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What Does the Bible say About Masturbation?

What Does the Bible say About Masturbation?
Originally posted: http://diveinscripture.com/2012/08/08/what-does-the-bible-say-about-masturbation

The Bible never explicitly mentions masturbation or states whether or not masturbation is a sin. The Scripture most frequently pointed to in regards to masturbation is the story of Onan in Genesis 38:9-10. Some interpret this passage as saying that “spilling your seed” on the ground is a sin. However, that is not precisely what the passage is saying. God condemned Onan not for “spilling his seed” but because Onan refused to fulfill his duty to provide an heir for his brother. The passage is not about masturbation, but rather about fulfilling a family duty. A second passage sometimes used as evidence for masturbation’s being a sin is Matthew 5:27-30. Jesus speaks against having lustful thoughts and then says, “If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away.” While there are parallels between this passage and masturbation, it is unlikely that masturbation was what Jesus was alluding to.

While the Bible nowhere explicitly states that masturbation is a sin, there is no question as to whether the actions that lead to masturbation are sinful. Masturbation is nearly always the result of lustful thoughts, sexual stimulation, and/or pornographic images. It is these problems that need to be dealt with. If the sins of lust, immoral thoughts, and pornography are forsaken and overcome, masturbation will become a non-issue. Many people struggle with guilty feelings concerning masturbation, when in reality, the things that led to the act are far more worthy of repentance.

There are some biblical principles that can be applied to the issue of masturbation.Ephesians 5:3 declares, “Among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity.” It is hard to see how masturbating can pass that particular test. The Bible teaches us, “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31). If you cannot give God glory for something, you should not do it. If a person is not fully convinced that an activity is pleasing to God, then it is a sin: “Everything that does not come from faith is sin” (Romans 14:23). Further, we need to remember that our bodies have been redeemed and belong to God. “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). This great truth should have a real bearing on what we do with our bodies. In light of these principles, the conclusion that masturbation is a sin is biblical. Clearly, masturbation is not glorifying to God; it does not avoid the appearance of immorality, nor does it pass the test of God’s having ownership over our bodies.

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Porn Addiction & Teenagers

Porn Addiction & Teenagers

ABC recently ran a great but scary piece on porn addiction among teenagers.  According to a psychologist who was interviewed, we’re just at the beginning of a pornography epidemic – it will get worse in the next few years.  You can view the ABC’s Nightline report here: “Generation XXX: Teens Addicted to Porn?“

As technology advances, access to porn will become easier and easier while avoiding porn will become increasingly difficult.  Technology isn’t the enemy, per se, but its the conduit through which the porn is so easily delivered to stoke our sinful desires.  If your son/daughter doesn’t have any restrictions on their use of technology (TV viewing, Internet usage, Internet filters, Cell Phone & Smartphones, etc.), I want to encourage you to check out a post I wrote last year: Setting Media Guidelines for your Teenager.

Walt Mueller at the Center for Parent/Youth Understanding has done significant work and has created the “Digital Kids Initiate.”  This is an effort to help parents and youth workers understand the digital world teens live so that we could discerningly affirm what we can while correcting what is dangerous.  As part of the Digital Kids Initiative, Walt has provided two noteworthy resources:

  1. Info Sheet on Children & Pornography
  2. Parents’ Primer on Internet Pornography.

Here are some nuggets taken from the above resources:

  • 93% of boys and 62% of girls are exposed to Internet pornography before the age of 18.
  • The average age of first exposure to Internet pornography is 11.
  • 30,000 Internet users were accessing pornography every second.sdf
  • There were 4.2 million pornographic websites. That equals 12% of all Internet sites.
  • 70% of boys have spent more than 30 consecutive minutes looking at online pornography on at least one occasion. 35% of boys have done this on more than ten occasions.
  • 23% of girls have spent more than 30 consecutive minutes looking at online pornography on at least one occasion. 14% have done this on more than one occasion.
  • The 12-17 year-old age group is the largest consumer of Internet pornography.
  • Only 3% of boys and 17% of girls have never seen Internet pornography.
  • One poll indicates that 50% of evangelical Christian men and 20% of evangelical Christian women are addicted to pornography.

