Falling in Love

By David Feddes

You shall not commit adultery. (Exodus 20:14)

Marriage should be honored by all. (Hebrews 13:4)

Sandra and Philip are falling in love. Sandra is 26; Philip is 28. They're both
single, and they met at work. They felt attracted to each other right away. Neither was a
virgin by the time they met, but they wouldn't consider themselves loose. Philip and
Sandra don't believe in sleeping around with just anybody. They both believe you
shouldn't go bed with someone unless you're in love.
They've both been in love before, and now they're in love again. They don't feel
ready to make a permanent commitment like marriage—Sandra's parents went through
a nasty divorce, and she doesn't want to be tied down until she's sure she's got the right
man—but both she and Philip agree that they're serious enough to move in together. If it
works out, who knows? Eventually they might get married. In the meantime, they plan
to enjoy their love one day at a time.
***
Amber and Jeremy are falling in love. Amber is in grade 12, and Jeremy is in his
first year at the local community college. They met at a restaurant where Amber liked to
hang out with her friends. Jeremy worked there three nights a week, waiting on tables.
Sometimes Jeremy would serve Amber and her friends, and when he wasn't too busy,
he'd hang around their table and joke around. One Friday night, he told Amber that he
had Saturday night off, and he wondered if she'd like to go see a movie with him. That
sounded good to her, and they had a great time. Now they're falling in love.
There's just one problem. Amber grew up in a family that takes faith very
seriously, but not Jeremy. He has little interest in going to church, and he has no strong
beliefs. When Amber's parents ask why she's dating someone who's not a committed
Christian, she replies, "We're just dating. It's not like we're getting married or something.
And besides, even if we would get married, I think that for a marriage to be happy,
companionship is more important than having the same religion." Amber still believes
most of what her parents and her brother believe—she believes that God exists and that
Jesus is his Son—but she's not about to let her family's Christianity ruin her love life or
keep her from happiness. Amber loves Jeremy. He's good-looking, he's smart, he's
funny—and Amber can't imagine meeting someone who's more right for her.
***
Mark and Julie are falling in love. Mark is in his late thirties. He's divorced, with
two kids that he sees every other weekend. He met Julie at a ball game. He was there
to watch his kids play, and Julie was there to watch hers. Julie is married, but her
husband wasn't with her that night. He was too busy with his work, as it seemed he
always was. Somehow Mark and Julie got to talking while they were watching the game,
and they hit it off right away. After seeing each other at a few more games, Mark and
Julie started planning how they could spend more time together with just the two of
them.
They're falling in love, but they're uneasy about it. Mark is divorced, but he
doesn't really believe in divorce, and he's never thought much of a man who would steal

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someone else's wife and break up their marriage. But how can he let go of Julie? She
makes him feel so alive.
Julie's misgivings are even more serious than Mark's. She's in love with Mark,
but she also cares about her family. She adores her three kids, and she also has at
least some feeling left for her husband. Still, no matter how much Julie cares about her
family, she's never felt about anyone the way she feels about Mark. How can she
possibly stop seeing him? Doesn't she have a right to be happy?
***
Falling in love is mysterious. It can happen in a variety of places in a variety of
ways, but no matter how it happens, once you fall in love, it can feel like the most
important thing in the world. Nothing can stand in the way. It seems your only choice is
to do whatever you think love is telling you to do.
Sandra and Philip are falling in love, so they're living together. They can't let old-
fashioned ideas about marriage get in the way of love. Amber and Jeremy are falling in
love, so they keep their relationship going. They can't let the fact that they have different
religious beliefs get in the way of love. Mark and Julie are falling in love, so they carry
on an affair that threatens to break up Julie's marriage. They can't let moral qualms
about adultery get in the way of love.
What should we make of all this? Maybe you're falling in love with someone.
Maybe you're in a situation like one of those I've described, and you're wondering where
to go from here. We could look at it from a number of angles, but I invite you to focus
with me on one simple question: What does God say?

Honoring Marriage
God created us male and female, so it's fair to say that falling in love is his
invention. The question is, what does he say about how we should handle this
mysterious invention of his, this powerful attraction between male and female? What
does God say about unmarried couples living together? What does God say about
falling in love with someone without a living faith? What does God say about leaving
your spouse to be with someone who makes you happier? God says in the Bible,
"Marriage should be honored by all" (Hebrews 13:4). That's the most basic thing to keep
in mind when it comes to falling in love.
Why is marriage so important? My denomination, the Christian Reformed
Church, has a form for weddings which says:
In putting his blessing on a marriage, God intended that it would provide: a
context within which husband and wife can help and comfort each other and find
companionship; a setting in which we may give loving and tender expression to
the desires God gave us; a secure environment within which children may be
born and taught to know and serve the Lord; and a structure that enriches society
and contributes to its orderly function.
In God's plan, when marriage flourishes, so do men and women and children and the
entire society. We can't make light of marriage or pretend it doesn't matter. There's too
much at stake.
In schools, the workplace, and the military, there's concern about sexual
harassment, and there are efforts to define sexual consent. Now, I agree that we need a
good definition of consent, but we need a definition that's a lot older and a lot better than
any modern list of rules. You have legitimate, God-approved consent to sexual intimacy
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only if both of you have said, "For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness
and in health, as long as we both shall live." Marriage is the only sex policy that works.
Any other approach means trouble.
Casual sex is one way of dishonoring marriage, but it's not the only way. What
about couples who fall in love and live together without getting married? They say it's
okay as long as you love each other and you're both willing. But what does God say?
He says, "Marriage should be honored by all." Unmarried couples living together
dishonor marriage.
Why is it that so many people think that "living together" is a good idea? Some
couples live together because they think marriage doesn't mean much. "Who needs a
piece of paper or a wedding ring? We love each other. That's all that matters."
But not all who live together feel that way. Some see marriage as a serious
commitment, and they don't want to make promises they can't keep. They don't want
their marriage to fall apart like so many others they know, so living together makes
sense to them. They can enjoy each other for the time being, and they can also use it
as an experiment to find out if they're compatible. If it works out, they can always get
married later. If it doesn't work out—well, no harm done.
The irony of this is that, according to every study that's ever been done, people
who live together before marriage are much more likely to get divorced than those who
don't live together first. And besides, it's not true that when people live together and
then go their separate ways, there's no harm done. The Bible teaches that when two
people are physically joined, they become one flesh. You become vulnerable to each
other, and your lives become intertwined with each other. If you then split up and go
your separate ways, you lose part of yourself.
And what about children? Millions of children are born to live-in lovers. What
about them? Kids whose parents are living in a disposable relationship don't have much
security. Is there anything they can really count on?
Also, a disproportionate amount of child abuse is at the hands of live-in lovers,
and the kids most likely to join gangs are those whose parents don't bother getting
married. When marriage crumbles, so does society. Just look around.
God says, "Marriage should be honored by all." When you decide that you know
better than God, that it's okay to live together without being married, you betray yourself,
you betray the person you love, you betray your children and your society, and you
betray the God who created you for something better. To really honor marriage, you
must seek to remain pure before marriage and faithful within marriage. The Bible says,
"Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge
the adulterer and all the sexually immoral (Hebrews 13:4). So on top of all the other
trouble that comes with dishonoring marriage, you face the judgment of God.

Unequal Yoke
Let's look now at decisions on whom to date and whom to marry. A girl may think
it's okay to fall in love with a boy even though she claims to be a Christian, and he's not
interested. But what does God say? In the Bible he says, "Do not be yoked together
with unbelievers" (2 Corinthians 6:14). He says that a Christian woman is "free to marry
anyone she chooses, but he must belong to the Lord" (1 Corinthians 7:39).
In Malachi chapter 2, the Bible says that some of God's people broke faith and
did something detestable. What had they done? They had married persons who
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worshiped other gods, who didn't have a commitment to the one true God. This
breaking of faith was so serious that the prophet Malachi said, "May the Lord cut off
from his people those who choose such marriages, even if they try to keep being
religious by bringing offerings to God."
God prohibits marriage outside the faith, and that means you shouldn't even be
dating outside the faith. After all, if you can't say no to the offer of a date with a non-
Christian, how are you going to break it off once you're deeply in love? God wants you
to be one in body and also one in spirit with the person you marry. If you serve Jesus,
how can you ever be one in spirit with someone who ignores Jesus? It's a question of
loyalty. If you claim to be a Christian, but you marry a person from another religion, or
you marry a person who has a church background but whose faith means very little,
you're taking a giant step away from Jesus Christ. You may think you'll win the person
over to Christ, but far more often, it works the other way. God becomes less and less
important to you. You're under constant pressure to put the will of your husband or wife
ahead of God's will, and the fact that you married that person in the first place is proof
that when push comes to shove, Jesus does not come first in your life.
And there's more. When you marry outside the faith, you're risking not only your
own soul but also the souls of any children you might have. What's going to happen to
your kids? You can try to show them God's way, but your spouse lives another way.
You may be tempted to resent your spouse for jeopardizing the children's souls. But
you've got nobody but yourself to blame. You're the one who knew the way of Christ but
chose someone who didn't share your convictions. You're the one who chose to risk the
souls of your children for the sake of your own happiness. If you're a Christian, God
calls you to marry someone who makes your commitment to Christ stronger instead of
weaker, and who has the kind of faith you'd like your children to have.

