Six Key Principles Of Human Sexuality

By Clare BruceMonday 10 Aug 2015Open House InterviewsChristian LivingReading Time: 7 minutes

Listen: Dr Allan Meyer chats to Sheridan Voysey about Six Key Principles of Human Sexuality

Part 2 of 7 in ‘The Search For Intimacy’ Series

Our beliefs about the nature of human sexuality can have a profound effect on the course of our life, says Dr Allan Meyer.

Chatting to Hope Media about his Christian-based sexuality course, The Search For Intimacy, Dr Meyer said flawed views of sex can lead to social issues like teen promiscuity, depression and drug abuse, rape, and broken marriages.

Part Two of his course looks at the intrinsic value humans and their sexuality, and six key principles that underpin a healthy, Biblical approach to sexuality.

1 – Every Person Is Valuable And Precious

String of pearls necklace

If you go by the teachings of the Biblical book of Genesis, humans were uniquely created by God to be more special than animals, and to reflect God’s very nature. This means that humans are precious cargo.

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“We need to recognise that people are incredibly valuable,” Dr Meyer said. “And [that] just because you’ve got the hots for someone, just because you have a strong and urgent cry for sexual intimacy, does not give you the right to damage another human life.”

Dr Meyer said that understanding this principle changed his own life and marriage profoundly.

“I remember when I was teaching on this at a youth camp, many years ago, when I’d [already] been married for 10 years.

“The book of Genesis says man and woman are beings created in the image of the God who manufactured the universe. I remember reading that passage out of the Bible to these young people, and I said, “Boys I want you to stop for a moment and turn and look at the girls in the room. Do you realise, that these girls are not just a face and figure? She’s a miracle created in the image of God. Her one life is worth more than all the stuff on this planet, put together. Stop for a minute and realise, your urgent sexual passion may well damage a human life.

“When I was saying that to those kids, it suddenly occurred to me that I had never really understood, how precious the woman I was married to, in fact was It changed my entire life. I was married to a miracle. And I began to look at her and treat her differently from that day.”

2 – Humans Share A Universal Cry For Intimacy

Lonely red heart hanging on tree branch

Every human has a desire for intimacy and closeness with others humans – a desire that must be treated with respect, says Dr Meyer.

“It’s a fascinating thing that it’s woven into us, this deep cry to find someone,” he said. The book of Genesis (in the Bible) puts it this way: “And the Lord God said “it’s not good that man should be alone; I’ll make a helper comparable to him”.

He said this desire can lead to harm if not treated with care.

“One of the issues that we face is that sex in a man’s experience is often a very urgent kind of a pressure. And as a result, men frequently impose themselves on women,” he said.

“Since everyone has this cry for intimacy, we need to take care of one another, and not abuse that, and not to use that as a point of access to get what I want personally. Sometimes we don’t know how to respond well to it.

“I must refrain from allowing my own cry for intimacy, or someone else’s desire or need for intimacy, to be a mechanism by which I actually do them harm.”

3 – God Is A Matchmaker

Statue of cupid

While not everyone agrees that God “arranges” marriages, it’s clear that He was highly involved in “setting up” the first ever couple, Adam and Eve.

“If you read the book of Genesis, when God created Eve, he brought her and introduced her to the man,” Dr Meyer said. “God Himself did the introduction.”

He says his own relationship with his now-wife Helen, had a similar “match-made-in-heaven” quality about it.

“I felt like God introduced me to her,” he explains. “He kind of made sure that he got the two of us together. I remember as a teenager wondering would anybody ever love me? And yet I married one of the prettiest girls in school because God introduced her to me, and awakened her heart to love me.

“I think God is a match maker and the greatest romantic that ever has been. He invented the biochemistry, the nervous attachments, all the neural pathways through the brain, that allow for the thrill of arousal of sexual intimacy. He cares about you, He cares about individual people finding someone who is appropriate for them.”

4 – Why Sex Belongs Within A Marriage

Placing Engagement Ring On Finger

After his PhD studies into human sexuality, Dr Meyer concluded that sex changes a person to the core. He says this is one of the key reasons for the Christian church’s teaching on keeping sex within marriage.

“The idea of marriage as a covenant means that you stick to someone,” he said. “You make a decision that before you engage in sexual intimacy, you’re prepared to pay the price. And I think the price for sexual intimacy is that you’re prepared to stick around, and live your life through all the highs and lows with that person you’ve engaged in sexual intimacy with.”

Casual sex, if you follow this line of teaching, is not only disrespectful but damaging.

“It leaves marks in another human being that you have no intention of sticking around with, to fulfil the consequences of what you just did,” Dr Meyer said. “It’s a profound disregard for human value and dignity. And so God says this: “For this cause a man leaves his mum and his dad and he sticks to his wife and they’ll become one flesh.

“Sex is a consequence of marriage, and marriage is a commitment. It’s a commitment to somebody that “I will be here for you, I will not simply eat your fruit and run, I will stay, I will live my life with you, I will share the challenges and the burdens and the joys of life.”

5 – Sex Is Holy, Handle With Care

Handle With Care Label

Dr Meyer describes sex as a “holy thing” that shouldn’t be taken lightly.

“Sex is not ordinary,” he said. “Sex is profound, it is valuable, it is significant, it changes you, and it cements you to another person. It’s designed by God to be glue and if it’s managed rightly, it will be.”

It’s when sex is treated flippantly or carelessly that it can cause people to fail in relationships time and time again, Dr Meyer said.

“If it’s not managed rightly, it can become dynamite. It’s one of the reasons people blow apart, and can never form a great relationship.”

6 – Our Approach To Sexuality Is Often ‘Broken’

Couple in conflict, sitting in bed

To understand why men and women suffer in so many ways when it comes to sexuality, we can look at the book of Genesis in the Bible.

According to Dr Meyer it shows the “fallen” nature of mankind and our tendency to rebel against God’s best ways – something that affects all of life, including sex.

“The brokenness of the human soul touches every area of life, and sex is one of them,” he said.

“So it means that where sex, for example, was designed to be glue, when it’s mismanaged you’ll find marriages that blow apart because here is a man who’s never learned to honour his wife, or here is a wife who’s never learned to honour her husband. And that their sex is not beautiful and it does not glue them together, in fact it’s in some ways damaging and destructive.

“We make the assumption that people will get married and sex will be great, and it isn’t always. Sex is a learned behaviour, and broken people have often brought their brokenness into their marriages, and no-one has ever helped them restore that, and so even in their marriage, sex is not great. It was never intended to be like this, but broken human beings express their brokenness in every area of their life, and sex is one of them.

“Rape and molestation are profound expressions of selfishness, to the destruction of another human life. That’s [another] manifestation of a broken human life, expressed through sex.”

Six Key Principles Of Human Sexuality