There is a great deal of safety buying into simple statements about complex issues. Rather than make things messy and look into how things might work in certain scenarios it can be easier and more simple to just refer to a familiar catchphrase or phrase that has been recited ad nauseaum.
For example, if you recite the Ten Commandments they are relatively simple instructions for people to follow … until you get to the nitty gritty of its application. Thou shalt not kill. Simple … until you then consider military warfare, self-defence, etc. Thou shalt not bear false witness. Simple … until you consider whether you should tell the truth if it puts other people’s lives in mortal danger. You can go through those Ten Commandments and what is straight forward and simple in black and white gets all complicated in daily application. Just to cap it off, the top three talk about faith-fidelity in exclusive monotheistic worship but face it the daily challenge we have is not to worship ourselves.
Anyway, as I read this report on the cost of free sex and I was thinking about sex in the light of some what I’ve been taught about sex by brothers and sisters in Christ as well as institutional instructions on it. Now before you go clamouring for your pastor telling him that Christopher has gone and undermined the blessed doctrine on which our church has thrived, that is not my intention at all. Yet look at some of the great men in scripture, especially in the Old Testament and consider their sexual habits. How many wives did Abraham, Moses, David and Solomon have in total? Here I was thinking that this marriage business was meant to be with one for life. Yet one of these men is hailed as after God’s own heart a commendation that you don’t hear about another figure in scripture.
Look at Jesus’ lineage. Note the sexual dysfunction there whether it’s with ‘harlots’ or men who evidently had issues with the call to exclusive monogamous relationships.
What’s my point? This sex business is not something to be addressed just with one-liners to be remembered and recited. If there’s one thing that scripture teaches even in the early church is that sex can be such an overwhelmingly alluring factor that if not treated as God desired it can lead to all sorts of disturbing scenarios that some will even accept as normal – in the church! (For example in the early chapters of Revelations doesn’t Jesus have a problem with churches for doctrines and lifestyles sexually deviant in nature? Maybe it’s just me reading it wrong.)
It’s nothing to be prudish about, neither is it something to sensationalise and glamourise. I’ve chuckled at our efforts to make glamourous something that is patently already so enrapturing. I know it’s a sin to seen to repress the true nature of this gift of God of expressed intimacy. I also know it’s a sin to exploit, pervert and distort this gift so that all intimacy is lost and replaced by cheap thrills. Those are not lessons I’ve needed to get from modern society. Those are lessons that are told by God in His Word whether in allegory and analogy through His prophets discussing the faithlessness of Israel or in the real life episodes of some the heroes of faith.
For those struggling in this area for the myriad of reasons that should act as something of a consolation to know that it is not unique to you and it’s not something new. It should also act as a consolation to realise that God knowing this has already made a way of escape, which is the same route that He makes to escape any sin that would ensnare us. That route is Jesus.
That route is knowing Him intimately and understanding what He has to say about knowing others in physical intimacy. It doesn’t have to be presented in glitzy, fast-paced and action-packed exposure style to tickle our ears. It can be presented in its richness and depth so that when we approach the subject we realise it’s another way of approaching God Himself and so it can be done with reverent wonder and awe at the genius of God to have created and given this gift and that when we understand how and why He gave it, we can tap into that and enjoy the lasting riches to be discovered there.
That means taking a step back from simplistic doctrines as though it can be treated simplistically and embracing it for all its worth.
For His Name’s Sake
Shalom
dmcd
Life With CD 