You’d be wrong. In many ways, the first-century social world in which Christianity was born was as polymorphously perverse as our own. One writer, known to classical historians as Pseudo-Demosthenes, stated his culture’s mores this way: “Mistresses we keep for the sake of pleasure, concubines for the daily care of our persons, but wives to bear us legitimate children.” Compared to this guy, Anthony Weiner’s sexual shenanigans seem normal, and the cast of Sister Wives seems downright conservative.

One group in the ancient world stood out in stark contrast for its sexual probity: the Jews. Their critique of the Gentile world’s sexual laxity influenced the Christian view, as can be seen in 1 Thessalonians 4:3-6:

It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control your own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the pagans, who do not know God; and that in this matter no one should wrong or take advantage of a brother or sister.

Notice several things about this passage:

First, Paul, Silas, and Timothy frame their teaching in terms of God’s will. This is important. It means that how we use our bodies sexually is not up to us. Rather, how we use our bodies is up to God, who made us. And God desires that we be holy.

Second, holiness is not just an abstract concept, it has specific content. Negatively, we should avoid “sexual immorality.” Positively, we should use our bodies “in a way that is holy and honorable.” The missionaries’ rule sexual morality can be stated straightforwardly: chastity without marriage, fidelity within it.

Third, the practice of sexual holiness requires the development of certain habits, namely, self-control and selflessness. Faithfulness to one’s spouse over the course of their life requires a consistency of purpose and self-control that is incompatible with being swayed by “passionate lust.” It also means not using others as means to one’s selfish ends–taking advantage of others, in other words.

You’ll notice that the missionaries’ presentation of sexual morality incorporates the three elements of ethics I mentioned in a previous devotional: end, rule, and habit. For the Christian, the end of sexual activity–indeed, of all of life–is God. Our Maker is holy, and we must be too. The rule of sexual morality is both negative and positive, what to refrain from and what to engage in. And there is a habit or manner of life that makes obedience to this rule and for this end possible.

Just as the missionaries called the Thessalonians to live lives of sexual holiness in their day, they call us to do the same in our very similar age.

Each of these elements is present in 1 Thessalonians 4:1–2.

As for other matters, brothers and sisters, we instructed you how to live in order to please God, as in fact you are living. Now we ask you and urge you in the Lord Jesus to do this more and more. For you know what instructions we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus.

The authoritative rule is the easiest element of ethics to understand. Paul, Silas, and Timothy wrote, “we instructed you how to live.” That’s what rules do: they show us how to act and how not to act. In Scripture, authoritative rules include the Great Commandment (Matt. 22:37–40, cf. Deut. 6:5, Lev. 19:18), the Ten Commandments (Ex. 20:1–17, Deut. 5:6–21), the Antitheses (Matt. 5:21–48), the Golden Rule (Matt. 7:12), and the Law of Love (John 15:12, 17). These rules can be stated positively (“Love your neighbor”) or negatively (“You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor”). These are not different rules, but the same rule, applying love to different cases. Regarding the Great Commandment, Jesus says, “All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments” (Matt. 22:40). These rules are authoritative because they flow out of “the authority of the Lord Jesus,” who himself is the point of “the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms” (Luke 24:44).

The desired outcome of ethics is what Martin Luther King Jr. called “the beloved community,” a community in which neighbors love one another and all love God, who made them. The rules demarcate the boundary between behaviors that foster the beloved community and those that hinder it. King, for example, critiqued Jim Crow segregation because it treated neighbors unequally, based solely on the color of their skin. A beloved community cannot be created when its white citizens were allowed to murder, rape, steal from, and lie against their black neighbors with impunity. Of course, a community is more than mere rule-keeping, but we need to see the connection between rules and outcomes. For the missionaries, the desired outcome was “to please God,” and God is pleased when we love one another.

The manner of life is that habit that is necessary for us to create the beloved community. In his Antitheses, Jesus went beyond the external observance of rules to the internal character that drives behavior. It is relatively easy never to kill someone. Not being angry with them is much harder (Matt. 5:21–22). To not be angry with others, we must develop the habits of reconciliation (5:23–24) and settling matters quickly (5:25–26), rather than denying forgiveness and nursing grudges. We develop such habits through practice: “do this more and more.” You have heard the saying, “Practice makes perfect”? The truth is, whatever we do habitually, “Practice makes permanent.”

