Tag: temptation

Path to Porn..for women (part 1)

(click image for photo source)

Confession: I recently viewed porn. It’s not the first time.

And so have you.

Porn: noun
1 pornography.
2 television programs, books, etc., regarded as catering to a voyeuristic or obsessive interest in a specified subject.

In this case, it was clips from a primetime television show on NBC, not graphic and explicit sexual content. But, porn has much to do with lacking purity, and self-discipline. I wasn’t interested in either at the time. It doesn’t matter how graphic it was or wasn’t, I picked a path.

I know it’s a common path, so I’m starting a post series on porn, to get the topic out in the open. You’ve seen porn. Of course you have. That’s just simple statistics. The only thing in question is for how long, or how often…but far more importantly, why are you, and are you hiding it, and do you feel stuck or trapped? Well, the gig is up.

7 Reasons this porn stuff is a typical situation:
• Television/especially cable/dish/satillite

• Smart phones/phone with internet access or image viewing capabilities

• Internet…duh. It’s got to be reason # 1. (plenitude of images & privacy to do as one pleases=lack of discipline.)

• Over-Sexualized culture/media, especially in advertising

• Plentiful supply normalizes or excuses inappropriate or damaging behavior/habits.

• Video games/books/products

• Cultural Idolization of beauty, youth, virility, and social acceptance.

We’ll get into the heart of the issue, behaviorally, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, and find some ways to detour this path that will damage us and our relationships. We’ll help each other out, okay?

I will speak from my purview, as a women. We live in a time that is highly visual, tied to fantasy, that supplies huge amounts of voyeuristic material. It’s not something mostly “men do” (look at or participate in). Women do too.

However, I challenge you men reading to cover this topic in the next two weeks in a post or post series, or at least link to this post to support bringing this topic to light.

And ladies reading today, I challenge you to take on this topic, too, not as something that you wish guys wouldn’t do, etc., but as something that somehow effects your life somehow personally, and convicts you to somehow find a better way.

Often “Literature” and Story/Fantasy are like gateway drugs to this type of porn for women…I wrote a bit about this sort of thing in a past article, 5 Reasons I Don’t Read (Christian) Chick Books. 

Confess what trips you up.

Coming up in the next post…thoughts, feelings, and reasons you and I try the Path to Porn.

In later posts, we’ll work together to discover some resources to help and guide us: detours from the path. 

But, here’s the question for today: What particular vehicle makes porn all too accessible for you or someone in your life? Anonymous comments are always welcomed.

Were Adam and Eve Tripped?

That’s right I said Tripped, not Tricked.

ooo, maybe it’s both. Tripped for Treat…

Rachel Held Evans is hosting an interesting dialogue.

She invited Justin Taylor (author of Between Two Worlds blog) to field questions on the doctrine of Calvinism. Justin is a prominent leader in the contemporary Christian Reformed movement, and has many visitors on his popular blog.

The dialogue that ensues when you talk about predestination and free will can get heated; but more than anything, it seem this exchange at Rachel’s blog is more thoughtful and interesting, than negative or abusive. I do encourage you to read more there, and to whet your appetite…Here is an excerpt:

Question for Justin, from Don:
I do not see how Calvinism does not lead to a kind of fatalism, if what will be will be and cannot be changed, why try to change anything?  Just accept your fate.   When I read Calvinists it seems like they keep trying to explain why their faith is NOT like this, even though from an outsider’s perspective it really IS like this.  So any wisdom you can impart here would help me better understand.

From Justin:
Thanks for asking, Don.

The reason for the pushback you’re getting is that the Bible is opposed to “fatalism” (which makes our actions inconsequential for changing things and leads to resignation in the face of such powerlessness) but teaches and presupposes “compatiblism” (that God’s absolute sovereignty is compatible with genuine human freedom and responsibility).

D. A. Carson explains the biblical both/and:

1. God is absolutely sovereign, but his sovereignty never functions in such a way that human responsibility is curtailed, minimized, or mitigated.

2. Human beings are morally responsible creatures—they significantly choose, rebel, obey, believe, defy, make decisions, and so forth, and they are rightly held accountable for such actions; but this characteristic never functions so as to make God absolutely contingent.

I think we see this both/and approach on nearly every page of Scripture. Just a few examples: Gen. 50:19-20; Lev. 20:7-8; 1 Kings 8:46; Isa. 10:5; John 6:37-40; Acts 18:9-10; Phil. 2:12-13; Acts 4:23-31.

Or if you want just one example to examine, take a careful look at how things play out in this story of Paul being shipwrecked.

For more explanation of how genuine means and consequences function in a world of absolute sovereignty, this imaginary conversation may prove helpful.

I have wondered (until the ideas got so heady that it seemed pointless and too distracting from more important things–like Jesus), how the entrance of sin came into the world, if we are to take the Genesis Garden Story seriously. This idea of forbidden fruit and a human “Fall” (The primeval human couple and their disobedience in paradise that lead to a human sin nature for all their posterity (i.e. “us”), etc.) was really a Fall at all. If God planned for those two humans to Fall, wasn’t he then sort of tripping them?

It’s a bit to wrap one’s mind around, but I welcome your thoughts.

