Category: sexual ethics

Book Plunge: Homosexuality and the Bible — Two Views

What do I think of this book published by Augsburg Books? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Dan Via and Robert Gagnon come together in this book to discuss the view of the Bible on homosexuality. Via I have not known of prior to this, but I did know of Gagnon and I have to say that in this area, Gagnon is a force to be reckoned with. There is a reason people like Matthew Vines do not want to debate Robert Gagnon. Thus, when I saw that he was involved in a book debate on the topic of homosexuality and since I’m doing a research project on that in Romans 1 now, I thought this would be an excellent one to go through.

Unfortunately, if there’s a criticism I have of this, it’s that it is way too short. The book could be read in a few hours which I found troublesome. This is a serious topic and it deserves more time in the press than something this short. In fact, Gagnon had to restrict a lot of what he wrote because it was too long and so throughout his essay, he links to notes on his web site where readers can go to find a fuller treatment. I would have recommended that while Gagnon could have written something too long that Via would be asked to give a more engaging essay of greater length rather than just have Gagnon cut his. There are plenty of things that could have been said.

Much of Via’s arguments are exactly what you would expect along the lines of what was going on in Sodom and matters of that sort. Gagnon’s responses thoroughly show the weaknesses, though not at times as much as one would like in the book format and again, this is because Gagnon has a fuller treatment on the issue on his web site. Perhaps it would have also helped to have had other readers who were commentators on this debate. It might have even been better to have Via and Gagnon discuss separately the major Biblical passages on the topic in separate chapters.

This is also an issue the church needs to pay attention to as it has become the shibboleth of the day. Increasingly for Christians, it will become a major issue as many of our young people who are deciding what truth is more based on their feelings and experience than reason and Scripture are being thoroughly confused on all matters relating to sexuality. Sadly, few of them will pick up a massive tome like Gagnon’s and go through it and unfortunately, few of them will probably go to his web site to look at the in-depth research that he has done. It’s sad to think that we live in the information age but people today want all the information catered to them and are not interested in doing any work.

While short, I must say that it is good to see Gagnon demolish the opposition in this one. Those who are wanting to see a debate on the topic in book form can start here and hopefully more will follow and as this increasingly becomes more of an issue, I am sure that more will follow. I am also thankful that we have as astute a scholar as Gagnon on our side in this.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: God Loves Sex

What do I think of Tremper Longman and Dan Allender’s book published by Baker Books? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

You can’t say Longman and Allender aren’t upfront about what their book is about. It’s quite likely some people will pick it up just because the title of God Loves Sex intrigues them so much.

There is finally something a lot of people can admit that they agree with God on.

The reader will not wind up picking up a piece of erotica, though they will certainly find something very passionate and erotic. It’s an in-depth look at the Song of Songs and seeing it as a celebration of sexuality. This is a book that has often been seen in a spiritual sense, but the book is not really meant to be an allegory, even if we could find themes in it such as the love of Christ for the church. The book is first and foremost a book about sex and there is right in the middle of the Holy Bible and even included in the section of the Bible known as the Wisdom section. Could it be that part of wisdom is having a healthy view of sex?

The commentary is also told with the story of Malcolm, a young man who has had a sexual history of romancing women and just starting to find it meaningless and coming to Christ with all manner of people there such as an older woman who finds sex repulsive to think about, a married couple, a young female virgin, and a dating couple. At first, I didn’t really care for the “story” part of the book and saw it as a distraction, but as the book went along, I did find myself more interested in what was going on so what I was considering a negative at first did eventually become a positive.

This is also not a “How-to” guide with sex. You won’t find tips on a new position for the bedroom or how to increase your lasting power. This is a deeply theological look at the topic of sex and how it is designed to increase love between a married couple. Longman and Allender also regularly stress the last point. Sex is for married people. The writers show that sex requires us to be open to each other and make the move of love towards one another. Sex is an integral part of the marriage relationship. I found myself constantly circling sections of the book that I would find particularly moving.

We’re told about why it is that we desire and how we are to desire. This definitely gets to beauty. As they point out, the book is not shy about the beauty of the body. If you notice with the description of the woman in the book, the man starts with her head and then keeps going down and when he gets to her breasts, he stops and erupts in praise. Yes. This is in the Bible. God made man and woman to be beautiful to one another and there is no wrong in delighting in that beauty. In fact, it’s interesting that God barely gets a mention in the book. It’s not that you have to take sex and make it into something theological. It already is theological and it already is holy.

Also, the book is regularly filled with information on the Old Testament context. I have no doubts that this comes largely from Longman who is an excellent Old Testament scholar. Many of the descriptions of beauty in the book might not make sense to us, but they would to the ancient culture. The writers also talk about many other customs from the time that we don’t have access to and if there is something that is in the Song that we don’t know much about, the writers are upfront and tell us.

Naturally, it’s sad to say that not everyone loves sex. There are some people who have problems and these can largely come from two sources. First, it can come from abusive relationships in the past that damage one’s view of sex. Second, it can come from the problem of family members who get too involved in the romantic lives of their children to the point of unwanted intrusion. I don’t doubt that Allender largely handles this as he has written plenty on the counseling front and is especially skilled at dealing with sexual issues. Those who struggle with being able to love sex will find something here.

The main message to get is that sex is good and we’re actually meant to enjoy it and delight in it. God loves sex, and if we want to celebrate the creation as God intended, we will try to make sure we have a healthy view of sex, whether we participate in it or not. The church has too often been squeamish on the topic of sex while the Bible itself is not. Let’s try to change that.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: Through A Man’s Eyes

What do I think of Shaunti Feldhahn and Craig Gross’s book published by Multnomah? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Years ago there was a movie released called What Women Want starring Mel Gibson who after an electrical accident found that he could hear what women were thinking. Finally a man was listening. Gibson’s character changed his life drastically seeing the way women think and what effect their inner lives was having on them. Of course, this is not a big surprise since frankly, men have always had a hard time understanding women and have been looking for a good resource that would help them understand them better.

