My spouse is cheating, and I’m a Christian, but I’m so upset I don’t know what God wants me to do! I’m the spouse who cheated and I am a Christian, but I ended the affair and confessed to God–do I have to tell my spouse?
In this week’s episode, we begin our new our series “Biblical Precepts on Adultery” as we begin a summer study of what the Bible has to say about infidelity and how God would have us act.

Today we discuss how to study the Bible, the definition of adultery, and what the series will include.  After all, how can you expect to have a godly marriage or know what God thinks of adultery if you never study what HE says about it?
1. How I study the Bible:

* First, I OPEN my mind to discover God’s thoughts and align my mind with HIS.  I don’t decide what I believe and then look for verses to support my thoughts.
* I use Biblehub.com for interlinear Hebrew or Greek to get as close to the original as I possibly can.
* I use BibleStudyTools.com for tools like Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance to investigate each word and the concept of each word
* I use BibleGateway.com and look at various translations

2. Biblically define adultery

* Adultery is a verb–an action–just like “Love.”  It’s not a feeling or “something that just happens” but rather an action that you do.
* Adultery is between married people.  When a couple is dating, engaged or living together, there can be an expectation of exclusivity, and there can be a break of trust if there isn’t exclusivity, but it is not adultery.  In the Bible adultery is unfaithfulness of a husband or wife to their spouse.
* Hebrew word Naw-af    (read left to right)
* Greek word Moy-khyoo-o    (read right to left)  

* Male–unlawful intercourse with wife of another
* Female–to be debauched (debauched is an old word that means “destroying someone’s morals”); women that break wedlock

* Both have the connotation of “those who, via solicitation, are drawn away into idolatry.” Here on this earth, this means idolizing sexual pleasure or idolizing your own ego!
* In marriage, adultery is an image of one who is faithless toward God.

3. The series:
Today: Introduction
July 5th:  Old Testament precepts about adultery
July 12th New Testament precepts about adultery
July 19th Notable adultery in the Bible and what we can learn
July 26th Q&A – Typical Questions/Biblical Answers!
[audio: https://s3.amazonaws.com/affaircare-podcast/2016/Biblical+Precepts-Adultery.mp3]
.