What’s coming up? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.
I hope you all were fine with not having a week of podcasts. I’ve got someone else now who is helping with producing my podcasts and we’re getting into that groove so it’s taking a little while longer. We did release a new one yesterday. The one with Biologos is next in line. Having said that, let’s discuss this Saturday.
It’s often awkward to talk to your teenagers about sex, but that time doesn’t just come out of nowhere. It happens after years of raising your kids. How do you handle matters before that? You’re not going to tell your three year-old all about the birds and the bees, but you are going to notice them exploring their bodies. What are you to do?
You take the advice of Mary Flo Ridley. She’s my guest on the Deeper Waters Podcast this Saturday. Who is she?
According to her bio:
In 1986 Mary Flo Ridley began presenting a popular parenting seminar in the Dallas area teaching parents how to talk to their children about sex. Armed with medical research, personal stories and humor, Mary Flo walks parents through very specific ways to answer their children’s early questions with confidence. She gives parents a simple strategy that allows them to share their values along with the basic biology and develop a positive plan for introducing this subject in the preschool and early elementary years.
Through her first book and DVD Series, Simple Truths with Mary Flo Ridley, and as an international speaker, Mary Flo gives parents the simple tools they need to begin these conversations. In her second book, God’s Very Good Design, parents can see this strategy unfold in a Biblical context. She is thrilled to partner with Megan Michelson to bring this message to a new generation.
Mary Flo grew up in El Paso, Texas and graduated from SMU. She has been joyfully married to her husband Dave for 36 years and they have three married children and six grandchildren.
Mary Flo is committed to passing on these important truths about raising children and being ready to talk to them about sex. Why does this matter? Because sexual issues are becoming more and more important. Even today you’ll have children being raised in the public school system to accept the idea that homosexuality and transgenderism are normal lifestyles. It’s much harder to unteach something from someone than it is to teach them. While many parents are abandoning the public school system, many people aren’t and some will need to know what to say in these situations in order to train their children properly in Biblical attitudes to the gift of sexuality.
I hope you’ll be looking forward to this new episode. We’ll be recording from 3-5 PM EST and I hope to have it released as soon as possible. I also want you all to know that before too long, we will be transferring everything over to deeperwatersapologetics.com. We’ve got the name registered now and there’s a technical guru I know doing the work. Please also consider with the podcast going on ITunes and leaving a positive review. It means a lot to see them!
What do I think of J. Parker’s book published by Broadstreet? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.
Christians have had a hard time sometimes talking about sexual issues. In many cases, this seems to be much more the case with women than it does with men. Many women have been raised up to think that sex is something that they should tolerate and a necessary evil and just act like you enjoy it.
Thankfully, women have help with a book like J. Parker’s Hot, Holy, and Humorous. I found this one while looking up marriage blogs and I’m interested in having the author on my show. She agreed to send me her book for free to which I am grateful.
This is an excellent look at this topic. Thankfully, she starts off in the right place, building romance. Many a woman can have a hard time believing her husband can really love her when it comes to sex. After all, a man really has a strong desire for that and it can seem to a woman like he just cares about using her body for his pleasure. If he just seems to want sex so much, does he really love me?
Yes. The huge majority of the time, yes he does. What Parker gets is that men want sex for a lot more than just physical release. As she says in the book, if a man just wanted only release, he could do that on his own. No. The man wants something different. To be sure, full intercourse provides something a lot better, but there is something more the man wants and it really can’t be put into words that easily. I would just describe it by saying a man wants to feel respected and honored and loved and he wants to feel like he’s really connected to his wife and is close to her and is a priority to her. Sex is often the loudest way that that is screamed.
Parker advises women to accept what their husband does. He tries. Even if he fails miserably, at least he’s trying. She does describe her husband as Spock and does not think in terms of emotion so being romantic is hard. I must disagree with this some. I’m a Spock type too and I believe in being romantic and do it because of the old saying. Happy wife, happy life. If my Princess is happy, we’re all much happier.
It’s only logical.
Still, her point is well taken. If your husband is trying to do something for you, don’t get after him because it’s not perfect. Your husband tries to fix dinner for you and burns a few items. He tried. He tries to clean up the house and puts things in the wrong spot. He tried. He tried to do the laundry and got everything messed up. He still tried. Get after him for how he failed and he likely won’t try again.
Parker also advises that you find time for sex. Some couples put a time on the calendar and say that barring some crisis of some sorts, we are going to have sex at this time. Scheduling sex may seem odd, but it can work. After all, the man can rest assured he’s going to get that connection and the woman can playfully tease her man with saying something like “Just wait until X day comes along.”
From here on, Parker gets down to the real deal. This is incredibly thorough and yet it is also incredibly clean. Parker’s style is very respectful and does not use dirty slang to speak. Her chapter on kissing has to be one of the most thorough I’ve ever read anywhere. She discusses everything from oral sex to what to do with your hands to dealing with fantasies to how to initiate.
Usually in a marriage, there is one partner who has a high drive and one who has a low drive. Now of course, there are exceptions, but this is the norm. Whichever side you’re on, Parker has some help for you. If you’re a high-drive wife, she has ways to coax your husband a little bit more. If you’re a low-drive, she has ways to make you feel more excited.
Parker also has advice on how to deal with pain and then about how Christians should view sex. Throughout the book, she definitely says no to pornography. When you conclude you can see that for Parker, as it should be for all of us, sex is indeed hot, holy, and humorous.
What do I think of Larry Hurtado’s latest published by Baylor University Press? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.
First off, my thanks to Baylor University Press for sending me an advanced copy. To be sure, this one is an uncorrected proof. While some matters might change before official publication, I suspect that the majority will not. Having said that, let’s dive into this book.
With a title like Destroyer of the Gods, you might be expecting some sci-fi adventure or a fantasy adventure with magic and swords clashing and explosions going off. Instead, you will get a book about the history of early Christianity. How does this fit? Because Christianity led to the death per se of the gods and goddesses of the time.
Often, we hear that Christianity is a religion just like any other. When the point is presented that James and Paul were skeptics and became believers as evidence for the resurrection we are told “People convert for many reasons.” It’s never usually seen as what a scandal it was that people converted to this religion and what that meant in this society.
For instance, religion wasn’t just a personal private choice that you made. It went through every facet of life. The average home in the Roman Empire that wasn’t Jewish or Christian had gods you were to pay homage to. Your workplace would have gods. Your social gatherings would have gods. Even if they weren’t your gods, you were expected to honor them if you were a guest.
Christians went against all of that. Christians said they could not and would not honor the other gods. By doing so, they made themselves social pariahs. They would be seen as misfits in the world and quite frankly, as threats. How will the gods respond after all when these people are not being honoring of them? How will the gods treat us if we allow these people to not honor these gods?
