10 Forbidden Sexual Acts According to Mark Driscoll – My Biblical Response
A Berean response to Mark Driscoll’s list of forbidden sexual acts. The top three — fornication, adultery, polygamy — collapse once you trade Webster’s definitions for the Torah’s. Get the definition of adultery right and the rest of Scripture falls into place.
Pastor Mark Driscoll lists ten sexual acts he says the Bible forbids, but he never defines the first three biblically. This response tests his top three — fornication, adultery, and polygamy — plus his treatment of porneia and lust, against the Torah rather than the modern dictionary. The thesis is simple: get the definition of adultery right and the rest of Scripture stops contradicting itself; get it wrong and you teach things that actually multiply immorality.
The argument answered
- Driscoll calls fornication “sex before marriage” without ever defining what makes a marriage — father giving daughter, transfer of headship, and consummation as the one-flesh union.
- His pastoral remedy for an unmarried couple is “break up,” when the Torah’s remedy is the man paying the dowry and taking her as wife, with the father’s right to refuse.
- The Webster definition of adultery (a married person sleeping with anyone else) is contrasted with the biblical one: a man lying with another man’s wife or betrothed woman.
- Why the modern definition forces contradictions — it would make Abraham an adulterer with Hagar and turn Exodus 21:10 into a command to keep adultery going.
- Polygyny is shown to be the only biblically regulated form of plural marriage, never named sin, while polyandry is adultery.
- Matthew 5:28 on lust is read in its actual context — coveting a married or betrothed woman — not mere sexual desire, and the harm done by telling young men they are already adulterers.
Scriptures examined
- Deuteronomy 22:23–24, 21:13–21 — the betrothed woman and the slandered-bride cases
- Exodus 22:16 — the seduced unbetrothed virgin and the dowry remedy
- 1 Corinthians 6:16, 18; 1 Corinthians 7:2 — one-flesh union and avoiding immorality
- Genesis 2:24; Matthew 19:4–6 — one flesh and the divorce question
- Exodus 21:10 — the man who takes another woman must not reduce food, clothing, or conjugal rights
- Leviticus 20:10 — the death penalty defining adultery
- Matthew 5:27–28; Job 31:1 — lust, coveting, and the covenant with the eyes
- 1 Timothy 3:2, 12 — “husband of one wife” and what the Greek does and does not require
Why it matters
Sexual ethics built on tradition rather than the law leave no real accountability and quietly redefine adultery into meaninglessness. Rightly dividing these terms restores both the weight and the freedom Scripture actually assigns to them.