How To Understand Women

Now I think a book has come out that really gets into the lives of men. For many women, men are simple. Give them sex and they’re happy. Okay. There’s a lot of truth to that, but why is that? What’s going on in the life of your man? Why is it that he struggles so much when he walks past the Victoria’s Secret store? If he looks at another women while he’s walking down the street, does that mean he doesn’t care about you? Why should you be more deliberate about thinking about the way that you dress yourself? And of course, why does a man get involved in porn and what can you do about it?

While there is a male co-author, I found the book definitely going inside of my own head which makes me think Feldhahn really does know what we men go through. It starts with the account of a man who gets up early and is thinking about how he was up late the night before but it was worth it. He hears his wife taking a shower and goes in the bathroom just in time to see her wrap a towel around herself to his regret and how even before heading out the door he tries to “cop a feel.” At work, there is the lady who is dressing and has her outfit unbuttoned to an extent that if he looks, his mind will wander. As he drives, he sees constant advertisements on the road with women and he has to deflect his eyes and pay attention for mile upon mile. Throughout the day, he strives to think of his wife and the fun that they had before. No. This man is not a pervert. He’s not a sex addict. He’s just a simple man trying to honor God and his wife and living in a world loaded with traps to lure him away. He’s walking through a sexual minefield as it were.

We men are just drawn to beautiful women. A woman can be beautiful to us without being overt in what she does. That doesn’t mean that there’s not a struggle still, but it makes it easier. Feldhahn and Gross go into great detail as to what happens in the brains of men when they see something sexually stimulating. This will be a shock to some people, but as it turns out men and women are very different. This includes the way they respond to visual stimuli and the way they interpret sexuality. To be fair, while I thought the book was thorough on how a man interprets the signals he receives, I would have liked to have seen a little bit more on why sex is so important to a man and what a role it plays in the worldview.

Nothing said in the book is also meant to justify bad behavior on the part of men. A man is visual so watching porn is a lot more likely for him, but it is certainly not justifiable! A God-honoring man might take a second look at that woman who walked by, but that does not justify it. There are a lot of behaviors men need to work on, but a book like this can help women to better understand just what is going on in the head of the man that they married or are dating, or even in the heads of the man that they are raising, so that they can better support them in whatever battle that they’re in. (Hint: Don’t be like the woman who responded to her husband’s porn addiction by withholding sex and gaining 150 pounds.)

An important insight also is that the way to connect to a man well is through his eyes. Believe it or not wives, your husband does want to see you naked and while you might be hesitant about your own body, he wants to see you period. In fact, if you are concerned about your body, this is also why you can consider that diet and exercise to take care of your body is one of the best ways to say “I love you” to your husband. Your body is a gift that you are giving him. If you were cooking a romantic dinner for him, you wouldn’t be haphazard. You’d make sure you were doing all you could to fix it right. You should do the same with something much more lasting, your body.

Respect is also central to your man in this regard. A husband does not want respect just when you think he deserves it or has earned it. He would be foolish to love you on the same grounds, and yet for most men respect is far more central than love. Men gravitate towards respect. Remember women that you married or you’re dating a man. He is not meant to be a woman and part of his masculinity is his sex drive and his being visually oriented. If you please him with his visual orientation, you can be certain that you will build up his love for you. (Of course, being a Christian, this is to be with sex done in the confines of marriage.) Too many times women try to make their men like one of their girlfriends. It will not happen. Accept that you have a man whose primary stimulation is visual and learn to love him that way, because God wired him to be visual.

The book also does go into detail on the problem of porn and what to do if your husband or son is struggling with pornography or you think he is. It ends with a helpful FAQ that I largely think comes from Craig Gross which covers a bit of everything, including questions like “What if I find out my son has been putting ‘big boobs’ into the search engine on the internet?” Gross in this section really holds nothing back and is just blunt. The writers also stress they have plenty of other resources available at the web site menarevisual.com.

In fact, if anything, men are more visual than Feldhahn and Gross point out. A man can hear a woman speaking on the radio or on the phone and already be speculating about what she looks like. Yeah. That’s not much to go on, but a man will wonder. That’s how much this means to us and when women work with that instead of opposing it, they will find a way to get more joy out of their relationships. That means watching how you take care of yourself and allowing him to delight in you by seeing you and that you might actually have to turn the lights on sometimes when you have sex. Men want their women to be beautiful, but at the same time women don’t need to be as extremely self-conscious as many of them are. Your man just wants to see you and he wants to be wanted by you.

This is an excellent book and it will not take you long to read. I read it in about a day’s time and I found it to be quite spot on. I hope Feldhahn and Gross come out with another book together in the future explaining not just how men are visual, but what exactly sex means to a man and why.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Wow. Gender Neutral Bathrooms Lead To Disaster

Could anyone have possibly seen this coming? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

So apparently the University of Toronto has decided to reduce the number of gender-neutral bathrooms. Why? Because shock of all shocks, but there were cases of women showering and cell phones reaching over in an attempt to record them. Of course, this has led to absolute shock. Who on Earth could have possibly seen this coming? Did we have any evidence out there whatsoever that men will be capable of doing absolutely anything just for the chance of getting to see a woman naked? (You know, besides little pieces of evidence like the entirety of human history and the nature of our society as a whole)

Please note that this wasn’t a shock to anyone who did not believe the overarching narrative and actually knew something about human nature. I’d been saying when I first heard about these kinds of policies that there will be many guys in high schools that will “identify” as women just to get a chance to shower with the girls. This isn’t a modern thing. Give guys a chance like that fifty years ago and they would have taken it as well. The difference is that right now our society is giving them just that opportunity in the name of tolerance and who is the biggest loser in this? The women.