“But weren’t the Jews like that?!” Yes. The Jews were like that as well, but they had an ancient heritage that was based on their ethnicity. The Jews had their critics and people who admired them, but they were often more or less tolerated, largely because their beliefs were so old. When it became obvious that Christian was not an ethnicity and you had former Gentiles going all the way with Christianity, then that cover of protection on Christianity was removed and they were allowed to be targeted in a way that the Jews weren’t.
You see, if Christianity was a religion just like any other in the empire, then it would not be necessary to join. It was because it was radically different that Gentiles would completely abandon their own heritage. Note this isn’t about considering Jesus as one god among many. This is about seeing Him as God in some way. (Hurtado has written much elsewhere on the early high Christology of the Christian believers.)
On page 22, Hurtado also points out that writers like Tacitus saw Christianity as superstitious. This doesn’t mean in the sense of someone afraid of a black cat crossing their path. This means in the sense that the beliefs were repellent and monstrous. We often have this idea that the message would resonated with people because it was about justice and overcoming suffering and the equality of man. Yeah. Good luck finding evidence that the early critics of Christianity saw it that way.
To be sure, some new groups could be seen as troublesome at first, but this was often sporadic. Even at times when Jews were persecuted, they were eventually allowed to return. After awhile, the belief system of new people, like followers of the Egyptian goddess Isis, would be allowed back into the mainstream. Their deities would also be added to the pantheon of gods you could worship in Rome. Christians weren’t like this. Christians, until Constantine, never had a time of favor with the Roman Empire.
Some of you might wonder what the big deal is. “So Christians didn’t worship Roman gods. Why should they care?” Because there was no separation of church and state. To not honor the gods was to not honor Rome and to put Rome at risk. It was treason. Add to it that your crucified god was in fact seen as a traitor to Rome due to dying by crucifixion and now picture how Christians were seen. Christians were people who followed a traitor to Rome and lived lives in treason to Rome by refusing to honor the gods of Rome.
Now someone could say maybe it was just the riffraff that was doing this. Not so. Had that been the case, writers like Celsus would not have bothered responding. Christianity was gaining grounds in the upper reaches of society. I would in fact contend that that is the only way Paul could afford to write his letters and numerous copies of NT books could be made. Someone had to have had money.
Actually, this gets us into something else that was noteworthy about Christians that was unique. They were a bookish people. No doubt, this came also from their background in Judaism as well with what we call the Old Testament. Many times on the internet, you can hear people talk about what the writings of the Mithraic religion and others claim. Good luck finding those. They’re not there. What we know about many of these religions comes in fact from outsiders. Christianity is unique in that we can read the Christians themselves.
In fact, Hurtado points out that Christians popularized the format known as the codex. This is a close precursor to our modern day book. Interestingly, the books that were kept in the codex were those that were seen as Scripture. Those interested in learning about the writing styles of the early Christians will benefit greatly from this information.
Christianity also had a new kind of identity. In the ancient society, to know one member of an ethnic group was to know all of them. Stand up today and say “All Cretans are liars!” and you’ll be called out for political incorrectness. Stand up in the ancient world and say this and you’ll get hearty agreement. In fact, you could even get it from the Cretans themselves!
The Christianity identity however was a forsaking of all other identity markers. It was not rooted in your family. It was not rooted in your birthplace. It was instead rooted in a crucified Jewish Messiah in the backwaters of Israel. Now of course, if you believed His claims about Himself, that would be seen as something noble, but if you didn’t, it would be shameful. The only people this would then be impressive to were people who were already Christians themselves.
Another difference would be how these people lived. Many of us have heard the stories of people who become Christians. They describe their lives before Jesus came and after Jesus came and frankly, many times the before part sounds a lot better. “Yeah. I used to have tons of money and was extremely popular with everyone and I could have any woman I wanted and then, well, I met Jesus, and now I live a moderate lifestyle where I work 9-5, I get shunned by society, and I have said I will have sex with no one until I marry and then only with her.” Of course, I do not want to give an impression that people should not come to Jesus, but frankly, our testimonies could use some work.
Still, this is something that would have made the Christians stand out. They had a lifestyle like this on the issue of sex. If you turn on your television today, sex is often seen as just another hobby that we do together and no consequences to it. In fact, Roman society could be even more open in some ways than ours is. To become a Christian was to give up one of the great gods of the Roman empire (Or severely restrict it) and in fact one of the great gods of the modern West.
So let’s take a look. What have we learned about what it would mean to be a Christian? (And this is only an inkling of what’s in the book.)
First, it would mean that you were a social pariah. You were going against the gods and you would in fact be called impious in a culture where piety was valued. Second, it would mean that you were a person who was identifying with a traitor to Rome and engaging in treason to Rome as well. Third, it would mean you were a bookish sort of person in a culture where books were valued to be sure, but your sacred beliefs were usually not written down. Finally, it would mean that you would have extreme positions on how limited your sex life was to be by comparison.
Well obviously this is something people would flock to!
And yet, Christianity was the destroyer of the gods. When you meet an atheist today, for the most part, they say they don’t believe in God. They don’t usually say the gods. Christianity was a system that changed that. Our modern celebration of justice and equality and other virtues comes largely from the Christian story. Our idea of being able to tolerate different belief systems without agreeing or participating comes from Christianity. Christianity replaced one system with another, its own, and did so good a job that today we often don’t realize it.
If there were areas of improvement for this book, I would like to have seen some more talk about honor and shame. This is really all throughout the book, but very rarely explicitly stated as such. The honor-shame paradigm I think brings so much more of this to life.
Little was said about the belief in resurrection as well. I would have liked to have seen more on that since much of the ancient world saw resurrection as laughable. In fact, some of them would have seen it as abhorrent just as much. Despite this, Christianity made it the foundation of their belief system.
I also hope that the completed copy of this book will have a bibliography. The one I have does not have one, but again, I do have an uncorrected proof. Perhaps that will come in the end. It would be greatly helpful.
Still, this is an excellent book. I had to break out my highlighter again and use it plentifully. This is definitely an area worthy of further research.
What do I think of Sheila Wray Gregoire’s book published by Kregel? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.
One night, a husband went to see his wife who was in bed waiting for them to go to sleep. He came carrying a glass of water and an advil.
Wife: What are those for?
Husband: It’s for your headache.
Wife: I don’t have a headache.
Husband: Excellent.
You see, you don’t have to be an expert in the sexes to know that men really want a lot of sex. If you asked your average husband how much sex he’d like to have, chances are you’d get some variation of “More” and chances are it doesn’t depend on how much sex he is getting. Take a husband who’s even having sex every day and see if he’d be thrilled if he got to have sex twice every day. Would he really say “Nah. I’m cool.”
