I remember the first time that I saw it. I was spending the night at a friend's house. His parents were asleep, and we were up late watching satellite tv--the old, huge satellite system that took up a substantial portion of your yard. With the old satellites you had to wait for them to search out new channels. My friend and I were hoping to find some cartoons, but we got more than we were hoping for. When the satellite finally found some new stations, we both saw it for the first time: porn. At the time we didn't know what to call it. I remember feeling confused and disturbed. We immediately changed the channel and pretended that we didn't see anything. But that image stuck with me.
I'm sure that many people can relate to this story. Maybe you came upon it accidentally as I did. Or maybe an older brother or friend showed it to you. Or maybe you searched it out. Maybe it disgusted you too. Yet, somewhere along the way, maybe confusion turned to curiosity. Maybe disgust turned to delight. Maybe that first view led you into a web of lust. You certainly would not the first person this happened to.
Sadly, so many men and women (both Christian and non-Christian) battle with addictions to pornography. The sin of lust has consummed so many. It can quickly become your god, your idol. This is exactly what our enemy, Satan, would want. He seeks to take what is good--the God-given gift of sex between husband and wife--and distort and twist it. He wants men and women to worship the gift instead of the Giver. But Satan is a liar and the father of lies (John 8:44).
Below, I've placed some links to a few free online resources (E-Books) that you can download and read. These two resources--one for single guys and one for married guys--are excellent. They are written by Tim Challies (www.challies.com). The table of contents contains these chapters:
Introduction
Pornifying the Marriage Bed
Breaking Free
A Theology of Sex
Self-Centered Sex
Detoxification
Freedom
Recommended Resources
In addition, these guides included some very helpful discussion/study questions at the end of each section
Sexual Detox - A Guide for the Single Guy
Sexual Detox - A Guide for the Married Guy
Last week, I posted a link to an article about a school that encouraged their fans to cheer for the other team. (Go here for that post.) This morning I came across another sports story dealing with a girls basketball team that beat the other team 100-0. In response to the victory, the board member of the winning school made the following comment: It is shameful and an embarrassment that this happened. This clearly does not reflect a Christlike and honorable approach to competition.
In contrast, the (now former) coach of the team made this comment: In response to the statement posted on The Covenant School Web site, I do not agree with the apology or the notion that the Covenant School girls basketball team should feel embarrassed or ashamed...We played the game as it was meant to be played. My values and my beliefs would not allow me to run up the score on any opponent, and it will not allow me to apologize for a wide-margin victory when my girls played with honor and integrity.
So, who is correct? Could a case be made for both sides? How would you handle this ethical dilemma? Or do you even see this as an ethical dilemma? Should they have passed the ball around instead of scoring ? Or were their actions in the game appropriate? How would you wisely respond to this situation? The comment section is open for your reply...
Unlike the televised coverage that have followed Obama so far (such as the closing of Guantanamo Bay), this happened without much attention. On Friday, Obama lifted a restriction off of government supported funding for groups that provide abortions. Plain and simple, this makes me sick to my stomach. As the President of Americans United for Life put it: "When we wake up every morning to a deepening financial crisis, it is an insult to the American people to bail out the abortion industry." I couldn't agree more.
In a recent CBMW blog post, "We Reject the Commands of Scripture" David Kotter cites a disturbing quote from Luke Timothy Johnson: I think it is important to state clearly that we do, in fact, reject the straightforward commands of scripture, and appeal instead to another authority when we declare that same-sex unions can be holy and good. And what exactly is that authority? We appeal explicitly to the weight of our own experience and the experience thousands of others have witnessed to, which tells us that to claim our own sexual orientation is in fact to accept the way in which God has created us.
To say that this quote is disturbing is really just the tip of the iceburg. After reading Dr. Johnson's full article I became even more saddened. Dr. Johnson is supposed to be training people for ministry work. Yet, he and the institution in which he teaches are undermining the Church that they should be serving.
In his chapter on "Abortion" in Evangelical Ethics, John Jefferson Davis writes the following: In the New Testament, the incarnation of Jesus Christ is a profound testimony to God's affirmation of the sanctity of prenatal life. In theory it might have been possible in the eternal plan of God for the Savior to come to earth as a grown man, but in the wisdom of God, Jesus Christ recapitulated the full span of human existence--from conception through death--in order to fulfill the purposes of God. The personal history of the Son of God on earth begins not when he was "born of the Virgin Mary," but when he was "conceived by the Holy Spirit." His human history, like ours, began at conception. His conception was, of course, a supernatural one, but the significant point is that God chose to begin the process of incarnation there, rather than at some other point, thus affirming the significance of that starting point for human life. As the writer of Hebrews says, he had to be "made like his brothers in every respect" (2:17), in order to be a merciful and sympathetic high priest on their behalf (p.136).
I remember the first time that I saw it. I was spending the night at a friend's house. His parents were asleep, and we were up late watching satellite tv--the old, huge satellite system that took up a substantial portion of your yard. With the old satellites you had to wait for them to search out new channels. My friend and I were hoping to find some cartoons, but we got more than we were hoping for. When the satellite finally found some new stations, we both saw it for the first time: porn. At the time we didn't know what to call it. I remember feeling confused and disturbed. We immediately changed the channel and pretended that we didn't see anything. But that image stuck with me.