Adultery
Let's move on to still another aspect of falling in love. What if you're married to
one person, but you're in love with another? You can't imagine how you can be happy
unless you leave your spouse for this other person. That's how it feels to you, but what
does God say?
In Malachi 2, the Bible talks to a number of divorced people who are upset
because God won't bless them.
You flood the Lord's altar with tears. You weep and wail because he no longer
pays attention to your offerings... You ask, “Why?” It is because the Lord is acting
as the witness between you and the wife of your youth, because you have
broken faith with her, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage
covenant.
Has not the Lord made them one? In flesh and spirit they are his. And why
one? Because he was seeking godly offspring. So guard yourself in your spirit,
and do not break faith with the wife of your youth.
"I hate divorce," says the Lord God... (2:13-16).
When you're madly in love with someone who excites you more than the person
you married, you might wonder, "How can it be wrong when it feels so right?" But the
real question is, "How can it be right when God says it's so wrong?"
I know, some people find themselves in situations where separation and divorce
are forced upon them, but right now I'm talking to those who have decided to break their
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promises just because the grass looks greener on the other side of the fence. For God's
sake, for your spouse's sake, for your children's sake, honor your marriage. Don't break
faith.
It seems almost everybody these days is trying to make kids feel better about
divorce, right down to children's television. A little bird lives with mommy bird in one part
of the forest, while daddy bird lives in another part of the forest. The little bird sings,
"Over there is daddy's tree, and here is mommy's tree. They don't live together, but they
both love me." Adults expect kids to adapt themselves to cope with divorce, but the
adults refuse to adapt themselves to prevent divorce. Grownups stop loving each other,
and then wonder why their kids are worried their parents will stop loving them. Is it fair
to expect four-year-olds and fourteen-year-olds to be more mature and flexible than
forty-year-olds? We should do all we can to support children of divorce and reassure
them of their parents' love, but if you want to help children the most, don't get divorced
in the first place.

Following God’s Plan

We can't dishonor marriage and then say it's okay because we live in changing
times. No change can improve on God's plan of two people committed to each other for
life and committed to him, the Lord of life.
When you're single, keep yourself sexually pure, and when you're married, give
yourself fully and joyfully to your spouse. Enjoy the miracle that happens every time two
people give each other the gift of themselves, when you promise to love each other and
walk with each other and be one with each other no matter what. Let your marriage
serve as a picture of the amazing love between Jesus and his church (Ephesians 5:21-
31).
The Lord is faithful, and he expects his people to be faithful. God keeps his
promises, and he expects his people to keep theirs. He says, "Marriage should be
honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all
the sexually immoral."
Seek to obey God and shun evil. If you're not already in a live-in relationship,
don't start. If you're not dating outside the faith, don't start. If you're not having an affair
or considering divorce, make sure you never do. But what if you've already blown it, and
you're getting this message too late? Well, in one sense it's never too late. God is not
only the Creator who shows us what is right, but he's also the Savior who can forgive us
and change us when we're wrong. This can happen only when Jesus' blood washes
away your sins and his Holy Spirit renews your life. So stop pretending you're your own
boss and bow before God. Stop pretending that the choices you've made are okay.
Admit your sin, ask God's forgiveness for Jesus' sake, and then start obeying God from
this point on.
If you've been living with someone, confess your sin to God. Then either get
married or else end the relationship. Don't keep living in sin.
If you're dating a non-Christian, break it off before the relationship goes any
further. It's hard, but you have to do it. You can't commit your life to someone with
different loyalties.
If you've already married such a person, the situation is different. You've made
your promises. You can't erase the past. Abandoning your husband or wife now would
only make matters worse. Seek God's forgiveness for your past choice, and then pray
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for his help. Pray that God in his mercy will yet win your spouse and children, and
dedicate yourself to becoming an example of love and godliness that may help win them
to Christ (1 Corinthians 7:12-16).
If you're having an affair, end it now. Then seek God's forgiveness and the
forgiveness of your husband or wife.
If you've already divorced your husband or wife to marry someone else, ask God
to forgive you and cleanse you. Then confess to the person you abandoned that you
were wrong. You're bound to someone else now; you can't undo the damage to all the
people you hurt. But at least you can admit that you did wrong and seek their
forgiveness.
To sum it all up, God says we must obey his will for marriage, and if we fail to
obey, we must repent, ask forgiveness from the Lord and from others, and honor God's
will for marriage from this point on.

Originally prepared by David Feddes for Back to God Ministries International. Used with permission.

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Divorce and Remarriage
By David Feddes

“Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?” (Matthew 19:3)

The advertisements pop up on my computer screen. One says, “Simple divorce

online, low cost, fast, easy, guaranteed. Your online divorce solution: only $249.”
Another offers an even better bargain: “No fault divorce. Only $25.95.” What could be
better than a divorce that doesn’t cost much and is nobody’s fault? Another
advertisement is headlined “Easy divorce online” and offers “easy divorce kits.” The
company says, “We take great pride in the quality of our divorce kits.” Still another “easy
online divorce” company boasts of being featured on TV news programs and offers a
100% money back guarantee. I’m not in the market for a divorce, but it’s apparently a
booming business. Online companies compete with more traditional law firms for a
share of the profits in the divorce paperwork business.
Is divorce okay as long as you do the paperwork and fill out the right forms?
Some people seem to think so, and that’s nothing new. Back when Jesus walked the
earth, he met people who thought the same way. They thought it was okay for a man to
divorce his wife for any reason at all. Many of these people were part of an elite
religious group called the Pharisees. They thought God himself gave them the right to
easy divorce, as long as they did the proper paperwork. Their position appealed to a lot
of people who wanted God on their side but didn’t want to be stuck with one person the
rest of their life.
Easy divorce was popular in Jesus’ time, and Jesus’ opponents wanted to use
this as a weapon against Jesus. The Pharisees were upset that so many people were
interested in Jesus, and they were eager to make Jesus look bad and turn people
against him. One sure way, they decided, was to ask Jesus the divorce question: “Is it
lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?”
If you had to answer that question, what would you say? Is it okay to divorce
somebody simply because you want to? Is it okay for a woman to divorce her husband if
he leaves the toilet seat up too often? Is it okay for a man to divorce his wife if she gains
twenty pounds and he wants to marry someone younger and slimmer? Is it okay for a
woman to divorce her husband if he watches too many sports events on TV? Is it okay
for a couple to get a divorce because they don’t get along very well? Is it okay to divorce
someone if you want to marry someone else whom you think will make you happier?
Does God’s law approve of divorcing someone for any reason whatsoever?
In Jesus’ time, many people looked to the teachings of Rabbi Hillel for guidance.
Hillel was a popular teacher, and his ideas are still revered by some people today. Hillel
took a permissive view of divorce. Some other teachers took a stricter view, but Hillel
and his followers taught that a man could divorce his wife for just about any reason. If
she didn’t cook well enough to please him, he could divorce her with God’s approval. If
he found a more beautiful woman, he could divorce his present wife and remarry the
one he found more attractive. Hillel said that this was okay as long as there was a
proper certificate of divorce, and he used a snippet from the Law of Moses to show that
God supported this. Hillel’s permissive view of divorce attracted a large following.

