Last updated on October 29, 2020
Question:
Your web site is truly a blessing! I was searching on for some related questions with the same situation as mine but haven’t found one so far.
I actually am in a virtual relationship with someone whom I’ve met on an online Christian dating site. We both are Christians. We’ve been communicating for almost 7 months and he has planned to visit me sometime in December for Christmas. We almost talk every day and in most instances where we both became sensually aroused comes in dirty talks (phone sex). I have addressed to him the issue of me feeling guilty about committing sin and that what we’re actually doing is sin in as much as we have created desires for each other. I’ve told him that sooner or later, he will look for something more than the usual talk on the phone. And what we’re doing is a habitual sin and were committing idolatry. I told him that what we’re basically talking about and doing on-line would reflect on how we may treat each other in person. I’ve told him that we should wait until we meet and get married before we enjoy the gift of intimacy.
However, he contradicted that God has given us the gift of sex to enjoy as a couple and that marriage is a mere public announcement that we are united. And that since we live miles apart, it would be even difficult for him to feel intimate with me. He said it’s as if I was preventing him to express his love for me while he admitted that he was still a virgin, and he doesn’t even know how sex would feel for real. It would have been easy on his part if he had looked for someone near him where he would be able to touch for real but didn’t do likewise because he has found me and he was eager to be with me. Lastly, he defended that we weren’t doing physical sex. Whenever we talk about his plans of coming over, never did he failed to mention that he wanted to have sex with me for real.
I, on the other hand, have reminded him that we both should control and wait until we’re married. Further, I have told him that our relationship was built on physical intimacy and we have left off God somewhere and it was quite bothering me. While I want us to have a God-centered relationship, pray and have fellowship with God despite the distance, he kept on insisting that distance in itself was keeping us from doing such things and the different time zones we have makes it even more difficult.
Should I keep up with this kind of relationship? He is 8 years older than me and whenever we discuss these things, he blames it on me being ‘too young’. Do I commit sin in engaging myself in this thing? How shall we be able to help each other? What are your thoughts about this? I am truly troubled.
Answer:
You ought to be troubled. You are dealing with a man who is a predator and he’s found a young woman who tells him “no” while continuing to let him act as he wants. Notice that he’s told you that he plans to have sex with you when he comes and you are still planning for his visit. He also told you that he doesn’t plan to marry you. He is only looking for someone to have sex with.
Let’s back up to talk about what unmarried people should not be involved in and why. You understand that you should not have sex before marriage, but why?
Having sex without marriage is the word porneia in the original Greek of the New Testament. It is translated as fornication, but many of the newer translations use “sexual immorality” or just plain “immorality” because the translators think “fornication” is too old of a word and not often used. Unfortunately, “sexual immorality” and “immorality” are too vague. They don’t capture the meaning of the word well. For a list of sexual terms in the Bible and their meaning, see: Sex.
Now that we understand the meaning of the term, we can see whether it is bad. In this, we’ll let God answer:
“Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God” (I Corinthians 6:9-10).
“Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge” (Hebrews 13:4).
The word “bed” in Hebrews 13:4 is translating the Greek word koite. It literally means “bed” and it is were we get our English word “cot” from, but the Greeks used the word the same we say “Jack was sleeping was Jane.” You know that Jack and Jane were having sex. By the way, we get our word “coitus” from this same word. “Coitus” is the act of intercourse.
His claim that God made sex, so that it doesn’t matter to God if you are married or not is clearly false. Yes, we have sexual desires, but those desires do not mean we can gratify them whenever we want. There are things more important than physical desire. “Food is for the stomach and the stomach is for food, but God will do away with both of them. Yet the body is not for immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body” (I Corinthians 6:13).
Now this should lead to the question of why God said it is wrong. God doesn’t make arbitrary rules. The laws He gives are there to make life better. Therefore, there are things about having sex without marriage that makes life bad. For an answer see:
One of the problems, when sex enters a relationship, is that it dominates it. Everything revolves around sex and the relationship stops developing. Ultimately the relationship falls apart because sex is not enough to hold it together. But in your case, there never really was a friendship. It has mostly been about sensuality and sex from very close to the start.
If you understand that you may not have intercourse before marriage, the next question is what about the things done prior to intercourse. Can you do anything so long as his penis doesn’t enter your vagina?
The first problem is restraint. Most young people discount too heavily the strength of their sexual instinct. This is why I constantly get notes from people saying, “I didn’t mean for it to go this far,” or “I don’t know what happened,” or “It was an accident.” Such statements aren’t lame excuses. They are the responses of someone who didn’t have a healthy respect for the strength of her sexual instinct.
Solomon points out the problem when he asked, “Can a man take fire to his bosom, and his clothes not be burned?” (Proverbs 6:27). You can show a hot coal all the affection you want. You can cuddle it and dote on it and it will still burn you. Your kindness to it doesn’t change its nature. How often do you hear someone say, “But I love him!” Solomon’s point is that your feelings toward your boyfriend won’t change the fact that both of you have built-in desires and capabilities for sex. Trigger them and they follow the instincts built into you.
Solomon also asked, “Can one walk on hot coals, and his feet not be seared?” (Proverbs 6:28). Using the same example of hot coal, if you walk on it, it will burn you. You can apologize and say you didn’t mean to step on it, but you’ll still be hurt because your intentions don’t change what it is. Thus, the excuse, “But I didn’t mean for it to go this far!” becomes an empty one because your intentions don’t change your body’s drive.
That is why Solomon concludes, “So is he who goes in to his neighbor’s wife; whoever touches her shall not be innocent” (Proverbs 6:29). Though he is talking directly about adultery, the same point is true about fornication. When you start stirring up sexual feelings, you are never innocent when things go further than you wanted.
That is why we are told not to make room for lust and lewdness. “Let us walk properly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts” (Romans 13:13-14). Lust is those thoughts and desires you keep battling about taking things even further. Lewdness is engaging in sexual foreplay that gets the body ready for intercourse. The Christian must recognize the danger and not start a sequence of events that can’t be legitimately completed.
Rules, then, are needed so that you don’t start down a sinful path. No touching each other’s private areas. No stroking skin to get you or her sexually aroused. No long passionate kisses that leave you out of your mind. You have to treat each other with respect and not as sexual objects. “Now concerning the things of which you wrote to me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman” (I Corinthians 7:1). But these are rules he has repeatedly stated he has no intentions of following.
With that comes not talking dirty or showing nude or semi-nude pictures to each other. “But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not even be named among you, as is fitting for saints; neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks. For this you know, that no fornicator, unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not be partakers with them” (Ephesians 5:3-7). You don’t stay pure by sexually arousing the other person.
While he claims to be a virgin, his statements and actions demonstrate that more likely he is not a virgin. The problem with an Internet relationship is that a person can lie and there is no reasonable way to find it out. You don’t know his friends. You haven’t met his past girlfriends. Most likely he is claiming to be a virgin so you will think him “innocent” despite his dirty talk.
This man is no good. Pretending otherwise is leading you progressively into deeper sins.
Response:
Thank you, sir!
I have long realized his actions and have stopped communicating with him. Your wisdom have truly helped me understand better, and how I should have responded to him as a Christian.
Thank you again for the help, sir.