Persecution November 3, 2009
Posted by Stephen in Matthew.Tags: Beatitudes, Home, Luke, Matthew, Persecution
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In our Tuesday Night Bible Study the guys and i have been going through the Beatitudes. Well, tonight was the last night of the B’s and it was a sobering thought. The scripture we looked at and discussed was Matthew 5:10-12. "Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”
When looking at this map we see just how many people around the world are being persecuted for their faith in Jesus. The Red indicate the areas in which Christianity is hostile and the Yellow is where it is restricted. Jesus says that those that are persecuted are Blessed. We can look at all the beatitudes, but especially verses 10-11, as “Congratulations for going through persecutions for righteousness’ sake because you did you will inherit the Kingdom of Heaven.” After that Jesus cuts to the heart of the issue and makes it personal when he says “Blessed are you when you are persecuted, but he’s not talking about “you” singularly. Instead Jesus is saying “Blessed are you all…” He’s saying this to His disciples that are sitting next to Him, but do I think it won’t apply? Absolutely not. I think Jesus was talking to the disciples as the starters of the Church and I still think it applies to the church. If I’m not overstepping my boundaries I’d like to say that Jesus is saying, “Blessed is the church when it is persecuted.”
I also would like to say that our view of persecution is much different than what Jesus thinks as persecution. Dictionary.com says Persecute is
“to pursue with harassing or oppressive treatment, esp. because of religion, race, or beliefs; harass persistently.”
I won’t disagree with this, but I will say that it goes further than that. In Luke’s gospel in chapter 6 we see his take on the Beatitudes. Verse 11 reads like this in Luke 6:26 “Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man!” Yes, it is those in other countries putting their life on the line for the gospel, but it is also those that hate you, exclude you and gossip about you falsely because you are a Christian. So, Jesus is not only saying that the persecution is pluralistic it is persecution against the church. So two questions to ponder. 1) What are you doing for the persecuted church around the world? Praying, learning, giving? And 2) Are you pursuing persecution? Not giving them a reason to hate you or beat you up, but sticky your neck our and telling people about the gospel.
Once Upon a Time… October 30, 2009
Posted by Stephen in Social Issues.Tags: Fairytale, Fiction, Ice Cream, Story
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Once upon a time there was a little boy and this little boy loved his ice cream. He enjoyed every flavor of ice cream that was made. He ate whatever ice cream he could get his hands on. Since he worked at an ice cream shop he could eat it whenever. Some days he wanted chocolate because of the thick and richness of the flavor. Other times he had vanilla because of the originalness (if that’s even a word). Sometimes he would add toppings such as brownies, white chocolate chips, skittles, apples, and just about anything else one could even think to add. These toppings would even more of a depth to the ice cream and helped him to enjoy the ice cream even more. There were some brands of ice cream he enjoyed more than others. He might like the chocolate ice cream from AprilForest and the peanut butter ice cream from Hot Roc. No matter what he loved his ice cream.
One day the boy was eating a birthday cake ice cream with a brownie, caramel, fudge and sprinkles (i.e. a Anniversary Brownie Special) a college kid walked up to him. “Why are you eating an ‘Anniversary Brownie Special?’” asked the college student. “Because it’s good. The birthday cake ice cream and all the toppings make sense. I would have never thought to add caramel to this, but it makes the rest of the ice cream come together.” replied the boy. The answer infuriated the young adult. “You should eat vanilla ice cream.” He told the boy. “I do sometimes.” Said the boy.
“Why not all the time” said the college student
“Because it would get boring. I like all ice cream. I don’t think I could eat just one kind of ice cream.”
This answer infuriated the man even more and the young boy didn’t understand why he was getting angry at him. “Why are you getting so mad sir?”
“Because you are forsaking the original flavor. Vanilla is the original flavor. It was the first to ever be made and sold. All the other flavors either add or take away from vanilla. Like that birthday cake ice cream. Did you know that they add yellow cake batter to it?”
“Yes, I did. Replied the boy. “And it makes the ice cream taste so much better! Here try some.” He said as he proceeded to hand him the ice cream.
“No way! I am not going to eat that! That’s cake batter! That is not vanilla! I will not eat it.”
“Why?”
“Didn’t you hear me before? They added cake batter. C-A-K-E B-A-T-T-E-R.”