After all, many women are very sensitive and protective about their bodies and don’t want them shared everywhere. When a woman is in a shower, she wants some privacy. Now men of course do care about their bodies, but women are often the most prone to being violated. Most of the time when you hear about rape, it will be the case of a man raping a woman. (We should definitely add that the reverse does in fact happen and one reason it might not be reported as much is because a man would not want to admit that he was overpowered by a woman.) Men also tend to be much more visually stimulated than women are. My words to describe the ways sexuality can work in marriage is that if a man wants sex, usually he needs to be attentive to his wife, caring about her needs, bringing home flowers, helping out with chores around the house, etc. If a woman wants sex with her husband, she just needs to even hint that she’s about to take off her clothes.

Now if we were thinking consistently and wisely about this issue, what we’d probably do is realize that the majority of women do not need to be put in a danger because of the concerns of a few individuals. If someone wanted “gender-neutral” bathrooms that could overall hold only one person at a time for instance, this would not be a problem, but when matters become public, we have a problem. My concern is that we could in fact blame the women for not being so sensitive to the people on the other end. Why should I think something like this won’t happen? It has in fact already happened with Planet Fitness.

In fact, some readers are probably thinking I’m pretty intolerant for just writing this.

If you think I am, then feel free to think so even more. As a married man, I have already decided I will not be going anywhere where I have reason to believe a man could legally go into a restroom or public shower where my wife happens to be. I care about her safety and well-being way too much for that. Am I intolerant in that sense? You bet I am. I am intolerant that there could be a man out there that somehow could possibly use a situation like that to take advantage of her and I have zero tolerance for that.

What many of us hope will happen back on planet Earth is that people will wake up and realize that gender is not a fluid concept and just because you say you feel like something does not mean you have all rights to that something. Our behavior is putting our women at risk in the name of tolerance and I suspect that it could be our children are not far behind. Again, a story like this has not been a shock to most of us, but it should be a huge wake-up call to anyone who has been buying into the narrative.

The question is now, what are we going to do about it?

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: How We Love

What do I think of Milan and Kay Yerkovich’s book published by WaterBrook press? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Love. Love. Love. Love is what makes the world go around supposedly. Everyone loves love. We all speak so highly of love and we assume love is a universal good. Wherever there is love, well you have something good for sure. There are many questions that go unanswered about love. One such question is how we love. In this book, the Yerkovich’s speak about various love styles highlighting five that have their own weaknesses and they say are from unhealthy imprints. This means that as a child, you learned a certain way to love before you could really evaluate that and that affects the way you love today.

I can’t say I’m sold on the hypothesis yet, but it is an understandable one. There are many people for instance who cannot relate to God as Father and they have a hard time doing such because they had bad fathers when they were growing up. The Yerkoviches then move us into the various love styles, such as the avoider who tends to shy away from contact and does not open up about themselves. There’s also the pleaser who has a hard time saying no to anyone and wants to please everyone, which is often done to cover their own negativity. The vacillator style is one that sees relationships as valuable for certain needs that they meet and when these needs aren’t being met, they tend to want to move on. Then we get into two styles that go hand in hand due to abuse which are the controller and the victim.

The authors look at each of these and discusses how each of these styles love. They tell each person in the style what they can do to change and they also say what can be done to help your spouse if they are in that style, although they do emphasize that you cannot directly change your partner. You alone are the one that can change and even if your spouse does not go along, you can still play your part. The version of the book I read also came with a workbook.

If there were areas I’d like more on, I would like to see more clarification at times on the styles. When I took the online test, I was pretty similar for three of them, which I considered problematic. I was unsure where I ranked too often and unsure where my own spouse ranked. This made it difficult for me to get the full benefit of the book since I could see myself and I could see my wife in many of the styles. (Aside from the last two.)

I also would have liked more said about sex. There was one section where it was mentioned for a bit, but in books that talk about marriage, we really do need to talk about sex more. I would have liked to have seen something on how each of the love styles approached sexual intimacy and how partners on both sides could better relate to improve this area in their marriages.

Still, this is a book worth reading and worth considering. I did end it with much to think about.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

The Power of Flirting

Can those tiny little gestures make an impact? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Recently, Shaunti Feldhahn wrote an article answering a question from a wife talking about a lackluster sex life. What’s to be done about it? Her answer to this wife was to be a flirt. Even if you don’t feel like it, you can change the mood of your husband immediately. I can say from my experience that a little bit of flirting has changed my mood immediately. The message that a husband gets is that you find him interesting. Actually, there’s a dark side to this. I should say the message that a man gets is that a woman finds him interesting.

What is dark about that? As I wrote earlier in describing a man’s world, a man lives in a world of constant temptation. Like it or not, the average man is thinking about sex a whole lot more than you realize and if he’s not actively thinking about it, it is right there on the backburner and it is ready to be brought up again immediately. If you have a good and godly husband, he would like it to be only with you, but unfortunately, it is not. Your husband will start thinking sexually at the sight of most any woman and it is important that he learns how to handle it.

Your flirting is a good way to help your husband be able to handle this. Your husband will be much less tempted when he knows that you find him interesting. Without that, he will not find much reason to think that. After all, if you are interested in something, you pursue it. If you are interested in learning, you pursue learning. If you are interested in health, you watch what you eat and exercise. If you are interested in football, you follow your favorite team or teams and watch what they do. If you are interested in a TV show, you try to watch it regularly and find any nuances that you might be missing.