Meanwhile, on the other side, the wife is often thinking “Exactly how much sex do you want?” or “We just did it last night!” She can wonder how it is in a Christian marriage that this good Christian man she married suddenly became a bundle of hormones that only thinks about sex. What happened?
Enter Sheila Wray Gregoire. She’s the woman behind the blog To Love, Honor, and Vacuum and she has written a book to help ladies understand the importance of having sex with their husbands and to help put them in the mood more often.
With that, every husband I know is sure to want to join me in nominating her for sainthood.
Now why is it that I as a man am reading this? Because I think it’s important for a man to understand the female mind. You see, for we men, it just doesn’t often make sense. We do something together. It makes us feel really awesome at the end. We end up validated and affirmed and if it doesn’t happen, we end up feeling miserable and that we don’t matter, and to top it all off, it’s absolutely free. We don’t have to spend any money. All we do is give each other time. If a woman knows it makes her husband so tremendously happy and has so many benefits, why not?
While I read trying to get inside a woman’s mind, I understand very well that Sheila has got inside a man’s mind. That’s really important. What women so often don’t realize is that they have a key to their man’s confidence and masculinity. A man can’t be expected to act confident and brave outside the bedroom if he’s treated as less than a man inside the bedroom. The bedroom really dominates in the man’s mind. His identity can often rest there.
For instance, in my area of Christian apologetics, before I got married, I was always a bit timid with my approach. What if someone shows me up someday? What happens to my identity then? In the midst of this, I got married and before too long, I realized that fear was not really bothering me so much. It took some time and then I figured out why. By getting to be sexual with my wife, I was getting that affirmation that I needed from her. My identity to the rest of the world didn’t matter so much if my wife saw me as the man that she desires. Please understand this women trying to understand your man. THIS IS HUGE!
In fact, one of the first tips that Sheila gives a wife is to realize her husband is an alien. When we say men are from Mars and women are from Venus, there’s a lot of truth to that. Reality is that women are likely not going to change the libido of their husbands. Sheila says that a man could have a temperature of 104 degrees and a rash and it wouldn’t change the task at hand. There’s a lot of truth to that. Yes. I’ve even been ready to go when having the flu before.
Unfortunately, what happens is mixed messages. A man makes a suggestion to his wife on how he’d like to spend the evening. The woman feels like all she is good to him for is sex and she’s just an object. She says no. The man then feels like he no longer pleases his wife or turns her on. He feels rejected as a man. Note that neither side is likely intending to send the message, but both sides get the wrong message.
For a man, what he’s really asking every time is “Do you desire me? Do you want me? Am I still your man?” He wants to know he’s worth pursuing on his own. In fact, this is why men often don’t want to be the initiator. It’s a whole lot more fun when the wives initiate.
The truth is also, most women wish they could reciprocate more often. We men need to realize that many times, a wife doesn’t like saying no. Sheila tells us on location 124 of the Kindle book that there are two solutions then. You either raise your desire or you make your husbands want it less. (And with the latter, she asks that you please stop laughing so hard.)
Sheila also says she doesn’t want you to do this out of a task. Don’t make it be “Well I guess I have to do this.” Let it be fun. Think about what benefits can await when you get there. It won’t happen overnight, it will take time, but if you do want it, you will eventually get there. You could put an extra zing into your marriage with this.
Sheila also rightly points out that a man really does have a biological need. Once a man has been sexually active with a woman, his body does start to form a need for that. In fact, if he goes without any physical release for a time, it will hurt. It will actually physically hurt him. His body was designed for at least somewhat regular intercourse.
She also says on location 181 that a man sees a curvaceous woman and he doesn’t notice her intellect first. Yes. This is true. Women. Just imagine being on a diet for instance and walking through the dessert section at the store or the chocolate section. Got that image in your mind? Okay. That’s exactly what we go through every single day in society.
Maybe your husband works from home. Doesn’t matter. If he’s on Facebook, he sees it. If he’s surfing the net, he sees it. If he watches a TV show, he sees it. Heck. I see it just when I watch game shows that I love to watch. I can’t avoid it. It’s everywhere. So picture it from this way. We are surrounded by women all day long. We tell ourselves no to these women all day long. We avoid looking with our eyes all day long. The end of the day comes and there is the one woman we can say yes to who we desire to be with. Then comes back the word “No.” To picture that, again, think of the dessert section or the chocolate section. Think of depriving yourself for weeks and then it comes the time that you have said you will get a treat and asking your husband if he’ll get it for you and he says “No.”
Ladies. You are our treat. You are our prize. You are what we love. When my wife goes to see her counselor, I come along too. Once she was stunned when I said that if you took me to see the Mona Lisa, the Niagara Falls, the Taj Mahal, the city of Jerusalem, or any great wonder of the world or of art that man has made, that I say they would all pale greatly in comparison to the joy I get at seeing my wife’s body.
I really don’t think that’s stunning. I think most husbands would say the exact same thing.
She says on location 196 that men need to feel respected and appreciated. They don’t need to feel nagged. Sex can overcome a lot of this. To change what Peter says, sex covers over a multitude of sins. Sex is the way we feel the most loved and it is the way we feel the most respected.
Sheila also wants to remind women that this can work for them, though it should not be used that way. A man who wants sex will feel more attentive. If he doesn’t think he has a shot, chances are he won’t bother. Men will tend to go where the respect is. If they think they get more respect from work than they do from their wives, they’ll go to work more. A man will spend longer hours at the office if he thinks he’ll be respected there. Make him think he has sex waiting for him at home and see what happens.
In fact, some women when seeing counselors and complaining that their husbands never do anything around the house have been told something. “Seduce him for two weeks and see what happens.” Many times, it’s amazing the change that comes over them. Give the man the sex before anything else, and you will start to see a new man. A man will not see himself as much of a man unless he’s getting sex from his wife more often. (Note in all these cases, I am talking about married men.)
Now comes another point. The man also wants the wife to want him. Don’t just go through the motions. Want him. Be active. Treat getting to be with him as a privilege. This is for you also after all. As Sheila says later, God gave women a clitoris for a reason.
Now I’ve spoken a lot to the women, but I want to make something else clear for the men. Sheila ends each chapter with a section for the men, except for the last chapter, which I did find confusing in that aspect. She wants you to know that she is on your side here and it’s wise words for we men to follow.
Going back to the women, Sheila says your marriage will not be all that it could be without healthy sex. You are missing out. Sex isn’t just meant to be a friendship. Most everything else you want in life, you can get from other relationships. It is only in marriage that sex takes place. That is what makes it unique and that uniqueness needs to be highlighted.
With this, it is best to focus on the giving. Too many wives can say “Well I might want to have more sex with him if he’d do XYZ.” Well no. That’s using sex as a weapon. There is nothing Biblical that says “Wives, respect your husbands if he does XYZ.” No. It’s just respect. (And by the way, there is information in there on the strong cases of pornography and abuse. In this case, your goal is to heal your husband over a substantial issue and/or protect your own safety in a place where you’re reasonably in danger.)
