Dennis Prager recently stated that “Men want variety. … If pornography is a substitute for one’s wife, it’s awful. If it’s a substitute for adultery, it’s not awful”. He made this statement as part of a round table discussion on the book of Exodus that was conducted by Jordan Peterson on Daily Wire.
He also went on to say that Judaism does not have the same condemnation of men lusting after women that Christ gave in Matthew 5:27-28:
“Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.”
Some of the Christians on the panel rebutted Prager by saying that the 10th commandment found in Exodus 20:17 does in fact condemn lust:
“Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s.”
Romans 7:7 actually explicitly defines lust by pointing to the 10th commandment:
“What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.”
So, the Christian commentators were absolutely right that the 10th commandment does condemn lust.
Prager Was Actually Closest to The Biblical Definition of Lust
For all his denial that the Old Testament does not condemn lust, Prager actually came very close to stating what lust actually is when he defined covetousness in the 10th commandment.
Covetousness is not merely finding a woman sexually desirable, but rather it is wanting to have unlawful sex with her.
How does unlawful sex occur? Unlawful sex occurs when a man entices a woman he is not married to into having sex with him or he allows a woman to whom he is not married to entice him into having sex or the he forces sex upon a woman he is not married to (i.e., rapes her).
The point being is that covetousness (which is lust according to Romans 7:7) is the desire to unlawfully use or possess someone or something whether sexually or otherwise. Covetousness is not mere desire, but it is the desire for that which is unlawful.
The normal response to this is “If you are not married to someone then it is unlawful to have sex with them, so if you are thinking about what it would be like to have sex with them, you are thinking of an unlawful act”.
But this is untrue.
A person can imagine sex with a person within the context of them being married to that person and not in the context of them having illicit sex outside of marriage. In fact, if couples are being honest, every couple that has courted or dated has imagined what it would be like to have sex with one another before marriage. This is natural and by the design of God.
Let me demonstrate the absurdity of church teaching (as opposed to biblical teaching) on the subject of lust.
A young man has a dream about having sex with a young woman he knows from school and he has an ejaculation in his sleep – this is otherwise known as a “wet dream”. So, he goes to his Pastor and confesses his wet dream asking what he should do and the Pastor says “There is no sin, you could not help what you dreamed about”.
But if that young man came to that same Pastor later and told him he continued to think about his dream while awake and masturbated to those thoughts while awake – that Pastor would say he committed the sin of lust.
Such an assertion is utterly ridiculous and so is the historic teaching of the post apostolic church on this subject of lust.
Now if that young man came to his Pastor stating that he was finding himself thinking about how to entice that young woman into having sex with him outside of marriage – then that would indeed be lust and he should ask God for forgiveness and turn from those thoughts.
Both Sides Are Wrong About the Sin of Adultery
Both Prager and the Christians on the Daily Wire Panel agreed that a married man who has sex with a woman other than his wife commits the sin of adultery. But they were all wrong about that as well.
Biblically speaking there is only one way a man can commit adultery against his wife and that is found in Matthew 19:9 where Christ said “And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery…”
A man can only commit adultery against his wife by divorcing her for reasons God does not allow.
God rewarded Leah for giving her husband another wife in Genesis 30:18, and he allowed men to have more than one wife as long as they still provided food, clothing and sex to their first wife in Exodus 21:10-11.
David actually had 7 to 8 wives at the time he committed adultery with Bathsheba. So, which of his wives did he commit adultery against when he sinned with Bathsheba? The answer is none. His sin was not against his wives – but against Bathsheba’s husband Uriah and against God.
In 2 Samuel 12:8, God actually told David through the Prophet Nathan that he had given him his many wives and would have given him more if he had asked. The issue was NOT him having sex with more than one woman as long he was married to those women. The issue was that he took another man’s wife while that man still lived and then had him murdered to cover it up.
So why does Matthew 19:9 have the phrase “and shall marry another” if polygamy is ok? The answer is that Jewish men were often seeking to marry non-Jewish heathen women, such as Roman or Greek women, who did not accept polygamy. They would not accept being a second wife. They wanted to be the ONLY wife.
When Christ spoke of a man committing adultery in his heart in Matthew 5:28, he was talking about a man who was entertaining thoughts and desires of enticing another man’s wife into having sex with him – that would indeed make him an adulterer.
So here are three ways a man can become an adulterer:
By having sex with another mans wife.
By wrongly divorcing his wife.
By marrying a wrongly divorced woman.
So, is it ok for a married man to have sex with other women as long as they are single? No! But it’s not called adultery in that case – it is called whoremongering. A single or married man who has sex with single women is a whoremonger. A single or married man who sex with married women is an adulterer.
The Bible speaks to this in Hebrews 13:4:
“Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.”
Conclusion
Dennis Prager was indeed half wrong in that he asserted that the Old Testament does not condemn lust when it clearly does in the 10th commandment. But he was right that covetousness (which is lust) is not mere sexual desire.
Therefore, Prager was mostly right in his statement that “Men want variety. … If pornography is a substitute for one’s wife, it’s awful. If it’s a substitute for adultery, it’s not awful”. He was wrong of course in calling it “a substitute for adultery”, technically it is a substitute for whoremongering.
But Prager is absolutely right that if pornography keeps men from actual whoremongering and does not diminish their desire for their wives then there should be no issue with men using it in moderation as long as it does not diminish their desire for other things (their work, their hobbies and other relationships).
Now when I say this, just as Prager did – many people reading this will say “what about all the studies that show how bad porn is for men and what about this and that…”
I have actually written several articles on my “Porn Ed” page that answer most all the questions people have come up with over the years on this subject. Go there and read those articles and if you find a question that I did not answer please let me know.
Porn To The Glory of God 