The Lord’s Prayer is…

This Sunday is my final lesson in the Route 66 Series (Adventures in Spiritual Formation). I will be reviewing the last 11 weeks (briefly), and then capping it off with an examination of the passage of what has come to be called, The Lord’s Prayer. And we will pray it communally as well. It’s a Christian unity thing.

Do you have any questions or concerns about the Lord’s Prayer?

Here’s a tiny excerpt from a seminary research paper I did of the theology, literary structure, and message of The Lord’s Prayer.

…The Lord’s Prayer comes as the centerpiece in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7:29) in which Jesus lays out what is vital for citizens in the Kingdom of God. Early in the Christian movement, the practice of saying the Lord’s Prayer before Communion (weekly) and [typically] praying it three times per day is documented. It formed a “token of their identity as Christians,” and was also called, the “prayer of believers”.1

The elements of adoration in The Lord’s Prayer propel us to appreciate God’s immanence and transcendence: a theological fundamental. God is hallowed, his kingdom heavenly, his earthly kingdom is both current and imminent. His kingdom will be forevermore.

The worship and adoration of God is crucial in prayer, and in this Prayer, not just because God is most worthy of it, but because we are spiritually formed by our saying, believing, and embracing those truths. We commune with God, and know him more fully as this reality is further congealed in our minds each time this is lived out.

Theologian Kevin Vanhoover contends that in praying the Lord’s Prayer we together experience our Father, our common sonship, and common our inheritance with Jesus. It is precisely the communal aspect of adoring that helps us to be ordered rightly. Furthermore, Vanhoozer states that when praying in this manner with Jesus, we participate in the family of God, and acknowledge God as Lord, while acknowledging oneself as contingent in the filial relationship made possible by the Son of God and the Spirit of adoption.2

1 Jeremias Joachim, The Prayers of Jesus. Studies in Biblical Theology, Second Series 6 (Naperville, IL: Alec R. Allenson, Inc., 1967), 63, 78.

2 Kevin J. Vanhoozer The Drama of Doctrine: A Canonical Linguistic Approach to Christian Theology (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2005), 225.

Literary Structure of the Sermon on the Mount (proposal)

Literary structure/pattern and use of the Lord's Prayer Matt. 6:9-15. (proposal)

©Lisa DeLay 2010

Here is the prayer:

The Lord’s Prayer
Matthew 6:9-13 (King James Version)

9After this manner therefore pray ye:

Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.

10Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.

11Give us this day our daily bread.

12And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.

13And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil:

For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever.

Amen.

Now it’s your turn:
Pick at least one question and respond.

What questions come to mind about the Lord’s Prayer?

When was the last time you said the Lord’s Prayer?

What are your feelings or thoughts about it?

 

End of the World Questions…

Congratulations are in order for NEW ZEALAND, where it is now Sunday. You have survived the apocalypse! Well Done.

The rapture of clothed people

Sometime today, says Harold Camping–a serial End-of-the-World date setter-a massive earthquake will destroy the world. Oh, and the rapture of the saved will happen.

Instead of shredding Camping (this time), I’ll just put this out there:

If you KNEW the world would be ending tonight, would you make amends with anyone? Would you try something you’ve never tried? Would you behave like a better person? Would you give your natural desires free reign?

Most of us are not faced with these sorts of all-or-nothing life decisions. I’m reminded of the stories that came to light after the Titanic disaster. Some became unlikely heros, some reprobates. Some saved lives, and others sacrificed them for their own survival. Some died singing or playing hymns. Some died in bitterness. Some died more peacefully, accepting their fate, and trusting in God’s grace. Stress has a refining way of testing our character.

Consider your “End of the World” desires. Question them. What do they reveal about you? And how can we use this threat of apocalypse to improve ourselves, or be nobler…no matter what happens.

If we’re all here tomorrow… (ugh…whatever) I hope you weigh in with some of the strange or interesting comments you noticed relating to Camping’s dire prediction.

Also: I was amused by this actual (and strangely humorous) interview with Gunther von Harringa, Sr., President of Bible Ministries International conducted by the folks at “The American Jesus” website.

Shhhh…worst kept secrets

Shhh... tell everybody

What’s the best way to spread news in the Christian community?

That’s easy. Before you share news, just say it’s a prayer request.

(No one likes to feel left out. And for most people knowing and sharing news feels empowering. Cloaked with the term “prayer request” spreading news verges darn near to righteous.)

Even if it’s something horrible, you can say something like, “I probably shouldn’t say this, but, you know Peggy? She’s going through a lot right now. Her teen flipped out and hit her in the face yesterday. It gave her a bloody nose. It’s so sad. Really pray for her. They’re really struggling. Oh, and don’t tell anyone I told you, okay?”

What will happen is that everyone will know, but no one will admit to anything. It will like like the Spirit told them, and suddenly everyone will know everything, but, miraculously, nobody has betrayed any trust.

Peggy? She’ll get weird and awkward glances, and a few close friends will ninja hug her because they’re not sure what else to do, but want to do something overt to show they support her. Peggy will wonder who knows, and how it got out and about.  Smilers and huggers will relieve their guilt from spreading around her business behind her back.

(Yes. This was not a “how-to”…just a bit sarcastic.)

Does this ring true?

Share your input: If someone says, “I probably shouldn’t say this…” what are some good ways to respond?