If you haven’t talked to your teenager about pornography, chances are… you’re already behind!  Talk to your kids about porn – yes, it’s uncomfortable and awkward for everyone, but you’re not doing anyone any favors by only talking about things that are easy to discuss!  Take the initiative, and don’t just have “the talk” once and then never again, make it a conversation instead.

What should you do if your son/daughter has been looking at porn?  Here are Walt’s suggestions (as found on the info sheet linked to above):

  1. Control your anger.
  2. Go after their heart, not their behavior.
  3. Keep a discussion going about biblical sexuality.
  4. Examine your own heart. Are you living God’s design for your own sexuality?
  5. Block the doors. Take steps to restrict access and choices, while engaging them in ongoing accountability.
  6. Don’t let up or give up. Shepherd them forward in their spiritual lives with the goal of heart change.
  7. Evaluate whether or not outside counseling is necessary or beneficial.

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Practical Ways to Fight Lust

Practical Ways to Fight Lust
September 13, 2012
Originally posted to: http://mtvpastor.com/2012/09/13/practical-ways-to-fight-lust/

Last night at The Conversation (Mt Vernon’s Wednesday night Bible study) we talked about practical ways to fight lust (Matthew 5:27-30). In a world overflowing with lust, how can we as Christians protect ourselves? Here are the highlights from last night. If you struggle with lust, I pray that these truths will help you towards freedom.

1. First, admit that lust is a cancer to cut out, not a sickness to cope with. Lust isn’t a low grade fever. It isn’t something to medicate and cope with. Lust is a stage 2 cancer. If left unchecked, lust can literally destroy your life. The first step to defeating lust is to get serious about it. See it for what it really is: a cancerous sin that threatens your whole way of life.

2. Know where you struggle and go to the extreme to cut the cancer out. You don’t put a band-aid on cancer. You cut it out. You remove it, whatever it takes. People will undergo chemotherapy, radiation, and invasive surgery to remove cancer from their bodies. Shouldn’t we be the same way about sin?

Satan doesn’t have to be creative in the way he gets you to sin. All he has to do is find one thing that works, and keep pounding away at it until he’s destroyed you. You know where you struggle. If you struggle with lusting after nudity in movies, you should never have pay channels. If you struggle with internet porn, get rid of the internet. Wherever the cancer is, go to the extreme to cut it out.

3. Put guardrails in your life to protect yourself. Guardrails exist on the sides of dangerous roads to protect you. The idea is, if you make a mistake and crash, better to endure minor damage against a guardrail rather than fall off the cliff and pay the ultimate price. Put guardrails in your life in your fight with lust. Here are a few guardrails I use personally:

  • No pay channels on Directv.
  • Parental controls on Directv to avoid sexual content.
  • Use internet filter on everything that accesses the internet. I use this not only to protect myself, but my boys (even at this young age) from questionable images. I’ve used x3watch for years and love it. They have filters for computers, iphones and ipads. Check them out!
  • Guardrails even extend to how I interact with women. I’ll never ride alone in a car with another woman, even if it’s down the street. I don’t want anyone driving by to see me riding with another woman and make a bad insinuation.

4. Put guardrails in your family’s life to protect them from the evil one. If you have kids (or a husband) in the house, then you need filters on everything. NEVER underestimate what kids can discover on their own. It’s better to be the mean parent now then to discover twenty years later that they’re addicted to porn.

5. Choose mild embarrassment now over major embarrassment later. If you’ve got a problem with lust, get help now. Yes, it’s embarrassing to admit that you struggle with lust/porn, but it’s better to get help now while it’s still treatable. If left unchecked, lust will grow until it consumes you. At that point, the truth will come out, but it will be too late for you. Get help now if you need it.

We live in a world filled with lust, but that doesn’t mean that we have to be consumed by it. Through the power of the Christ and the wisdom he’s given us, we can conquer lust rather than be conquered by it.

image courtesy of http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

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Sometimes Your Husband is Not the Only One Who Needs Change

I will state that what works for some, does not work for others.  What worked for this spouse of a sex addict may or may not work in allowing God to heal the wounds created by the husband, so take what you like and leave the rest.  And husbands, don’t try to be the Holy Spirit and use this example on your wife, allow the Holy Spirit to guide your wives to their own healing.

Sometimes your husband is not the only one who needs change..

