Why Christians Keep Having Sex Before Marriage
I’m linking to this blog post for two reasons: 1) The post makes for an interesting addition to what we’ve been talking about in small group lately (i.e. we’ve been listening to and discussing a sermon series on sexual sin).
2) I found the article on the homepage of Digg.com. This is interesting because Digg is a “social bookmarking” service. In other words, Digg allows people to easily share web sites that they find interesting. Therefore, whenever I see religious conversations going on there, I am intrigued because these conversations are happening outside of the typical religious subculture.
By the way, I haven’t had time to do an in depth analysis of the article nor the conversation surrounding it, I’m providing this link to show how the web is like Mars Hill in Acts 17.
Free Audio Download: The Reformed Pastor
This month’s free audio download from ChristianAudio.com is The Reformed Pastor by Richard Baxter. The website provides the following:
In his introduction, “Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood.” This charge from Acts 20:28 only is the beginning of a solemn and overarching task to be personally involved and disciple all of your congregants. Richard Baxter’s plea for shepherding his flock continues with a charge to pastors to verify their own spiritual walk and then walks them through various disciplines, strategies and goals to guide and instruct their congregation.
Be sure to enter coupon code MAY2007 to receive your discount.
Good Discussion
Finally, for our last link of interest, I am directing you back to Ryan’s Lord, Liar, or Lunatic post. If you haven’t checked out the meta (i.e. the comments) on that post lately, be sure to give it a second look as Claire’s and Ryan’s comments have added to Ryan’s excellent conversation starter.
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This will probably be my last post before I get back from Germany. Be sure to keep the conversation cordial and lively! I will see you when I get back. 
Hey,
I was the one that wrote the blogpost. Thanks for linking to my blog! I’d love to hear your guys’ thoughts on what I said, and/or what your small group discussions have been about.
Thanks again.
-David
A number of the comments on David Chen’s blogpost about premarital sex seem to justify, or at least excuse, sexual activity outside of marriage on the basis that our sexual desire is “natural” or “made by God” and therefore it is not fair of God to command us to restrain this desire. (This argument is also used to great effect by homosexuals.) However, C.S. Lewis makes some very interesting points regarding the naturalness or God-givenness of our sexual desire compared to other fleshly desires:
“The old Christian rule is, ‘Either marriage, with complete faithfulness to your partner, or else total abstinence.’ Now this is so difficult and so contrary to our instincts that obviously either Christianity is wrong or our sexual instinct, as it now is, has gone wrong.”
…
“The biological purpose of sex is children, just as the biological purpose of eating is to repair the body. Now, if we eat whenever we feel inclined and just as much as we want, it is quite true that most of us will eat too much; but not terrifically too much. One man may eat enough for two, but he does not eat enough for ten. The appetite goes a little beyond its biological purpose, but not enormously. But if a healthy young man indulged his sexual appetite whenever he felt inclined … then in ten years he might easily populate a small village. This appetite is in ludicrous and preposterous excess of its function.”
“Or take it another way. You can get a large audience together for a strip-tease act — that is, to watch a girl undress on the stage. Now suppose you came to a country where you could fill a theatre by simply bringing a covered plate on to the stage and then slowly lifting the cover so as to let every one see, just before the lights went out, that it contained a mutton chop or a bit of bacon. Would you not think that in that country something had gone wrong with the appetite for food?”
…
“Here is a third point. You find very few people who want to eat things that really are not food or to do other things with food instead of eating it. In other words, perversions of the food appetite are rare. But perversions of the sex appetite are numerous, hard to cure, and frightful.”
…
“We have been told, till one is sick of hearing it, that sexual desire is in the same state as any of our other natural desires and that if only we abandon the silly old Victorian idea of hushing it up, everything in the garden will be lovely. It is not true. The moment you look at the facts, and away from the propaganda, you see that it is not.”
[I should point out that C.S. Lewis was no prude, and did not endorse the false modesty of the Victorian era.]