This Is a Sensitive Subject

There’s something that I want to talk about, and, yet, I don’t want to talk about. It’s kind of a sensitive subject, and some people aren’t comfortable with it (including me), but it is something that should be addressed, so I will try to address it as discreetly (if somewhat indirectly) as I can. The expression is, everybody does it, but nobody ever talks about it. Well, some people do talk about it. Most of the people that do talk about it, probably shouldn’t be talking about it. Most of what I’ve heard about it ultimately turned out to be wrong. Some people get it right, but that seems to be the exception, rather than the rule. When Christians talk about it, and get it wrong, they usually refer to Onan and Tamar in Genesis 38. Basically, what happened was this: Tamar was an attractive young woman, and she married Er, who was the firstborn son of Judah, but Er was a wicked man, and God slew him (the Bible doesn’t tell us what Er did that was so terrible, it isn’t important to this discussion, anyway). Judah’s second son was Onan, and, apparently Onan wasn’t a particularly righteous individual, either. Tradition had it that if a widow is left childless, her late husband’s nearest male relative was supposed to ensure that she had children, to be the heirs of her late husband. Now Onan was in an interesting position. He had been one of three sons, but now he was one of two sons. As it stood, if his father died, Onan only had to split the inheritance with one other brother (Shelah, Judah’s youngest son). If Tamar had a son, then her son was entitled to an equal share, half of which would come from Onan’s inheritance, and the other half from Shelah’s. I would assume that Onan could have simply refused to have anything to do with her, but he didn’t (that might have gotten him into trouble, too, but I don’t think nearly as much trouble). Quite frankly, if you read the Scriptures, what Onan did was pretty underhanded. He took his pleasure with Tamar, but did it in such a way as to be as sure as he could that she wouldn’t have children. God killed Onan, too. Suddenly, Shelah was an only child, which created an awkward situation for Judah, but that’s a whole different story. Now, some have said that what Onan did was, basically, that thing that everybody does, but nobody ever talks about (my apologies for the obtuse reference, but, as I said, I don’t want to talk about it). Onan went through the motions of what he was supposed to do, but in such a way as to defeat the purpose for which he was allowed to do it in the first place. It would be like if I loaned you my car to drive to work, and you decided, since you had my car, to call in sick, and drive my car to the mall, instead. There’s nothing wrong with going to the mall, but if you told me you needed to borrow my car to get to work, and then didn’t go to work, you have no right to drive my car. Does that make sense? Some have even used Onan and Tamar as an example to try to prove that birth control is wrong. I don’t see that in the Scriptures. Quite frankly, if God wants you to have children, he can find a way around whatever form of birth control you happen to be using. Onan’s problem was the conscious decision to do what he wanted to do, while trying to make sure that what was supposed to be the intended result didn’t happen. He got greedy; he wanted to have Tamar and keep his inheritance, too. It was an act of open rebellion; that’s what got Onan killed. Incidentally, Tamar ended up being a little sneaky, too, but, again, that’s another story, but King David’s lineage (and Jesus’) is traced through Tamar’s son, Pharez, which, if nothing else, should tell us that she was never the problem. By the way, if you have read all of this, and are still wondering what in the heck this is about; don’t worry about it, I suspect that you really don’t need to know.