Sometimes your husband is not the only one who needs change.
February 2, 2013 by

A couple of years ago I lived in a very different world. My world was full of hurt and betrayal. I tried all manner of things to ease the pain but nothing worked. I was hopeless. I remember one particular day when I called a family member to vent. I was ready to move on, to get a fresh start.  I let it all out:

I don’t deserve this! I don’t want this to be my life! I deserve to be loved and treated well!  I deserve to be happy. I’m not going to waste my whole life waiting for someone else to change. I deserve better than this!

Having had the opportunity to talk to many women who have been or who currently are in similar situations I know these feelings are not unique. I also know that just because the majority of people feel this way doesn’t make it right.

Today as I think upon those feelings and the words I used to express my pain I cringe.  I see how selfish and prideful I was.

With all that was happening to me by the actions of my husband it never dawned on me that there was anything about me that needed to change.  The idea that I was just as lost as Chad not only never crossed my mind but made made me angry to hear it suggested.  And here’s the kicker:  Do I really have the right to demand happiness, comfort, peace and love? At that time I believed I did. I had bought into the lie that suggests a Christian will always be happy, that trials, at least not big ones, will not come my way.   My idea of being a Christian looked more like the world’s ways than Jesus’ way (Phil 2:7-8).

It wasn’t until I began a bible study with a dear christian woman that the idea of not having rights surfaced.   I balked! Don’t tell me that, I thought. I’m not going to be a doormat for others to walk all over. Most certainly not my husband! It set me back and it took a while for God’s word to speak reassuring truth to my soul.

What I learned is that trouble is promised to us. We aren’t promised comfort and security but we are promised that God will be with us through the fire. We aren’t told that he will always keep us out of it. This simple truth transformed my life.

So here I was learning that I didn’t have rights and that I was just as selfish and prideful as Chad. His pride played out in a very different way, but I was just as prideful. His selfishness was out there for all to see, but I was very selfish in ways that others didn’t notice as much. I began to see my great need for God. I began, not to cry out for my marriage to be saved, or for happiness, but for God to save me from myself. I prayed and still pray for God to show me my heart and my desires as He sees them. When He reveals the way that He sees my wants and desires I can do nothing but fall at His feet and cry for mercy.

Once I began to focus on God and on my need for Him my troubles didn’t overwhelm me as they did before. I had a glimpse of my Savior and how great He is and how small I am. My life became less about pleasing myself as I began to strive to please my God and in doing that, the troubles I faced gave me greater opportunities to please my Lord. It’s during those times of trial that the rubber meets the road. Do you really believe God is with you? Suffering and trouble will show you. I am in no way perfect. I still struggle with seeing things the way I should. There are times that I have to stop myself and remind myself that my comfort and my happiness is not paramount. God is using hard days and realizations of my sinfulness to draw me to Him.

Will you allow God to speak to you through your trials? Will you praise God despite your pain? Will you honor the Lord in suffering with grace and obedience? Those are my goals. I believe if we do this it will not only help us through our trouble but most importantly it will please our Lord!

God give us the eyes to see our hearts as you see them and the ears to hear your still small voice when trouble is roaring all around us!

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Erectile Dysfunction And Porn: How Over-stimulation Can Ruin Your Sex Life

Originally posted on 09/14/2012

“With a buffet including live sex chat, new naked chicks with every click, multiple windows, and escalating levels of hardcore, what actually happens inside the brain is a form of overdosing.”  Porn is so readily available now that it’s hard to say no.  though, there’s a very good reason to pull out: erectile dysfunction Research shows that being exposed to porn desensitizes men to the point where getting turned on by regular sex simply isn’t exciting enough.

Call it a new type of impotence, if you will, where men in this study — as young as in their 20s — found it normal to have erectile dysfunction during real sexual interactions yet still were excited for the smörgåsbord of internet porn.  We get a dopamine spike from something wild stroking our switch, but the more we’re exposed to it and the more intense the exposure, the harder of a time we have getting aroused for our normal sex scenes at home.

For many men, achieving an erection without the constant exposure that internet porn provides is becoming more challenging. Maybe it’s time for us to go porn-free, but who actually has the willpower?

My response to the writer’s question:

With abstinence from pornography, the “arousal template” shrinks back to normal where one can enjoy sexual intercourse without the extremes seen in pornography.  The only way I found to remain abstinent was through a proper sexual addiction recovery program.