Stopping to Think

The following are my notes from a training session I led at a meeting of volunteers for a youth ministry. We discussed the pervasiveness of porn, its devastating effects, and how to help someone struggle against this sin. Hopefully some of the links are beneficial to you, as well. The Problem of Porn Why Does Pornography Matter? Statistics 1 : Pornography would matter, if for no other reason than the staggering number of people who access it regularly. Asking if pornography matters, in this sense, is like asking if Facebook matters or if cars matter. It’s important to understand simply because of its ubiquity. 13% of all internet searches are for erotic content; that number jumps to more than 1 in 5 for mobile searches. 20% of 16 year olds and 30% of 17 year olds have received a sext. 66.5% of young men and 48.7% of young women said viewing pornographic materials was an acceptable way to express one’s sexuality, according to a 2007 study. [Note: thi...

Commonplace Monday is a series of post wherein, on Monday mornings, I share short quips, sentences -perhaps as much as a paragraph- which I have collected in my various commonplace books and files. If I wrote down or recall where it came from I will certainly give attribution. However, sometimes I write down things and not where they came from. So if you see anything like that here and recognize it, that's what comment sections are for. Anyhow. Here's this week's installment : Most love is not expressed sexually--nor should it be.   Fred Gums

Preface: This will be far shorter than it ought to be, and grew out of what I intended to be a reply to a comment on my comment on my wife's Facebook status related to the releasing of a movie about a number and a color (confused? I am). The gist of the question I want to answer is this: who determines what does or does not go in the bedroom?  What is sex? Before we can address what is "okay" sexually, we have to first lay a groundwork, or perhaps better, a framework for understanding this issue in light of the Scriptures. If you read this blog very often then you're probably aware that I care a lot about what God says in His word, as I believe it is the only place we can go to find out how this life really is supposed to work.  The first question we need to ask is, "what is sex?" The first place we look in answer to that question is the opening part of Genesis: So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; And God bl...