Discipleship in regards to sexual purity has been an increasingly difficult task for me.
I find that that the sexual degradation experienced in our American society increasing the gap between believers and biblical standard that God is calling us to.
Kids are experimenting with sex at a younger and younger age; pornography is becoming more prolific with the internet; addiction to it is becoming more and more commonplace (when I meet with men, I already assume they’re in some way habitually watching pornography); people are consistently pushing sexual experiences to another level; and gender identity and sexual orientation norms are changing radically in the public sphere of America.
(To be very honest for a second, I don’t say those things to excuse myself from it. I have definitely engaged in sexual activity growing up, regretfully)
Take these trends in conjunction with passages like these:
“Whoever looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”
Matthew 5:28
“There must not even be a hint of sexual immorality among you…”
Ephesians 5:3
“Let marriage be honored in the sight of all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled.”
Hebrews 13
“The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord.”
1 Corinthians 6:13
As I said before, the gap between normality of sexual ethics in America and biblical sexual ethics is widening all the more.
What our society calls freedom, the Bible calls slavery. What the media calls pleasure, God calls it an abomination. What wild sexual experiences people boast about, God calls it brokenness. When our culture sells sex at bargain prices to anyone willing, the Bible elevates the beauty and purity of sex to be reserved for marriage.
I’m not quite sure how to write about this as I feel like the exhortation to myself and to the people around me would sound familiar to Peter in his first sermon, “Save yourself from this crooked generation.”
I pray somehow we really might be saved.
