"Who says?"
"It was adultery."
"What do you know of adultery?" He rubbed his lower lip over his upper, considering her carefully.
She looked around his small office. His books were there, and a file cabinet. The walls had a few pictures on them from church functions of the recent past. The walls were a soothing beige color. He had several different Bibles on one shelf, amongst many other books. Not finding anything particularly helpful to her fractured thoughts, she answered simply. "Sex between people married to other people."
Caleb was quiet a moment, letting her words hang in the office. "Basically, that is what we see in modern terms."
She looked at him questioningly.
"In the days before Jesus walked this planet, and in the days that He did, the Hebrews considered women to be property. They were given as property, traded from father to husband as property, sold as property and even beaten as property." He tilted his head. "Jesus came and addressed their culture as it pertained to His law. While His law was unchanging, the culture certainly changed. Are women of today considered property?"
"No, of course not—"
"Adultery was the theft of a man's wife from him. Rabbis have long said that if a man's wife is taken in sex from the husband without his consent, it is adultery. But if the husband loans his wife, it is not. It was the abuse of property without consent that constituted the adulterous theft of what was rightfully the husband's."
Dina thought she grasped that. "But today…"
"Today, without there being an issue of property…"
"You mean, God changed His mind when things changed?"
"No. He never has. The theft of property is still theft. But if you are no longer property, there is no longer condemnation. Consider adultery at the level which we understand it today. A married person has sex with someone not his or her spouse. Adultery, right?"
She nodded.
"Wrong. God applies His law equally to all – both men and women. So think about this: when the law was laid down, adultery only ever referred to a wife having sex outside of marriage. The husband could marry more than one wife, have concubines, and even use prostitutes."
Dina gaped. "But…"
"But?"
"That's sexually immoral and sexual immorality is prohibited—"
"Let's take a look at sexual immorality. What we translate as 'sexual immorality' in English comes from the Greek word porneia."
Dina recognized the word from Melissa. The woman had said she felt the pastor would talk about it.
"Porneia is detailed as the following…" He held up his hand and started raising fingers. "Adultery; the theft of a man's wife, sexually. Sex during menstruation - being ritually and symbolically unclean. Sexual idolatry – having sex with temple prostitutes for the purposes of worshiping false gods. And Pederasty. Pederasty included a small number of detailed sins being; sex between an old man and a young boy, effeminate male prostitution, and anal rape – such as a soldier capturing another and humiliating him using anal rape or such as the residents of Sodom who anally raped men as a form of dominance and humiliation."
"Sounds pretty immoral."
"It was. And still is. But understand this, there are no other details in the Old Testament dealing with any other kind of sex. The entirety of sexual immorality in the Bible deals with those four points."
"What about fornication? You missed that one."
He smiled. "I didn't, actually. Fornication is not what you read in Webster's dictionary. That is a modern definition, but not the original. Remember, God does not change. Our definitions might, but He doesn't."
She didn't know what to say. "Okay…?"
"Fornication is derived from the Latin word fornix, which meant an L-shaped building. In Corinth, the temples were L-shaped buildings. Sex with the priestesses for the purposes of worshiping the sex goddesses was called fornicatio. Paul, in the Corinthian passage most quoted about modern ideas of fornication – sex between unmarried people – was actually and specifically referring to sex for cultic purposes."
"Cultic purposes?"
Caleb smiled. "God is a jealous God. He is the only God and having sex to venerate some false god was adultery of the spirit – an idolatrous blasphemy."
"But…"
"Fornication is not sex between two unmarried people. It is sex with a temple prostitute for the purposes of worship."
"Why was it translated—"
"Man changes; God does not. Consider this. Real sex between two people is one of the deepest expressions of love there is. God tells us His greatest commandments are two. To love God with all your heart, mind, and soul. And to love one another. He did not say love one another but don't love too deep."
"Are you saying what happened yesterday—"
"I'm saying what happened yesterday was a mistake. But to God, there was no sin. Not unless you are owned by your husband as his property. In some places of the world, that is still the case. Does he own you as a piece of property, or are you his partner?"
"His partner."
"Then there was no sin."
"But he doesn't know." Dina twisted her fingers together.
"Then that is between you and him but not between you and God. Do you want him to know?"
"Well, yes. I don't want to keep secrets from him."
He smiled at her, a twinkle in his eye. "An admirable trait in marriage, and I support you for it. Would you like me to talk to him?"
Dina shook her head. "No. No… Well…"
"It's quite a lot to digest, is it not? This information and all of its ramifications sometimes take a very long time to understand. The Western mind does not easily grasp sex and marriage."
"But… but didn't God say marriage and thus sex was between one man and one woman?"
"Not necessarily, though many Christians claim it. They point to a verse or two and ignore others."
"Ignore?" She felt horrified that he would say such a thing. Christians accepted all scripture. Didn't they?
