Has 'Authenticity' Trumped Holiness?

      In recent years, evangelical Christianity has made its imperfection a point of emphasis. Books were published with titles like Messy Spirituality: God's Annoying Love for Imperfect People, Death by Church, and Jesus Wants to Save Christians, and churches popped up with names like Scum of the Earth and Salvage Yard. Evangelicals made films like Lord, Save Us from Your Followers, wrote blog posts with titles like “Dirty, Rotten, Messy Christians,” and maintained websites like anchoredmess.com, modernreject.com, churchmarketingsucks.com, recoveringevangelical.com, and wrecked.org—a site that includes categories like “A Hot Mess,” “Muddling Through,” “My Broken Heart,” and “My Wreckage.”  

Meanwhile, self-deprecating humor sites like Stuff Christians Like and Stuff Christian Culture Likes became hugely popular repositories of Christianity's many warts, and writers like Anne Lamott and Donald Miller became best-selling, “non-religious” expositors of messy spirituality. 

Evangelicalism—both on the individual and institutional level—is trying hard to purge itself of a polished veneer that smacked of hypocrisy. But by focusing on brokenness as proof of our “realness” and “authenticity,” have evangelicals turned “being screwed up” into a badge of honor, its own sort of works righteousness? Has authenticity become a higher calling than, say, holiness?

How Did We Get Here?

Erik Thoennes, professor of biblical and theological studies at Biola University, sees the authenticity trend in the undergrads he teaches. At the beginning of each class he asks his students to write down two things they love and two things they hate. Consistently, one of the things they say they hate is “fake people.” But the Christian life involves a whole lot of “fakin' it” on the path to being integrated, Thoennes says.

“There's this idea that to live out of conformity with how I feel is hypocrisy; but that's a wrong definition of hypocrisy,” Thoennes said. “To live out of conformity to what I believe is hypocrisy. To live in conformity with what I believe, in spite of what I feel, isn't hypocrisy; it's integrity.”

Thoennes hopes his students understand that sanctification involves living in a way that often conflicts with what feels authentic. Still, he gets why younger evangelicals have such a radar for phoniness. They grew up in an evangelical culture that produced more than a few noteworthy cases of fallen leaders and high-profile hypocrisy. Their cynicism reflects a church culture that often hid its imperfections beneath a facade of legalism and self-righteousness.

All of this contributed, in the early and mid-2000s, to an authenticity boom in evangelicalism. Recognition of the biblical calls to confession (James 5:17) and “walking in the light” (1 John 1:5-10) had not gone away in Protestantism; they just became more and more couched in language of being real, raw, transparent, and authentic in community.

Typical of the many articles written about the topic is Josh Riebeck's 2007 piece for Relevant, “Fighting for Authenticity,” which announced that “authentic community, authentic faith, and authentic Jesus are the cry of the new generation.”

“We don't want to be fooled anymore. We don't want to be gullible anymore,” Riebeck wrote. “We want flawed. We want imperfect. We want real.”

But why must “real” be synonymous with flawed and imperfect? When someone opens up about their junk, we think, “you're being real,” and we can relate to them. But what about the pastor who has served faithfully for decades without any scandal, loved his wife and family, and embodied the fruit of the spirit? Is this less real?

When 'Authentic' Is Actually Inauthentic

Often, what passes for authenticity in evangelical Christianity is actually a safe, faux-openness that establishes an environment where vulnerability is embraced, only up to a point.

Becky Trejo, a 20-something photographer from Los Angeles who attends Mars Hill Church's Orange County location alongside her husband, Neph, has observed this trend in some small groups she's attended.

“There's this 'sweet spot' of authenticity,” Trejo said. “Like if you reveal that you struggle with gossip, people are like 'whoopdee!' But then there are some sins you might share where it's like 'whoa, that's too much.' There has to be this middle ground, like 'I'm struggling with wanting to sleep with my boyfriend.' That's the sweet spot where people see you as really vulnerable and authentic, and it's required admission.”

In this dynamic we often reward those who are most vocal about their authentic struggles in the “sweet spot,” without giving equal weight to the “too small” sins or creating a space that is safe enough for the most embarrassing sins or darkest struggles.

This dynamic reflects another problem: our skewed understanding of sin. It's almost as if our sins have become a currency of solidarity—something we pat each other on the back about as fellow authentic, broken people. But sin should always be grieved rather than celebrated, Thoennes argues.

“Brokenness is an interesting word because if it's sin, we should call it that,” Thoennes said. “I only feel sorry for broken people. God's mad at sinful people. Woundedness and brokenness are aspects of our sinful condition, but they tend not to emphasize the 'I'm giving God the finger' part of it.”

We've become too comfortable with our sin, to the point that it's how we identify ourselves and relate to others. But shouldn't we find connection over Christ, rather than over our depravity?

Authenticity Means Growth

Our notion of authenticity should not primarily be about affirming each other in our struggles—patting each other on the back as we share about porn struggles while enjoying a second round of beers at the local pub Bible study. Rather, authenticity comes when we collectively push each other, by grace, in the direction of Christ-likeness.

Reflecting on Christianity's “current obsession with brokenness” for her.meneutics, Megan Hill wrote, “If we are constantly looking for someone else who is broken in all the same places, we overlook the comfort we can have in the perfect God-man.”

