Adultery sermon ideas
Adultery is, at minimum, unchastity within marriage, a violation of the marital vow of sexual exclusivity or fidelity. Broken relationships are unfortunately part of the human existence. As such, we are called to preach and pray about adultery.
What does the Bible say about adultery?
Throughout the Bible, there are definitions of adultery, commands against adultery, and commands about how to love others.
Commands about adultery
- Exodus 20:14, you shall not commit adultery
- Leviticus 20:10, punishment in the Old Testament for adultery
Other thoughts in scripture about adultery
- Proverbs 2:16-19, adultery is forsaking covenant
- Matthew 5:27-28, Jesus talks to the woman at the well about adultery
- Matthew 5:31-32, Jesus speaks about divorce and adultery
- John 8:4-11, Jesus refuses to condemn
- Romans 13:9, love your neighbor as yourself
- 1 Corinthians 7:4, authority over one another
- Ephesians 5:5, inheriting the kingdom of God
- Hebrews 13:4, marriage honored
Sermon ideas about adultery
Form of pollution
Theologically, adultery is a form of pollution or defilement. (Pollution, along with perversion and disintegration, are prime examples of corruption.) To pollute an entity is to introduce a foreign element into it, thereby weakening it. Idolatry pollutes our relationship to God and adultery our relationship to our spouse. The book of Hosea suggests strongly that idolatry and adultery are emblems of each other. Each introduces a rival into an exclusive relationship.
Form of injustice
1 Corinthians 7:4 states that married people have conjugal rights, suggesting that adultery, besides all else, is a form of injustice. Each partner has exclusive sexual rights to the other; adultery violates those rights.
Fantasizing
All sin is equally wrong, but not all sin is equally bad. Acts are either right or wrong, either consonant with God's will or not. But, according to both Protestant and Catholic confessions, among right acts some are better than others and among wrong acts some are worse than others. Following Jesus' teaching in Matthew 5:27-28, Christians believe that fantasizing about adultery is just as wrong as committing it and not a different offense in kind. But Christians also know that adultery in one's heart damages others less, at least for the short term, than does adultery in a motel room and may therefore rank as less serious on the badness spectrum.
"Readers of contemporary Bibles are often surprised to learn that the story of the woman taken in adultery was probably not placed within the Gospel of John until sometime after the Gospel was already circulating without it." Article about Scripture by Jennifer Knust from Bible Odyssey
"Regardless of the admonition to not let this specific sin reign over the mortal body and be its master, adultery and its cronies continue to be perhaps the most popular and the least resisted sins in our world." Sermon Preparation or Illustration by Victor Raj from Concordia Theology
"In his painting of the encounter of Christ and the woman taken in adultery, Tintoretto provides a literal depiction of the biblical account (in John 8: 1 -11)." Artwork by Jacopo Tintoretto from Web Gallery of Art
"Time and again, Jesus is pointing out the painful reality of broken relationships and the things that can undermine relationships." Scripture Meditation or Sermon by Randy Harris from Day 1