For the Christian, then, love is our authoritative rule, the beloved community our desired outcome, and resolving conflicts our manner of life.

The talk of Hamas changing from an Islamist terrorist group committed to Israel’s destruction and the murder of its Jewish population into a non-violent political group is as genuine as the similar rationalizations that were put forward in the 1990s for Arafat. Bringing Hamas into the PA government means an end to all pretense of hope for peace. There were, after all, never any real differences between the two on the ultimate objective of eliminating Israel. Fatah was no more capable of signing a peace deal that recognized the legitimacy of a Jewish state, no matter where its borders were drawn, than Hamas. The influence of the Islamists will now spread from Gaza to the West Bank, renewing the threat of terrorism from that region that Israel’s security fence had largely eliminated.

ARAB SPRING, CHRISTIAN WINTER? State of Fear: Syria’s Christians Face the Specter of Civil War and Sectarian Violence.

In light of this poisoned atmosphere, we do know for certain that many of Syria’s Christians are simply terrified. Part of this is a fear shared by many Syrians together, of a quickly growing threat of unrestrained civil war. Part of this is also reserved for the potential of sectarian retaliation, in the wake of civil war and a breakdown of order: will Sunni militias (not average Sunni townsfolk, who are most interested in surviving and protecting their loved ones as well) seek to exact revenge on Asad’s Alawi community and their perceived allies, such as Christians? And if the regime falls, will Islamists—an unknown quantity in the equation at the moment, but a likely part of a post-Asad Syria—move to strip non-Muslims of their long-held religious freedoms? Both of these scenarios are deeply troubling to many of the nation’s Christians.

A DIFFICULT QUESTION: What To Do about Violent Biblical Texts?

Yes, the bloody scriptures continue to exist, and in some circumstances, in certain conditions of social and political breakdown, extremists will cite them to provide a spiritual aura to violent and revolting acts that they were going to commit anyway. But that does not mean that we should hold the scriptures themselves responsible, or imagine that the faith as such is irrevocably tainted. Religions develop and mature over time, and it is lunatic to condemn a whole faith on the basis of its ancient horrors. That’s true for Christians, Jews — and Muslims.

THE PLANNED PARENTHOOD/KOMEN DEBACLE: The Pink Ribbon and the Dollar Sign.

In all of this, though, we can gain an opportunity to see what the abortion culture is all about: cash. Planned Parenthood and their allies use the thoroughly American language of freedom of choice and women’s empowerment, but what’s at stake, as seen here, are billions of dollars. That’s why, despite their talk about adoption as a “choice,” Planned Parenthood and others hardly ever lead women through an adoption process relative to how often they promise them the “fix” of a “terminated pregnancy.” There’s a profit motive involved in every abortion.

CONSCIENCE EXCEPTION: Evangelicals Mounting Concerns Over Obama Administration’s Contraception Mandate.

The NAE was among several evangelicals groups “in solidarity but separately” from Catholic groups that requested a stronger religious exemption after Health and Human Services ruled in August that insurance plans must provide contraception with no copayment. In January, however, federal officials reaffirmed its position, saying the government would give church-affiliated organizations an extra year to adapt to the requirement.

RELATED: NAE, Assemblies of God agree with Catholics’ objection.

WHO PAYS THE PIPER CALLS THE TUNE: Army Silenced Chaplains Last Sunday.

In Catholic churches across the country, parishioners were read letters from the pulpit this weekend from bishops in their diocese about the mandate from the Department of Health and Human Services giving Catholics a year before they’ll be required to start violating their consciences on insurance coverage for contraception, sterilization, and abortifacient drugs. But not in the Army. 

THE TITHE TABOO: The Real Taboo: Forget Sex, Let’s Talk About Monday (and How Much We’re Not Giving).

…a lot of American Christians don’t follow any rudimentary pattern of giving. This became evident to me a few years ago when I read Passing the Plate: Why American Christians Don’t Give Away More Money . Using surveys and interviews, and a review of statements by major denominations, sociologists Christian Smith, Michael Emerson and Patricia Snell unpack a bevy of astounding statistics and patterns of thought and action that may make some readers scratch their chins, and others cringe, and still others jump out of their seats and say “I knew it!” For starters, regular church attenders (those who report attending church twice a month or more) earned $2 trillion in 2005 (p.12). Smith et al. point out that after-tax tithing at 10% would have amounted to $46 billion per year (p.13), enough money to address a whole slew of needs facing millions both stateside and abroad (pp.13-18).