Hill wisely notes, “Grace covers. And it covers again and again. Thanks be to God.” But if we stop there, “We are only telling half of the story. . . . Receiving grace for my failures also includes Christ's help to turn from sin and embrace new obedience.”

Could it be that the most authentic thing any of us can do is faithfully pursue holiness and obediently follow after Christ?

In Scripture, Paul teaches again and again that Christians are “dead to sin” and risen to new life, no longer slave to sins but to righteousness (Rom. 6). That doesn't mean the battle with sin is gone. But as Paul describes the struggle in Romans 7, he says “it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me” (Rom. 7:17), noticeably separating his identity from this unwanted alien thing still residing within. The struggle is neither the point nor the marker of one's identity. In Christ we are new creations (2 Cor. 5:17), called to flourish through life in the Spirit (Rom. 8).

“I think goodness is more real in that we are actually living more as humans were intended to,” Thoennes said. “Jesus is the realest human we'll ever see. He's authentic. He understands our brokenness. But he's as real as can be.”

No Authenticity Points

Sin is necessarily part of our story as redeemed people. We shouldn't ignore or make light of it. But we also shouldn't wallow in it or take it lightly, for the sake of earning authenticity points.

As someone who became a Christian in his 20s, after having experienced the rocky ups and downs of a life without Christ, Luis Salazar of Whittier, California, finds it sad that so many young evangelicals seem to think dramatic struggles with sin are more real.

“I would never want to walk through it again,” Salazar said. “I wish I hadn't gone through all that. A lifestyle of flashy sin isn't necessary to experience grace. It's not necessary to have a grand testimony of brokenness in order to be an authentic Christian.”

To overcome our “authenticity” confusion, evangelicals must see themselves differently. Rather than focusing on our brokenness, we should look to Christ and those who model Christ-likeness. We should move in that direction, by grace and through the power of the Holy Spirit.

We should also, perhaps, stop speaking of ourselves in such “we are scum” terms. In Christ, we can be more than scum. And that's a message the world sorely needs.

“While we think self-deprecation causes us to be more relatable and empathetic to non-Christians, it's ultimately communicating a sense of disappointment, disillusionment, and discontentment,” Stephen Mattson wrote for Red Letter Christians. “It thrives on negativity and kills our sense of hope.”

“The reality is that there are many things wrong with Christianity,” Mattson said, “but instead of focusing on the bad, let's attempt to reclaim the hope that Jesus represents—redeeming our world by personifying the sacrifice, service, grace, hope, joy, and love of Christ.”

 Source: http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/has-authenticity-trumped-holiness-2

Christians & Alcohol

by John MacArthur

"Do Not Get Drunk With Wine..."

(Eph 5:18)

The Theology of Television by John Piper

If there's ever a compelling reason why Christian homes and television do not mix, here it is:

Sam Storms, “Christian Hedonism: Piper and Edwards on the Pursuit of Joy in God,” in For the Fame of God’s Name: Essays in Honor of John Piper (ed. Sam Storms and Justin Taylor; Wheaton: Crossway, 2010), 49–50.

John Piper is known for many things. . . .

Some would likely mention the fact that he’s never owned a television! I vividly remember my first visit to John’s home in 1992. He had invited me to speak at his annual pastor’s conference which, as it turns out, is regularly scheduled during the week following the Super Bowl. Upon arriving at his home after the Sunday service, I told John that I had been looking forward for quite some time to watching the game with him. “Not at my house,” he said. “We don’t have a TV.” After I recovered from the initial shock, John graciously agreed to take me to the home of a church member where I could indulge myself in this annual affair. And yes, John stayed and actually watched the game!

As strange as it may sound to those unacquainted with Piper, his decision to rid his home of the influence of television was not from a disdain for pleasure, but an expression of his radical pursuit of it. What John regards as the banal and mind-numbing distractions of TV serve only to diminish his capacity to enjoy the one preeminent delight that never fails to satisfy, namely, the mind-expanding and ever-fascinating knowledge of God as revealed in the face of Jesus Christ. The rationale for this will, I pray, become clearer in the course of reading this chapter. See also John’s article, “Why I Don’t Have a Television and Rarely Go to Movies,” June 25, 2009, available at www.desiringGod.org

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John Piper, “Sky Talk,” September 14, 1980:
We are told today that we live in a visual age instead of a verbal one. People need pictures not lectures. Television and movies have conspired to make us disenchanted with reasoning and enamor us with films. This is mostly true, I think, but partly misleading. Our minds have been weakened, but I am not sure our eyes have been strengthened. That you have been conditioned to crave to do something does not mean you are better at it. To be sure, we are more visually dependent and hungry, but I doubt that we are better at seeing than our forefathers.
There are at least two kinds of seeing: one is active and one is passive. Seeing actively means construing what you see, working on it with your mind to find meaning—not necessarily verbal meaning—but all the pattern and design the artist (whether God or man) intended. When a trained eye looks at Rembrandt’s Paul in Prison, he sees more than an untrained eye, because his eyes are active and construe, while the untrained eye is passive.
Well, my suspicion is that television in general does not train active seeing but rather encourages passive watching. Nobody goes to the Minneapolis Institute of Art to watch a painting; you go to see, to look at, to inspect. But you go home to watch T.V. Therefore, I am not very encouraged by our culture, because even though we are more visually dependent today, I don’t think we are more visually acute or perceptive. Our skill in active seeing is no better and perhaps weaker than in the pre-T.V. days.