The boy could tell the college student was getting even more irritated. “So what would you have me do?”
“Eat vanilla ice cream and no other ice cream.”
“Not even chocolate?”
“Not even chocolate.”
“Can I add toppings?”
“Nope. That would be adding to the ice cream and that would be wrong.”
“Well, sir I don’t think I can do that.”
“Then you are not a true lover of ice cream.”
“Even though I eat ice cream all the time? Even though I subscribe to Ice Cream Today? Even though I spend every waking moment with ice cream I am not an ice cream lover?”
“That depends. You might have just strayed a little. What kind of ice cream was the first flavor you ever had?”
“Chocolate! I remember it like it was yesterday. My parents took me to the ice cream store and I got a chocolate ice cream.”
“Then I am afraid you are not an ice cream lover. If vanilla ice cream wasn’t the first ice cream you ever had then you can’t be an ice cream lover. The only way to redeem yourself is to start eating vanilla ice cream now and don’t turn back. You may be tempted to eat chocolate or cake batter or lemon or peanut butter, but don’t do it. Only then can you really be an ice cream lover.”
Well the boy thought about it for a couple of seconds and the more he thought about it the more he began to see how ridiculous it sounded.
“So where did you hear that this is the only way to be an ice cream lover?”
“Years ago the maker of ice cream said ‘all ice cream is inspired by me and is useful for eating, throwing, enjoying and displaying.’”
“I remember that. He said that about himself. He didn’t say ‘all vanilla ice cream and the others aren’t.’ He said ‘all ice cream’. That includes chocolate, vanilla and even cake batter.”
Evangelism October 29, 2009
Posted by Stephen in Life in General.Tags: Bad News, Evangelism, Good News, Lifeway, Tract
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While I was setting up a display today at Lifeway a gentleman walked up to me and handed me two tracts. I am sure if I had looked like I wanted to talk he would have talked to me either that or he just didn’t want to have a discussion with me. I heard from another associate that he had encouraged him to pray more, read the KJV Bible and one other thing that slips my mind right now. The KJV because all of the newer translations have added in more to the Bible and taken away from other parts of the Bible. As much as I would like to say my peace about this I have another agenda I am going to pursue in this post.
I’m not sure why he felt the need to come into our store to give out these tracts. Maybe it was because we wouldn’t kick him out for handing out tracts and he knew that. I’m not sure, but the least likely place I would go to to hand out tracts is a Christian Bookstore. I see that there are pros and cons to this. Pros being that “Christians” are the least likely people to question their faith and, as Timothy Keller puts it, take a “Leap of Doubt.” In order to strengthen our faith we need to doubt our faith. I know that sounds paradoxical, but when thinking about it it’s true. We have to continually make sure that what we are believing is true and figuring out, if it is true, how to help people understand that which we believe. So if he was handing out tracts to make us make sure what we are believing about the Bible is true then kudos to him for that.
The cons that I am seeing is that instead of going outside the fold to retrieve sheep he is going in to the fold that the sheep are already in to get them in the fold. This is like playing capture the flag and going to the jail to get people to put in jail. It, unfortunately, doesn’t work that way. We must go into the world to tell the unsaved about Christ. We also must not be willing to not make friends with the unsaved and tell our unsaved friends about Christ. There are some with the gift of evangelism that do a much better job at street evangelism than I. Too often though we leave the evangelism to those that have the gift. Many of us forsake telling our unsaved friends about Christ because we’re afraid of what they will think about us. So I give the guy that came into Lifeway kudos for actually handing out tracts and doing something I need to do more often.
Sacrifices October 21, 2009
Posted by Stephen in Bible, Church Doctrine.Tags: Blood, Farley, Jesus, Naked Gospel, Obedience, Sacrifices
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I recently finished a book called “the naked GOSPEL” by Andrew Farley. It was a very thought provoking book, but not for the best of reasons. The thoughts that were coming up were not because I hadn’t thought about Christianity in such terms, but that I don’t think he did a good job in interpreting the Old Testament into the New. He seemed to suggest that the reason that the Old Covenant didn’t cover the sins of the past, present and future sins of Israel was because there was no such thing as a spotless lamb and that Jesus was the first and only “lamb without blemish.” He makes this clear when he says “we never read in the Old Testament about a priest finding the perfect lamb.” While this sounds like a perfectly reasonable thing to say this is absolutely not true. The blood of the lamb did cover the sins of the Hebrew people, but Jesus’ sacrifice covers all our sins (past, present and future) and not only ours (as Christians) but also the sins of those before us that made sacrifices all the way back to Adam and Eve.