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 When the Pharisees asked Jesus, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for
any and every reason?” they weren’t asking the question out of real curiosity. They
already knew that Jesus opposed easy divorce. Earlier Jesus had said that doing the
proper paperwork didn’t make divorce right. Jesus mentioned only one exception where
God allowed divorce, but, otherwise, he said that divorce and remarriage meant
adultery, and no amount of paperwork could change that fact (Matthew 5:32-33).
Jesus’ enemies wanted to use this against Jesus. They asked Jesus the divorce
question to make him repeat his opposition to divorce. They knew that a quick way for a
preacher to upset people and turn them off is to say something about divorce. They
wanted to trip Jesus up. They wanted to highlight how Jesus differed from Rabbi Hillel
and from the proper understanding of God’s law given to Moses. They wanted people
who had been following Jesus to have second thoughts about him. People might think
Jesus’ views on marriage and divorce were unrealistic, and they might switch their
allegiance away from Jesus to religious leaders who taught divorce as a God-given
right.
Think of what happens today if someone wants a divorce but the church says the
divorce is wrong. That person is likely to leave his spouse anyway and to leave his
church as well and find a different church. I’ve seen it happen. A man leaves his wife
and starts living with another woman. His church elders confront him and say he’s doing
wrong, but rather than repent, he takes his girlfriend to a church down the street that is
more permissive. Or a woman is fed up with her husband and leaves him for reasons
the church says are not sufficient. This upsets her, so she leaves her church and finds
one that makes her “more comfortable.” This is the sort of thing Jesus’ enemies wanted
to exploit. They wanted to get Jesus to say things about divorce that would go against
accepted wisdom and offend many divorced people, so that people would leave Jesus’
circle and join a group where they’d feel more at home.

The Marriage Question

Jesus was not as permissive about divorce as his opponents. This doesn’t mean
Jesus was meaner than the Pharisees. Far from it! Jesus had tremendous compassion
for divorced people. He went out of his way to befriend a woman who had been
divorced five times and was living with a man at the time he met her. Jesus touched her
heart and brought her to faith. Today, Jesus cares about divorced people as much as
ever. He cares about those who go through divorce reluctantly and against their will and
may not be to blame for their divorce. He also cares about those who think they can
divorce someone for any and every reason. Jesus cares so much about people and
their relationship to each other and to God that he refuses to take divorce lightly.
When the Pharisees asked Jesus the divorce question, Jesus knew that not
everybody would like his answer, but he spoke out anyway. He didn’t immediately give
a direct answer, however. He asked a question of his own. Jesus took his questioners
back to the very beginning of marriage, recorded in the book of Genesis.
“Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them
male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and
mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are
no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not
separate.”

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In response to the divorce question, Jesus asked the marriage question: haven’t you
read the Creator’s original design? Before we ask, “When is it okay to get divorced?”
we first need to ask, “What is marriage?” Before we ask when it might be right for
humans to end a marriage, we first have to ask about God’s design for starting
marriage. If the Creator designed marriage to unite two persons and to make them one
in body and purpose, then no human has the right tear apart such a union just because
he or she happens to want out.
That might seem hard to argue with, but Jesus’ opponents didn’t give up. If Jesus
wanted to quote the Scriptures, they could also quote Scripture. “Why then,” they asked,
“did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her
away?” They were referring to Deuteronomy 24:1, where Moses says, “Suppose a man
marries a woman but later discovers something about her that is shameful. So he writes
her a letter of divorce, gives it to her, and sends her away.” Moses goes on to say that if
this woman ends up marrying another man, the former husband is not allowed to marry
her again later. What Jesus’ opponents gleaned out of that passage was the paperwork
principle: if you want to dump your wife, go ahead. Just make sure you do the right
paperwork. Then God will approve.
They even talked like divorce was commanded by Moses and by God. But did
the Bible really command people to get divorced? No, God recognized the reality of
divorce among sinful people and gave instruction on how to regulate it. The purpose
was to make divorce less frequent, to make it less damaging when it did happen, and to
show that divorce is a very serious matter. When the Pharisees quoted Moses’ divorce
regulation, Jesus replied that divorce was never commanded but only allowed
reluctantly because they were so sinful and stubborn. He told the Pharisees,
"Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But
it was not this way from the beginning. I tell you that anyone who divorces his
wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits
adultery."
When Jesus’ opponents read the Bible, they were always looking for loopholes and
trying to define what God would let them get away with. But that’s the wrong way to
read the Bible. Jesus challenged them not to look for loopholes but to seek God’s
original design for marriage. The first book of the Old Testament, the book of Genesis,
speaks of God making two people one flesh, and the final book of the Old Testament,
the book of Malachi, also speaks of one flesh. In Malachi 2, God says,
Has not the LORD made them one? In flesh and spirit they are his. And why
one? Because he was seeking godly offspring. So guard yourself in your spirit,
and do not break faith with the wife of your youth.
“I hate divorce,” says the Lord God of Israel, “and I hate a man’s covering
himself with violence as well as with his garment,” says the Lord Almighty.
So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith. (Malachi 2:15-16)
Old Testament Scripture begins and ends with this emphasis on the one-flesh union of
marriage, and God thunders, “I hate divorce!” But hard-hearted people, determined to
do their own thing, found one phrase in Scripture that mentioned a certificate of divorce
and twisted it to make divorce a divine command.
Nowadays, many people take psychologists and authors as seriously as they
used to take religious leaders, and some of these experts are even more eager than the

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old-time Pharisees to make divorce sound right and good. One book on divorce makes
marriage sound like clothing: if it wears out or if your taste changes, it’s time to get rid of
the old and get something new.
Yes, your marriage can wear out. People change their values and lifestyles.
People want to experience new things. Change is a part of life. Change and
personal growth are traits for you to be proud of, indicative of a vital searching
mind. You must accept the reality that in today’s multi-faceted world it is
especially easy for two persons to grow apart. Letting go of your marriage—if it is
no longer good for you—can be the most successful thing you have ever done.
Getting a divorce can be a positive, problem-solving, growth-oriented step. It can
be a personal triumph.
Much as old-time Pharisees made it sound like getting divorced was obedience to a
biblical command, newfangled experts speak of divorce as something to be proud of, a
sign of a great mind, a badge of goodness, a personal triumph! But Jesus cuts through
the nonsense. In light of the Creator’s intent for marriage, divorce is a disaster, a sign
not of great minds but of hard hearts, a ripping apart of what God joined together.

Divorcing Without Sinning

Jesus opposes easy divorce, but he does not say that everybody who gets a
divorce is wrong to do so. Jesus permits divorce where there is “marital unfaithfulness.”
The Greek word is porneia, the source of our word pornography. In this context, porneia
means sexual activity outside the marriage. If your spouse is sexually unfaithful to the
marriage, you are not necessarily sinning by getting a divorce. In such cases, Jesus
allows you to divorce your unfaithful spouse and eventually to remarry someone else if
you meet the right person.
The betrayal and breakup may be grievous to you, but getting divorced and
remarried in such a case is not sinful, and you shouldn’t feel guilty about it. Don’t let
Satan accuse you. Don’t blame yourself for something that’s not sinful. There is no such
thing as no-fault divorce—divorce is always somebody’s fault—but sometimes the
divorce is the fault of one partner and not of the other. In many cases, both partners are
at fault, but not in all cases. Sometimes one partner is unfaithful even when the other
has been faithful and loving. No husband or wife is perfect all the time, but it’s possible
to be a good, faithful partner and yet have your spouse destroy the marriage.
Even if you were a faithful partner, you may feel a terrible sense of failure and
guilt if your marriage has been destroyed. You can’t help wondering if the relationship
could have been saved if only you had done something different. It’s common to feel
this way, and it’s right for you to grieve over the shattering of the union you treasured,
but you should not carry a burden of guilt if it was your spouse who destroyed the
marriage. This is especially true if your spouse got involved with someone else and
committed adultery. You are the person who was wronged. Don’t beat yourself up. Don’t
take the blame for your spouse’s wicked choice to disobey God and to betray you.
Going through divorce is painful enough without taking the blame for things that aren’t
your fault.
It’s not sinful to divorce someone who has been sexually unfaithful. But does not
mean you must divorce a spouse who has sinned in that way? No, if your spouse
repents of the adultery and wants to continue the marriage, then aim for forgiveness