The upshot of this is that we all have a long way to go in becoming more adept at seeing the voiceless speech of nature. We need to apply ourselves to form the habits of active seeing rather than passive watching.

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John Piper, “Jesus Is Precious Because He Removes Our Guilt,” February 21, 1982:

Some people keep the television on all day for a constant barrage of sound and sight on their minds to guard them from what Simon and Garfunkel called the unsettling “sounds of silence.”

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John Piper, “Grow in Grace and in the Knowledge of Our Lord,” June 20, 1982:

I know that in my preaching I am addressing a visually oriented and TV influenced people. I know that 98% of you have televisions, and in 1971 the average adult in America watched 23 hours a week. I believe John Stott is right in his new book on preaching when he says that lengthy exposure to television tends to produce physical laziness, intellectual flabbiness, emotional exhaustion, psychological confusion, and moral disorientation. What this means for us preachers (especially me) is that we must improve our ability to communicate effectively and hold attention with no antics, no stringed orchestras, no violence, and no sex. But it does not mean that we can abandon our calling to preach the whole counsel of God. And therefore it should be expected that preaching will sometimes be the most demanding thing you hear all week. I can’t see how it would be otherwise, unless I make easy what the apostles couldn’t.

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John Piper, “When Not to Believe an Angel,” February 6, 1983:
O, how we need to meditate on the horror of rejecting the gospel. Satan does his best with television and radio to create in us a mind that is so trivial and banal and petty and earthly that we find ourselves incapable of feeling what terrifying truth is in this word anathema. O, how we need to guard ourselves from the barrage of eternity-denying entertainment. We need to cultivate a pure and childlike imagination that hears a word like anathema the way a child hears his first peal of thunder, or feels his first earthquake, or suffers his first storm at sea. The Bible does not reveal to us the eternal curse of God that we may yawn and turn the page. The wrath of God is revealed to shake unbelievers out of their stupor, and to take the swagger out of the Christian’s walk and the cocky twang out of his voice. Don’t skim over verses 8 and 9 quickly. There is much humbling and sobering and sanctifying to be had here. Ponder these things in quietness.

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John Piper, “Blessed Are the Merciful,” February 23, 1986:
When Jesus says, “Don’t neglect the weightier matters of the law,” he means, “Beware of going through the day doing only trivial things, thinking only trivial thoughts, feeling only trivial feelings. The Lord wants us to pinch ourselves again and again lest we be found swooning in front of the television, making no plans for the weighty matter of mercy.

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John Piper, “Preaching as Worship: Meditations on Expository Exultation,” Trinity Journal 16 (1995): 44:
Turn off the television.
It is not necessary for relevance. And it is a deadly place to rest the mind. Its pervasive banality, sexual innuendo, and God-ignoring values have no ennobling effects on the preacher’s soul. It kills the spirit. It drives God away. It quenches prayer. It blanks out the Bible. It cheapens the soul. It destroys spiritual power. It defiles almost everything. I have taught and preached for twenty years now and never owned a television. It is unnecessary for most of you, and it is spiritually deadly for all of you.

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John Piper, “By This Time You Ought to be Teachers,” September 29, 1996:
The startling truth is that, if you stumble over Melchizedek, it may be because you watch questionable TV programs. If you stumble over the doctrine of election, it may be because you still use some shady business practices. If you stumble over the God-centered work of Christ in the cross, it may be because you love money and spend too much and give too little. The pathway to maturity and to solid Biblical food is not first becoming an intelligent person, but becoming an obedient person. What you do with alcohol and sex and money and leisure and food and computer have more to do with your capacity for solid food than with where you go to school or what books you read.

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John Piper, Brothers, We Are Not Professionals: A Plea to Pastors for Radical Ministry (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2002), 68:
There is so much soul-refreshing, heart-deepening, mind-enlarging truth to be had from great books! Your people will know if you are walking with the giants (as Warren Wiersbe says) or watching television.

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John Piper, Don’t Waste Your Life (Wheaton: Crossway, 2003), 120:
Television, the Great Life-Waster
Television is one of the greatest life-wasters of the modern age. And, of course, the Internet is running to catch up, and may have caught up. You can be more selective on the Internet, but you can also select worse things with only the Judge of the universe watching. TV still reigns as the great life-waster. The main problem with TV is not how much smut is available, though that is a problem. Just the ads are enough to sow fertile seeds of greed and lust, no matter what program you’re watching. The greater problem is banality. A mind fed daily on TV diminishes. Your mind was made to know and love God. Its facility for this great calling is ruined by excessive TV. The content is so trivial and so shallow that the capacity of the mind to think worthy thoughts withers, and the capacity of the heart to feel deep emotions shrivels. . . .

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John Piper, Pierced by the Word: Thirty-One Meditations for Your Soul (Sisters, OR: Multnomah, 2003), 77–79:
You Have One Precious Life: Is TV Too Big a Part of It?
IF ALL OTHER VARIABLES ARE EQUAL, YOUR CAPACITY TO know God deeply will probably diminish in direct proportion to how much television you watch. There are several reasons for this. One is that television reflects American culture at its most trivial. And a steady diet of triviality shrinks the soul. You get used to it. It starts to seem normal. Silly becomes funny. And funny becomes pleasing. And pleasing becomes soul-satisfaction. And in the end the soul that is made for God has shrunk to fit snugly around triteness.