“Why is this?” you may be asking. Well, let me tell you a story. A long time ago in a galaxy far away… Wait wrong story. A long time ago at the beginning of time God created the first man, in His image, and called him Adam (literally “mankind”) after Adam named all the animals God saw that Adam was alone and needed someone, so he created Woman and Adam called her Eve (literally “lifegiver”). While they were in the garden they could eat of any of the trees that God had created except for one. Well, turns out the end up eating of that one tree and they sinned against God. When they sinned they sinned an everlasting, eternal God. 100% Holy is God. 100% Eternal is God. In doing so the sin that Adam (and all of us in this matter) committed was an eternal sin.
Now that I have caught you up to the sin thing because Adam’s sin was 100% eternal and because our sins are eternal sins God requires an eternal sacrifice. None of the lambs were eternal. God does require a blood sacrifice for our sins to be atoned for, but since the lambs were mortal and would end up dying their blood could only be temporal. Yes, God would look on those that had offered sacrifices and they would be righteous it wasn’t because of the blood. No where in the Old Testament do we read “and he was righteous because of his sacrifices” no where. Instead, we read in 1 Samuel 22:17 “And Samuel said, “Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams.” (Italicization mine) Yes, the blood is necessary, but God doesn’t want just blood. He wants obedience. That’s what the sacrifices were all about. Thus the “better to obey than the fat of rams.”
So why could they not find a perfect lamb? They did find lambs without blemish. They did find lambs to be sacrifices. If they didn’t God would not have accepted the sacrifice. Instead, God needed an eternal sacrifice to pay for the sins. (Enter Jesus into the Picture). Jesus being God is completely eternal. He was there before His Father started creating anything. Jesus, the Father and the Holy Spirit were enjoying each others perfect company in eternity past and will be for eternity future and now of course. Jesus’ sacrifice was 100% eternal and 100% holy. Thus, Jesus’ sacrifice is the only one that could cover the sins and was the only perfect sacrifice. There was lambs that atoned for the sins, but they were not eternal.
I hope this has made some sense and that you didn’t doze off too much while reading this. There was a lot that I covered in such a small post. If there are any questions please email me or comment.
Watch Yourself! October 13, 2009
Posted by Stephen in 1 Timothy, Bible, Church Doctrine.Tags: 1 Timothy, Doctrine, Lives, Teaching, Watch, Yourselves
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Today’s going to be one of those posts on scripture I’ve been chewing on. 1 Timothy 4:16 says
“Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.”
This verse has been brought to my attention over a recent circumstance and I cannot for the life of me get this verse out of my head. Just that first part “Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching.” I’m going to try and make as much sense with this as I can while making sure I stick to what the Bible is saying.
Of course, we know that we need to keep a close watch on what we believe. We, need to make sure that what we believe lines up with what the Bible says, but we also need to know what our predispositions are about the Bible. In doing so, when we have those conversations and our view does not line up with the Bible we need to be able to change those beliefs, but this is for a different blog post. So we know that we need to know what we believe about the Bible. “What specifically do we need to know?” Well, I’m glad you asked. We need to know the Gospel and the Doctrines in that order.
The Gospel is first because without an understanding of the gospel one cannot truly come to God. If one believes it is outside of the grace through faith model then they are not saved. After one comes to Christ they begin learning about the doctrines of the Bible. Doctrine is a fancy word that means “Something Taught.” The reason this is, is because back in Jesus’ day “Doctors” were the people that taught and “Physicians” helped people. This is the same today, but normally Physicians are Doctors (That’s just your random fact for the day).
Back to the Issue at hand; “Keep a close watch… on the teaching.” We need to know our Bible Doctrines. Wayne Grudem puts them in the order of The Doctrine of: The Word of God (Bibliology), God(Theology), Man (Anthropology), Christ and the Holy Spirit (Christology and Pneumology), The Application of Redemption (Soteriology), The Church (Ecclesiology), The Future(Eschatology). We need to know what the Bible says about all these things (though not necessarily in that order). When we come to Christ we have some basic knowledge of these Doctrines, but as we grow in Christ the Holy Spirit reveals more to us. We can only keep watch over the doctrine in which we want to keep watch on.