AMBIVALENCE ABOUT THE FOUNDERS: Slavery: America’s Original Sin?

Our veneration for the Founders is deserved. In them we find, with apologies to Tom Brokaw, another “greatest generation,” with political genius and courage that puts us to shame today. They created the world’s longest-lasting constitutional republic. They articulated the dynamic principle that “all men are created equal,” a belief that undergirded all of America’s great moral reform movements, from abolitionism to civil rights.

Nevertheless, we are also obligated to recognize slave owning as an immoral practice that stained America’s founding. The Founders were flawed people—as are we all. They were inspired political leaders, but not saints or apostles. Two and a half centuries of retrospection tends to put a people’s moral failings in sharp relief. Should our nation endure, we might expect Americans of the twenty-third century to gawk at today’s manifest moral failings as well.

FAMOUS DAD OR NO DAD AT ALL: Presidential Fathers and Sons.

Voters this year look set to continue an odd pattern that’s prevailed in presidential politics for a quarter century. They will elect either a candidate with a famous father or with no father.

IT’S THE CULTURE, STUPID! Conservative Poverty Fighting.

The critical questions for Mead are these: What do the poor really need? How can we effectively meet that need? Money comes second to what Mead argues the poor truly deserve: a lifestyle transformation. “Progress against poverty,” he insists, “requires programs with the capacity to redirect lives, not just transfer resources.” In reaching that goal, he adds, “recent conservative policies are more effective than what came before, and it would be a mistake to abandon them.”

GOD’S OWN PARTY? Why I Am a Christian Republican.

In short, when it comes to the way goods are created and distributed within a society, we ought to err on the side of those entities that are not given coercive authority by God: business, social services, the Church and a variety of other existing bodies. They aren’t perfect, and never will be. But for all the deception and sin that goes on within them, they lack the authority to coerce—and that is an important limitation. 

Genuine liberty entails the responsibility of each to not only pursue his own welfare, but to recognize and respond to the needs of his neighbor, without the state having to tap him on the shoulder. My concern is simply that when the government becomes the solution to the erosion of our virtues, it will crowd out businesses that provide jobs and charities that provide both spiritual and material support. And in doing so, the remedy will prove more devastating than the disease.

Now may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus clear the way for us to come to you. May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you. May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones.

The first prayer asks that God would overcome the distance that separates us from one another. We moderns take for granted how easily we can travel to and communicate with one another. In the course of a few hours, we can traverse distances that would’ve take the missionaries months to cover. And with the click of a mouse or the pushing of a few buttons, we can talk to anyone, anytime, anywhere. Nothing, however, substitutes for personal presence. May we recover the apostolic desire for personal presence above instantaneous but electronically mediated conversation!

The second prayer is that Jesus Christ would foster love in our relationships with one another. It is possible to be personally present but emotionally distant. You can hate the family member or friend sitting next to you at the dinner table, after all. The missionaries want the Thessalonians–and by extension, us–to be positively emotionally present with one another. And not in any minimal sense, either. Notice the verbs they use: increase and overflow. May we learn how to relate to one another in such a way that we always desire to relate to one another more, not less!

The third prayer is that Jesus Christ would overcome the sin that resides in our hearts, sin which separates us from God and from one another. At the end of the day, it is neither physical distance or emotional distance that is the problem in our relationships. It is distance between us and God in our thoughts, desires, and actions. To overcome the problems in our relationships, the problem in our hearts must be dealt with. And this can only happen when Christ strengthens our hearts in anticipation of the Judgment Day. May we be blameless on that day!

By way of application, let me suggest we take the following actions so that these prayers can become a reality:

The missionaries offer three prayers, addressing three different issues. Do we pray? Do we pray about our needs in a comprehensive way?
The missionaries focused on the problem of unholiness. Is that a focus of our prayers? Do we trust in Jesus Christ to make us holy on the Day of Judgment?
The missionaries focused on personal presence. In the era of Facebook, Twitter, texting, and ubiquitous “smart” devices, do we major on using our technology, or do we major on face-to-face skills?

May God sanctify our hearts and increase our love until we see him face to face!