This may be unnoticed, because if all you’ve known is American culture, you can’t tell there is anything wrong. If you have only read comic books, it won’t be strange that there are no novels in your house. If you live where there are no seasons, you won’t miss the colors of fall. If you watch fifty TV ads each night, you may forget there is such a thing as wisdom. TV is mostly trivial. It seldom inspires great thoughts or great feelings with glimpses of great Truth. God is the great, absolute, all-shaping Reality. If He gets any air time, He is treated as an opinion. There is no reverence. No trembling. God and all that He thinks about the world is missing. Cut loose from God, everything goes down.

Just think how new TV is. In the 2000 years since Christ, TV has shaped only the last 2.5 percent of that history. For 97.5 percent of the time since Jesus, there was no TV. And for 95 percent of this time there was no radio. It arrived on the scene in the early 1900s. So for 1900 years of Christian history, people spent their leisure time doing other things. We wonder, what could they possibly have done? They may have read more. Or discussed things more. For certain they were not bombarded with soul-shrinking, round-the-clock trivialities.

Do you ever ask, “What could I accomplish that is truly worthwhile if I did not watch TV?” You see, it isn’t just what TV does to us with its rivers of emptiness; it is also what TV keeps us from doing. Why not try something? Make a list of what you might accomplish if you took the time you spend watching TV and devoted it to something else. For example:

You might be inspired to some great venture by learning about the life of a noble saint like Amy Carmichael and how she found courage to go alone to serve the children of India. Where do such radical dreams come from? Not from watching TV. Open your soul to be blown away by some unspeakable life of dedication to a great cause.

You might be inspired by a biography of a businessman or doctor or nurse to work hard for the skills to bless others with the excellence of your profession devoted to a higher end than anything you will see commended on TV, which never includes Jesus Christ.

You might memorize the eighth chapter of Paul’s letter to the Romans, and penetrate to the depths of his vision of God, and discover the precious power of memorized Scripture in your life and ministry to others. No one could estimate the power that would come to a church if we all turned the TV off for one month and devoted that same amount of time to memorizing Scripture.
You might write a simple poem or a letter to a parent or a child or a friend or a colleague expressing deep gratitude for their life or a longing for their soul.

You might make a cake or a casserole for new neighbors and take it to them with a smile and an invitation to visit some time and get to know each other.

So there are good reasons to try a TV fast. Or to simply wean yourself off of it entirely. We have not owned a TV for thirty-four years of marriage except for three years in Germany when we used it for language learning. There is no inherent virtue in this. I only mention it to prove that you can raise five culturally sensitive and Biblically informed children without it. They never complained about it. In fact they often wondered out loud how people found the time to watch as much as they do.

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Justin Taylor, “Conversations with the Contributors,” in The Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern World (ed. John Piper and Justin Taylor; Wheaton: Crossway, 2007), 152–54:
Justin Taylor:
What about your approaches to pop culture? Pastor Mark [Driscoll], you go to movies. You watch TV. You listen to modern music and go to comedy shows. Pastor John-you don’t! So John, how do you stay relevant by mainly avoiding pop culture? . . .
John Piper:
My short answer is that I think I’m weak and therefore would probably become a carnal person if I plunged more deeply into movies than I do. That’s the first answer: Piper’s weak; he has to steer clear of certain kinds of things in order to maintain his level of intensity.
The second answer is that I think there are common denominators in human beings that are so massive that one can get a lot of mileage out of feeling them very strongly. For example, take the fact that everybody’s going to die. You should try feeling that sometime. Just feel it. Everybody’s going to die. And everybody loves authenticity. Try to feel that and go with that. People generally like to be held in suspense and then have something solved. I read the newspaper, listen to a little bit of NPR, and look at advertisers. I think they’re the ones who study human beings, so I just try to read off what are they doing there. But mainly I’m trying to understand how John Piper ticks. I go deep with my own heart and my own struggles and my own fears and guilt and pride and then figure out how to work on that, and then from the Bible I tell others how they can work on that—and there’s enough connection to be of some use.

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John Piper, “Why I Don’t Have a Television and Rarely Go to Movies,” June 25, 2009:
I think relevance in preaching hangs very little on watching movies, and I think that much exposure to sensuality, banality, and God-absent entertainment does more to deaden our capacities for joy in Jesus than it does to make us spiritually powerful in the lives of the living dead. Sources of spiritual power—which are what we desperately need—are not in the cinema. You will not want your biographer to write: Prick him and he bleeds movies. . . .
But leave sex aside (as if that were possible for fifteen minutes on TV). It’s the unremitting triviality that makes television so deadly. What we desperately need is help to enlarge our capacities to be moved by the immeasurable glories of Christ. Television takes us almost constantly in the opposite direction, lowering, shrinking, and deadening our capacities for worshiping Christ.

One more smaller concern with TV (besides its addictive tendencies, trivialization of life, and deadening effects): It takes time. I have so many things I want to accomplish in this one short life. Don’t waste your life is not a catchphrase for me; it’s a cliff I walk beside every day with trembling.