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and reconciliation. The marriage has been violated, but if your unfaithful spouse and
you can agree to work toward restoring trust and renewing the marriage, then do so.
Even if your spouse hasn’t repented of adultery but remains in an affair, you
might still choose not to get a divorce right away. You would not sin by seeking a
divorce, but you might still choose to seek repentance and reconciliation for awhile. Be
realistic—your marriage has been shattered. It may be unlikely that that your spouse will
have a change of heart and want to put things back together again. But unlikely doesn’t
mean impossible. If your spouse hasn’t sought divorce or made a final break, you might
choose to wait and to leave the door open for reconciliation. In the Bible, the prophet
Hosea had a wife who was very unfaithful and immoral, and Hosea kept loving her
anyway and kept calling her back. His mercy and love was a display of God’s mercy
and love.
You’re not required to tolerate ongoing adultery. You would be right and just in
getting a divorce, but you would also be right to go the extra mile and leave extra time
for your spouse to change. Don’t be a doormat as you do this. Be firm—insist on
separation if the affair doesn’t end. Don’t let your spouse try to keep the affair and the
marriage at the same time. The choice must be clear: the marriage can be restored only
if the sinful affair ends. You may choose to wait awhile after the separation rather than
divorcing right away so that the door stays open for repentance and reconciliation. But
God doesn’t require you to wait forever. Marital unfaithfulness is a legitimate ground to
seek a divorce and be free to remarry, because the other partner has already violated
the one-flesh union.

Better Not to Marry?

When the Pharisees asked Jesus the divorce question, they wanted to cause
trouble, and they succeeded. Even Jesus’ closest disciples were bothered by his strong
view of marriage. The disciples said to him, “If this is the situation between a husband
and wife, it is better not to marry” (Matthew 19:10). The disciples figured that if being
married meant being stuck with the same person for better or for worse until death, it
would be better to stay single. If your main question about marriage is, “What’s in it for
me?” then you want to make sure you can escape if it’s not as fun as you had hoped.
Even Jesus’ own disciples were infected by a weak view of marriage and a
permissive approach to divorce. Still today it’s shocking and scary to hear Jesus
declare, “What God has joined together, let man not separate.” We prefer the motto, “If
at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” If marriage to one person doesn’t go the way
you want with one person, cut your losses, end the marriage, and try again with
somebody else. But Jesus says that God designed the one-flesh union to be a lifelong
bond. Only if your spouse breaks the bond through sexual immorality are you permitted
to end the marriage and marry someone else.
You might think, “Give me a break. There are lots of sound reasons for divorce
and remarriage besides one partner’s immoral behavior. What Jesus says is
unrealistic.” But is Jesus unrealistic? He is the Son of God, the Creator of reality. How
can the Creator of reality be unrealistic? If we think Jesus sounds unrealistic, we are the
ones who are out of touch with reality. Jesus’ teaching isn’t easy, but it is true and right
and realistic. If we ignore his words, we end up fighting against the deepest structures
of reality, and we cannot win.

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 The disciples thought that if marriage was to be as permanent and unbreakable
as Jesus said, then it was better not to get married at all. Jesus responded by saying,
“Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given… The
one who can accept this should accept it” (Matthew 19:11-12). Not just anybody can
accept what Jesus says about marriage. Only if God gives you the gift of faith in Jesus
and the gift of obedience to his teaching will you accept what Jesus says about
marriage and divorce. Otherwise you will find a view of marriage and divorce that you
like better than the word of Jesus. But if God gives you the gift of a relationship to Jesus
and you can accept him and his words, then you should accept what he says.
Maybe you’ve already offended God by getting a divorce that went against Jesus’
instruction. If so, believe Jesus’ words and confess that you have sinned. Then ask God
for mercy and forgiveness, and seek his Spirit’s power to become faithful and obedient
to God from this point on. The Lord’s grace can cover your sin, but it’s not cheap grace.
Jesus paid for this mercy with his own blood, and he calls you from now on to follow the
narrow, difficult path which leads to life.

Divorce and Remarriage

These days it’s common to assume that if a marriage fails, there’s nothing wrong
with marrying someone else. In this way of thinking, it’s wrong to commit adultery with
someone while you’re married to another person, but once you’re divorced, it’s fine to
remarry someone else. But what does Jesus say? “Anyone who divorces his wife and
marries another woman commits adultery against her. And if she divorces her husband
and marries another man, she commits adultery” (Mark 10:11-12). This means that if
someone divorces without biblical grounds and remarries, the decision to find a new
mate is adultery.
But what if two people simply can’t live together? What if all they do is bicker or
quarrel? What if one partner is violent? What if one is using drugs and alcohol? If it’s
unbearable to live with someone, how could anyone, even Jesus, say it’s wrong to
divorce and remarry? Well, Jesus takes promises more seriously than we do, and he
takes the one-flesh reality of marriage more seriously than we do. There may be times
when it is simply impossible to live together. There may be times when it is wiser to live
apart than to stay in the same house. But even in such cases, the separation is
temporary and leaves open the possibility of change and reconciliation. In 1 Corinthians
7:10-11, the Bible says, “A wife must not separate from her husband. But if she does,
she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. And a husband must
not divorce his wife.” Extreme problems may lead to living apart for a time, but such
problems do not justify divorce and remarriage.
There may be marriages where husband and wife are so at odds with each other,
so fed up with each other that they can’t live together or sleep together. In such cases,
separation might not be as bad as daily strife. Separation may be the lesser of two evils,
but even if separation is considered necessary, that does not make it moral to get a final
divorce and find a new spouse. The ideal is not to separate at all, but if you feel you
must live apart, you have two choices: stay single or reconcile to your spouse.
Let’s be honest. If remarriage were not an option, there would be far fewer
divorces in the first place. A great many marriages would not come to an end and a
great many wounded relationships would heal if the only choices were to reconcile or

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remain single. Many people would rather struggle in a hard marriage than be alone. But
when the possibility of finding someone else and remarrying enters the picture, there’s
much less incentive to do everything possible to save an unhappy marriage. Sometimes
a marriage breakup is a direct consequence of adultery by one partner. But even when
adulterous acts haven’t yet occurred, just the thought of finding someone who could
make you happier than your present spouse can weaken your resolve to keep your
vows.
Part of the old marriage vow includes the words “forsaking all others.” That’s not
the language of much modern counseling, but it fits biblical teaching. When you marry
somebody, you forsake all other prospects for marriage. If you don’t forsake all others, if
you allow for the possibility and a new and happier marriage, it’s like acid eating away at
your present marriage.
When people get divorced and remarry soon after, they commonly say that their
first marriage was over no matter what, even if someone else hadn’t come along. But
they’re often fooling themselves. They didn’t realize how “trapped” they felt, how “dead”
their marriage really was, until they met someone else who was really “compatible” and
revealed to them what a good relationship could really be like. But without the possibility
of a new relationship, was the old marriage really so dead? When people see marriage
as permanent and rule out the possibility of marrying someone else, they are far more
determined to bring a “dead” marriage back to life.
In any case, whether or not hopes for a happier second marriage hasten the end
of many first marriages, the fact remains that Jesus says, “Anyone who divorces his
wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her” (Mark 10:11). Jesus
also says, “Anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery” (Matthew 5:32).
Unless the divorce fits the biblical exceptions that we’ll look at in a moment, remarriage
violates the way of Christ. If you decide to divorce your spouse, it is adultery for you to
remarry. Even if you don’t want a divorce but your spouse divorces you, it is adultery for
you to remarry unless a biblical exception is involved.
This means that if a husband chooses to end a difficult marriage, the wife can’t
say, “Well, I didn’t want the divorce, but now that it’s come to that, I’m at least free to
find a new man.” A man who meets the newly divorced woman can’t say, “Great! She’s
available, and I want her.” If a marriage ends simply because of incompatibility, it is
adultery to remarry.

