Tag Archives: sin

Celibacy Because Of The Fall Of Man

Posted on by
9

Today I want to talk about the second of the three groups of people that Jesus talks about in Matthew 19 who are unable to marry.  You can see the general overview from the initial post here.  But as a quick refresher, Jesus said that there were three ways that a person could end up a eunuch (unable to marry).  The first was that they were born that way (physically or mentally unable to marry).  The second was those that were made that way by man (which I am suggesting can include those that end up there because of the fall of man).  The third, which we will discussed in the previous post, are those that choose celibacy for the sake of the Kingdom.

Today I want to focus on the second group, those that because of the fall of man, because of sin, end up celibate.

Continue reading →

Is Sexual Desire A Sin

Posted on by
1

In my last post I posed the thought that sexual attraction and sexual desire are not the same thing.  I believe this it true in general by the way.  In other words attraction of any kind is not the same as desire of the same kind.

The question that follows though is this: Is sexual desire for someone other than your heterosexual spouse a sin?

Continue reading →

Attraction vs Sexual Desire

Posted on by
5

One of the problems in our theology of marriage and celibacy, as well as frankly most other topics, is that we often use the certain words interchangeably that don’t mean exactly the same thing.  This of course causes all sorts of confusion and it makes it really hard to have theological conversations of any kind let alone a debate.

Now part of this is due to the English language itself.  Now I’m fan of English, but let’s face it, some of our words cause problems.  Think of the word love.  I love my car, I love my dog, I love Mizzou, I love my wife, I love God.  Obviously I love all these things differently and yet I’m given only one word to use.

But a lot of our problem comes from lazy theology and/or lazy language use.  For example, while they are to varying degrees related, salvation, justification, and election are not theologically the same word, and yet we often treat them as if they were.

This is also true when it comes our theology in the contexts of marriage, celibacy  and sexual sin.  So today, I want to break down a couple of these words we use.  I’m not expecting everyone to agree with me, but we have to at least try to talk about it because if we don’t have any nuance of language then we can’t really have much of a conversation about any of this.

Continue reading →

You Are Not Just An Animal

Posted on by
5

It’s funny the things that you remember from college classes.  I remember one of my favorite classes was an introduction to philosophy.  I loved this class because the professor was very unbiased and we got to write some really cool papers.  (One of my papers was: Is the judaeo-Christian ethic sufficient for handling environmental issues.  The answer was of course yes – which I proved rather convincingly I might add).

One of the great moments of the class that has always stayed with me was a video in which a female pastor of some kind said, “The thing that separates humans from everyone else is our ability to sin.  Nothing else on earth can sin.”  That, friends will preach.

I bring that idea up today because I want to look at a couple of important things that we have sort of accidentally gotten backwards in the western church when we talk about singleness, marriage and sex.  That is, that you are just an animal instead of a person.

Continue reading →

It’s Time To “People Up”

Posted on by
5

I have a confession.  For a long time, I thought the way to fix things was simply fix the men.  In fact I remember a meeting where another guy and I were planning a men’s retreat.  We said basically that if we could just fix the men, then the rest would fall in line.

This is the general consensus of a lot of evangelical leaders today.  I’ve talked about this ad nauseam here.  I’ve talked about blaming men, the man problem, the idea that if only men would ask women out, and on and on.

While I think that there are a few people waking up to this complete over simplification of the problems in our culture, it’s still rampant.

Continue reading →

Sexual Sin Myths

Posted on by
8

Coming into adulthood in evangelical culture one of the constant messages was that sexual sin was different and more important than other sin.  Now of course the official line was that all sin was “equally” bad.  This is sort of true and sort of not true and therefore super confusing.

Let’s clear up a couple of things about sin to sort of set the table for this topic.

Continue reading →

Ahh The Man Problem

Posted on by
14

We have a man problem!  How many times have you heard that in the Church in the last 10 years?

I want to respond some more to a piece from the SBTS that quotes Al Mohler talking about this.  This isn’t personal by the way.  All Mohler is doing is putting words to what so many in the Church think about singleness and marriage.

As Mohler is discussing the “sin” of delaying marriage (what length of delay equals sin is unclear of course) he says,

“This is a problem shared by men and women.  But it is primarily of men.  We have established a boy culture in which boys are not growing up into men.

Guys, the reality is that God has given us a responsibility to lead, to take responsibility as a man, to be the man in every way before God that we are called to be . . . It means taking the leadership to find a godly wife and to marry her and to be faithful to her in every way and to grow up to be a man who is defined as a husband, and by Gods grace we pray eventually, as father.”

I just . . . I mean. . .