What I mean is that we, as redeemed sinners, have an innate desire to want to be right. We hate being wrong and when the Bible points out that we are wrong in specific areas we have one of two decisions to make. Either we can accept what is said and change ourselves or we can “change” the message. We can make excuses on why we’re different or why sociologically we don’t have to pay attention to that command because it’s “out of date" or “only applied to that sect of people.” I’ll come back to this when we see the beginning of the verse later. All in all we have to keep watch on what we believe because what we believe changes how we act and how we live, but Paul put this as the second command in this verse.
The first command is “Keep a close watch on yourself.” While, yes, you may enjoy walking by a mirror and enjoying the beauty God has given you as often as you can, but this is not what Paul is talking about. Paul is saying that we need to closely examine how we are applying the gospel and the doctrines of the Bible. In 1 Corinthians 8:1 Paul says that “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.” It’s not enough for us to know a lot about the bible. It’s not enough for us to read book after book after book about Doctrines, the Bible, God, Jesus, and so on. Instead, we must apply what we read. It’s not enough for us to read in the Bible “But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you” we have to turn away from our sexual idolatry to Christ.
So the question now is “What does it matter?” Paul answers that at the end “for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.” Now he’s not saying that if you do this you will save them outside of Christ. Instead, he’s saying that if you are keeping watch on yourself and if your doctrine is correct people aren’t going to get the idea from you that they will have to work for their salvation. If your doing these two things people are going to have a right idea of God. The gospel message “God, Man, Christ, Response” won’t be misconstrued as “Science, Man, Works, Salvation.” Persist in these things. Watch Yourself.
Baptism October 9, 2009
Posted by Stephen in Baptism.Tags: Baptism, Great Commission, Infant Baptism, Paedobaptism
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I’ve been pondering the topic of Baptism for the past few months. I’ve grown up a Baptist and as I said in my previous post Baptists are one of the few denominations that don’t believe in Infant Baptism. Instead I believe in believers baptism. For years I never gave this much thought, but I knew I needed to find out why I was brought up believing in believers baptism and why others do, but also infant baptism. This first part is going to be what I “know” about infant baptism and the second about why I only believe in believers baptism and not infant as well.
My take on infant baptism is this. Just like males were circumcised in the Old Testament on the eighth day, so Baptism is a sign of the new Covenant. As such, we should baptize our children as a sign that we will raise our children in such a way as to glorify God. As I’ve heard, and this may not be a true quote, but it is the belief of so many, “I don’t know when the sun rose in my life. All I know is it’s shining now.” This is about all I know about infant baptism. I know this is not much to know, but this is a close summary from what I’ve seen as far as biblical reasoning.
These are three reasons I don’t believe infant baptism is biblical. 1)Baptism is not something that’s brought about in the New Testament. In New Testament passages we see that Noah (1 Peter 3:20) was a foreshadowing/showing of baptism. We also see that there were various washings in Leviticus 14-15 for Lepers, Men and Women. In the NT, though we see that this isn’t something we do to “wash off dirt” (1 Peter 3:21) but “as an appeal to God for good conscience.” I heard it explained best as baptism being a picture of us burying our old self and raising with our new self.
2)The great commission says to “Go into all the world and make disciples of all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.” First thing we are to do is to make disciples. After we make disciple what are we to do? Baptize them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. If infants were included in this statement the Great Commission would look a little different. Infants aren’t disciple yet because they haven’t made a profession of faith when they are baptized. They may grow up to be disciples, but to say they are a disciple without having a profession of faith is a jump to make.
3)We don’t see infant baptism practiced in the Bible. People have pointed to passages that may imply that someone could’ve or should’ve been baptized, but there is nothing in the New or Old Testament showing infant baptism to be a practice the church should follow.
With all this being said I have to also say that I know many God fearing believers that were baptized as infants. Do I believe that they are not saved or “as saved as they could be?” Not at all. As long as they are part of the same group of redeemed sinners as I then I don’t think we should have qualms about this. I am just posting this to try and understand this myself.
