(upbeat music) - Welcome back to a new week on the Ask Pastor John podcast with longtime author and pastor John Piper. And a listener named Matt writes in, Pastor John, 1 Corinthians chapter seven and verse five says that a husband and wife should quote, "Not deprive one another of sexual relations, "except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, "that you may devote yourselves to prayer." My question is how does our sex life interfere with our prayer life?

And when should there be a time in which a couple takes a break so as to devote themselves to prayer? Is this like the principle of fasting where the desire for sexual relations is meant to put our focus back on the Lord to remind us that he is our ultimate joy and satisfaction above all else?

Pastor John, what would you say to Matt? - Okay, let's get the whole verse in front of us. Matt leaves out the last half, which really creates a helpful paradox. At least I have loved it ever since I first struggled with it. Here's the whole verse. Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time.

That means deprive one another from sexual relations. Do not deprive one another from sexual relations, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer. And that's where he stops. Here's the rest of it. But then come together again so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.

Now, what's paradoxical about this is that on the one hand, Paul sees the suspension of sexual relations as a means of intensified devotion to prayer, presumably because the couple wants a breakthrough in some answer to prayer because the devil is doing something they don't want him to do, and they want to resist the devil, resist unrighteousness that he's promoting.

And so abstaining from sexual relations for prayer is a way of making war on Satan. But then on the other hand, Paul says the married couple should come back together and continue to have sexual relations so that Satan may not tempt you, which means that the regular relations in marriage is a weapon against Satanic triumphs.

So abstaining from sexual relations for prayer is a weapon against Satan, and carrying on regular sexual relations is a weapon against Satan, and that's the paradox. And I think this is really important to see because it means that in God's design of the world and of human life, his pattern for ordinary things like sleeping, exercising, eating, sexual relations in marriage, all have their place in maintaining appropriate spiritual equilibrium that keep us from being knocked off balance by Satan.

For example, a sleepless person is more vulnerable to the Satanic attack of depression and impatience. A person who goes for a long time without food may be vulnerable to the temptations of gorging or stealing or irritability. In the ordinary course of life, God's design for the human body has spiritual implications as well as physical ones, which means that the first thing to say about our sex lives is not that it interferes with our prayer lives, but that it may provide protection from Satanic attack against our prayer lives.

A satisfied sexual pattern in marriage may free the mind for prayer and triumph over temptations to adultery or other kinds of sexual sin. And of course, I should say in passing, he didn't ask this, that God has other strategies of purity and glorifying him for people with unsatisfactory sexual lives in marriage.

We got a question, I know, in this recent batch from a man who said, "We haven't had sex for five years." Well, that God has a special grace for, and single people who must read this text and say, "Well, that's not helpful. A regular pattern of sexual relations protect you from the devil, I'd like that." Well, God has other glorious gifts for people who don't have this particular gift.

So what about Matt's question? His question was, "My question is, how do our sex lives interfere with our prayer lives?" And you can see that that's not the way I would ask the question, but it is an understandable way of putting the question since Paul says, "Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer." So I think Matt is on the right track in suggesting that Paul sees this as a kind of fasting, not from food, but from the ordinary pleasures of sex.

And the point of fasting is to say in a more intensified way with our bodies, that we as a couple, a married couple, are deeply earnest in what we are seeking God for in our prayer. In essence, we're saying, we abstain from sexual pleasures of sex for a season in order to pray and to show with our body's denial how desperate we are for an answer to this prayer.

I think that's where Matt was going in his suggested solution, and I think he's right. Or there's another take on it. The abstinence may be less planned than that, and simply a response to some terrible news that we get. For example, you and your spouse may be planning a special evening that might climax in sexual relations, and you're looking forward to it, and you get a phone call about the injury of your child in another state, say a college student, or some deep marital difficulty in some friend.

You get a call, a desperate call, and you just don't have the emotional and physical wherewithal to pursue intimacy that night. You just give yourself to prayer for your child or for your friend. Either way, planned or unplanned, the point is not that sex is evil or that it is a hindrance to the ordinary life of prayer.

The point is that every legitimate pleasure we enjoy may be given up for a season to underline our intensity of desire for answered prayer or to show our emotional empathy for someone who is suffering. - Yeah, interesting paradox and very helpful. Thank you, Pastor John, and thanks for the question, Matt.

Of course, for all of you who are listening, thank you for listening to the podcast we publish three times a week, and you can subscribe to our audio feeds to keep up with what we're talking about, and you can search our episode archive and even reach us by email with a question you may have about how a particular passage relates to everyday life and marriage.

You can do all of that through our online home at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn. Tomorrow we hear from an older believer who trusts in Christ, but whose life feels entirely pointless at this stage of his life. So what word does Pastor John have to a man who feels like he's just passing time in this life?

Well, that's what we're gonna talk about next. I'm your host, Tony Renke. Thanks for listening to the podcast. I know there's a lot of regular listeners out there listening in. Thank you for joining us. We'll see you all on Wednesday. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)