TV consumes more and more time for those who get used to watching it. You start to feel like it belongs. You wonder how you could get along without it. I am jealous for my evenings. There are so many things in life I want to accomplish. I simply could not do what I do if I watched television. So we have never had a TV in 40 years of marriage (except in Germany, to help learn the language). I don’t regret it.

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John Piper, tweet on November 25, 2011:
Watching TV in 1986 I wrote in my journal: No good shows. Just cute evil and clean godlessness. I assume it hasn’t improved.

Source: http://andynaselli.com/why-john-piper-doesnt-own-a-tv

7 Negative Effects of Porn by BJ Stockman

7 Negative Effects of Porn
BJ Stockman » Worldviews Body Mind Sin Culture



This is a rather frank post on porn, so proceed, or not, with that in mind.

Porn is a problem. It's a personal problem for many and a cultural problem for all. You may think you have not been affected by porn, but you have because it's embedded in the surrounding culture. The staggering size of the pornography industry, its influence upon the media and the acceleration of technology, paired with the accessibility, anonymity, and affordability of porn all contribute to its increasing impact upon the culture.

Pornography affects you whether you’ve ever viewed it or not, and it is helpful to understand some of its negative effects, whether you are a man or woman, struggling with watching it, or simply a mom or dad with a son or daughter. There is a plethora of research on the detrimental effects of pornography (and I do not think that what follows are necessarily the worst of them), but here are seven negative effects of porn upon men and women:

1. Porn Contributes to Social and Psychological Problems Within Men
Anti-pornography activist, Gail Dines, notes that young men who become addicted to porn, “neglect their schoolwork, spend huge amounts of money they don’t have, become isolated from others, and often suffer depression.” (Pornland, 93). Dr. William Struthers, who has a PhD in biopsychology from the University of Illinois at Chicago, confirms some of these and adds more, finding that men who use porn become controlling, highly introverted, have high anxiety, narcissistic, curious, have low self-esteem, depressed, dissociative, distractible (Wired for Intimacy, 64-65). Ironically, while viewing porn creates momentary intensely pleasurable experiences, it ends up leading to several negative lingering psychological experiences.

2. Porn Rewires the Male Brain
Struthers elaborates,

As men fall deeper into the mental habit of fixating on [pornographic images], the exposure to them creates neural pathways. Like a path is created in the woods with each successive hiker, so do the neural paths set the course for the next time an erotic image is viewed. Over time these neural paths become wider as they are repeatedly traveled with each exposure to pornography. They become the automatic pathway through which interactions with woman are routed….They have unknowingly created a neurological circuit that imprisons their ability to see women rightly as created in God’s image (Wired For Intimacy, 85).
In a similar vein regarding porn’s effect upon the brain, Naomi Wolf writes in her article, "The Porn Myth,"

After all, pornography works in the most basic of ways on the brain: It is Pavlovian. An orgasm is one of the biggest reinforcers imaginable. If you associate orgasm with your wife, a kiss, a scent, a body, that is what, over time, will turn you on; if you open your focus to an endless stream of ever-more-transgressive images of cybersex slaves, that is what it will take to turn you on. The ubiquity of sexual images does not free eros but dilutes it.

3. Porn Turns Sex Into Masturbation
Sex becomes self-serving. It becomes about your pleasure and not the self-giving, mutually reciprocating intimacy that it was designed for.

4. Porn Demeans and Objectifies Women
This occurs from hard-core to soft-core pornography. Pamela Paul, in her book Pornified, quoting the research of one psychologist who has researched pornography at Texas A&M, writes,

‘Softcore pornography has a very negative effect on men as well. The problem with softcore pornography is that it’s voyeurism teaches men to view women as objects rather than to be in relationships with women as human beings.’ According to Brooks, pornography gives men the false impression that sex and pleasure are entirely divorced from relatoinships. In other words, pornography is inherently self-centered–something a man does by himself, for himself–by using another women as the means to pleasure, as yet another product to consume (80).
Paul references one experiment that revealed a rather shocking further effect of porn: “men and women who were exposed to large amounts of pornography were significantly less likely to want daughters than those who had none. Who would want their own little girl to be treated that way?” (80).

“It becomes about your pleasure and not the self-giving, mutually reciprocating intimacy that it was designed for.”

Again, it needs to be emphasized, that this is not an effect that only rests upon those who have viewed porn. The massive consumption of porn and the the size of the porn industry has hypersexualized the entire culture. Men and women are born into a pornified culture, and women are the biggest losers. Dines continues,

By inundating girls and women with the message that their most worthy attribute is their sexual hotness and crowding out other messages, pop culture is grooming them just like an individual perpetrator would. It is slowly chipping away at their self-esteem, stripping them of a sense of themselves as whole human beings, and providing them with an identity that emphasizes sex and de-emphasizes every other human attribute (Pornland, 118).

5. Porn Squashes the Beauty of a Real Naked Woman
Wolf, in her own blunt way, confirms this,

For most of human history, the erotic images have been reflections of, or celebrations of, or substitutes for, real naked women. For the first time in history, the images’ power and allure have supplanted that of real naked women. Today, real naked women are just bad porn (Quoted in Wired for Intimacy, 38).