She also says you can help your husband in holiness with this. If he has an affair, that’s his own fault, but you can help remove the temptation by good sex with him. You can also better enable his mind to focus on other things. Many women can complain the only affection they get from their husbands is sexual affection. That can be because he wants it so badly that if he gets close to you that’s all he thinks about. Give him regular sexual affection and regular non-sexual affection will be easier because he can rest assured it’s coming soon.
In fact, she talks about a nurse who said that unless you’re driving down the highway, when he asks say yes. The time you spend arguing about it will be longer than the time you would have spent just doing it. You’ll make your husband happy and avoid an argument. Think that’s worth it?
Some women have a problem with sexual abuse in their past. I really recommend if that’s you, get Sheila’s book. She has some advice on how to cross over that hurdle. Some of you have dealt with rejection. She also has something on that.
Sheila also correctly points out that God made sex. It was His idea. Again, we come back to the clitoris. He made this just so women could enjoy sexual pleasure. There’s no other purpose I know of certainly for this part of the body. There’s even a book of the Bible, the Song of Songs, dedicated to sex. Let’s cut the stuff about how it’s a metaphor for God and Israel or Christ and the church. Maybe on some level it is, but first and foremost, it’s a book about sex. God’s not ashamed of it. Neither should we be.
It’s also important to Sheila that you not place burdens on it. Don’t have it be “If you buy me something I really want, we’ll have sex.” That can get the man thinking that he himself is not enough. Don’t let sex be conditional. Let it be something that you do just because you want him.
Sheila also has an excellent suggestion on how our society opposes men. Think about how we have removed competition and encouraged people to be “nice.” Now of course, I’m not saying that men should be jerks, but have you seen how men talk to each other? Men get together and insult each other constantly and you know what? We’re best friends as a result of it! My own wife is just mystified as to how my friends and I can interact with each other. “That’s mean.” Yeah. We do it anyway. It’s in fact the way we bond. Men are the ones who in fact usually bond by roughhousing. That makes no sense to women.
Men are also competitive to a fault. I remember sitting around with some guys where I worked once and talking about painful experiences we’ve had in life on a physical level. Before too long, I realized each man was trying to top the other one. That’s what we do! (I think I won since I have had major back surgery.)
Men are told we need to not be aggressive and we need to have empathy. That goes against so much of what beats in the heart of a man. A man is a go-getter by nature and a man thrives on competition. Our society though panders to more feminine attributes. On top of that, we’re told we’re not to see women as sex objects, despite the fact that women can often wear clothes that accentuate their curves profoundly and wear their pants around their hips.
The odd thing is most women don’t even realize they’re doing this. They just want an outfit that feels good on them. Many a pastor even can have a hard time preaching a sermon because there’s a woman in the front row wearing a low-cut blouse and she doesn’t even realize what a source of temptation she is. I remember a man at a church once saying how he couldn’t really think about what a woman was saying once because her skirt was just so short.
You see women, your physical appearance does matter. Now I would be superficial if I said it’s everything, but I would be wrong if I said it was nothing. We are not Gnostics. You have a body for a reason. How you treat that body is also a gift to your husband. In fact, one of the great motivators I have had to treat my own body better is being married. I want my wife to get the best of me. Strive to give your husband the best of you.
Sheila also says wives need to initiate. If a wife doesn’t do that, then her husband will always feel like a child at the candy store begging for candy. Your no may be just a no, but not to him. It’s a huge rejection. Again, it is hard for him to feel like a man you believe in outside of the bedroom, if he doesn’t think you’re the man he believes in inside the bedroom. Sheila has a wonderful quote from a husband I want to quote in full.
The most important part of making love, particularly for the men, is that it is not about us getting pleasure, but rather the high we achieve by giving pleasure to our wives. It is our way of giving love, but when it is apparent that the person receiving our love is only there to “please” us, then it becomes rejection of us personally.
This deserves to be written in gold. Women may find it hard to believe, but the greatest pleasure a man gets is out of knowing he is a source of pleasure to his wife. The constant saying of no tells us we are not a source of pleasure. It is a rejection.
One more comment from Sheila is worth pointing out. She says as well that sex gets better the more you have it. I am convinced in my own life that this is true. This month Allie and I celebrate six years together. I enjoy this area a lot more now than I did then. I am convinced I’ll say the same five years from now.
Does this mean that change will happen overnight if you desire it? No. If you’re a woman who wants to improve your sex life and you buy this book and read it, it doesn’t mean you’ll get over all the hurdles in a day, but it does mean you’re on the path and if you let your husband know you’re on your path, you can be assured he’ll go to bed that night celebrating and looking forward to the future.
Did Sheila get inside the mind of a man? I think so. Now it’s time for the wives to get inside their husbands’ heads and the husbands to get inside their wives’.
What’s coming up on the Deeper Waters Podcast? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.
The talk. It’s something parents often dread to have. Who’s going to be the one to give the talk to the children? Many parents live in dread of this moment and it’s not like there’s an instruction manual that tells you the proper way to talk to your kids about sex, especially in a day and age where sexual issues are being put front and center and there are whole new questions that have to be asked regularly and discussed.
Or maybe there is an instruction manual.
And maybe the person to share it is my guest this Saturday, Dr. Freda Bush. Who is she?
Freda McKissic Bush, M.D.,FACOG has been involved in women’s health for more than forty years. Her health career began graduating from the University of Arkansas School of Nursing in 1967. She graduated from Columbia University, New York, with a Masters in Maternity Nursing and Certificate in Nurse Midwifery (CNM) in 1970 and worked as a CNM for 12 years including serving as the Chief Nurse Midwife at Harlem Hospital, New York, NY. In 1974, she became Director of the University of Mississippi Nurse Midwifery Program in Jackson, MS. In 1983, Freda graduated from the University of Mississippi Medical School and in 1987 completed her residency training at the University of Tennessee in Memphis. Since 1987 she has been practicing OB-GYN in Jackson, Mississippi and is a Clinical Instructor in the Department of OB-GYN and Department of Family Medicine at the University of Mississippi Medical Center. She is a partner in private practice with East Lakeland OB-GYN Associates in Jackson, Mississippi, is a Fellow in the American College OB-GYN and a Board Member of the American Association of Prolife OB-GYN.
Dr Bush is Past Chair of the Board of Directors of the Federation of State Medical Boards of the United States (FSMB), having been elected to the Board in 2003. She also served on the Mississippi State Board of Medical Licensure for 12 years. Currently, she is a member of the National Board of Medical Examiners. She is past President of the Central Mississippi Medical Society. In 2006, she received the Community Service Award from the Mississippi State Medical Association (MSMA).