Remarrying Without Sinning

What are the biblical exceptions which would allow divorce and remarriage?
There are two. The first exception is if one spouse is already guilty of sexual
unfaithfulness. In that case, the one-flesh union has been violated. Jesus allows (but
does not require) the betrayed spouse to end the marriage and to eventually remarry
someone else (Matthew 5:32, 19:9).
The second exception is when a non-Christian spouse abandons a spouse who
has become a Christian. The Bible speaks of this in 1 Corinthians 7:12-16. At the time
the New Testament was written, you could get in big trouble for becoming a Christian,
and your spouse might be persecuted along with you, even if they didn’t share your faith
in Christ. If they didn’t want to face the trouble, they might want to get out of their
marriage to you. Also, it could be just plain upsetting to a pagan for a spouse to

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suddenly become a follower of Jesus. Some non-Christians chose to abandon and
divorce spouses who had become Christians. The Bible said that these Christians were
not bound by their previous marriage. This freed them to start over in a new marriage to
a fellow believer.
Still, in cases where the unbelieving spouse was willing to continue the marriage,
the Bible says that the Christian partner must not seek a divorce (1 Corinthians 7:12-
16). If there was a choice to end the marriage, it must be the unbelieving spouse, not
the follower of Jesus, who sought the divorce. “But if the unbeliever leaves,” says the
Scripture, “let him do so. A believing man or woman is not bound is such
circumstances” (1 Corinthians 7:15). The phrase “not bound” is, in the original language,
a technical term for being free from a marriage and available to remarry.
God permits you to divorce and remarry if you spouse has been sexually
unfaithful or if your spouse rejects your faith in Jesus and abandons you. However, if
you divorce for any other reason, then to remarry is to commit adultery.
But what if you’ve already remarried? Is it ongoing adultery to remain in the
second marriage? Must you leave the person you remarried? No, you can’t undo one
wrong by committing another wrong. If you’ve remarried and made vows, keep those
vows. Be the best spouse you possibly can in your new marriage. But don’t pretend that
your decision to divorce and remarry was just fine if the Bible says it wasn’t. Admit your
sin to God, and ask him to forgive you for the sake of Jesus’ blood. Then press on to do
God’s will from this point on.
This is not a blank check to say, “Okay, even if it would be adultery for me to
divorce and remarry, I’ll go ahead and do it anyway, and then count on God to forgive
me later.” That’s a deadly game to play. How do you know God will give you the grace
of true repentance? If you harden your heart to him now, how can you be sure your
heart will soften later? The gospel of forgiveness is good news, but it is not a guarantee
that you can do as you please and get away with it. The Bible warns, “Without holiness
no one will see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:14).
I don’t want to minimize the pain of difficult marriages. I don’t want to be legalistic
or cruel. I don’t want to open old wounds or to heap guilt feelings on people for past sins
that have already been confessed and forgiven. But I do want God’s Word about
divorce and remarriage to be clearly understood. And once his will is understood, we
must seek not only God’s forgiveness but also his cleansing and his power to obey.

Faithful
Why is it so important to be faithful in marriage and to avoid divorce? Well,
divorce is usually very hard on those who split up, and it’s especially hard on their
children. But the problem runs even deeper than the pain it causes. God calls his
people to reflect his own character. God is faithful and keeps his promises, and a
person who images God always keeps his promise even when it hurts (Psalm 15:4). So
when people who claim to have a relationship to God break their vows and are
unfaithful to the marriage covenant, they violate the image of the faithful God who keeps
his covenant. Scripture even says that marriage is designed to reflect the relationship
between Christ and his church. Do we really want Jesus to dump us and split up with us
if we do things he doesn’t like? If we trust the Savior to keep loving and forgiving his
church, how can we stop loving and forgiving our spouse? If we violate our marriage

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vows, we send a message that this is how Jesus treats his church, and that is a horrible
offense against the Lord.
If you’re struggling in your marriage, don’t throw it away. Hang in there. Jesus’
words may not be easy, but they are best, and you will be blessed if you follow his path.
What Jesus commands, he also gives the power to do. With his Holy Spirit working
within, you can remain faithful to your marriage.
I mentioned earlier a study which found that most people in unhappy marriages
who decided to stick with their marriage found that their relationship ended up getting
much better. That may sound impossible in your situation—but it can happen, especially
if you desire to please God, trust in Jesus, and depend on the Holy Spirit’s power.
Listen to a letter a woman wrote:
Dear Pastor Feddes,
I would like to tell you that you have been a great blessing in my life. The Holy
Spirit used your sermons to make me fall in love with the Lord and our Savior,
Jesus Christ. Of course the evil one didn’t waste time and started attacking me
through my own family. My husband and I separated. We were talking about
divorce. We were both full of hate and anger. I thought our marriage was the
messiest of all marriages and that only the greatest miracle on earth would save
it.
At that point she was struck by a sermon about Jesus’ statement that all things are
possible for those who believe. She still thought no marriage could be uglier than hers.
“However,” she writes,
I decided to take your advice seriously and said, “Yes, it’s possible. With God all
things are possible.” Then I gave everything to God, in the name of the Lord
Jesus, and sure enough, everything started gradually changing for the best. It
has been almost three years since that horrible nightmare and—praise be to the
Almighty!—our marriage can’t be better. We are very close to the Lord and often
pray, joining hands. Now we enjoy being together.”
What if that woman or her husband had chosen the path of divorce and remarriage?
That would have destroyed the path to reconciliation and renewed love. At one point
they were so angry and hated each other so much that they couldn’t live in the same
house, but they didn’t pursue love with someone else, and eventually God raised their
marriage from the dead.
What about you? Is your marriage dead? Are you sure? And even if it is dead,
are you sure it can’t come alive again? I know a Savior who specializes in resurrection.
Do you know him?

Originally prepared by David Feddes for Back to God Ministries International. Used with permission.

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Spouse Abuse
By David Feddes

Is anything worse than a man who abuses his wife? Well, at least one thing is
worse: a man who abuses his wife and uses religion to justify it. It's bad enough to act
like a monster, but it's even worse to claim you're acting like a monster because God
wants you to. Sad to say, there are men who are leaders in their church and prominent
in their community and yet beat their wives and think they have every right to do so.
A pastor beat his wife and then bound her to the bed with a dog chain. Three
days later, her hands were getting numb, so the pastor loosened the chain a bit. When
he left the house, the battered woman escaped. That's a true story, and I still haven't
told you the craziest part. When the woman reported the incident and a court ordered
the pastor to get into a program for abusers, he was indignant. "Here I was being kind to
her by loosening the chain," he griped, "and she took advantage of it."
More than one man has the idea that a woman exists only to satisfy his every
whim, and if she doesn't, he has every right to punish her. He can curse her, humiliate
her, shout at her, threaten her, shake her, slap her, shove her, push her, punch her, pull
her hair, and degrade her sexually. He can attack her emotionally or assault her
physically any time she doesn't live up to his expectations. And his expectations are so
picky or so bizarre that she can't possibly live up to them. It's far too common for
husbands to abuse wives, and it's even more common for abuse to occur when men
and women live together unmarried.
Some abusive men know deep down that what they're doing is awful. Some of
them even say afterward that they're sorry and promise it won't happen again. But it
does. Their apologies don't change their abusive behavior. Other men brutalize women
without even a qualm of conscience. They see nothing wrong with it. They figure the
woman has it coming. There are at least two kinds of abusers: apologetic abusers and
arrogant abusers. Apologetic abusers are the ones who know it's wrong but can't seem
to stop. Arrogant abusers are the ones who say the abuse is justified. Either way, abuse
is harmful and evil, and no woman should put up with it.

Don't Take It Any More

If you're a woman who's being abused, don't take it anymore. If you're living with
a man without being married, you shouldn't be together in the first place, even if no
abuse is happening. God commands that a man and woman be committed to each
other in marriage before they move in together. It's dangerous to go on living together
with an abusive man, and it's just plain wrong. So if you're living with a boyfriend, move
out, and ask God's help in starting over.
If you are married, the situation is different. You've made commitments to each
other, and you may feel that you have to stay with your husband, even if he's abusive.
But it's big mistake to just endure the abuse and do nothing to stop it. If you and your
husband are part of a church, report the abuse to church leaders. Any church worth its
salt will call on your husband to repent, and the church will support both of you in getting
the help you need to heal your hurting marriage.