"Sure, think about the parable Jesus gave about being ready for the bridegroom and the virgins having their lamps filled with oil, waiting. Did not the husband go into the marriage chamber with five wives? Though the parable is also a symbol of salvation and judgment, why did God use that particular description? If we remove the old woman-as-property custom, Jesus might well have used five men going into the marriage chamber with one bride."
She coughed in indignation.
"See?" he said. "Your cultural upbringing is interfering with what is really in the scriptures."
"But we were taught—"
"And taught according to custom and tradition. 'We make void the Word of God with our traditions.'"
Dina's eyes were large. "Is that what that means?"
Caleb stood. "What else would God mean by it, but that man imposes his own ideas on God's will and thus perverts it. The Almighty blessed us with a brain; He did not forbid we use it."
~ ~ ~
Dina floated through the sermon and the rest of the day in a fuzzy envelope of uncertainty.
She had been raised… but weren't some Baptists raised to believe dancing was a sin? Even she knew it wasn't. But what if she had been raised, thinking something was right or wrong and what if she was certain of it but the reality did not match scriptures?
She knew fornication was wrong because she had been taught it. Was Caleb right about the meaning? She was determined to prove it to herself, later. She would search an interlinear version. She would check the root words. She would look up the history. By the end of the sermon, her jaw was set with a grim purpose. At stake was her trust of Caleb Mann or what she thought she knew as right and wrong. Either way, one of those trusts was going to suffer.
And it was the destruction of her own confidence in what she thought she knew that would open up to her the truth.
CHAPTER 7
Dina smiled at Sebastian. "Hello."
The butler had an easy smile for her. "
Dina. Come in."
She entered with a small amount of trepidation, but a large amount of confidence. She had studied and searched all week, finding only troubling doubts about what she had been taught. Indeed, Pastor Caleb Mann had been telling her the truth. Of all the Christian sites dealing with the topic they had discussed, those who viewed sex as sin were purposely ignoring the origins of the scripture and only taking the modern definitions. Some even claimed they did not care what the original terms meant. Fornication was sex between two unmarried people and they didn't care if it originally meant anything else. Those Christians actually held the dictionary with its modern definitions in higher esteem than the Bible and then they claimed to be holy and pious.
Sebastian pointed at her Mp3 player. "Therion again?"
She nodded.
"I bought it, on vacation. I especially like Son of the Sun."
Dina smiled wider. "That's a good one, alright."
He closed the door behind her. "I didn't think you could mix opera and metal and mythology all together and make music, but I was pleasantly wrong."
"I'm glad you like it."
He paused at the door to his office. "Melissa has something for you here." He winked at her.
"Oh?"
He handed her a small carry bag. "New uniforms."
"Oh my goodness. No way." She took the bag.
"It isn't required, you know."
Dina giggled. "Well, I'll try it on. I better get to cleaning."
~ ~ ~
Days turned into weeks and Dina and Josh continued going to Crown. She searched online, exhausting page after page of search results. She spent days at four different Christian forums and was banned from all four for asking her questions.
Me! Banned from a Christian site! The administrators of those sites had disposed of her like unwanted trash, hiding away from the rest of the community her concerns over the difference between the original message and its perversion through modern definitions.
Basically, it came down to a few other people subtly supporting her questions and then the vast majority shaking a finger at her and refusing to listen to what words meant when they were written. The loudest typed all in caps, just repeating over and over the modern dictionary definition of fornication and refusing to even acknowledge the word meant sex with temple prostitutes. They just didn't care and the admins came in and supported them, removing Dina as "disruptive to the community."
She even had one Christian forum member turn her questions into an argument on homosexuality. The poster hounded her with Leviticus which appeared on the surface to say homosexuality was bad – not that she cared, but she had been lured through her questions on sexual immorality into the argument with this hysterical poster. Then she received a private message from another member telling her to ignore the guy and that section of Leviticus dealt with ritual impurities. Common at the time of the Babylonian captivity was the practice of male priests dressing as women and prostituting themselves to the Hebrews for the purposes of worshiping the Babylonian gods. It was idolatrous behavior or gang rape that was condemned, not homosexuality or lesbianism.
Dina didn't care about the whole homosexual argument and was thankful to the man who had sent her the message. However, the argument did illustrate to her the level of willful ignorance and refusal to accept the entirety of the Bible and most especially the customs of the times to which much in it pertained.
Am I still a Christian? But I believe in Jesus. Other Christians have rejected me. What am I to God? To men? And which matters?
Josh frowned at her a lot.
She loved him so much, but he quite simply refused to listen to any of it. He knew what he thought he knew and shut down the discussion whenever she said anything that contradicted what he had learned in Sunday School.
She did not have any more meetings with Caleb, though they did share a few words after the services on occasion. The pastor was careful to phrase his questions so as not to alert or upset Josh.
"You were right, pastor," she said several times.
On one Sunday, Caleb glanced back and forth between her and Josh.
She shook her head.
His deep voice comforted her. "Well, I hope the two of you will be coming to the Thanksgiving event." He left other things unsaid.