In February, 2012, she became President/CEO of the Medical Institute for Sexual Health. Freda co-authored with Joe S. McIlhaney, MD two books, HOOKED, New Science on How Casual Sex is Affecting OurChildren and the latest book released January, 2012, Girls Uncovered, New Research on What America’s Sexual Culture Does to Young Women. She is a Member of the Mississippi Governor’s Blue Ribbon Task Force on Teen Pregnancy Prevention and serves as Chair of the Medical Advisory Subcommittee. Dr Bush served as a Presidential appointee to the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (PACHA). She was a contributing writer to Faith Matters: How African American Faith Communities Can Help Prevent Teen Pregnancy published by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy.
Dr. Bush is a member of the Physician’s Resource council for Focus on the Family. She also currently serves as a medical advisor for Heartbeat International and CareNet and serves as Medical Director to the Center for Pregnancy Choices, Metro Jackson.
Much of her time is spent speaking on sexual health, sexually transmitted diseases and social behavior education. She has presented seminars for health professionals, educators, parents and youth in several cities and states; co-sponsoring a conference in Jackson, MS for seven years.
Dr Bush has been interviewed on several TV programs as well as numerous radio programs including Focus on the Family and Family Talk with Dr. James Dobson, Focus on the Family with Dr. Jim Daly and Family Life Today with Dennis Rainey. She has published articles in the Journal of Medical Regulation, The MS State Medical Association Journal, Christianity Today, Charisma Magazine and Christian Living Metro Jackson.
Married for 45 years to her husband, Lee, an engineer, they have four children, nine grandchildren and one great grandchild.
This Saturday, we’ll be talking about her new program Had The Talk aimed to help parents understand how to guide their children through this. This is becoming more and more of a central issue in this day and age. I hope you’ll tune in to hear this interview and also consider leaving a positive review on ITunes of the Deeper Waters Podcast.
What’s coming up on the Deeper Waters Podcast? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.
This one doesn’t have a date to it because due to a scheduling conflict, we had to reschedule this for today. When the interview is done, I hope to start work on it soon and get it up as soon as I can. Hopefully today, but I can’t make any promises. So what are we talking about?
Parents have always dreaded having “the talk” with their children. Which parent is going to be the one to sit down and talk about the birds and the bees? Will it be both parents? When is the proper time to do this? How do you explain the moral aspects of this?
It was hard enough in the past. Today, it is even harder. Now we live in a world where homosexuality is being put in front of us every day and too many young people are running around with soundbites that they’ve heard but have never really for the most part thought about. Young people wanting to be socially acceptable have a scarlet letter on them where they are seen as intolerant or bigots because they hold to a Biblical view of sexuality.
How can any parent possibly talk to their children about this? What are they to say? Do most parents themselves even have the answers to the questions? To discuss this topic, I’m having my friend Tom Gilson come on. Who is he?
And according to his bio he is
B. Mus. in Music Education and Trombone Performance, Michigan State University, 1979
M.S. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, University of Central Florida, 1998
Certificate (30 graduate hours), Campus Crusade for Christ Institute for Biblical Studies
– plus a smattering of courses from Denver Seminary and Talbot Seminary
Lead editor, True Reason: Confronting the Irrationality of the New Atheism, Kregel, 2013
Author of Critical Conversations: A Christian Parents’ Guide to Discussing Homosexuality With Teens, Kregel, 2015
Over 150 published articles including work published at Touchstone, Salvo, and Discipleship Journal
Blogging at Thinking Christian since 2004.
34 years with Campus Crusade/Cru
2 years with BreakPoint
2 years in senior national leadership with Ratio Christi
Currently Senior Editor and Ministry Coordinator specializing in apologetics and inspiration with The Stream (stream.org)
Tom writes this book not only with the head of an apologist, but the heart of a pastor. If you are unfamiliar with apologetics, you will still be able to make it through this book. He also has responses to internet soundbites which is something that we really need. Our young people today are not really having to answer arguments so much as they are having to answer slogans.
This is an important show for you to listen to but remember, if you happen to listen and there are possibly younger listeners around, you might want to listen to this one when it’s more private depending on when you plan to talk to your children. If they’re ready, Tom’s book will be one that is incredibly helpful. It is a fine one for you and your teenager to go through together.
Why do we do that which is right? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.
I’ve noticed something a lot more recently that shows that we’ve become a society that looks to consequences to see if a decision is right. For instance, I’m a gameshow junkie. When my wife is done watching something and says “Turn on what you want” I inevitably go to the Game Show Network. Now let’s suppose we’re watching a game of chance on there, such as Catch 21, which is built around an idea of Black Jack. I don’t need to go into the details, but in the final round, the winner can choose to wager what he has that he will get 21 on up to three different hands of cards. If he ever busts, he loses everything. When he decides to walk away, the host will still say “Well let’s see what would have happened?” I don’t blame them for that. We all want to see that, but if a bust comes, it is told “You made the right decision.”
Maybe, but is that why?
Yesterday I commented on a post by Sheila Wray Gregoire on her blog, To Love, Honor, and Vacuumwhich my wife introduced me to. In it, I put up a link from the Family Feud which happens to be a favorite one. You can watch it here:
Now if you’re somewhere where you can’t watch that right now, the host Steve Harvey is asking the question about what 100 married men said in response to this. “I would blank for sex.” This is one that usually gets me cheering and the men for the most part, get it right every time. The women give answers like “cook” and “clean.” When Sheila posted it on Facebook you had women saying “Well if he cooked and cleaned, I’d be more likely to have sex.”
Is this doing the right thing?
What do these both have in common? They all appeal to consequences. They don’t look at the action itself. They just look at the result.
Let’s suppose in the above example, the guy could have had the cards drawn and walked away with the grand prize and won all the money. Does that mean he made the right decision if he kept going? Not necessarily. After all, it could have been the odds were stacked majorly majorly against him. He made a decision that happened to have a good result, but it was a random fluke. In fact, it could be he made the right decision by stopping because that was a wise decision. He could have won about $5,000 already and it would have been foolish to put the rest on the line because of a slim chance.
Or how about what I described above from the women? Now don’t get me wrong. I am not saying a husband should not help around the house if he can by cooking and cleaning. (Of course, if the former requires visits from the health and/or fire department, that could be an exception.) Still, let’s suppose he doesn’t do that. Does that mean the wife can say “Well I’m not going to do what I should do for you because you’re not doing for me what you should do for me?” The sad thing is many a husband could say in response “Well why should I cook and clean for you if you’re not willing to have sex with me?”
In fact, both the husband and wife are being selfish in this case. It’s saying “I will do what I should do for you if you will do what I want first.” It’s also got sex being used as a weapon, which should never happen in marriage. Instead, only one question needs to be asked. “What is the right thing to do?” If you know the right thing to do, do it. James in the Bible holds no punches. If you know the good you ought to do and don’t do it, you sin.