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 If the church won’t intervene, or if your husband won't listen, take the next step.
Give your husband a choice. Tell him that either he can report his problem to a
counselor, or you will report him to the police. Tell him that either he can change his
ways or he can change his address. Tell him that he can't live with you any longer
unless he learns to treat you right. Don't just threaten. Be ready to act. If your husband
won't change, report him to the authorities and get the help of the law to force him to
leave. If the police and the courts won't force him to move out, then move out yourself if
you possibly can. Make it clear to your husband that if he can't live with you without
harming you, then he can't live with you.
I know that can be awfully hard to do. If you're like a lot of abused women, you
don't feel you can take much more, but at the same you can't quite bring yourself to give
your husband an ultimatum or carry it through. Maybe you still feel some love for him.
Or maybe you don't see any way you could make it on your own financially. Or maybe
you're just plain scared to stand up to your husband. Who knows how badly he might
hurt you if you force the issue? But look at the other side: Who knows how badly he
might hurt you if you don't force the issue? And if you have children, who knows how
badly he might hurt them?

Abusing the Bible

But maybe there's something else that holds you back: your religion. If you know
what the Bible says about forgiveness, you may wonder how you can demand that your
husband either seek help or get out. Isn't that unforgiving and un-Christian? Also, the
Bible says to submit to your husband, so how can you insist that he shape up or ship
out? That doesn't sound very submissive. To top it all off, God says in the Bible, "I hate
divorce." So how can you even consider the possibility of divorce?
If your husband is a churchgoer, he may keep reminding you of these things. He
uses the Bible the same way he uses his voice and his fists: to control you and hurt you.
But don't let him get away with it. Here's the fact of the matter: Your husband is wrong.
He violates God's Word every time he violates you. And if he uses the Bible to control
you, he's not just a wife abuser; he's a Bible abuser.
If you're married to an apologetic abuser, he may say he's sorry for the pain he's
caused, but the real question is this: Is he sorry enough to seek help in changing his
behavior? If not, beware. He's going to keep abusing you. If you insist that he get help,
he may appeal to the Bible and say you're not being as trusting as you ought to be, that
it's your duty just to forgive and forget and give him another chance. But don't you let
him abuse the Bible that way. Forgiveness is important, but your relationship can't be
restored or made healthy until your apologetic abuser takes responsibility for his sin and
does whatever it takes to change.
If you're married to an arrogant abuser, he may keep telling you the abuse is your
fault. Don't you believe it. Maybe he tells you that none of this would happen if you just
worked harder to please him. But that's a lie. Even if you did disappoint him, that doesn't
give him the right to hit you. He's not hitting you because you've failed him. He's hitting
you because he can't control himself and so he's trying to control you. And, please,
don't let your arrogant abuser tell you that you need to be more submissive. Whatever

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the Lord says about submitting, it doesn't mean God wants you to be a punching bag for
a man whom God commands to love and cherish you.
Give your husband the choice—either get help or get out—and you'll be doing
the right thing. A violent marriage is no more pleasing to God than a broken marriage.
You're not doing anything noble or honoring God if you simply stay with your husband
and allow him to go on hurting you and perhaps your children as well. God hates
violence just as much as he hates divorce, so you should be just as eager to stop the
abuse as to prevent a divorce. Confront your husband and offer him a choice. If he
won't change his ways, then he's the one who's chosen to destroy the marriage, not
you.
Am I promoting divorce? Not at all. I think divorce is far too common these days.
God wants marriage to be for life. But sometimes it isn't. Marriage is sharing a deep
oneness, not just sharing the same address. The Bible says in Ephesians 5 that a man
and wife become one flesh (v. 31). And so "husbands ought to love their wives as their
own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own
body, but he feeds and cares for it" (v. 28-29). A man who abuses his wife isn't treating
her as his own body, as one flesh with him. He destroys the oneness with his wife, and
that destroys the marriage. Divorce is simply a legal recognition of that fact.
So if you have to separate from an abusive man and end up getting divorced,
don't think that you're the one who killed the marriage. Your abuser did that. He's the
one who beat the marriage to death. You're just giving it a legal burial.

Giving Love a Chance

Meanwhile, though, the goal of standing up and telling your husband he will
either have to change or leave isn't so much to bury a dead marriage as to give love
one last chance. The aim is to save the marriage while there's still some life in it. Maybe
you still have at least some love for each other, some sense of oneness in spite of all
the cruelty. However, if he keeps abusing you and you keep letting it happen, any
remaining sparks of love and oneness will eventually be snuffed out. You need to
confront your husband with a choice as soon as possible, before your marriage dies
completely.
The best thing you can do for your marriage and the most loving thing you can do
for your husband is to make him face the consequences of his sin and violence. You're
not helping anybody if you just allow the abuse to continue. You're endangering your
own physical and mental health and perhaps your children's, and you're endangering
your husband's spiritual health as well. You're not doing him any favors if you help him
get away with his violence and make it easier for him to sink deeper and deeper into
evil. He needs something to shake him up and wake him up. So for your own sake, for
your children's sake, for your husband's sake, and for God's sake, don't put up with
abuse. Don't let your husband abuse you, and don't let him abuse the Bible by twisting it
to defend a situation that God detests.
So far, I've been talking mainly to abused women, but all of us need to pay
attention. Some of us, especially church people, are so eager to maintain appearances,
we're so in favor of marriage and opposed to divorce, that when an abusive situation
comes to our attention, we urge the woman to keep hanging in there no matter what.

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We tell the victim she has to stay in the torture chamber, and so we end up siding with
her tormenter.
I'm as eager as anyone to support marriage, but we also need to support those
for whom marriage is torture. We need to help abused spouses either to change the
marriage or else escape from it. Instead of adding our condemnation to the abuse these
women have already endured, we need to show them our love and share God's love
with them.

Husbands Who Reflect Christ

God wants the love and gentleness of Jesus to be reflected in the way men treat
their wives. Ephesians 5:25 says, "Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the
church and gave himself up for her." This command comes right after one of the most
misused passages in the Bible, the one that says, "Wives submit to your husbands as to
the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church"
(Ephesians 5:22-23). Domineering husbands may like to club their wives with this
passage about submission, but such men are abusing the Bible almost as badly as
they're abusing their wives.
This whole section of Scripture begins by saying, "Submit to one another out of
reverence for Christ" (v. 21). "Submit to one another." In a healthy Christian marriage,
the wife submits to her husband in everything, and at the same time, the husband gives
himself completely for the sake of his wife, just as Christ gave himself for the church.
Did Jesus abuse his church? No, he died for her. And that's God's pattern for the way
husbands are to treat their wives: Not dominating them but willing to die for them, if
necessary.
But what about the statement that the husband is the head of the wife? Some
men just love that. They quote it to themselves and to their wives and say, "See? The
Bible says I'm the head. And that means I'm the boss. You have to take your orders
from me. I'm in charge, we do things my way, and whenever we disagree on something,
you have to give in."
Well, that may be what some overbearing men would like to think, but it's not
what the Bible says. The Bible doesn't say the man is the head of the wife as a dictator
is the head of his subjects. It says the man is the head of the wife as Christ is head of
the church. And that means the man must be the first to sacrifice, the first to look not to
his own interests but to the interests of the other person. God isn't telling the husband to
be a henpecked wimp. The headship of a Christ-like husband does involve strength and
leadership and initiative, but these are always for the sake of building up the one you
love.
The Bible's teaching of headship in no way encourages husbands to be
insensitive and overbearing, and it certainly leaves no excuse for outright abuse. The
husband is the head, not the fist. As the head, you have eyes to admire your wife and
see her needs, you have ears to listen to her, lips to speak with her and kiss her, and a
brain to understand her and think about what matters to her. So if you're the head, act
like it! Don't act like a fist.
Ephesians 5 goes into detail about submission and headship and Christ-like
sacrifice, about being one flesh and about the husband treating his wife as his own

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body. A passage that's very similar in its basic message, but much shorter, is
Colossians 3:18-19. "Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.
Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them" (v. 18-19). Is there any
simpler way to say it? "Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them."
Don't be harsh in your words. Don't be harsh by making arbitrary decisions. And
certainly, don't be harsh and abusive in any physical way.
Love is the very opposite of harshness. In 1 Corinthians 13:4-5, the Bible says
this about love: "Love is patient, love is kind... It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not
easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs." That's God's kind of love, and it's the kind
of love husbands should have for their wives. "Husbands, love your wives and do not be
harsh with them."

