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Finnish scholar Erkki Koskenniemi looks at the family morals Paul encountered in his time. What can we learn from the lives of the first Christians, who lived as a minority, much like traditional Christians in the secular world today?
Living according to a Christian sexual ethic today feels like an uphill battle, but this battle is not new. We first observe it in the Old and New Testaments, where we meet people who struggled to follow God’s desire for love, marriage and family—swimming against the current of the culture. Today, Christians do the same, living as a minority in a world of extramarital sex, exploitation, abortion, frivolous divorce, and other behavior that significantly falls short of God’s glory.
In this book, Finnish scholar Erkki Koskenniemi posits that traditional Greco-Roman sexual ethics were far from what we consider “traditional” today—rather, they more closely resemble the worldly and debaucherous behavior we see in modern culture. Knowing that “there is nothing new under the sun” (Ephesians 1:9), Koskenniemi encourages Christians to live uprightly, honoring the wonderful gifts of love, marriage, and family our loving and forgiving Creator has given us—just as the first Christians sought to do.
Christian sexual ethics still means light in the darkness. Now we need to bring this light to people so it can lighten their own hearts and environments.
”It is tempting to think that our present struggles on the subjects of sexuality, marriage, children, divorce, and other such related issues, is charting new territory for Christians in society. Errki Koskenniemi provides us with substantial evidence that the early Church, following their Jewish heritage, confronted similar challenges. What they confronted, and how they dealt with it, as spelled out in this book, provides much needed help as we stand, and live, in the confession of God’s Word.”
—Pastor David Shadday, St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, Indianapolis, IN and author of Reclaiming the Heart of Marriage