Calm Before the Storm? October 5, 2009
Posted by Stephen in Religions.Tags: Christian, Islam, Jadaism, Peace, War
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In the book “The Reason for God” by Timothy Keller he brings up a good point by saying “It is widely believed that one of the main barriers to world peace is religion, and especially the major traditional religions [Judaism, Christianity and Islam] with their exclusive claims to superiority (Pg. 4 Parenthesis Mine).” The more I chew on this statement the more I will have to agree. While these religions should be and are peace loving religions there is no way we could be inclusive to the other two. Unless Jewish people follow the Qur’ran and the 5 Pillars of Islam they can’t go to Heaven. Unless Christians reject Jesus Christ and Pray to God they can’t go to Heaven. Unless Muslims reject Muhammad and accept Jesus Christ they can’t go to Heaven. These three major religions are completely exclusive and could never agree. We can respect those in other religions, but we cannot respect the religions themselves. If we begin to respect the religions we are in a dangerous position of agreeing that their way of life and their view of God is as valid as our own.
Worship October 2, 2009
Posted by Stephen in Worship.Tags: God, Jesus, Music, Pastor, Prostrate, Worship
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I was recently approached by someone asking about worship. They mentioned they have no respect for a speaker because when they “preach” they talked about themselves and the worked that they have accomplished “for the kingdom.” This, of course, prompted me to think about worship and who is in charge of our “worship experience.” Is it the speaker, music, ourselves or God? The term worship is mentioned 181 times in the English Standard Version (ESV) which is the translation I use more often than not. That’s quite a few times. There are a few words (more than 10) to mean worship and they show what true worship looks like. Four in the Hebrew and six in the Greek. The following is a basic list of the different words for worship. The first part is the Strong’s number. “H” is for Hebrew and “G” is for Greek. The next part is the actual word. In the parenthesis is a phonetic spelling of the word. Finally, is the definition of the word.
H7812 – שׁחה (shâchâh[shaw-khaw']) To Prostrate
H6440 – פּנים (pânı̂ym [paw-neem']) To Favor/Face
H6087 - עצב (‛âtsab [aw-tsab']) To be sorry, vex, displease, grieve
H5457/H5456 – סגד (sâgad [saw-gad']) To Fall Down/To Prostrate
G4352 (G4314 and G2965) – προσκυνέω (proskuneō [pros-koo-neh'-o]) To kiss, like a dog licking Master’s Hand
G4576 – σέβομαι (sebomai [seb'-om-ahee]) To Adore
G1391 – δόξα (doxa [dox'-ah]) Praise, Honor, Glory
G3000 – λατρεύω (latreuō [lat-ryoo'-o]) To Minister, Render Religion Homage
G2151 – εὐσεβέω (eusebeō [yoo-seb-eh'-o]) To be pious towards God, To Respect, Show Piety
G1479 (G2309 and G2356) – ἐθελοθρησκεία (ethelothrēskeia [eth-el-oth-race-ki'-ah]) Arbitrary and Unwarranted Piety
Worship in English is “love unquestioningly and uncritically or to excess; venerate as an idol;”
With all of that being said, we see that worship is something that we do towards God, but who initiates it? The four “characters” I am going to address, that I mentioned at the beginning, are the Speaker, Music Leader, Ourselves and God.
Many people place the sole responsibility of worship on the speaker of the time. Whether it’s the Pastor of their church or a speaker at a conference. I understand it this way because I constantly hear the phrase “I didn’t really get anything out of the service.” Yes, the speaker should be speaking truth and teaching that will draw one into worship, but it is not their responsibility to create worship in your heart. If this were the case in Titus and both Timothy’s we would see this as a qualification as a Pastor/Elder or Teacher.
The next person in the music person whether it’s the Music Pastor at your church or a “Worship Leader” or music group. Yet, another group of people would say that these people lead in worship because “The music makes me feel more worshipful!” But while music may make one feel more worshipful it isn’t necessarily worship. Yes, one is worshipping, but is it the music person’s responsibility to create an attitude of worship? I would say no for the same reasons as a pastor. It is not a qualification for a leader.
Now we are left with two, but I will respond with one answer. Worship in that which God initiates and man responds. I am sure most reading this are familiar with Ephesians 5:22ish in which Paul is addressing roles of spouses and paralleling that to Christ and the church. God ultimately initiated our response by predestining us to Heaven, but even more recent Christ died for the church initiating our response to worship God for His glory and majesty and we should praise him for that.