And if you are interested in your spouse, you pursue them. If a man does not feel pursued, he does not feel like he is interesting any more and ladies, it can be most any little thing. Still, you will get out what you put in. The more you give, the more you will get back. Shaunti gives one example.

I gave that same advice to a woman at one of my events, and she emailed me later to say it took courage but she started flirting like this – and saw a change almost immediately. She started by texting her husband about some homework they had to do with the kids that evening and finished her text with, “And if we get done with homework in time to get the kids in bed at a good hour, you can get started on your homework later.” Her husband came in the door that evening with a huge smile, hugged the kids, and grinned at his wife as he told them ‘homework time!’

Yes. Ladies. Most every man on the planet can understand this. As soon as the possibility of sex is hinted at, the way a man thinks is changed immediately and he’ll do things he normally wouldn’t dare do. Again, that is a great power you hold. You can use it in a wrong way to manipulate your man and get the things you want from him, or you can use it in a way to empower man and instill more confidence in him that he needs.

To get back to the danger, the great danger is that if you don’t do this, someone else will, and in fact, it might not even be something intentional. How many men have thought before a woman was flirting with them only to find out that she wasn’t. Still, if he thinks she is, then that is where he will often go. Men tend to go where the respect is and where they can feel like a man. This is one reason pornography is such a draw for men. Porn can give a man the feeling of being a man, such as arousal and intense sexual desire, without any of the effort of being a man, such as working to please a woman so much she wants to give her body to him.

It’s been said that women need to have a love affair with their husbands or someone else will. How deep does this run with a man? Well….

Most of us men would say we’d do all of the above and then some!

Yes. This runs deep.

Now what are some suggestions for how this can be done?

One piece of advice I’d say to take, and one that my wife and I both do, is try to make your Facebook sizzle if you and your wife are both on there. Facebook can be a disaster for many marriages as it can be a breeding ground for divorce since you can get so caught up in a conversation with the opposite sex. I do hold that a husband and wife should be able to access the pages their spouse holds, but when you’re not doing that, make sure everyone on Facebook knows who the priority is for you. I try to post every day, except for Sunday when I don’t post, a loving image for my wife. I Love My Wife is the page I go to, while often my wife goes to the Happy Wives Club. It should ideally be that everyone who knows you on Facebook knows you have a deep love for your spouse.

Then for the wife who wants to learn how to flirt, find a way to speak your husband’s language and get into the world. Be interested in what he’s interested in and this should go both ways. Yesterday, I took my wife to see the new Dragon Ball movie. Do I really get into this as much? Not as much as her certainly, but I can enjoy it. I try to pay attention and learn what’s going on so that it’s something Allie and I can discuss together. For those who want to know how far that goes, I really knew nothing about Dragon Ball before Allie and I married. Now she’d probably say I can do a good job in a discussion.

Your husband will speak in a language. For instance, my wife and I missed watching some of our shows for a time. Then we got back into the Flash again and watched the recorded episodes we had, which was a great experience, and now we have other series to go through together. I also plan on taking her through Final Fantasy VI, which is actually one game that you can set up with two controllers so you can do it two player.

Some men are easily tempted by food. Allie knows this isn’t the best way for me, although I am interested in her fixing peanut butter cupcakes for me soon. If food is the key though, fix your husband his favorite meal one night. In fact, if you want to go all out, have him come home and have a candlelit atmosphere at the dinner table, maybe let him know the kids are at grandma’s, tell him you got a new outfit and you want to see how he thinks you look in it, or even better out of it, and decorate the bedroom perhaps with candles or something of the sort with some very romantic music playing.

If your husband goes to work the next day, he will be incredibly productive and walking with his head held much higher.

If there’s one thing your husband is interested in however, it’s you. That’s why he likes you to take care of yourself and he likes to see you regardless. You might not be crazy about how you look, but you look wonderful to your husband. It’s hard for a husband to explain, but the biggest thing he wants is you. He is still asking constantly if he’s your man. He doesn’t care if he was when you married him or if he was last week. He wants to know if he is still the #1 man in your life and the loudest way you say that is by giving him yourself. It is a way of saying “There are no boundaries at all between us.”

Remember ladies, men are often pursuers, but they like even more to be pursued. We like it when you take the initiative. We like knowing that you are interested in us the way that we are interested in you. We like being desired. This is the kind of advice I’d give to any married couple. Never stop chasing. Never stop pursuing. Never take the other person for granted. When we know that you are interested in us, we will live our lives totally differently.

Go ahead then. Send a flirty text to your husband. If he comes behind you and touches you, don’t brush him away or get angry with him. Let him be for a little bit. If you can’t at the moment, I recommend saying something like “Honey. I really can’t right now, but tell you what. You do what you need to do today and I’ll do what I need to do today and I’ll be thinking about you and if you do a really pleasing job today, I’m sure I can do a really pleasing job tonight.”

I don’t care what kind of day your husband is having. I don’t care what’s going on in his life. Barring some huge huge huge disaster, that kind of message will instantly put a spring in his step and change the mood. No matter how bad our day is going on, even thinking there’s a good possibility of sex can change that. Making it a regular reality can make it even better.

Having a marriage is like taking two sticks and realizing when you keep putting them together that a flame appears. Flirting is one of the gases that you can pour on the fire to keep it going.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: Called To Love

What do I think of Carl Anderson and Jose Granados’s book published by Doubleday? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Called To Love is an in-depth look at Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body. Now as readers know, I am not Catholic, but I do think there is much Catholic wisdom out there and I’m definitely interested in researching topics relating to our understanding of sexuality. This was a topic I did a lot of thinking on long before I got married and now that I am married, I can say experience brings to light a whole new way of looking at the equation.