When we do this, we could say “I’d do the right thing, but what if XYZ?” What if indeed? So what either way. Are you saying “If it will not work out for me, then I will do the wrong thing? If so, then you are not really interested in doing the right thing but in doing that which you want to do.
And let’s be blunt, we all struggle with this. We all look out for ourselves. Lately, my wife has been wanting me to trust her more in the swimming pool. I am hydrophobic and I really get what I think is a localized PTSD when I get in the water. All the rationality goes out the window. I know the right thing to do is trust her, but then I think “What if I fall?” “What if an accident happens?” What if. What if. What if. Now to be sure, these are possibilities, but on one level, they’re also stupid. Am I to think that if something happened to me in the water and I went under that Allie would just stand there and say “Well it was a good marriage while it lasted. Time to go home and get on Christian Mingle.” No. Even if she didn’t do anything, there are several other people around who could and would do something.
Now of course, that doesn’t mean a fear gets bulldozed over. As it stands, I’m taking little steps right now to face my fear, such as when I get a shower I’m spending some time just soaking my face not for the purposes of cleaning, but for the purposes of getting used to it. A generous friend has also ordered me a face mask of sorts to help with my fear.
If there is a legitimate struggle and fear blocking you doing the right thing, I advise just keeping in your mind to do the right thing and make that your goal. If you want to do that which is right, pray and ask God to help. If instead it’s more a case of “You do X for me and maybe I’ll do Y for you” then you simply need to repent. That’s not the attitude to have. That’s only doing the right thing if it works out for you, which is ultimately selfish.
Consequences are a part of our actions and sometimes doing the right thing will not work out well, but it is still the right thing to do. If you want to know what excuse there is for not doing the right thing, bluntly, there isn’t. There can be reasons for not doing the right thing, but reasons are not justifications. When we stand before God, there will be no excuse for any time we’ve done the wrong thing. Of course, there are sins of ignorance and such, but the question is not over where we generally are unsure about the right thing to do, but when we know the right thing and come up with an excuse to do not do it.
Today, I recommend you start examining your life. What are you doing? Why are you doing it? What are you looking out for the most?
Is rape really a big deal? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.
A lot of people are talking about a news story of a Stanford swimmer convicted of sexual assault. What has made it even more noteworthy is that the father of the boy has come forward and written a letter that people are just outraged by. For the sake of discussion, I’m going to assume that the boy is indeed guilty and the girl really was raped by him. Sometimes, new evidence comes out later that shows otherwise but from what I gather, the evidence we have is convicting enough. Of course, even if I am wrong, what I say on rape will still stand regardless of this particular.
So according to what I’ve read, the girl goes to a party and has a little too much to drink. To be fair, that part is on her. This is why you need to be careful with your alcohol at a party, especially a college party. In fact, the victim has said that this was something she owns up to, but that does not mean that someone was justified in taking advantage of her in a state where she was entirely vulnerable. Much of this she says in a letter that she has written.
What has amazed people is that the offender has been given a light sentence of six months and then three years of probation because of the judge’s worry about what a stiffer sentence would to him. Yes. We must worry about the psychological well-being of someone who takes advantage of an innocent woman instead of remembering that the law is in place not to cater to our feelings, but to dispense justice.
What has been more astounding has been that the father has sent a letter. In it, he spoke about what his son and dreamed about and worked to achieve and asked for probation. He reportedly said “That is a steep price to pay for 20 minutes of action out of his 20 plus years of life.”
That statement just sticks out to me. 20 minutes of action. What are we talking about?
A lot can happen in 20 minutes. A man could pick up a gun and go and murder his neighbor in a 20 minute time-frame. A shooting spree can take place at a public place in 20 minutes. A photo taken wrongfully of a young woman in a position she would not want to be seen in can be shared all over the internet in 20 minutes. A good thief can break into your house and steal your valuables and be out in 20 minutes.
Can some greater evils take more time? Yes. They can. Some greater evils can take less time. The time has nothing to do with it. If it did, then I would want to ask this Dad how much time should have been spent in this action before it would be worthy of more jail time?
Now let’s look at the other part. Action. Twenty minutes of action. Really? Is that what you call it? Taking a girl out back behind a dumpster and raping her on the ground so much so that bystanders rightfully consider it an attack is referred to as just actions? Now to be sure, of course it’s an action. Yet it is not just an action. It’s an attempt to downplay it.
To give a different standard, suppose my wife and I engaged in some love-making that took twenty minutes and for us was entirely mutual and self-giving. Is that twenty minutes of action? Sure, but it is not just action. It is something incredible and wonderful.
I find it amazing that as a Christian, I’m often thought to have a negative attitude towards sex. I am seen as a prude who thinks that sex is this big dirty thing. I just want to control everyone’s sex lives.
Okay. Let’s start off. What is my view of sex? Sex is one word that I really use the word “magical” to describe and I hesitate to use that term. It’s just I can’t think of anything else. When I talk to young men about to get married and ask them if they think they know about what they’re getting into and they say yes, I tell them they don’t have a clue. They don’t know what a sexual relationship does to someone. Once Pandora’s Box has opened, it can never be shut again. Nothing is ever the same.
Like many Christian couples, my wife and I waited until we got married to have sex. I don’t regret that decision. In fact, I encourage every couple to go that route. I encourage it because of the awesome action that sex is. Sex is something that intimately bonds you to another person.
The thing about sex is that when it comes to the marriage act as it is called, you are really giving yourself to another person in the most vulnerable action possible. This is done willingly. You tell the person that you trust them entirely. You desire them entirely. You want nothing to come between the two of you.
One of the designs of the activity is to bond the husband and wife to each other. Sex is a bonding activity and you cannot choose for it to not be. That’s what happens. That’s why a husband’s love for his wife can shoot up even more after they have sex together and vice-versa.
Sex outside of marriage can no doubt be intended to be a message of love, but it can also be a message of testing. We often hear this with “Would you buy a car without taking it for a test drive?” Someone who says this misses the point and is thinking in a way sadly similar to this father. It is to dehumanize the person.
You see, you can’t have sex with another person and have it have no affect on them for better or for worse. If you take a car for a test drive and you don’t like it, the car will not be thinking about what you did. The car will not stay in the lot wondering why it wasn’t chosen. The car will not go into therapy hoping to learn how to improve itself so it will be wanted next time. The car doesn’t know or care. A person is not a car. When someone tells me they wouldn’t buy a car without taking it for a test drive, I just ask which one of them is the driver and which one is the car.