No matter what songs are sung, no matter what the speaker talks about we should worship God because of who He is and what He has done. Yes, the speaker may have done some magnificent things, but he was only able to accomplish those things because of what God is doing through him/her. I know this is a short blog on a massive subject. I hope that this has made sense as an overview.
One Baptism? September 29, 2009
Posted by Stephen in Church Doctrine.Tags: Baptism, Baptist, Believers, Infant, Lutheran, Paedobaptism, Reformed, Roman Catholic
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If the Bible says that there is one baptism, why are there four views? Well, it all goes back to one’s hermeneutic. Who should be baptized and why they are. This initial post is just an overview of the four views at their base. In the following post(s) (depending on how long I want to drag this out) I will only be talking about the Baptist and Reformed views of baptism. The reason I won’t be blogging about the others is that I haven’t done much research on them to have enough of a working knowledge and be able to discuss the views. The four views are:
Roman Catholicism
Lutheran
Reformed
Baptist
Roman Catholics have three types of Baptism and have no problem baptizing infants. Water (A normal Baptism), Blood (Those which died for Christ) and Desire (For those that desire to get saved, but don’t have the chance or means).
Lutherans, much like the reformed view, baptize infants. The person/child is either immersed (adults only) or poured over (both children and adults) while the pastor recites the names of the triune God (“… in the name of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit”). After which the person being baptized has to repeat the apostles creed. If it is a child a parent or other close person to the family recites it instead.
Reformed, like the previous two, baptize infants. This is due to the understanding of the sign of the new covenant. The old covenant was given to Abraham and the sign of this covenant was being circumcised on the 8th day. Just as circumcision is a sign of the old covenant so baptism is the sign of the new covenant.
The Baptist view is the only view I found that doesn’t baptize infants. They would say that while baptism is a sign of the new covenant baptism is necessary for believers only and children can’t make the choice to be a believer so they shouldn’t be baptized.
If after reading this I am not completely accurate, or missing something, let me know. As I mentioned previously I will be going more in depth in future post(s).
Not Even a Hint? September 27, 2009
Posted by Stephen in Ephesians.Tags: Ephesians 5:3, Harris, Hint, Josh Harris, Movies, Pornography, Sex
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Wow, where do I begin on this topic. I guess I would start with the book by Josh Harris called “Sex is Not the Problem. (Lust Is)” previously titled “Not Even a Hint.” This book is to both men and women about staying pure. It’s a great book and one that was definitely an encouragement to me. Instead of taking a legalistic (like most do in these books) he takes the approach that when tempted we need to run to the cross and to the gospel.
This book is placed around the verse from Ephesians 5:3 which says, “But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people.” First, I must say that the word “hint” isn’t used in the original Greek, but that is what is meant when the original says that it “Must not be named.” In this phrase we see that no sin should be mentioned about us. Not that we should do this sins in private, even though these sins are specific to being private sins, but that we should strive to be above sins to the point that if someone comes to accuse you of either of these sins they will have to make something up. As the NIV says “Not even a hint".”
I recently had a conversation with a friend about some movies he was watching. In a specific movie there is a very graphic sex scene. I didn’t know this when he let me borrow it and when it came on I was shocked. I couldn’t believe that this was a movie he owned. When I approached him about it he said that the sex scenes don’t bother him. —> I can already hear you saying, “What about those that aren’t tempted by the sin of pornography?” To that question I would say that my answer is twofold. The only people that aren’t tempted by the sin of pornography are either gay or they are so enthralled with pornography that it isn’t a temptation anymore they just jump into looking at it. I would also say with this subject, the person I’m talking about has mentioned to me that this is a sin he struggles with.
Knowing that this is a sin he struggles with I am praying and trying to help with his sanctification especially in this area. I am lost as to what to say when I am faced with this. I mentioned Ephesians 5:3 to him and he said that since they didn’t effect him, there wouldn’t be a hint in him. Of course, this is not the case, but I’m not sure how to approach this. It seems to me that this is a pride issue in that he doesn’t see how much his sin is affecting him, but what are all my reader’s opinions? Does watching a movie with a sex scene effect your thought life or any part of your walk with Christ?
