The Bible does not talk about living together as such, but it reserves sex for marriage, a covenant made before God and other people. Scripture prescribes no particular ceremony, and churches differ on legal unions without a wedding; what they share is that marriage is a commitment made openly, not just a shared address.
Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.
The “bed undefiled” belongs to marriage, and the same sentence warns that God will judge sexual immorality outside it. The KJV’s “whoremongers” renders a Greek word for anyone who lives in sexual sin, not only those involved in prostitution.
Read the chapter →Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body. What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.
The command is short: “Flee fornication”. The reason is not contempt for the body but the opposite — the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, bought with a price, and it belongs to God.
Read the chapter →For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication: That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour; Not in the lust of concupiscence, even as the Gentiles which know not God:
Anyone asking what God’s will is finds a direct answer here: “your sanctification”, which includes abstaining from fornication and living with desire in holiness and honor.
Read the chapter →Jesus saith unto her, Go, call thy husband, and come hither. The woman answered and said, I have no husband. Jesus said unto her, Thou hast well said, I have no husband: For thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband: in that saidst thou truly.
Jesus distinguishes living with someone from being married: “he whom thou now hast is not thy husband”. And he does it without shaming her — she is the one he offers living water, and the one who brings her whole town to him (John 4:39).
Read the chapter →I say therefore to the unmarried and widows, It is good for them if they abide even as I. But if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn.
For desire that cannot be contained, the way out Paul points to is marriage: “it is better to marry than to burn”. For a couple already living together, the biblical path is not shame but making the commitment.
Read the chapter →Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
The definition of marriage that Jesus repeats (Matthew 19:5): leave father and mother, cleave to your spouse and become one flesh. Leaving your parents’ home is a public act that changes the family in everyone’s eyes, and the union of bodies comes within that covenant.
Read the chapter →Yet ye say, Wherefore? Because the LORD hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously: yet is she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant.
For the Bible, marriage is a covenant: the wife is “the wife of thy covenant”, and the Lord himself is witness. Scripture prescribes no religious ceremony — marriages were sealed by families, with a feast (Genesis 29:22; John 2:1) — but there is always a public commitment, with witnesses.
Read the chapter →Christian churches, by and large, teach that sex belongs within marriage; the difference lies in what counts as marriage. The Catholic Church asks Catholics to marry in the Church, and a civil-only or common-law union is not, for it, the sacrament. Many evangelical churches ask a couple already living together to marry legally before baptism or membership; some accept a legally registered union as a sufficient public commitment and then offer a blessing in church. For couples already living together, often with children, the path churches offer is not shame: it is talking with a pastor or priest and making the commitment.
In the Antioquia app, a daily devotional brings the Word into your routine, and every verse opens a study of the words in Hebrew and Greek.
The whole Bible with Strong's, offline and ad-free
Get the app