The book starts with a look at the body and sees the body as an extension of the self, the way that you interact with the world. It is by your body that your presence is best made known to the world. Why do we say people like my grandmother, for instance, are no longer with us? Because their bodies are not here or they are absent from their bodies. In the case of a marriage, the body is the gift that each spouse brings to the other. It’s easy to look at your spouse and treat them as an object alone, such as a breadwinner or security or a household servant and even as a sexual object, but it’s something else to see them as not just a body but as a person dwelling in a body and realize that of all the gifts they give you, the greatest gift they give you is their body. It is not their body as an object, but them as a person and saying “I give you all that I am.”

Love for the other person then is being thankful that that other person exists. It is not just they exist for your sake, but you exist for theirs as well. When true spousal love takes place, the two spouses want to bring about the best of the other person and many times, this comes out in sex. Sex is the place of ultimate sacrifice and it is the reminder that we are made for connection. We are made to first be connected to our creator, but it is in a powerful connection to a person of the opposite sex, that we experience the totally unique love of the other. We experience someone who is so radically different from us and that person receives us as we are. In fact, this sexual love, especially since it has the ability to bring about new life, can be seen as the closest mirror we have to the Trinity.

Of course, this also ties in with the person of Jesus who came to show us how to live and by His embodiment, it is shown that the body is a good thing. This is further shown by His resurrection which is an indication of our future resurrection. The resurrection says we are made to dwell in bodies and that our bodies are good and holy things and we need to treat them like that. That God Himself becomes incarnate in a body should tell us that there is nothing wrong with having a body and today, we have God the Holy Spirit dwelling in us to show us that in this way God is also indwelling in a temple today and we should treat our bodies like that temple.

While I did not agree with a lot of the Catholic doctrine in the book, I can say that as a Protestant, it did get me more appreciative of the body and taking it seriously and I hope Protestants do catch on to this kind of reality. We do far too little talk on what sexuality is and how it matters and we pay far too little attention to our bodies and do not realize the grand place that they have been given in creation. Through any number of means, we treat our bodies just like they were machines or other purely material objects, when they are not. God did not make a mistake when He gave us our bodies. He meant for us to treasure them and use them in love. The great love is following Romans 12 and presenting our bodies as living sacrifices. The earthly side of that is often going to our spouses and giving our bodies to them self-sacrificially as well.

We were Called To Love. Let’s fulfill our calling.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Who’s The Boss?

What happens with disagreement in marriage? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Yesterday my wife and I got into a discussion with other men talking about the Garden of Eden and then the roles of men and women. Within the past week, I have been accused of being a misogynist for the great crime of daring to say that men value respect more than women. With all that being said, I figure it’s time in light of yesterday’s post on marriage to write up something about how that dynamic takes place.

Now first off, I am someone who does believe in male headship in the household. I do stand by this, but note what that means. This does not mean the man stands over the woman with a whip. Seeing as one of my wife’s favorite series is Dragonball, she will appreciate this illustration of what I am NOT talking about as how male headship should go.

If you are a husband like that, frankly, you’re a jerk.

This also doesn’t mean that the woman has no say in the household. A captain of a ship has a first mate and sometimes, he needs some wisdom outside of his own perspective. A husband should consult his wife on matters and see what she thinks. In fact, there are some areas he might just put her in charge entirely and let her do what she wants. Finances can be just such an area. I know many households where the woman is a master at handling the bills and so the husband just trusts her discretion in the matter. I have no problem with this.

It’s my stance that the husband is the king of his castle, but if he is the king of his castle, then that means his wife gets treated like a queen. Too many husbands look at the verse that says “Submit!” and use that as a whip over and over. Now my own wife knows that I do think that the wife does submit to her husband, but she also knows that I have never used that verse of Scripture like a weapon and it’s a shame that any man is doing that. Perhaps they should consider what 1 Peter 3:7 says.

Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers.

Yes men, you have a responsibility, and you are to love your wives as Christ loved the church. It’s hard to think of an attitude more self-sacrificial than that, but that is in fact what the very text of Ephesians 5 says and if you hear those words and you don’t get any nervousness whatsoever as a husband, there is something wrong with you. It is too easy to treat the wife in the picture as a household servant or as a sex object. You did not marry someone just so they could be a maid. You did not marry someone so you could treat them just like you would a prostitute. You married a person and if you did the right thing and married a Christian woman, you married a child of the king. Treat her like one or else her Father might not be too happy with you.

Now does this mean there are no other differences? No. I do stand behind the idea that men do as a general principle thrive more on respect and women thrive more on love. I don’t see that as sexist. I just see that as stating a fact. With what I said yesterday, I urge women to give their husbands that respect, even when you think he’s being a bonehead. You men meanwhile give your wives that love, even when you think they’re being uncaring. I should point out that the stakes do change if somehow the situation gets abusive. No wife should have to submit to a husband that is abusing her. A man should avoid a woman that is abusing him.

I contend that if this is done properly, leadership will not be the rule of a tyrant and submission will not be the slave begging for mercy. In fact, both parties might not even realize it’s going on.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

The Importance of the Covenant

What does it mean to say you’ve formed a covenant? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Covenants. The term doesn’t really resonate much with us today. We don’t take it as seriously as we used to, and yet all our talk today is about covenants. What is the debate over marriage but a debate over covenants? What covenants are we going to hold up and affirm and what are we not going to affirm? Do we give some covenants greater recognition than others? Do some covenants require more than others?

On a minor level, we can think of a business contract. These are legally enforced by the law for example, but we will not put it on the same level as a covenant. A contract has two parties making an agreement to be sure, but a covenant involves a lifelong self-sacrificial commitment. Many of our best relationships are built on sacrifice. The greatest of friends are those who are willing to sacrifice for one another. Of course, this will not involve the same as the ultimate covenant that we know of in society today of marriage.

