Terms often used to describe it include “sleeping around,” “stepping out,” “an affair,” “a one-night stand,” “hooking up,” and “friends with benefits.” Some are more forthright, such as “cheating,” “infidelity,” “two-timing,” and “unfaithfulness.” All of these words and phrases serve to describe adultery, which Webster’s Dictionary defines as “voluntary sexual intercourse between a married man and someone other than his wife or between a married woman and someone other than her husband.”

According to our various forms of media and social networks, adultery is much more common than we would like to admit. Not a day seems to go by but that we are made aware of someone who has been unfaithful to a spouse. It affects politicians, millionaires, movie stars, co-workers, neighbors and even Christians we sit next to in worship. Damage from such infidelity is extensive, often destroying marriages and families, ultimately ending in divorce.

In the book of Proverbs, we find Solomon warning his son about the deadly consequences of immorality. First, he described the physical effects of adultery. “You will give your vigor to others and your years to the cruel one” (5:9). “And you groan at your final end, when your flesh and your body are consumed” (5:11). David’s guilt ridden conscience drained him of all energy (Psalm 32:3-4). Solomon indicated it could cost a person his life when an aggrieved spouse decides to take revenge. “Jealousy enrages a man, and he will not spare in the day of vengeance. He will not accept any ransom, nor will he be satisfied though you give many gifts” (6:34-35).

Secondly, Solomon revealed the financial ruin a person might experience because of infidelity to a spouse. “Strangers will be filled with your strength and your hard-earned goods will go to the house of an alien” (5:10). “For on account of a harlot one is reduced to a loaf of bread, and an adulteress hunts for the precious life” (6:26). “He who keeps company with harlots wastes his wealth” (29:3). It is difficult to imagine the money spent on food, gifts, and hotels to maintain adulterous affairs. Blackmail by scorned lovers who threaten to reveal the truth to innocent spouses and the financial outlay for lawyers, alimony and child support should it end in divorce only increase the debt load of such liaisons.

The destruction of one’s reputation is yet another consequence of adultery. Again it was Solomon who wrote, “I was almost in utter ruin in the midst of the assembly and congregation” (5:14). “Wounds and disgrace he will find, and his reproach will not be blotted out” (6:33). The good name which a person has spent a lifetime acquiring and protecting can be lost overnight.

Perhaps the harshest consequence of such unfaithfulness is the harm done to one’s family. Solomon asked, “Should your springs be dispersed abroad, streams of water in the streets?”, and then responded with, “Let them be yours alone and not for strangers with you” (5:16-17). Certainly, there will be the loss of trust by both children and spouse. Divorce will leave the guilty individual alone. Illegitimate children from the relationship will most likely be reared without a father and a mother in a godly home. Finally, there is the distinct possibility of infecting a person’s spouse with a sexually transmitted disease.

One fact cannot be ignored. At some point the sin will be found out. As Solomon challenged, “Can a man take fire in his bosom and his clothes not be burned? Or can a man walk on hot coals and his feet not be scorched? So is the one who goes in to his neighbor’s wife; whoever touches her will not go unpunished” (6:27-29).

So what is the answer? How are we to deal with the sin of adultery? Yes, God does regard it as a sin. “You shall not commit adultery” is number seven of the original ten commandments (Exodus 20:14; Deuteronomy 5:18). Twice, Jesus emphasized this prohibition of God (Matthew 5:27; 19:18) and Paul included it in his list before summing up with the second greatest commandment (Romans 13:9).

Barney Fife, the character played by Don Knots in the “The Andy Griffith Show” television series from 1960-1968 was known for saying, “You have to nip it, nip it in the bud.” In other words, stop it before it has a chance to start. Marriages will be strengthened and homes saved if we prevent adultery before it begins to spread its tentacles into our lives.

While adultery is often seen as the physical act between two individuals, it begins in the mind. Jesus said, “Everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:27). He recognized that adultery issues from the heart (Matthew 15:19). David’s adultery with Bathsheba began with a look, followed by the desire to have that which he saw (2 Samuel 11:2-5). Job recognized this tendency and “made a covenant” with his eyes not to “look lustfully at a girl” (Job 31:1, NIV84). Avoiding adultery begins in our hearts when we “make a covenant” to avoid allowing ourselves to look at a member of the opposite sex with lustful thoughts. Sometimes we must “bounce our eyes” by looking somewhere else when a person dressed in provocative clothing enters our line of sight. Changing television channels, avoiding sexually explicit movies and pornographic websites also aid in keeping our hearts from indulging in such sinful meditation. Such actions prevent the sinful desires from taking root in our hearts and also communicate to our spouse our commitment to them.

In their book Boundaries in Marriage, authors Henry Cloud and John Townsend write of “emotional adultery,” also called an “affair of the heart.”1 According to them, such affairs occur when we “use other things in life, whether or not they be relationships, to avoid your spouse.”2 Devotion to work or a hobby, even an addiction, becomes more important to us than the person to whom we are married. Our neglected spouse then becomes ripe for temptation. Paul’s warning in 1 Corinthians 7:1-5 falls within this context.

While the Christians in Corinth had come to believe that it was “good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman” (7:1, ESV), Paul informed them that “because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband” (7:2, ESV). He reasoned that both husband and wife should avoid any neglect of the other when it came to sexual intimacy. His grounds? A husband’s body no longer belongs to him alone, but to his wife. Likewise, a wife’s body no longer belongs to her alone but to her husband. Any abstention from sexual intimacy in marriage must be by mutual consent with an agreed time to come together again. Otherwise, they open ourselves up to Satan’s temptation. Simply put, if a husband or wife’s sexual needs are not being met by the spouse, Satan will seek to tempt that spouse with a person of the opposite sex who is willing to meet those needs.

In the same way, unfulfilled emotional needs also open the door to sexual temptation. A listening ear, soothing word, or consoling hand has the potential to result in a clandestine meeting, especially when one’s spouse is neglectful of such responses. It is important that we keep the home fires burning. As Solomon wrote, “Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth … be exhilarated always with her love” (Proverbs 5:18). We cultivate our marriages by communicating our love for one another through our words and actions.

Gary Chapman, in his book, The Five Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts, identifies five ways in which we do this. Some of our spouses consider themselves loved when we affirm them through our words. Others require that we spend quality time with them. Still others consider themselves loved by the gifts we give. Taking time to physically do something, an act of service, also demonstrates love. And finally, physical touch communicates love. Learning our spouse’s “love language” and acting upon it will go a long way toward strengthening our marriages and nipping adultery in the bud.

Our marriages are too precious to be neglected. They must be nourished each and every day. Only then can we avoid the minefields that Satan buries along the road of life. “To love, honor, and cherish” should be our mantra “till death do us part.”

By Jeff Keele

1 Henry Cloud and John Townsend, Boundaries in Marriage (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1999), 131.

2 ibid. p.132.