6. Porn Has a Numbing Effect Upon Reality
It makes real sex and even the real world boring in comparison. It particularly anesthetizes the emotional life of a man. Paul comments,

Pornography leaves men desensitivzed to both outrage and to excitement, leading to an overall diminishment of feeling and eventually to dissatisfaction with the emotional tugs of everyday life…Eventually they are left with a confusing mix of supersized expectations about sex and numbed emotions about women…When a man gets bored with pornography, both his fantasy and real worlds become imbued with indifference. The real world often gets really boring…” (Pornified, 90, 91).

7. Porn Lies About What it Means to be Male and Female
Dines records how porn tells a false story about men and women. In the story of porn, women are “one-dimensional”–they never say no, never get pregnant, and can’t wait to have sex with any man and please them in whatever way imaginable (or even unimaginable). On the other hand, the story porn tells about men is that they are “soulless, unfeeling, amoral life-support systems for erect penises who are entitled to use women in any way they want. These men demonstrated zero empathy, respect, or love for the women they have sex with…(Pornland, xxiv).”

How To Honor Your Wife by Mark Driscoll

This post was adapted from TheResurgence.com website and adapted from the Marriage & Men sermon and edited by the Mars Hill Blog

Now, my tone is for the men. We speak to men differently than women. Were this a women’s conference, I would not call you all idiots and imbeciles and fools, that you’re a joke, okay? But you men, this is where it needs to go. You’ve been glad-handed and buddied up and positive thinking and you’re a winner and Jesus loves you and you can do better. And I’m telling you, you’re a joke. And the real men in the room know it and they see it. And maybe there’s one woman that you fooled and she doesn’t see it because like Eve, she’s deceived.

Show Honor to Your Wife
Here’s what Peter has to say In 1 Peter 3:7:

Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayer may not be hindered.
In the previous verse, 1 Peter 3:6, he said that women, when it comes to marriage are prone toward, what? Fear. Fear. And you know what? Those fears that the women have about marriage are legitimate.

Your Wife Trusts You with the Rest of Her Life
If a woman marries a man, she’s trusting him with the rest of her life that he won’t hit her, cheat on her, that he’ll work hard, that he’ll pay the bills, that he’ll love their children, that he’ll finish the race well, that he’ll walk with Jesus until the end, that if she gets sick, he’ll look after her, that if she is dying, he will be faithful to her. Gentlemen, it is a terrifying thing for a woman to trust a sinful man.

“Every man who reads this, even the best men among us, has areas of repentance and growth that are required.”

As a man, I don’t think I fully understood this until I had daughters, and now I have some understanding of that fear. The thought of taking one of my daughters and walking them down the aisle and handing them to a man and trusting that he will love them and protect them and serve them and care for them and look after them, it causes me fear and grave concern.

Don't Give Women a Reason to Fear
Women have legitimate fears, and what Peter is saying is that men need to be a particular way so those fears are alleviated. And I love his words, “in an understanding way, showing honor.” That’s a man.

Now as I say this, many of you guys will nod your head and say, “Yeah, that’s me.”

No, you’re not. So let me practically unpack this for you. Every man who reads this, even the best men among us, has areas of repentance and growth that are required. And so I want to talk to you men about some things that your woman will fear.

1. Honor Your Wife Maritally
What this means is, gentlemen, you’re not looking for a girlfriend if you are single. You’re not looking for a roommate. You’re not looking for a cohabitation partner. You’re looking for a wife. You must honor her while dating, that is when you're on your best behavior. I don’t care if you apologize, do you repent and lead? Being sorry is not enough; being Christ-like is what is necessary.

Ephesians 5:25 says, “Husbands are to love their wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” Are you selfless or selfish? Do you give yourself up for her or do you take from her?

What it is to be a one-woman man
When you get married, men, you are to be a one-woman man. That’s the requirement of an elder and that is the example for all men.

You’re not the flirt guy
You’re not the female buddies guy
You’re not the download porn guy
You’re not the “I got another gal on the side I always keep in case of emergency” guy
You’re not the wandering eye guy
If you are, you’re not honoring marriage and you’re not honoring your wife.

Don't make women fearful of men
I know some complete fools, they like to take their wedding ring off when they go out to the sports bar with the boys. Do you honor your marriage covenant? Do you take responsibility as the head of the marriage covenant, take responsibility for the well-being of the woman?

A woman has great fear. If you don’t honor marriage, she is statistically going to go into poverty upon divorce. She will become yet another single mother. She’ll have to find a way to explain to the children of why they shouldn’t be embittered against you even though you’re a loser. See, these fears are very legitimate. Women have seen this so many times that they’re fearful of men.

2. Honor Her Physically
Peter says that the woman is the “weaker vessel”. What that means is, generally speaking, if a husband and a wife get in a fist-fight, he’ll win. I’ll give you an example. Many of you have seen my wife, Grace. If we get in a fight, it’s not a fair fight. I have an 18-inch neck, she has an 18-inch waist. If someone breaks into our home, I’m not, “Go get ‘em, baby. You’re the tough one here. I’ll pray. II’ll pray imprecatory prayers in the closet.”

