Agape and Porneia

Okay, so a few months back we had this long drawn out debate about divorce and remarriage here on the blog. I think it was a healthy debate, but I have no desire to do it all over again. However, I did have a thought tonight that I think might could be helpful. If you remember, one of the key disagreements in the whole debate (perhaps the key disagreement) was over the meaning of the word porneia in Matthew 5. With absolutely no offense intended towards anyone, it seemed that for some porneia could only mean "sexual immorality", and not "premarital sex". Despite our going back and forth time and again, I could not seem to convince the others that porneia can mean "sexual immorality" in general or "premarital sex" more specifically. In Matthew 5, I believe the more specific meaning is in view.

Then tonight I was thinking about the Greek word agape (because of a discussion in Carson's Exegetical Fallacies). My thoughts went kind of like this: If we were to ask most any pastor to talk about the meaning of the Greek word agape, his eyes would immediately light up and with a big grin he would talk about how this word refers to that divine, unconditional love of God that we experience in Christ. It is the best kind of love in the world. And, of course, he'd be right. Kind of.

See, there are places in Scripture where agape does not refer to divine, unconditional love. In 2nd Timothy 4:10, for example, Paul tells us that Demas forsook him because Demas loved [agapao] this present evil world. In the Septuagint, the word agape is used in reference to Amnon's incestuous rape of his half sister Tamer (See Carson, Exegetical Fallacies, p.31).

Agape has a general meaning: "love", which can have a variety of connotations. But agape can also be used (and often is) to refer to a particular, specific kind of love: "divine, unconditional love". Only the context tells us whether the general or specific meaning is intended.

This is exactly the case with porneia. Yes, it has a general meaning of "sexual immorality". But there is also sufficient evidence to show that it can have the specific meaning of "premarital sex" (a kind of sexual immorality). To argue that the word can only have the general meaning is to misunderstand how Greek words (or even English words) work.

Of course, this doesn't answer all the questions. One would need to prove that porneia can have this more specific meaning and then prove that the context points towards that meaning in Matthew 5. I won't rehash all of that -I think it has been sufficiently shown. I just thought the analogy with agape might be worth sharing.