Tag: Danny Akin

Deeper Waters Podcast 6/23/2018: Danny Akin

What’s coming up? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Running a seminary is hard work I am sure, and yet you want to go out and inform the church at the same time as well as your students. There are so many topics that one can write about. You look over all of them and you have to decide what matters so much to you. Is there a topic that is near and dear to your heart that you can share about?

My guest this Saturday who is a seminary president will be with me for an hour and he has written a book on such a topic. What did he choose? Sex. What else? He has a great love for the book of the Song of Songs and for building up marriages today.

He will be with me this Saturday to talk about this work. His name is Danny Akin and he is the president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. His book is God On Sex.

So who is he really?

According to his bio:

Dr. Akin is married to Charlotte Akin.

They have been married since May 27, 1978.  

They have four sons who all currently serve in the ministry.  He has 3 daughters-in-law and 12 grandchildren!

 

Dr. Akin currently serves as the President of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and is a Professor of Preaching and Theology.

 

Dr. Akin and his wife Charlotte have traveled to Sudan, Turkey, Middle East, Kenya, Asia, Central Asia, Thailand, India and Paraguay serving our students and missionaries and helping share the gospel.

We’ll be talking about his work and how it is meant to help marriages and help our cultural wars. For instance, is there any real danger to living together before marriage or having sex before marriage? Does sex really play a difference in marriage or is this some kind of add-on that is really not needed?

What does a book of the Bible have to say about this? What can we get out of the Song of Songs that we might be missing? Some couples might want to spark things up somehow in the bedroom and get things more exciting, but does that really matter? Shouldn’t we be more concerned about things like the Gospel instead of how to have a really good time with our spouses in the bedroom?

Readers know that it’s been a stance of mine that the church needs to be doing marriage well. The reason I contend that the world is not treating marriage like it’s sacred is that the church did it first. I try to read many books on the topics of sex and marriage to try to learn as much as I can to be doing the best that I can do.

I hope you’ll be listening to this show as I am thankful to Dr. Akin for taking his time to be on the podcast to talk about this topic. Please be watching your podcast feed for the next episode of the Deeper Waters Podcast. If you haven’t, go on iTunes and leave a positive review of the Deeper Waters Podcast.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: God On Sex

What do I think of Danny Akin’s book published by B&H books? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Turn on the TV. What will you often see? Sex. Listen to the radio. What’s on the news? Sex. Look on Facebook or go to the water cooler. What’s being talked about? Sex. Go to church? What’s being talked about?

Anything but sex.

Which is a shame. We don’t impact the world if we don’t talk about what is being talked about. One great reason we should do so is because the Bible itself talks about sex and talks about it a lot. The Bible begins with the marriage of Adam and Eve and ends with the marriage of Christ and the church. Sex shows up many places in the middle. Most notably, it shows up in the Song of Songs. This is a poem in the Bible all about sex and marriage, one so blatant that many of the fathers felt a need to allegorize the book.

This is also Danny Akin’s favorite book. I find that quite pleasing to hear. We can often think about those in ministry as being caught in spiritual matters all day long so they don’t have time for such interests. This is a nonsense view. Sex is a spiritual interest because it is celebrated regularly in the Bible. It is the image of the love between Christ and the church. If you do not understand sex, you will not fully understand the love of God.

Akin’s book is a commentary on the book. He goes through and sees what the text has to say about sex and marriage. Throughout, he spices it up (No pun intended) with information from various sources on how marriage is done right and the importance of sex in marriage.

Sometimes, some of these can be a bit of a stretch. It can remind me of having the right message with the wrong text. I suppose it is understandable as many things need to be said in our day and age that weren’t specifically in mind when Solomon wrote his song.

Sometimes, I did want some texts looked at a bit more. There were a few portions that could be sped through. I also can’t say I entirely agree with how the chronology of the story is always played. I think Walter Kaiser in his book on the Song has the best chronology I’ve seen.

That being said, the positive material in here is indeed positive. It can be quite amusing and funny to talk about. What is in here can help a couple who is trying to rekindle the fire or help a young couple that is preparing for marriage. In our day and age, young men and women need to hear a whole lot more about what’s coming besides “Just wait until you’re married” and until then that sex is dirty.

You will also hear about problems of cohabitation and divorce and other such things. Marriage is something we need to have defended in our world today. One of the steps in defending it is living it well and good sex between husband and wife is highly important for that.

I encourage the reading of Akin’s book. It is very readable and easy to read. The language is good and simple for husbands and wives to read together or for fiances to read together.

In Christ,
Nick Peters