Do you really want to have your relationship work like that? What would it mean if you were not pleased sexually with the person you were dating? That they would be out? How can a person be truly giving themselves to you then in selfless love if they know somewhere that they are being tested? If they do not perform adequately, then they are out. If that is not your stance, then why do you need a “test drive”? A test drive implies someone could pass or fail the test.
If you wait until marriage, there is no pressure. Of course, both partners still want to please the other, but your relationship is not on the line. You are not going to end it because of how things go. In fact, this is really important because contrary to what you see in the movies, sex is something that improves over time as you get to know the person and your bodies get used to each other more and you learn what you like and don’t like.
Theologian R.C. Sproul in a book I saw several years ago talked about going to see his family a few weeks after his marriage or so. I do not remember how long exactly except that it was early and I don’t remember if it was his family or hers. Anyway, he talked to an older uncle there who asked how he “liked it.” Sproul said it was terrific. This uncle then said that he didn’t know the half of it. Sproul said he didn’t know what this old codger knew that he didn’t already know. Years later, he said he started realizing it.
The good thing about the covenant is you have the rest of your lives to improve, and you will improve. The more the self-giving and desire keeps going on, the better the relationship improves. This is not a test. It is something beautiful.
Unfortunately, some people can steal this away before its time. It tells me in the case of a man raping a woman (And to be fair, women can rape men too.) that the man is really not a man. If you want to have a woman, you need to do the work for that privilege. Be a real man for her.
This is the part the women can really change in the culture. For the most part, men are usually the most aggressive ones with sex. We are the go-getters. If we consider who is in charge of an economy, who is it? Is it the buyers or the sellers. Does the buyer determine the price of an item, or the one who gives the item? It is the latter.
So ladies, when it comes to sex, you are deciding how much a guy has to give you before you will give him yourself entirely. Is it dinner and a movie? Is it three dates? Is it a month? 6 months? Engagement? Or is it marriage? I recommend you go with the final one. Go with marriage. You tell a man he has to make a covenant with you that he loves you and you alone and is not going to ever leave or abandon you before you give him all of you.
Our culture has that backwards. It’s been said that the great temptation when a couple is dating is to look for any excuse to have sex. When they are married, the great temptation is to look for any excuse not to have sex. It is a shame that unmarried people look to have more sex than married people. It’s one reason people view sex as dry and stale. If the church wants to see the world honor marriage, we have to lead by example, and one of that is not just having a marriage, but doing marriage well, including sex.
As wrong as I think having sex outside of marriage is, having rape is worse. This is where we get to the analogous part to buying a car. Rape is the ultimate way of treating someone (And I’m going to presume a woman for the most part) like an object. It is not looking at the person as a human being, but looking at them as a tool of sexuality. You don’t really care about them so much as getting your kicks.
Can that happen in twenty minutes? Yep. Men will do the most incredible mind-blowing things in order to get sex. Consider for instance this favorite clip of mine from the Family Feud.
If you want to see more of this, just consider looking up vines on YouTube, which I generally hate as a rule, about the topic of “But I’m home alone.” In each case, the girl calls her boyfriend wanting him to do something and he says no only to be told “But I’m home alone” and then no task is too much. That doesn’t just change for boyfriends. It happens in marriage as well.
What I want to establish with that is that yes, sometimes the passions can easily take over. That’s why men need to develop self-control as much as they can. This boy might have wanted to be a great swimmer, and he could still do that, but at this moment, he wanted something else more. He was willing to do whatever it took to get it, and he made the choice.
We are often told with abortion that consenting to sex does not mean consenting to pregnancy. In fact, it does. You remain open to that even with the best contraception because nothing is foolproof save vasectomies and hysterectomies. In life, you can choose your actions, but you can’t choose your consequences.
Some consequences you will have little control over. If you look both ways before crossing the street and someone comes flying around a corner and hits you, you have no control over that. If a child of yours gets cancer through no fault of medical lack on your own, you have no control over that. The sad part is we spend a lot of time crying about things we do have control over if we will do something different and that is to change our behavior. This isn’t a light switch that turns off and on, but if we want to do it, we will have to do the work for it.
So let’s get back to the action that we’re talking about. Rape is in fact stealing. It is a form of theft and dishonoring and the shaming and dehumanizing of a person. While the father is talking about the consequences for his son, let’s think about the consequences for the woman. In fact, she hasn’t gone far enough. She’s not the only one affected.
When we start with her, she is saying now she sleeps with a light on and she wants to have protection with her always. Now, she will be tempted to look at every man with suspicion. One guy at a party seemed innocent enough, but maybe he isn’t. Maybe he’s just like every other man. (Because now built in is an idea that all men are like this.) Maybe all men are just predators. (We have an idea even in Christian circles that because men think about sex so much that all men are perverts. Not true.)
I don’t know about this woman’s boyfriend. I don’t know if they were sexually active together or not, but so far it looks like he’s been a very honorable man. He’s going to pay for the sins of this other man. She’s going to have to learn to trust him. He will be held responsible for their sins and he will not be able to repent for he cannot repent of a sin he has not committed.
If she breaks up with him, any future man will be seen with suspicion. The root reason is that this woman has been violated. She has been treated as an object. She is not some inflatable blow-up doll. She is a person. She is someone who lives and breathes and has thoughts and feelings like most everyone else. To treat her as less than a person is to dehumanize her. (Which always men in marriage as well, make sure you don’t treat your wife as an object or someone just there to satisfy your desires. You are to care for her as well.)
In the end of this woman’s letter, she does say the story isn’t over for this man. She’s right. He will be a registered sex offender, but he can change. He can learn from this action and overcome it. (I have no desire to call it a mistake. A mistake is locking yourself out of your car. Raping a woman is not a mistake. It’s a deliberate wrongful action.)
The story is not over for this woman either. As a Christian, I would first listen to her. I would hear her cry. (Note I would honestly prefer to have my wife do this. As someone in ministry I try to avoid counseling women apart from her.) I would let her express any painful emotions she’s feeling.
Then, after all that was done, i would tell her about Christ and how she can be made a new creation. No. Her past is not undone, but she doesn’t have to be a victim to it any longer. No. It’s not guaranteed to be immediate, but she does not have to be alone and she never will be truly alone. I would be able to assure her that as awful as this event was, the God of creation can take it and use what was intended for evil for good. In fact, this is already starting to happen as she’s apparently speaking to try to raise awareness of this danger so other women don’t have to undergo it.
All in all, this whole story shows how our culture really does not understand sex. Someone once said the problem with our culture is we think too much about sex. It isn’t. The problem is that we think too little. We dream about sex, fantasize about it, make TV shows and movies of it, talk about it, just plain do it, but we don’t think about it. We don’t sit down and ask about what sex really is and what it means when we do it and why that is so important and why it shouldn’t be taken so lightly.
