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Adultery


It will save you also from the adulteress, from the wayward wife with her seductive words, who has left the partner of her youth and ignored the covenant she made before God. For her house leads down to death and her paths to the spirits of the dead. None who go to her return or attain the paths of life. (Proverbs 2:16-19) 

          It’s been said that rape isn’t about sex. I’m not one hundred percent sure that’s one hundred percent correct but it is enough correct that as I read today’s passage, it came to me as a pattern. Rape isn’t about sex. Neither is adultery. Adultery is neither about sex nor about love, especially the sort of adultery described in the passage. It’s about disloyalty. It’s about exercising the power to hurt someone without touching them. 
          Adultery is treason, just like every other sin, but perhaps more so or more obviously so. Most thieves don’t promise the people they rob that they will be loyal and true to them. A lie told when one had taken a vow to be honest is considered worse than a lie told when no such vow was taken. Adultery breaks a most sacred trust. It breaks a most binding vow. 
          I think this is one of the reasons Solomon spends a lot of time talking about adultery in Proverbs. His family knew about adultery. As a result of his parents’ adultery, his elder brother died. Solomon may not have committed adultery with another woman in a legal sense, but he joined his wives in the worship of other gods, thereby committing adultery against God. 
          Scripture describes marriage as two becoming one. Adultery rips the one into two again. It performs an amputation. Most of the time, a limb that is amputated dies. If the so-called surgeon who performs the amputation isn’t skilled and careful, both the body and the amputated limb die. What can you truly say to the person with whom you commit adultery – you want to attach  your corpse to them, even temporarily? 
          I have to agree with Solomon – we need to stay away from adulterers and adulteresses. We need to avoid them like the plague, because they carry spiritual disease, if nothing else. It just makes sense. In other words, it’s wise.

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