My wife recently blogged on this. I agree with much of what she said, but I’d like to add my own spin to it. The point is that in our society we too often have an idea of “Look out for #1.” In that case, we often treat marriage as a way to get what we want. Now naturally, all of us enter marriage wanting some things out of it and there’s nothing wrong with that, but the institution is greater than we realize and we do a dishonor to it when we treat it wrongly. We can rightly say that too many Christians have no basis arguing against redefining marriage when they’ve allowed no-fault divorce and living together before marriage to go on in their own lifestyles. Of course, many of us have not done these things, but unfortunately too many Christians have. I do think that our culture as a whole has dishonored marriage, but they have dishonored it because the Christians took the lead in dishonoring it first.

When you marry someone, you make a lifelong commitment to that someone. You make a commitment to do and live the way that you ought and you give yourself to that one person only. That is quite a severe oath to make. Consider that when we speak of it sexually, that that means that until the point of death, the only person you are going to have any sort of sexual relationship whatsoever with is that person that you are marrying. If you break that promise, then biblically, you are guilty of adultery. This is something that we should take extremely seriously, especially in light of a passage like 1 Cor. 6:9-10.

9 Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men 10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

Now in our current climate, we can rightly note that those who participate in homosexual acts are there. Who else is in there? How about those who commit adultery? Yep. That’s how seriously God takes it. Why does He say to not be deceived? Because this is something you are quite likely to be deceived on. In fact, Paul spends the rest of the chapter talking about the gravity of sexual sin. It is sin unlike any other because it is a sin against your own body and it is taking that which is supposed to be the temple of Christ and using it in a completely unholy manner. Robert Gagnon has compared it to having sex in the Holy of Holies right on top of the Ark of the Covenant.

Signing on the dotted line of marriage is a strong commitment to make and too many of us are breaking it way too easily. What are some of our favorite reasons?

“Well I don’t feel the same way any more.”

I hate to tell you this, but your life is not to be dependent on your feelings nor is right and wrong dependent on your feelings. If you become a parent and have a child, you can’t just say one day “I don’t feel like being a parent any more so I’m not going to take care of this child.” On a lesser level, try being in a business contract with someone and saying you’re not going to uphold it because you don’t feel like it. If you do that, hopefully you will feel like showing up in court because that is exactly where you will be going. If it applies to the lesser, how much more to the greater?

If your feelings aren’t there, well so what? It’s nice if they are, but you have a duty to do the right thing anyway and doing the right thing is not dependent on how you feel.

“We’re just not in love any more.”

In our modern day and age, marriage has been about love. This sounds perfectly normal to us, but we are the exceptions to the rule. Could love and affection have happened historically? Sure, but that was not the norm. Most of the time it was about survival. How are we going to make it in this world? Today, it is mostly about love, so what do you do when it looks like that spark is no longer there?

Simple. You love the person.

We often think of love as a feeling, but it is not. It is a verb. It is an action. It is seeking the good of the other for the sake of the other. Sometimes this is soft and gentle. Sometimes it’s hard. We have to do things that are painful to the people we love at times because we love them, such as when a family has an intervention for a person who is getting caught up in behavior that they shouldn’t be caught up in. Sometimes when you act in loving ways, the feelings will follow and that’s great. Sometimes they won’t, but oh well. This isn’t about you and your feelings. This is about the good of the relationship.

So what are some ways you can improve the covenant?

For you men, your wife generally wants love and security. She wants a man that she can feel safe with and who she knows cares about her. If she doesn’t think any of these things is true, you really need to take a look at yourself. Peter tells us in his first epistle that we need to be gentle with our wives. That means even when you think she’s being crazy and makes no sense, you try to be understanding with her. A great way men usually fail at this is that women tell us about their problems and we don’t listen really. We go straight into fix-it mode. A lot of times, women want someone to just listen. They could be fine with advice later on, but at the start, listening is all they want.

Another great mistake is to treat your wife like a sex object. My Allie recently shared something that said that what Planned Parenthood and pornography have in common is that they treat people like objects. You can treat your wife the same way. Your wife is not just someone in your life whose purpose is to have sex with you. She is someone you are in fact to be willing to die for. Live your life as a life of love for your wife. My recommendation is that if you’re both on Facebook, make your Facebook page sizzle. Let it be obvious to the rest of the world that you love your wife. I share an image of love to my wife everyday on Facebook save Sunday when I take a break. Facebook has been the cause of many marriages being destroyed so guard yourself closely on Facebook.

Beyond that, be a gentleman. Manners go a long way. Hold open the door when your wife is going somewhere. Make sure she sits down first in a public place and if possible, pull her seat out for her. These are simple things, but they mean a great deal. Remember, your wife is asking every day “Do you still love me?”

So now women, here are my recommendations.

I’ve said before that men should not treat you as a sex object. This is true, but women need to realize how central this is to their men. This is not just an add-on to marriage. This is something that strikes at the very identity of your husband. If you are asking every day “Do you still love me?” your husband is asking “Am I still your man?” If you do everything else in the world for him and don’t give yourself to him sexually, he will go to bed at night saying “Nope. Guess I’m not her man.” I’m sure that makes no sense whatsoever to some of you, but really, that is the way it is.

Now of course, women do enjoy sex and they should, but it’s usually more central for the men. A man with sex is wanting to give you the gift of himself and be accepted as he is. Turning him down is a way of saying he’s not man enough for you. Now of course, I’m not saying jump into the bed every time he asks, but I am saying take this seriously. Perhaps you just can’t then. If you can’t, then my suggestion is that you give your man a time frame. Let’s picture a husband wanting to have a frisky morning with his wife before he leaves. She’s just not into it. What can she do? She could say “Honey. I love you, but I’m just not feeling it right now, but tell you what. You go to work and you do a good job and when you come home, I will be waiting for you and I’ll show you how much I appreciate what you do.”