Considerate and Respectful

Let's look at one more of the Bible's commands to husbands. This one comes
from the apostle Peter in 1 Peter 3:7: "Husbands, ...be considerate as you live with your
wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the
gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers."
There are two basic commands here. The first is to be considerate. Consider
your wife's ideas and feelings, her needs and desires. Do everything you can to
understand her better. You may need to put down the newspaper, shut off the TV and
spend more time paying attention to your wife. God says to be considerate, and nothing
is more basic to consideration than conversation. So spend time talking together and
listening to each other. Then the two of you can really begin to think as one. Before
making any big decision, be sure to discuss it together. And when decisions need to be
made, think of her before you think of yourself. If you must have an argument, argue
about which of you can be first to grant the other's wishes. Be considerate as you live
with your wife.
The second command Peter gives is to treat your wife with respect. Honor your
wife. Admire the way God made her. Take note of her good points. Compliment more
than you criticize. Never insult or mock your wife. Never belittle her or shame her.
Never, ever, attack her physically, and don't attack her dignity, either. Encourage her.
Praise her. Build her up. Treat her with respect.
Peter says to treat your wife with respect "as the weaker partner." Almost every
wife is weaker than her husband. That doesn't make her less intelligent or less
important, but it does mean the man almost always has greater physical strength.
Should you respect your wife any less because you're stronger? That's crazy! A plastic
bowl is less fragile than a lovely antique made of fine china, but which is more valuable?
The very fact that the china is fragile means you treat it with even greater care and
respect.
Most women are physically fragile compared men. If you're a man, you probably
have enough sheer physical strength to hurt your wife, to bruise her, to break her
bones, even to kill her. You also have great power to intimidate her emotionally. Even if
you don't hit her, you can terrorize her if you're always losing your temper or yelling or
throwing things, because she knows all too well that you have the physical power to
crush her. This makes it all the more urgent that your wife sense your respect for her.

5
She needs to know that you appreciate and value her, that you will devote your strength
to helping her, not hurting her. Physically, you're the giant in the marriage, but God
commands you to be a gentle giant.
And remember, whatever the differences in physical strength, the two of you are
just the same in the most important thing of all: your standing before God. You need to
treat your wife with respect because she is just as much an heir of eternal life as you
are. She is just as much a child of God as you are. Jesus died for her just as surely as
he died for you. If Jesus loves your wife enough to die for her, he's not going to like it if
you mistreat her. If you use your power not to help your wife but to hurt her, how can
you expect Jesus to use his power to help you? If you won't listen to your wife and
respond to her desires, how can you expect God to listen when you pray to him?
"Husbands, be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as
the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will
hinder your prayers." God calls you to be a gentle giant, not an ogre; to lead by loving,
not shoving.
If you've been abusing or mistreating your wife in any way, you've got to stop.
Stop making excuses, and repent right now. Confess your sin to God. Then confess
your sin to your wife. Then confess your sin to a pastor or someone else who can hold
you accountable. And if you still can't change, find a counselor who can help you
identify and deal with the deadly forces that are driving you. I say on the authority of
God himself: You have to change, and you must use every resource God provides to
help you change. "Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them."

This message was originally prepared by David Feddes for Back to God Ministries. Used with permission.

6
The Pornography Trap
By David Feddes

What is a man looking for when he watches an adults-only movie channel? What
is a man looking for when he clicks an X-rated website on his computer? What is a man
looking for when he stares into Playboy and other girlie magazines? What is a man
looking for when he walks into a strip joint? What is a man looking for when he goes to
a place of prostitution? He is looking for God.
You might think, “That’s crazy. God is the last thing guys are looking for when
they get into pornography. They’re looking for naked bodies to turn them on. If they
were looking for God, they would pray or read the Bible or go to church. If they watch
pornography or nude dancers or hire prostitutes, they’re not looking for God; they’re
looking for sexual thrills.” At one level, that’s right, of course. When men get into
pornography, they don’t consciously search for God there. But still I think G. K.
Chesterton was right when he said, “Every man who knocks on the door of a brothel is
looking for God.” That’s not what the man is consciously thinking at the time—but that’s
what he’s really doing. He is looking to fill a huge craving, an irresistible urge. He may
think that this urge is simply sexual desire, but it’s not. He’s looking for God.
Pornography is just a trap set by Satan to ensnare those who are looking for
God. It’s not the only kind of trap Satan uses, but it’s one of the most effective. Thanks
to modern technology, it only takes the click of a remote control or a computer mouse to
snap Satan’s trap shut on yourself. Once you step into the pornography trap and it
clamps down on you, it is difficult—almost impossible—to pull free.
But if you realize that you’re caught in a deadly trap and if you want to be free,
there is hope. And if you recognize your real craving and seek satisfaction in God
instead of in pornography, the jaws of the trap weaken their grip. With God’s help, you
can pull out of the trap and move on toward what you hungered for all along: the thrill
and satisfaction of God. As you gain freedom and get to know God, you must stay alert
to your own weaknesses and be wary of bait that Satan will use in other traps, but you
can be confident that God can satisfy you and keep you free from slavery to shameful,
deadly habits. The Bible says, “Live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of
the sinful nature” (Galatians 5:16).

Craving Eternity
But maybe I’m getting ahead of myself. What I’ve just said may sound unrealistic.
For Christians and non-Christians alike, the message may ring hollow that when a man
looks at pornography he is looking for God, and that God can break the grip of
pornography. If you’re a non-Christian, you might insist that you’re not looking for God
at all and you just enjoy the sexual charge that you get from pornography. If you’re a
Christian, you might tell me that your faith in Christ hasn’t helped much in dealing with
the power of pornography. You know it’s wrong and feel ashamed about it, but you can’t
resist it. You believe in Jesus and want to do right, but when you’re put to the test, the
pull of pornography seems stronger than God’s hold on you.
To understand why pornography is so addictive, we might point to the power of
the sex drive and to the way men are visually oriented and are more likely than women
to be turned on by what they see. That’s true as far as it goes, but it doesn’t account for
why pornography is so addictive. There’s a drive even stronger and deeper than sex,
1
the drive to fill the hole in your soul. Entrapment in pornography happens when your
wires get crossed inside and the craving for God gets mixed up with the craving for
sexual stimulation.
Each of us is designed for a love relationship with God. We’re made in such a
way that we can be fully satisfied only by connecting with the Lord and by savoring a joy
that is out of this world. The Bible says that God has “set eternity in the hearts of men”
(Ecclesiastes 3:11). This built-in craving for the eternal is so powerful that if we try to
satisfy it with anything but God, we will be trapped, enslaved, and addicted by that thing.
Whether it’s pornography or alcohol or food or sports or achievement or something else,
if we try to fill our God-craving with a non-God object, we get hooked.
When you lock your eyes on a sex scene, you are really looking for God and for
an adventurous, eternal relationship with him. But you’re looking in the wrong place. All
sin, including use of pornography, is a matter of not being satisfied in God and looking
for satisfaction outside of God and outside of his way. The built-in desire for God is so
strong that if it latches onto something less than God, it becomes slavery and addiction
to that thing. Jesus said, “Everyone who sins is a slave to sin” (John 8:34). People
without any relationship to God can be trapped by pornography, and so can some
Christians who have real faith and have tasted something of God’s grace but still have
misdirected desires. To be free of the pornography trap, they need to find fuller
satisfaction in God.

Pursuing Manhood
Related to the hunger for God is another deep and basic craving a man has: to
pursue his dreams and prove his manhood. What does this involve? Author John
Eldredge says, “In the heart of every man is a desperate desire for a battle to fight, an
adventure to live, and a beauty to rescue.” This is no accident; it’s part of the way God
has put us together. The male heart wants to prove its strength against some obstacle,
do something daring and exciting, and be a hero to a woman and win her admiration
and love.
Many men give up on their boyhood dreams and live boring, unsatisfying lives.
We don’t believe we could ever meet a great challenge, pursue an exciting adventure,
or be a hero to a very special woman. We may already have a special woman, a wife
living in the same house and sleeping in the same bed, but we might not see her beauty
or believe we have what it takes truly to win her heart and her admiration—so we don’t
even try. What happens then? In his book Wild at Heart, John Eldredge writes,
If a man does not find those things for which his heart is made, if he is never
even invited to live for them in his deep heart, he will look for them in some other
way. Why is pornography the number one snare for men? He longs for the
beauty, but without his fierce and passionate heart he cannot find her or win or
keep her. Though he is powerfully drawn to the woman, he does not know how to
fight for her or even that he is to fight for her. Rather, he finds her mostly a
mystery that he knows he cannot solve and so at soul level he keeps his
distance. And privately, secretly, he turns to the imitation. What makes
pornography so addictive is that more than anything else in a lost man’s life, it
makes him feel like a man without ever requiring a thing of him. The less a guy
feels like a real man in the presence of a real woman, the more vulnerable he is
to porn.