Dina felt in those unspoken words an offer to counsel Josh. She wanted so desperately for her husband to see the truth. Wasn't the truth a necessary condition between one and God?
Josh said, "We usually spend Thanksgiving with my parents…"
Dina coughed. "They moved to Alaska. We're not going to Alaska for Thanksgiving." She turned to Caleb. "I'm sure we'll be there, pastor."
~ ~ ~
She prayed. For guidance, wisdom – for help in understanding and aiding Josh. She didn't feel as if he was defective or ill or unsaved, but rather that he felt comfortable believing what he believed, even if the Bible said something else. What would it take to get through to him? Every time she presented evidence and showed him original interlinear passages or the mistranslated words, he turned his head as if just hearing anything against his convictions was blasphemy.
Dina kept at it, though. She sat on the couch next to him. "Did you know that the same book in the Bible that says homosexuality is an abomination also says that wearing different fabrics is an abomination?"
"Huh?"
"Those poly-cotton t-shirts you wear are an abomination to God."
"What?"
"No kidding."
"Those laws don't mean anything."
"Including the one about homosexuality?" She arched an eyebrow at him.
"Well, no, that one counts."
"So you're going to pick and choose what counts as God's law and what doesn't?"
"I've never seen anything in the Bible about wearing t-shirts." He rolled his eyes.
"You mean, the church never ranted about them."
"No. I mean there's nothing in the Bible against t-shirts." He scowled at her.
"Surely, there is. Leviticus 19:19. No mixed fibers."
Later, he looked it up.
She didn't know what he thought, but the frown on his face was one of concentration. What was he thinking? How to get around it? How to ignore it? How to reject it?
If he had no answers, neither did she when it came to what her husband thought.
~ ~ ~
Dina had become used to the maid uniform. The first time she had tried it on, she felt ridiculous. But it wasn't a cheap costume; the Strauss' had purchased for her something durable and cotton from a uniform outlet. She had one maid's dress in black and gray that came down to her knees. She also had a black maid's tunic and two different length skirts – one that came to just above her knees and one that was a miniskirt.
She did not wear the miniskirt.
"Ah… Hi," she said.
Melissa and her husband Donald were in the main room, looking over everything as she put away the orbital.
Donald said, "Your work requires commendation. I daresay you do a better and faster job than Sebastian."
Melissa smiled at her. "I think we should talk about your employment here soon."
Dina felt fear. They're going to fire me? "I… Uh…"
Mr. Strauss frowned in mock anger. "Your work is too good. Can't have that."
Melissa giggled, low and throaty. "Girl, you are too scared of life."
I am not.
"We want to give you a raise… And perhaps talk of other employment."
"Oh…" Dina gulped. She felt as if she had dodged a bullet. Normally, she only saw Sebastian and talked to him. Melissa had been conspicuously rare over the last few months and seeing Donald was like seeing the tooth fairy.
Mr. Strauss took on a more serious tone. "We hope that any difficulty you had in the past has been resolved?"
Dina laughed in nervous disbelief. "Well, yes and no."
Melissa shared a look with her husband. Both of them pursed their lips. She said to Dina, "Pastor Mann h
asn't helped…?"
She jumped to defend him. "Oh, he has. He has. In fact, he showed me a lot of things that have made such a difference. Things I didn't know were there."
"But?" said Donald.
"My husband…"
Melissa said, "He still doesn't know?"
She shook her head.
Donald did not look happy. "Unresolved, that can only lead to trouble later on."
Melissa's look said she agreed.
Dina said, "I think Pastor Mann thinks the same."
Mr. Strauss stood up straighter, rocking a little on his feet. "I should say he does."
Melissa's voice was soothing, if warning. "We are not who we are to create strife and division. We would not come between you and your husband. We would nurture, not destroy."
Donald touched his wife's arm and gave her a look. He motioned with his head as if to leave to talk over something.
She found out on Sunday.
~ ~ ~
Dina stepped up into the doorway. "Hi."
Sebastian's smile was as entrancing as his cologne. "Good morning."
She moved past him into the side entry.
He shut the door and said, "I believe Mrs. Strauss would like a short meeting with you in my office."
"Oh? Okay." She followed him and his scent into his tidy little office.
He sat in his creaking chair and picked up the phone. He pushed a button, waited, then spoke. "Yes. Dina is here." He hung up. Looking to her, he said, "She'll be with us in a moment."
She folded her hands on her lap and tried not to look at the handsome butler. Her upbringing said it would be a sin, but thoughts ran through her mind contradicting what she had been taught. Was it a sin to find someone attractive?
Her eyes met his. He was leaning back in his chair, staring at her with a look of care and curiosity. Her heart began to thump and her throat went dry. A warmth began spreading in her that caused her to blush with embarrassment. She shifted in her chair.
He gave her a small, questioning smile but said nothing.
Love and Liberation: A Christian Wife's Journey Into Sexual Freedom Page 6