Ladies. You say something like that and your husband will be thinking about you ALL DAY LONG.

In fact, you do this kind of thing and you will shoot his confidence level through the roof. It is extremely difficult for a married man to have confidence if he does not think that his wife accepts him. If he is sure his wife accepts him, everything changes. This man will be able to do anything. He can conquer the world. He will walk with an extra spring in his step. Whatever miserable situation your husband is in, you can always help it with sex. As one of my friends told me, a husband will never gift his wife a return receipt on sex. If she’s worried about performance, she needs to remember that for a man, sex is like pizza. Bad sex is good sex. As long as it’s sex, that’s enough.

Another great benefit this will give your man is your man is constantly tempted. When we see a woman approaching us, we are instantly aware that this is a woman we are dealing with and in our mind, we start immediately checking her out. It is instinctive on our part. Your husband is going to do this regardless. It is what he does next that matters the most. I have written about this some here. The temptation is very very real and if you have a good and honoring husband, he does not want it to be that way. He hates the fact that he is attracted to other women besides you, but he is and he wants you to remain in his mind at the forefront constantly. A great way to do that for him is to have it be that your body is constantly in his mind by giving yourself to him. The gift your husband wants most from you is you. Your husband is better able to withstand temptation if you are honoring him sexually.

Something else to be careful about is with respect, watch how you speak about your husband. If your husband makes a mistake, and he will, be careful that you’re respectful. Don’t berate him even in a way that seems harmless. Your husband might not know as much about shopping for groceries and cooking as you do. If you send him to the store and he gets the wrong thing, don’t say anything that could be interpreted as “What? Are you some kind of moron? Don’t you know better than this?” It can be guaranteed your husband will not want to do that again or will see it as a chore for you because that sting will be remembered.

Suppose your husband does something really nice for you and decides to wash the dishes. If you take a look and say “Don’t you know how you’re supposed to scrub these? There are stains still all over this!” then congratulations on emasculating your husband right there. He will quite likely not want to do this again. It would work better to say “Honey. Thank you so much for doing this. I really appreciate it. I do want to show you this because there is a way to improve. You see, if you take the sponge and….” In fact, if you end it with “You know, I do appreciate what you did today and keep it up and I will REALLY appreciate it even more” then your husband will be begging to do the dishes for you. (Honestly women, if you want your husband to get up and do the vacuuming and things like that more often, seduce him. Seriously. You’ll have a husband lunging for that vacuum cleaner the moment you ask.)

This idea of nagging especially applies in public. Do not say something that is highly critical of your husband in public. If you’re at a couple’s event and you say something like that about your husband, he will instantly feel lowered. Believe it or not, men are very sensitive. You see, your man can brush off most everything everyone else in this world says. He cannot brush off what you say. He will take everything that you say and do extra seriously. Your man is still striving to be your knight in shining armor and he needs to know every day that that is how you view him and if you don’t feel that way at the moment, well tough. You would not give your husband a free pass on not being loving to you because he doesn’t feel like it. Give him the same courtesy back.

Ultimately, it is all about self-sacrifice. Now in your relationship, you might want to ask “Who makes the first move?” The answer to both parties who ask this is “You do.” The husband makes the first move. The wife makes the first move. You have no control over your spouse and how they’ll do at fulfilling their side of the covenant. You have great control over what you will do and how you will fulfill it. There is nothing in Ephesians that says “Husbands, love your wives, unless they don’t respect you and then you don’t love them.” It does not say “The wife must respect her husband, unless he’s being unloving and then don’t respect him.” Many struggles in marriage are because we are waiting for the other person to make the first move. I often tell people that it is better to be wronged than to do a wrong yourself. If you know the right thing to do, you simply do it.

Now many times, that could require patience on the part of someone else. For instance, I have a great phobia of water actually. As a child, the undertow dragged me under the water at the beach unexpectedly and I just don’t trust water. This makes it very hard for my wife who loves water in a pool with me because I absolutely panic to be away from the edge. I do require her patience, but I know that I must learn to overcome to some extent. (Of course, with the steel rod on my spine from earlier surgery, I will be limited anyway.) Where the other spouse is weak, be patient, but always try to be encouraging and enabling to them and let them know how much they’re capable of. Always try to realize that deep down, your spouse does want to please you.

Covenants are serious matters, but they can be a source of great joy and a wellspring of life if you cultivate them right. You know what you are to do. Your covenant is made before God and man. If you are wanting to honor God, you will honor your spouse.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Answering Thom Stark on the Bible and Homosexuality

What do I think of what Thom Stark has to say on the Bible and homosexuality? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

It’s not a shock that Thom Stark has jumped on the bandwagon with wanting to support homosexual behavior. Now he thinks he has hard questions for Christians. Really? Let’s see what he has.

If you’re a Christian who condemns homosexuality because the Bible condemns it, there are at least five things you must also do before you can condemn it consistently:

Well I guess we’re off to a bad start since I have other grounds for my condemnation, but of course, Stark has this idea that all Christians are the same. But hey, let’s leap into the text.

1) You must also condemn sex between a husband and his menstruating wife (an act condemned on equal footing with adultery, incest, homosexuality, bestiality, witchcraft, and child sacrifice in both Leviticus 18 and Leviticus 20).

On equal footing? Well no. Leviticus 18 doesn’t mention the punishments for certain crimes, but Leviticus 20 does. Leviticus 20 gives incest, homosexuality, bestiality, child sacrifice as leading to death. Witchcraft involves expulsion from the community. The same follows for sleeping with a woman while she’s menstruating since that involves blood and the punishment is being cut off. Homosexuality is right there with the ones that end in death and is thus treated differently. So sorry, point #1 doesn’t really work.

