What is the meaning of sex? - Bible’s teaching on sex - Paperback

The World Has Plenty to Say About Sex. Scripture Has More.

We live in a culture that talks about sex constantly — in advertisements, in entertainment, in politics, in education, in the courts. And yet for all its obsession with the subject, the culture has almost no answer to the most fundamental question: What is sex actually for?

Without a coherent answer to that question, confusion about everything that follows — marriage, gender, homosexuality, singleness, family — is inevitable. And the confusion is very much in evidence.

What Is the Meaning of Sex? is Denny Burk’s clear, careful, and comprehensive biblical answer to that foundational question — and to the host of questions that flow from it.

About This Book

Published by Crossway, What Is the Meaning of Sex? is a primer in Christian sexual ethics for our cultural moment. Denny Burk — Professor of Biblical Studies at Boyce College and President of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood — takes readers through the Bible’s teaching on sexuality with the rigour of a scholar and the accessibility of a pastor.

The book is structured around a single organising framework drawn from Scripture: the meaning of sex is to glorify God. From that foundation, Burk works through the full range of issues that a comprehensive treatment demands — marriage, conjugal union, family planning, gender, homosexuality, and singleness — examining each topic in its biblical context and responding to the contemporary challenges and objections that each one raises.

This is not a polemical book written to score points. It is a serious, pastorally concerned attempt to give Christians a coherent, God-centred framework for understanding human sexuality — one that equips them not only to hold biblical convictions themselves, but to engage the culture around them with clarity, compassion, and confidence.

Each chapter is framed around the call to glorify God in a specific area of sexuality and embodied life — a structure that keeps the vision positive and doxological even as it addresses genuinely contested and difficult questions.

What the Book Covers — Key Themes

Glorify God with Your Body Burk begins with the body itself — arguing from Scripture that the physical, sexed body is not incidental to Christian identity but is the very place where God is to be glorified. This foundational chapter sets the tone for everything that follows: a vision of sexuality rooted in creation, not merely in ethics.

Glorify God with Your Hermeneutic Before addressing specific issues, Burk takes a chapter to explain his approach to Scripture — why he takes the Bible’s teaching as authoritative and how he reads it. This chapter is especially helpful for readers who want to understand the method behind the conclusions.

Glorify God with Your Marriage Marriage as the exclusive, lifelong covenant between one man and one woman is examined in its biblical foundation and its cultural context. Burk traces the meaning of marriage from Genesis through to Christ and the church, showing why the biblical vision is not an arbitrary rule but a reflection of something true about reality.

Glorify God with Your Conjugal Union The sexual union within marriage is examined with theological care — as something that consummates the marriage covenant, expresses love between spouses, and participates in the purposes of God.

Glorify God with Your Family Planning Birth control and family planning are addressed with nuance — engaging Catholic perspectives alongside evangelical ones, and working through the biblical principles that should guide Christian decision-making in this area.

Glorify God with Your Gender Burk examines what Scripture teaches about male and female, why gender distinctions are creational goods rather than social constructs, and how Christians should engage the growing confusion around gender identity in the surrounding culture.

Glorify God with Your Sexuality This is the book’s treatment of homosexuality — one of the most discussed chapters. Burk addresses the biblical texts with careful exegesis, engages the leading revisionist arguments honestly, and calls the church to hold the biblical position with both conviction and compassion.

Glorify God with Your Singleness The book closes with a chapter that is often among the most appreciated: a positive, gospel-centred vision of singleness as a legitimate, honourable, and gospel-displaying way of life — not a deficiency to be remedied but a calling to be received.

What Readers Will Learn

• What Scripture teaches about the fundamental meaning and purpose of human sexuality
• Why glorifying God is the organising framework for understanding every aspect of sexual ethics
• What the Bible says about marriage, conjugal union, family planning, gender, homosexuality, and singleness
• How to engage the leading contemporary arguments and objections with scriptural grounding and intellectual honesty
• Why biblical sexual ethics is a coherent, beautiful vision — not a list of arbitrary prohibitions
• How to hold these convictions with both theological confidence and pastoral compassion toward those who experience them as painful or costly
• How the gospel speaks to and transforms every area of sexual experience and identity

Who Should Read This Book

Christians wanting a comprehensive, reliable biblical guide to sexuality and gender who want something more thorough than a single article or sermon but more accessible than a technical academic work.

Pastors and ministry leaders in India facing questions about marriage, gender, and sexuality from their congregations, and who need a biblically grounded, theologically solid resource to inform their counselling and preaching.

Young adults and students navigating a culture saturated with competing narratives about sex, gender, and identity — who want a coherent Christian framework they can understand and defend.

Anyone wrestling with questions about homosexuality or gender identity — either personally or on behalf of someone they love — who wants to understand what the Bible actually teaches, presented with careful exegesis and pastoral warmth.

Theological students and seminary graduates wanting a primer that covers the breadth of Christian sexual ethics in a single, well-organised volume.

About the Author — Dr Denny Burk

Denny Burk holds a PhD from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and is Professor of Biblical Studies at Boyce College — the undergraduate college of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. He is President of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW) and serves as one of the preaching pastors at Kenwood Baptist Church in Louisville.

He is the author of several books including What Is the Meaning of Sex? (Crossway, 2013), Transforming Homosexuality (P&R, 2015), and Male and Female He Created Them (Christian Focus, 2023), as well as a commentary on the Pastoral Epistles for the ESV Expository Commentary series (Crossway, 2017). His scholarly articles have appeared in the Journal for the Study of the New Testament, Tyndale Bulletin, and the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society.

Burk writes and speaks extensively on issues of gender, sexuality, and biblical manhood and womanhood. He is one of the most trusted evangelical voices on these subjects — known for combining careful exegesis with clear, winsome communication.

What Others Have Said

“Sexual confusion is one of the hallmarks of our age. Denny Burk steps into the midst of this confusion with a book that is as rich in theological insight as it is relevant to the challenge and the controversies of our day. The church can only properly address this culture when our ministry is drawn from the deep well of sound doctrine. Denny Burk draws water from this well and serves it up for Christians to drink. His book is richly biblical and profoundly relevant.” — Heath Lambert, Associate Pastor, First Baptist Church of Jacksonville

“In a day of twisted thinking on marriage, gender, and sex, Dr Burk gives us scripturally grounded, biblically solid, scholarly, practical insights into the intimate moments of life that should bring glory to God.” — Mac Brunson, Senior Pastor, First Baptist Church Jacksonville