Continue reading →

A “Big” Christian Singles Problem We’re Ignoring

Posted on by
18

In the late 1960’s 60% of those 19-29 were married.  That number now is only 20%. That’s a whole different ballgame.  Half of America is unmarried.

There are a whole lot of reasons for this.  We’ve talked about it many times here in one way or another.  Lack of ability to interact with the opposite sex, fulfilling sexual desire outside of marriage, creating false spiritual platitudes, and over spiritualizing the whole thing, just to name a few.

But there is one thing that I haven’t talked about here.  And this is going to probably make some people uncomfortable and possibly even mad.  But to not talk about it at all, seems to me to be a cop out and if you read here at all, you know I’m not usually willing to do that.  So here goes.

I think one of the unnamed reasons we have less marriage comes from one of the sins and addictions that we don’t like to talk about in the Church.  That is our bad relationship with food and the sin of gluttony.

Continue reading →

Two Lies About Marriage You Don’t Have To Believe

Posted on by
2

A couple of years ago right after I got engaged I was at a retreat of sorts with a bunch of men.  One night we were on the back porch enjoying a beverage and a cigar when a gentlemen I knew started to talk to me about marriage.

Now as we who have been unmarried for any amount of time know, usually this sets off the “Crap, here comes the platitudes” warning sirens.  In this case I was pretty ready for that conversation but instead it went a different direction.  This guy and I know each other moderately well and he’s probably 15-20 years older than me.  He asked me if I was excited which I said that I was.

Then he did what almost no one does – he told me marriage was worth it.  He said that he and his wife have had their struggles (I knew this, which was why I was ready for the platitudes about marriage being hard, enjoying my singleness etc.).  But then he said basically this, “You know what though, I wouldn’t trade any of it.  Marriage is good.  I mean even after all these years, I go to bed and she’s there, next to me, that’s what its all about!”  Amen brother, Amen.

A lot of people, including – and maybe particularly – in the Christian community have sort of created a bunch of general statements about marriage that frankly are just sort of false. I think it happens for lots of reasons.  Part of it is an attempt to knock down the marriage idol. (One of the funny things is that you and I need to give up the marriage idol but the Church doesn’t have to apparently).  Also, just to be honest, what a lot of Christian married people remember about being single is being 23 and single – not being 33 and single.  I mean yeah, 23 was fun.  Not better, but way easier.

I’ve talked about some of the big falsehoods such as the Marriage is Hard Movement and how singles should take advantage of their singleness, do more ministry and focus on God. You can click the link and check those out.  Today I want to talk about two simple lies that if you are single, you can feel free to let go of.

First is the idea that marriage doesn’t really answer any of life’s questions.  I remember talking with friend who got married in her early 30s.  She told me of a conversation she had with her mom while she was engaged where she, trying to sound holy, said, “I know that it doesn’t change everything and that I still have a lot to work on.” Her mom responded, “Actually it changes a lot and it answers one of the biggest questions you’ve ever asked.”

While it is true that marriage doesn’t answer all of life’s questions or solve all of your problems, it does answer some big ones.  For example, “Will I get married?”  “Who will I marry?” Those are some pretty dang big questions that most people ask a lot.  They can dominate your thoughts.  “What will she/he be like?”  There are some bonus questions too.  Who will I live with next year?  Will I ever have sex?

The point is, marriage actually settles a lot – and that’s a good thing.

A second one that especially as a guy I heard all the time was, “Just because you get married doesn’t mean that you won’t look at other women.”  I bought into that one all the way up until I met my wife.

Here’s the scoop.  Might you notice an attractive lady that walks into the room?  Yes you are not now blind because you are married.  But you know what is awesome?  It doesn’t matter.  Know why? – You’re Married!  Do you know what the means?  No more having to size everyone you meet up to see if they might be someone you could pursue – or if they might like you.  No more, “Hey she’s cute – I wonder if she’s a Christian?”  No more trying to figure out if they are hot enough, fun enough, smart enough, Christian enough or any other enoughs.  It doesn’t matter.  At all.

After over 20 years of asking those questions I can honestly tell you that I’ve never once thought about it.  Now you say, “Justin you’re just in newlywed bliss and so on.”  Whatever.  Let me tell you, not having to deal with that is awesome.  The question of who I’m with has been answered.  Yes I could go out and screw that up – but that’s a different deal.  That’s called open rebellion, not looking for a mate.  Two different things.

The affair question is a separate one.  Sexual sin can still happen.  That has to do with sexual desire, temptation and how marriage plays into that.  That is a different blog post. But as someone who has spent too much time trying to determine if I could date this or that person, it is awesome to have that answered. I was constantly looking and sizing stuff up.  Then I met my wife, and that was that.  The decision has been made.  It’s totally different.  Don’t let anyone tell you it isn’t.

