Due to the title of the previous post, I thought I should even the balance by posting my favorite verse from proverbs, and proof that God made sex desirable for a reason and that Christians should enjoy it passionately (with their spouses!)
"Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth, a lovely deer, a graceful doe. Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight; be intoxicated always in her love."
Sex and dating action night, this Wed night at 7.30. Hopefully plenty of people will come along, its something everyone complains that the church doesn't talk about - now that they are you've nothing left to complain about.
We'd posted some links to useful resources up here over the past few weeks - you can check them all out again by clicking on the tags down the right hand side of the screen - or below.
By the way - this is not in any way for couples only - everyone will be able to get something out of it. Hopefully see you there.
A recent post on oral sex seems to have done an unintentional job in outreach!
The hit counter I use tells you what link people have clicked on to get to your site. Some chinese guy (I'll assume it was a guy!) searched for "oral sex" on the chinese google, and after searching through 16 pages of results to porn clicked on the relevant? link - and instead of seeing some porn clip got Driscoll instead!
Hopefully he read on down the blog and clicked on the X3 link too!
In Sept 2005 worship 24/7 organised a weekend away down south. On the Saturday night Tim Millen gave a talk entitled "Worshipping God with your body". I remember getting up to lead worship when he had finished and feeling nothing but worthlessness - I think most people there felt exactly the same. In it he talks about guarding where your body goes, what it does and what it ponders, covering sex, gluttony, pornography, alcohol and clubbing.
It covers a lot, but does it really well - it should only take about 5-10mins to read. Read it in five parts here - remember to start at Part 1 at the bottom of the page and work up!
Sample quote "When we are in danger of such sin [sexual], we should not argue or debate or explain, and we certainly should not try to rationalise. We are not to consider it a spiritual challenge to be met, but a spiritual trap to be escaped. We should get away as fast as we can".
“Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.” 1 Cor 6:19–20
In the spirit of loving all things Seattle related, stumbled across this guys blog today. Eugene Cho - he pastors Quest church in Seattle. Haven't looked into the church too much but this post deserves a link for the title alone! You'll get it if you read the article!
Definitely don't want this to become a Driscoll fan site, but unfortunately he's good at answering topical questions. and putting them into short video clips for me to use!
The following is a clip where he answers the question "If I've given or received oral sex, would you consider me a virgin?" I haven't uploaded this for shock value, or to be intentionally controversial - but think the whole "how far is to far?" question remains unanswered to a lot of peoples satisfaction, and Driscoll takes a good stab at answering this.
clip length: 5min 37s
There's a lot of my own opinion I could waffle on about on the topic of purity, but Driscoll does it much more concisely! Hopefully this is something to get you at least thinking about this if "drawing the line in a relationship" is something your struggling to do. If it is then please talk to someone about it, we've all been there - if you're at the church then speak to the pastors, solid christian friends, or myself and Pete - we'll all be more than happy to help you work through things in your head.
d
Eph 5:3 "But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among the saints"
In response to a question from Petey Nickell regarding "playing the field" when you are younger, my good friend Gary Boal replied with the following:
"Honestly, I believe that the desire of a young person to have a girlfriend or boyfriend is a great motivating factor to become a man or woman worthy of dating and marriage.
I believe that we should only date members of the opposite sex who we could honestly see ourselves spending our future with. In this I'm aware that a certian amount of 'dates' and 'getting to know eachother' need to happen before that conclusion can be drawn.
What I'd say is that to play the field is wrong and has at core a sinful attitude of self gratification (not even speaking sexualy), but that when we date, we should be aware that for that time God has placed that girl in our possession for His glory. That she is a sister in Christ and not yet one with us and so should be treated with respect as we persue relationship with her. Also that we should be a blessing to her walk with Christ and in our example of what Godly manhood looks like.
It is a sure thing that alot of relationships don't last, so as Christians date, we must find a God exalting, Christ centered way of doing that. I think the Song of Solomon is great on this, in that the couple spend time getting to know each other - they date. So dating's biblical! Chapter 2:8-10 shows him coming and asking for a date.
I have to hold my hands up and say I do have some extreme veiws that are shaped from Song of Solomon. I am leaning on the side of french kissing as being for marriage alone - the only time we see it is after the couple are married and are in foreplay getting ready to make love. (4:11) But I'd only advise this, the main thing is that each person doesnt ask the question 'how far can i go' but rather asks 'How can I best glorify Christ in this?'
1 Corinthians 10:31 tells us "Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of Christ". I reckon that dating falls under "whatever" and "all".
So although I do believe in dating and wouldn't put an age limit on it, and would even encourage the awareness that a particular relationship may not last, I'd say that to 'play the field' holds a wrong heart motive, one that is about onesself getting around as many delightful partners as possible and getting self enjoyement in this area and doesn't first point to God in it".
Go on the G Boal!
Gary posts almost daily on Homelio, and can't help but bring everything to Song of Solomon eventually! Pervert! You should check it out.
The first in hopefully a series of posts to resources relating to this.
This is a webzine with nearly 2000 articles on dating and sex! Some will no doubt be rubbish, I've read a few good ones so far. The opinions expressed here might be way out there or might be spot on - hopefully you'll have a bit of discernment of your own. If someone reads a few and finds some that are particularly good - leave a comment directing us to it.
From what I've read so far it seems to be very practical based and not a huge amount of scripture but we can try and correct for the next few posts!
The post below mentions how there is going to be an action night coming up in the church dealing with the topics of sex and dating. I thought it night be a good idea over the next four weeks to post on that topic to equip people a bit for when this night comes.
If you have any links to resources, sermon clips, video clips, quotes from books, personal testimonies etc. in relation to this get in touch and we'll get them posted up so everyone can benefit from them.
Due to the title of the previous post, I thought I should even the balance by posting my favorite verse from proverbs, and proof that God made sex desirable for a reason and that Christians should enjoy it passionately (with their spouses!)