If we don’t think about it, then we are just as guilty of treating sex as just an action. It’s just something you do for fun together with no long range consequences. It is just a way of expressing love. No. Sex is in its own unique category. It stands apart from everything else.
That’s in fact why we Christians have such boundaries about sex. We put boundaries around it for the same reason we put our valuables in a safety-deposit box and not our garbage. Sex is valuable and we don’t want to mistreat it or misuse it. I compare it to nuclear energy. It’s wonderful and very efficient when used in the right time and place and circumstances. If you do it wrong, you get Chernobyl.
I hope that all this will lead to us doing and thinking about sex right. Part of the problem is our philosophy of sex has led to a culture where sex is treated cheaply. When sex it treated cheaply, real women are treated cheaply. They are not cheap. They are wonderful creations in the image of God. I love my wife, but my wife is not to be seen as a means to have sex. Sex is meant to be seen as the way that I have her. I express my love intensely in that action and want to show her every time how serious I am about my relationship with her and how much I desire intimacy with her.
I look forward to a day when we realize again how sacred sex and marriage are.
Is marriage private or public? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.
Recently, I was doing some more thinking about marriage, which isn’t a shock to most readers of the blog. There are some things I don’t think you really learn well about the institution until you’re in it. In this case, I was thinking about honor and marriage and the public and private aspects of marriage.
You see, a marriage starts off with a very public ceremony. In fact, it’s seen as kind of a necessity. No doubt, others have known about the love of the bride and groom for a long time, but now they publicly announce it and make a pact. At this point, they declare there will be no one else. It is the two of them together. This is done in the sight of God and man.
From there, shortly after you have a very private aspect of marriage. This takes place sometimes on the wedding night, but some couples do wait until the next day. Sexual intimacy is again a central part of marriage. In this case, the last thing the lovers want is for their relationship to be private. It’s not because of a shame of the act or themselves, although that can happen for some people. It’s because of a unique trust.
There is a unique trust in a woman trusting her body to a man and a man trusting his body to a woman. Both couples share something secret of themselves that they share with no one else on an intimate level. It’s also something that the details are not discussed. All that needs to be known about couples is that this is going on. There are two great demonstrations of this.
One demonstration is the love that is shown in private. It’s not just love, but it’s honor. A wife honors and respects her husband by saying “You alone I trust with this most vulnerable part of myself and you alone do I feel comfortable with.” Men respond to honor and respect for the most part. Nothing builds them up.
You see, my wife is working with me on a fear of water that I have right now. I absolutely panic when I get into a swimming pool. It’s going to take time. You know what one of my biggest motivations is for improving? It’s realizing that my wife trusts me so much that she gives me herself. How much am I willing to do for my wife back?
This is also part of the beauty of the mutual giving of love. My act then can motivate her to say “I’m so proud of my husband. How can I best show him how proud I am of him?” The beauty of marital intimacy is that it becomes a cycle that regularly increases the love and the trust. The more you have intimacy with your partner, the more you will grow in love and trust. The less you have intimacy, the harder it will be.
Oh. Please note that guys. The best part of this relationship is the intimacy. Sex is more than the physical sensations. It’s the connection you realize you’re building with your wife. It’s not just about getting something in the body, but getting something in the relationship.
I said that one way this love is shown is through the love the couple has for one another in public. What happens in the bedroom should stay in the bedroom but the results should be seen in public. One clear result often seen in public is children. One way the topic of sex is public happens whenever you see a human being. When that happens, you know that two people have had sex at one point.
Of course, not all children are the results of loving unions, which is a shame, but for the most part we’d think they are. The reason you are with your spouse right now if you’re married is because in part, your parents had sex one time and their parents had sex one time. The result was you on one end and your spouse on another.
The ideal of marriage then is to have that honor shone in both places. Husbands and wives should strive to honor and build one another up in public. In turn, they should do so in private where the most honor can be shown. As I said, it’s a great build up. I have regularly told my wife that I think my ministry shot off after I got married because I had her in my life and got to receive that private honor.
Marriage is not just a part of our lives that we compartmentalize. It affects everything that we do. I have often said that if we want to be good apologists, then we need to be honoring marriage. If you’re single, maintain sexual purity until you marry and honor marriage and respect the relationships of your married friends. If you are married, love your spouse as you’re supposed to. If couples should compete in anything, it’s to outdo one another in showing love and affection.
What do I think of Tom Gilson’s book published by Kregel? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.
Parents have always tended to dread “the talk” and asked one another which one of them will be the ones to tell their children about the birds and the bees. As awkward as it has been in the past, today for Christian parents, it can be even more awkward. What was thought unthinkable in the past is now seen as the new normal. Christians for the most part know what the Bible says about homosexual practice and today, that leads to them being called bigots, haters, intolerant, etc.
What are Christian parents to do? It’s no longer enough in our day and age to just say “Well this is what the Bible says.” Something more is needed. That’s why I’m proud to support Tom Gilson’s book on the topic. Gilson writes a book that is intellectually rich but also with a pastoral heart. As you read it, it’s like Gilson is taking your hand and guiding you through the minefield and helping you see step by step how best to handle these conversations with your children.
Note I said conversations. The birds and the bees talk might be a one-time deal, but this is a prevalent issue that will likely involve more than one talk, especially as your teenager receives more challenges from classmates. Gilson is set to walk you through with a history of how we got here, what marriage means and why it matters, and how to handle challenges everywhere, even from a professor in a college classroom.
All that is well and good and you can find that information in many books, but if all you had was the final section, it would be worth the price of the book. In the final section Gilson takes a lot of the soundbite slogans that your child will encounter and works through how to answer them. He has an idea of a kind of conversation you can have all the while wanting you to make sure that it is not a script.
Most every slogan you can think of is addressed here. It’s as if Gilson sat at his computer writing every sound bite that came along and then decided to respond to all of them. It is a shame that we live in a soundbite culture where these kinds of statements have to be addressed, but unfortunately they do. Gilson does the job though. Your children will encounter taunts. They will be able to reply with substantial arguments.
If there’s something I would like to see in a future edition, I would like to see more of the positives of what we are defending. We as Christians have largely been seen as taking a negative side in the marriage debate. We need to make sure we present equally a very positive case. I would like to see more writing encouraging teenagers on the goodness of the male-female relationship and how it works in marriage, which would certainly include the grandeur and wonder of a sexual relationship, but also the way male and female can build themselves up to holiness in a life of joy. There is some of this when Gilson says every kiss with his wife is something big, but I would like to see more.
Still, this is a book I wish every Christian parent of teenagers would buy. Actually, change that. Every Christian who wants to know how to address homosexuality period whether you have teenagers or not should read this. You are coming across the soundbites just as much as they are. You too need this. Don’t avoid buying this book just because you don’t have teenagers. Buy it because you are a Christian in a world that needs the answers.