You know what, gentlemen? You are stronger than your woman
Do you ever hit her?
Do you ever shove her?
Do you ever push her?
Do you ever grab her, restrain her?
Do you ever raise a hand and threaten her?
Do you ever intimidate her with physical violence?
Do you give her that look, that pierced, glazed, violent, angry, don’t-push-it-now’s-a-good-time-to-shut-up look?
Do you tell her, “I’m getting very angry, you should just shut up right now. It’s gonna go bad for you”?
Do you get right in her face?
Do you intimidate her with your presence?
Shame on you. A man who picks on a woman, what a joke.

Have you ever forced yourself on a woman? You’re a rapist.

You’ll say, “She’s my wife.” You’re a rapist.

Don't hold your wife prisoner
When someone is attacked, we call it abuse. As horrible as that is, what is even worse is torment. Torment is when you’re abused and you can’t get out. This is like prisoners of war and those who are held captive in slavery. For some women, their version of slavery and captivity and torment is called marriage. Their husband is physically intimidating. She’s afraid of him. She can’t leave, at least that’s what she thinks. She feels stuck, particularly if she’s got children. Some of you guys are tormentors and abusers and rapists and husbands and Christians, and that is absolutely inexcusable.

Women, a man who hits you is in sin
Most men don’t walk around thinking about their personal safety. I know a lot of women who do. Does she feel safe with you? Ladies, if you’re dating a guy who has ever been physically violent, run for your life, run for your children’s life, run for your grandchildren’s life. If he’s ever even threatened you with violence, there is something profoundly demonic in that man. There is something sincerely wrong in that man. He will then apologize, tell you he is sorry. He will shed a few tears, say it will never happen again and he will subtly shift the blame to you. “You know when you do that, it just makes me really angry. Don’t do that again.”

“Oh, okay, it must be my fault.” It’s never your fault. It doesn’t matter what you say or do, if a man hits you, harms you, he’s in sin, no excuse.

Head-of-the-house does not mean bully
And there are some guys, some absolute block-headed idiots who think when the Bible says that you’re the head of the home, that it means you get to be the bully. There’s nothing uglier than a guy who then takes this same disposition toward his children, especially his daughters. The grossest, vilest thing is a man who hits a woman, and the man who hits a woman is willing to hit his own daughter. It’s disgusting.

3. Honor Your Wife Emotionally
Some of you say, “I’m not emotional, I don’t connect.” You should. Men and women have the same emotions; they express them in masculine and feminine ways. Your wife needs intimacy. She wants you to know her. She wants to know you. She wants you to open up. She wants you to be passionate and loving and honest, and she wants to know you and she wants to be known by you. And the Bible says that Adam was with his wife, Eve, and he, what?

He knew her.

There are too many guys that turn marriage into a job description. He does his responsibility, she does hers, and there’s no emotional connection whatsoever. Those are guys whose sins are sins of omission. “I didn’t hit her, I didn’t yell at her.” Yeah, but you didn’t love her. You didn’t connect with her. You didn’t encourage her. You didn’t pursue her.

Ultimately, you failed her.

4. Honor Her Verbally
How do you speak to her? Do you have nasty nicknames for her? Do you raise your voice? Do you threaten her? Do you give back-handed comments? Some of you guys would say, “I would never hit a woman.” How about with your tongue?

When you wife is not there and you’re with the boys, how do you speak of her? What do you say about her?

Dont' put your children in the middle
You know what? Your children will pick this up as well.

You start saying horrible things about your wife, and the children will be left in this horrible position of choosing between their mother and father and invariably some of the children will despise their own mother and speak evil of her in an effort to remain loyal to their father.

A division in a marriage includes the children, they’re stuck in the middle. They’re casualties of the war.

If I close my eyes, no one can see me
You men could defuse this and take away this fear by honoring her verbally. Speaking honestly, respectfully, lovingly to her and about her. Some of you guys forget. You say, “Well, Jesus isn’t there. My wife isn’t there. I get to say whatever I want.” No, Jesus is there even when your wife’s not there. God sees everything. God knows everything, and you’re not getting away with anything.

5. Honor Your Wife Financially
“If a man does not provide for the needs of his family, he’s denied the faith and worse than an unbeliever” (1 Timothy 5:8).

In Genesis, the woman’s curse was her children and submitting to her husband. The man’s curse was providing for his family. And what the weakest, most impish, worthless men among us do is, “Oh, my load is heavy. I know yours is heavy, but I need you to carry half of mine too.”

Men, you have to work
You've got to work hard. You’ve got to out-work the other men if you want to feed your family. That’s your responsibility as a man. If you want any men to respect you, if you want your wife to respect you, if you want your children to respect you, you pay the bills. You make the money, you feed the family.

We live in this day where there are guys telling their wives,

“Hey, birth control, abortion”
“We can’t have kids”
“You make too much money”
“I don’t like responsibility.”
Shame on you.

Your wife has a maternal duty to fulfill
There’s nothing sadder than a woman who loves Jesus and wants to be a mom, and the husband keeps saying, “I’m the head of the home, no.” What he’s saying is “I’m in charge and I command you to sin, to deny all of your maternal instincts." Titus 2 says, “The woman should be homeward in her orientation.”

“We’re a culture that is working hard to protect women and children, and no one has the common sense to beat on the guys who are the cause of so much of the pain.”