Marriage won’t answer all of your core questions.  God answers those.  It won’t solve all of your problems.  You’re still you.  You still have a lot of your problems.  Haha.  But it does answer some of them and you don’t have to pretend that it doesn’t.  In fact you can trust that it will.  You can even go ahead and want it to happen.

 

 

When “Staying You” Is A Bad Idea

Posted on by
5

When I was about 27 or so I had been dating a woman for a several months when she decided that I wasn’t for her and that someone else was.  It was a hard thing for me to take for a couple of reasons.  I had waited what felt like a long time already to get married and I really, really thought she could be “the one“.

As I was processing through the “breakup” I was fortunate to have some good friends and mentors who really came along side me.  But one of the weirdest conversations I had was with a woman maybe 20 years older than me said something like, “Wow it’s hard.  All these years you’ve been single.  How do you keep from blaming yourself?  How do you keep from thinking you’re the problem?”

I gave some sort of answer to that.  I don’t really remember what, but I’m sure it was good. But here’s what is interesting.  In many ways I’d like to have that conversation back.

While I think that this woman was honestly just trying to be encouraging and telling me that, “Hey, don’t worry – it’s not you” maybe what I needed to hear was, “So what part of this is you?”

The reality was in that particular case, it really wasn’t me.  But the fact that I made it to 41 and single – a lot of that was indeed me.

Do you remember when you were in school and you would get the school yearbook? There’d be a few pages or an insert or some other place where you would get notes from classmates. Have you ever read back over those?  It’s mostly generic stuff like, “Hey bro – great time rockin’ with you in English this year,” or “J Man – thanks for keeping me sane in Chemistry.”  But often we gave each other the worst advice of all – “Stay you.”  “Don’t ever change.”  Umm yeah – don’t grow or develop – good idea.

If I look back on mine, I could sum up the what every girl I was attracted to wrote – “J – you’re such a good friend.  Couldn’t have made it without you.  Don’t ever change.”  I’ll come back to this in a post soon – but that right there sums up far more guys’ lives than would want to admit it.

But for today, what I want to focus on is this idea that we don’t need to change who we are, what we do, how we act, think, or live.  I’m not saying people who espouse it don’t mean well, they typically do.  But when it comes to most things in life, and for sure dating and marriage – it’s just simply terrible advice.

In Christianese terms it usually means that God “has someone else for you” or if you stay true to yourself, then for sure God will bring someone at the right time. It could also be that every person you’ve ever been interested in had it wrong.  But the bottom line is, there is someone out there for you.  And you need to just stay strong and be “who you are” and then the “right person” will love you for “who you are”.

It all sounds nice, but I’m not sure how helpful it really is.

Without even getting into the dating/single/marriage stuff, we are not called to be who we are currently.  One could make a case that we are called to become who we are created to be.  But that is different.  Who I am right now is a flawed, broken by sin (my own and others’) individual.  I’m in Jesus and He is changing me over time to become who He meant for me to be.  But until I’m there – I should be changing, aka growing.

We all have stuff that we need to grow in and change.  Now to be clear, I’m not saying that you have to first get all your stuff together before you get married.  That’s part of the reason we have the problems we do, this false idea that i have to be “ready” to get married.

When it comes to dating, if the same stuff keeps happening over and over again, we need to look inward and ask what part of that is us.  What can we do different?  I think when it comes to dating, especially as a Christian guy, this seems to get skipped over.

Stuck in the friend zone over and over again?  That could be you.  In a new relationship every six months?  Maybe you.  Can’t seem to ever talk to or approach someone you are really attracted to?  Might be worth thinking about.

Look at this way.  In other practical areas of your life you grow.  When you were a kid, you got better at sports or math, or a band instrument.  You didn’t stay the same.  When you get a job – hopefully over time you get better at it.  Are your current friendships the same type as you had in high school? (If so, that might be a problem as well).

Relating to the opposite sex is no different.  If you’re stuck, maybe it’s time to change.  Maybe that means getting help -be it friends, counseling, books – you name it.

Most of the time in life, we know when change is necessary. We just don’t like it.  It’s easier to say, “it’s not me” than to say, “Maybe it is me”.

Final thought and clarification.  Am I saying be fake?  No.  Am I saying go out and misrepresent yourself? No – that’s called lying.  What I’m saying is it’s ok to grow in how you relate to the opposite sex.  In fact, I would suggest that if you are over 26 and single, it might be necessary.  It was for me.