2) You must also acknowledge that, according to God’s laws, polygamy is morally acceptable to God, and is a standard type of “biblical marriage.” It is given tacit approval in the laws of Moses, in Deut 21:15-17, where a man with more than one wife is told that he must treat the children of unfavored wives equally to the children of favored wives. There is 2 Sam 12:8, where Yahweh reminds David that he gave Saul’s wives to him as a gift, and would have given David even more if he had asked. Then in the New Testament, only church elders are told they cannot marry more than one wife (ostensibly because more than one wife is a distraction from caring for the church family), a prohibition that does not apply to any other Christian.

Or being a good Christian, you could remember that this was a practice allowed because of the hardness of the hearts of people, much like divorce was. The NT has several indications about a time where God let some people have a little bit more leeway. But what about 2 Samuel 12:8?

And I gave you your master’s house and your master’s wives into your arms and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah. And if this were too little, I would add to you as much more.

Does this mean more wives? No. It refers to wealth period. Would God have given David other houses besides Israel and Judah? Israel was told to not expand their borders. It refers to increasing wealth entirely. It’s a way of saying “Look what all I gave you! Isn’t that enough?!”

3) You must also acknowledge that, according to God’s laws, it is morally acceptable to capture the women of your defeated political enemies and force them to marry you. “When you go out to war against your enemies, and Yahweh your God hands them over to you and you take them captive, suppose you see among the captives a beautiful woman whom you desire and want to marry, and so you bring her home to your house: she shall shave her head, pare her nails, discard her captive’s garb, and shall remain in your house a full month, mourning for her father and mother; after that you may go into her and be her husband, and she shall be your wife” (Deut 21:10-13). That is biblical marriage.

I suppose Thom would have preferred that the women be either killed or left to fend for themselves alone in the ANE. That they were allowed to marry was a way to protect the woman. Is that a different kind of marriage? No. It is still a man-woman marriage. It is a different way to enter into marriage but the reality of marriage as the union of man and a woman is the same.

4) You must also acknowledge that, according to God’s laws, it is morally acceptable to force a rape victim to marry her rapist. “If a man meets a virgin who is not engaged, and forcibly seizes her and lies with her, and they are caught in the act, the man who lay with her shall give fifty shekels of silver to the young woman’s father, and she shall become his wife. Because he violated her he shall not be permitted to divorce her as long as he lives” (Deut 22:28-29). This is biblical marriage.

And Thom again doesn’t realize that this was set in place to protect the woman. In the culture, she would have been shamed and seen as undesirable for marriage by being raped. Forcing her rapist to provide for her for the rest of his life would make him think twice about the activity. The woman would have welcomed the arrangement wanting the man to be punished and making him pay the price for her.

5) You must also acknowledge that, according to God’s laws, it is morally acceptable as a matter of course to own slaves. “As for the male and female slaves whom you may have, it is from the nations around you that you may acquire male and female slaves. You may also acquire them from among the aliens residing with you, and from their families that are with you, who have been born in your land; and they may be your property. You may keep them as a possession for your children after you, for them to inherit as property. These you may treat as slaves, but as for your fellow Israelites, no one shall rule over the other with harshness” (Lev 25:44-46). You must acknowledge that the New Testament orders slaves to obey their masters, even while it tells their masters to treat them kindly. Nowhere does the Bible condemn slavery, and thus, if you wish to continue to condemn homosexuality simply because the Bible says so, you must never condemn slavery again.

Or we could try understanding the way slavery worked in the ANE. Sorry Thom, but you couldn’t just go to Wal-Mart and get a job. You had to work for someone else and the system set up for that was slavery, a way to actually care for the poor. It was nothing like the slavery that we saw in Civil War Times.

We could go on with things you ought to support: genocide, patriarchy, etc. But these five are a good jumping-off point. When you can honestly say 1) that you do not have sex during menstruation and that you excommunicate any fellow Christians who do, 2) that you support a man’s right to marry multiple women, 3) that you support a man’s right to invade a country, kill a woman’s husband or father, and take her as his wife, 4) that you support a rapist’s right to forcibly marry his victim and deny her right to divorce him, and 5) that you support a man’s right to purchase and own human beings as slaves and bequeath them to his children, then you may come to me and tell me that you believe homosexuality is immoral because the Bible tells you so. Until that time, suffer your own hatred in silence.

Ah yes. The hatred card at the end. You see, I took the time to write this post in the middle of stomping around my house talking about how much I hate homosexuals. When I meet other Christians, all we do is gather around and share stories of mean things we did to homosexuals that week. Please excuse me because after this post I have to go to a meeting where we will hold up our Christian flag and continue our prolonged hate of homosexuals.

Yeah Thom. That kind of drivel about hate means I just don’t take you seriously there. You see, believe it or not, hate can be a very good thing.

What?

You see, I take it you don’t support genocide, slavery, or patriarchy. I would wager you hate those things. Do you think that’s a problem? I don’t. I think if something is evil, you should hate it. Even if it isn’t evil, if you think it is, you should hate it.

Meanwhile, it would have been nice of you to explain what these passages mean that you think we should just throw out. It would have also been nice to have seen you touch a passage like Romans 1 and deal with what Paul said. Oh. Maybe next time you can look at the work of Robert Gagnon and comment.

But until then, it’s this kind of handling of the text that I just find completely unpersuasive and banks on people not understanding the historical context.

By the way, telling people to suffer it in silence is a way of saying “Shut up.”

How tolerant of you.

In Christ,
Nick Peters