Do Only Single People Commit Fornication?

By Timothy Sparks
tdsparks77@yahoo.com
http://www.timothysparks.com

Some maintain that married people cannot commit fornication. Do you think that all the following passages are directed only to single individuals since πορνεία (porneia, fornication) is used?

“Therefore it is my judgment that we do not trouble those who are turning to God from among the Gentiles, but that we write to them that they abstain from things contaminated by idols and from fornication and from what is strangled and from blood” (Acts 15:19-20, NASB).

“For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these essentials: that you abstain from things sacrificed to idols and from blood and from things strangled and from fornication; if you keep yourselves free from such things, you will do well. Farewell” (Acts 15:28-29, NASB).

“But concerning the Gentiles who have believed, we wrote, having decided that they should abstain from meat sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from fornication” (Acts 21:25, NASB).

“Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats: but God shall bring to nought both it and them. But the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body” (1 Cor. 6:13, ASV).

“Shun fornication! Every sin that a person commits is outside the body; but the fornicator sins against the body itself” (1 Cor. 6:18, NRSV).

“lest, when I come again, my God will humble me among you, and I shall mourn for many who have sinned before and have not repented of the uncleanness, fornication, and lewdness which they have practiced” (2 Cor. 12:21, NKJV).

“For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from fornication; that each one of you know how to control your own body in holiness and honor, not with lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God” (1 Thess. 4:3-5, NRSV).

“But I have this against you: you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophet and is teaching and beguiling my servants to practice fornication and to eat food sacrificed to idols. I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her fornication. Beware, I am throwing her on a bed, and those who commit adultery with her I am throwing into great distress, unless they repent of her doings” (Rev. 2:20-22, NRSV).

“The rest of humankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands or give up worshiping demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood, which cannot see or hear or walk. And they did not repent of their murders or their sorceries or their fornication or their thefts” (Rev. 9:20-21, NRSV).

See also: Can Married People Commit Fornication?

(https://timothysparks.com/2018/11/08/can-married-people-commit-fornication)