. \u201cI was force-fed the \u2018free love\u2019 stuff. Sex Read more…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":179,"featured_media":1745,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"tax_ctp_authors":[2991],"tax_ctp_books":[],"tax_ctp_categories":[154],"tax_ctp_field_guide_subcategory":[],"tax_ctp_field_guides":[],"tax_ctp_format":[131],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[429],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_tags":[4608,4688,4961,4962],"tax_ctp_topics":[],"class_list":["post-1744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tax_ctp_authors-seth-troutt","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-pastoral-care","tax_ctp_tags-preaching","tax_ctp_tags-sexual-sin","tax_ctp_tags-sexuality"],"acf":{"scripture_references":null},"yoast_head":"\nPastor, Don\u2019t Skip the Sex Talk - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"For 60 years culture has catechized your people on sex. 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