And I know that some of you guys are going to say, “Oh, but this is outdated.” Yes, and I would say look at the condition of marriages and families in our culture and ask if it’s working.

The latest statistics indicate 40 percent of all children are born out of wedlock. It is now at the point where women aren’t even pretending they’re going to ever get married.

They go to college, get a good job, get pregnant, have a kid. They’ve lost any hope of ever finding a guy who can actually carry the load, and that’s tragic. We’re a culture that is working hard to protect women and children, and no one has the common sense to beat on the guys who are the cause of so much of the pain.

Be generous with your wife
I know guys as well, they’re not generous. I know one guy, he’s such an idiot. This guy makes decent money and he’s totally chintzy with his wife. She gets no spending money, can’t go out to coffee with the girls because he’s a total control freak and tightwad. Be honoring of your wife financially. I’m not saying you have to live at a lavish and high level. But what I am saying is live within your means, you make a budget, you tithe, spend, save, invest well. I know it’s hard to live on one income. I know it’s particularly difficult in this economic climate, but for some of you boys, it’s a built-in excuse to be irresponsible.

Run the numbers rather assuming you need a second income
Statistically, if you have children, and put them in day care so mom can work, the other costs that are associated: eating out, take-out, dry cleaning, car, second phone, cell phone, things of that nature, plus the increased tax breaks and costs and burdens very rarely contribute anything to the bottom line of the family. The taxes alone eat a huge portion of it.

MSNBC did a big study on this years ago and they brought the data to the mothers who dropped their kids off at the day care. “You’re providing nothing to the income of the family,” and the women are bawling, having a nervous breakdown on television, saying, “Well, then why am I even going to work?”

Because that guy doesn’t know how to run numbers on taxes. He’s not smart enough to find somebody to figure it out for him. He just says, “Put the kids in day care, get a job, shoulder half of my curse. Oh and by the way, I forgot to run the numbers, come to find it’s not really helping.”

Honor her financially.

6. Honor Her Practically
With some guys, the house is a wreck. It’s never finished, the furniture’s broken, the car hardly starts, they live far away from community, they don’t have a schedule, they don’t have a budget, they don’t have a plan, the wife doesn’t know what’s going on.

Honor her practically. Do you have a budget? Do you have a schedule? Do you have an integrated plan? Do you have a life?

7. Honor Her Parentally
Gentlemen, your wife wants you to love the kids. She wants you to help raise them. She wants you to love them, to pursue them. She wants you to get guy time with your sons. She wants you to get daddy dates with your daughters. She wants you to do Ephesians 6 and be their pastor. She wants you to read the Bible with them. She wants you to pray with them. And you know what? You should want that too.

Do your job
So many guys who are Christians think “I pay for Christian school, I send the wife and kids to the Christian church. I’ve done my Christian duty.” No, you’ve abdicated your responsibility to others. It’s your job to love your kids. It’s your job to pray with your kids. It’s your job to teach the Bible to your kids. It’s your job to encourage your kids. It’s your job to discipline your kids.

“Christian, husband, father, employee. Those are your first four duties; it’ll take most of your life. You’re not going to have a lot of time.”

A wife will be so forgiving of so many things if she actually knows her husband desperately loves their children, that he serves them, that he cares for them, that he’s tender with them, that he’s Pastor Dad for them. So few children actually have a father. So few of those actually have a Christian father and how few of those actually have a dad who’s doing his job.

And I’ll tell you what, guys, this is not something you have to do; it’s something you get to do.

This is wonderful. Every night, my daughter Alexie, blond hair, blue eyes and looks like Tinkerbell says, “Poppa Daddy, I need a piggyback ride and a Bible story.” You know what? I do too. I need that as much as Alexie. I weep thinking of the day that I’m not going to be giving her piggyback rides, so I give her as many piggyback rides as I can because it’s a great season and a wonderful opportunity.

Honor your priorities
What this means, gentlemen, is your priorities will be Christian, husband, father, employee. Those are your first four duties; it’ll take most of your life. You’re not gonna have a lot of time. You're probably gonna need to put down your tools, your hobbies, your car, your projects, your golf clubs, your Xbox and probably going to need to put down the remote control, and your laptop, and your [technological product] to honor your wife parentally. You’re not going to have a lot of time for a lot of other things.

Gentlemen, your goal is not to stand before God and tell him what level you got to on “World of Warcraft”.

8. Honor Her Spiritually
All of this comes down to this point.

There are between 11 and 13 million more Christian women than men. Many women go to church on their own. They have to drag their husband to church, they drag their children to church. It is your job, men, to lead spiritually. You pray with the family. You read the Bible with the family. You pick a good church, become a member of it, submit to it. You pick the community group or midweek class you will be in. You are the one to lead the family spiritually.

Start with a prayer
Some guys say, “Well, I don’t know what to do.” Just start by praying with your wife. There are women who will read this sermon and deep down in their heart, this is what they want the most, “If my husband would just pray with me.”

There are some of you guys, you pray with all kinds of people, you don’t pray with your wife. Do you pray with your wife? Do you pray with your kids? Do you read the Bible with your wife? Do you talk about Jesus with your wife? Do you talk about Jesus with your kids?

Leading spiritually is the foundation of everything else.

Link to article: https://theresurgence.com/2011/06/01/how-to-honor-your-wife