2
Pornography provides false fulfillment when what men really hunger for is God, and
pornography provides false manhood to men who are starving to be masculine. If a
woman, or lots of women, are willing to get naked just for you, you must be a man! Of
course it’s not really just for you, says Eldredge, but it feels that way when you’re alone
with the pictures.
To gain freedom from the pornography trap, it’s not enough just to feel guilty or
want to change. It’s not enough to burn your magazines, shut down access to bad
channels on your cable TV or satellite dish, or get an internet filter. Such things are
necessary but not sufficient. Greater freedom comes with greater fulfillment: Your
craving for the eternal must be filled fuller with God’s Holy Spirit, and your craving for
real manhood must be filled fuller by living your God-given masculine identity. I’ll say
more about this near the end of the program, but now let’s consider some other things
that must not be overlooked.

The Lion’s Den

First, something so basic it should hardly need saying: recognize that
pornography is bad. It’s not enough to know that porn is bad, but it’s a starting point.
You’ll never escape from a trap if you think it’s not a trap at all but a haven of happiness
and pleasure.
Dick Smothers Jr., son of the comedian of Smothers Brothers fame, says he’s
proud of producing and acting in porn movies. He says he wants to be the Orson Welles
of porn. Orson Welles was a creative genius in radio and film, not a sleaze merchant,
but Dick Smothers Jr. speaks of porn as a legitimate business and an art form. If you
take that same attitude and see nothing wrong with porn, you won’t escape the
pornography trap.
I often have to drive on a highway that has a billboard for an “adult superstore,” a
porn place that calls itself The Lion’s Den. I wonder if the store name is making fun of
the Bible’s warning, “Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for
someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8). Maybe somebody thought it was clever to name a
porn palace The Lion’s Den—but that’s exactly what it is: A place for Satan to swallow
souls. Porn is evil. Regardless of how many people look at it, regardless of how many
respected businesses are marketing it, porn is evil. Perhaps the biggest profiteer from
porn is not a place called The Lion’s Den but a corporation called General Motors.
Maybe you thought the world’s biggest company simply marketed cars and trucks, but
General Motors also markets huge amounts of porn through its subsidiary, DirectTV.
The New York Times reported that General Motors “sells more graphic sex films every
year than does Larry Flynt, owner of the Hustler empire.” Communications giants AT&T,
NewsCorp, and AOL Time Warner make more profit peddling porn than Playboy does.
Hotels and motels owned by Hilton, Marriot, and other famous names are into
pornography big time. The fact that mainstream corporations peddle porn might seem to
make it respectable and acceptable, but it’s not. It’s evil.
Why is it evil? Pornography violates God’s will and goes against the teaching of
Jesus Christ. Jesus said, “Anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already
committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28). Jesus then warned that we
must get rid of whatever causes such sin or we could end up in hell. Pornography
offends God, puts men in danger of hell, and seriously harms women.

3
 It harms the women who are featured in the material, of course. Some are
desperate, and the producers exploit them. Other women are willing and do evil for
money, but they are selling their souls.
Pornography also does horrible damage to girls and women who are raped by
men who want to act out what they’ve seen in porn. Don’t think it doesn’t happen. It’s
more frequent than any of the porn merchants want to admit. Pornography inflames
some men to commit terrible crimes against women.
Probably the most common way pornography harms women is simply the
damage it does to relationships. Many boys and men are trapped by airbrushed images
and can’t relate well to the real women they know. Dr. Gary Brooks calls it “The
Centerfold Syndrome.” A man gets into the habit of staring at bodies, not developing a
relationship. How does a wife feel when her husband has been looking at pornography?
She feels wounded and distanced from him. As one wife put it, “How can I compete with
hundreds of anonymous others who are now in our bed, in his head? Our bed is
crowded with strangers, where once we were intimate.”
Pornography is sinful and harmful. Don’t think for a moment that it’s not. The
Bible says, “Do not lust in your heart after her beauty… Can a man scoop fire into his
lap without his clothes being burned” (Proverbs 6:25,27). If you use porn, you will get
burned, and if there is no repentance, you will end up burning forever in hell. Don’t play
with fire. Don’t settle down in the lion’s den. If you’re already trapped, don’t try to relax
and feel comfortable. Watch and pray for a way out.

Resisting Temptation
Once you recognize that pornography is evil and harmful, make it your goal to
stay away from it. Will power alone can’t overcome an attachment to porn. You need
power from God and fulfillment in him. But before God gives you that power, your will
must be aiming at God’s will
Job was one of the Bible’s great men of faith who took God seriously and
shunned evil. Job said, “I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a girl”
(Job 31:1). Have you made a covenant with your eyes, a serious commitment to see
women not as things but as persons? The Bible says, “Treat … younger women as
sisters, with absolute purity” (1 Timothy 5:2). How would you treat a sister? Would you
want your sister posing in porn magazines or performing in sex videos? Would you want
millions of men staring at your sister’s nakedness? Would you want big corporations
profiting from her shame? If not, then don’t treat any women that way by using
pornography. See women as sisters, as children of the same heavenly Father, and not
simply as toys for you to play with. Make a covenant with your eyes not to look lustfully
at a girl.
How should you deal with sexual temptation? First of all, stay as far from it as
you possibly can. The Bible doesn’t say, “Get close to tempting situations and prove
how strong you are by resisting as well as you can.” The Bible says bluntly, “Flee from
sexual immorality” (1 Corinthians 6:18). Flee! Run away! Get as far from it as possible.
Stay out of stores that sell porn. Stay away from stores that rent sex videos. Don’t
subscribe to any TV package with filthy shows. Avoid motel rooms that offer “adult”
material on the television. Scripture warns a young man about a tempting woman: “Her
steps lead straight to the grave… Keep to a path far from her” (Proverbs 5:8).

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 I’ve been speaking mostly to men because pornography is mainly a male
temptation. Pornographic scenes that turn men on will often disgust women. Women
aren’t nearly as likely to become addicted to dirty pictures and films. Still, women should
be careful about emotional porn: romance novels and chick flicks, movie romances that
make immorality seem exciting and heart-stirring. Women should also beware of
internet chat rooms where they can find fantasy love affairs with strangers. This kind of
chat is immoral, and too many of these fantasy internet affairs are turning into flesh-and-
blood affairs. So although I’m talking mainly to men, I do want women to beware of
emotional porn and its impact.
The first level of dealing with temptation is to avoid it as much as possible. But
what if it can’t be avoided totally? Even if you keep your home free from access to any
pornographic material, it’s almost impossible never to drive past any billboard
advertising “gentleman’s clubs.” It’s almost impossible to completely avoid all streets,
stores, malls, and airports that have magazine stands with porn. And if you travel much,
it’s hard to avoid staying in motels where temptation is as close as the TV remote. Even
when you avoid temptation as much as possible, you will have to face it at some point,
especially in a sex-saturated culture, such as ours.
When temptation can’t be avoided and comes very close, what can you do? Well,
be on the lookout for the best way out of it. Don’t look for a way to go further in; watch
for the surest way to escape. The Bible promises followers of Jesus, “God is faithful; he
will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he
will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it” (1 Corinthians 10:13).
If you’re driving and see a billboard for an adult store, don’t slow down—keep
driving. If you see a magazine stand with bad material, force your feet to go in another
direction immediately. If you’re in a motel room with bad stuff, don’t pick up the TV
remote. Pick up the telephone and call someone, either your wife or, if you’re single,
someone who can encourage you and hold you accountable. Temptation grows
stronger in secrecy; it wilts in the light. Many Christian men help each other by telling
their struggles to each other and by helping each other to be honest and to keep
seeking purity.

Trapped by True Love

Another major strategy for freedom from the porn trap is to be trapped by true
love. In Proverbs 5, the Bible warns against sexual sin and then says, “May you rejoice
in the wife of your youth… may her breasts satisfy you always, may you ever be
captivated by her love” (Proverbs 5:18-19). God designed sex to flourish in faithful,
passionate marriage, and if you are captivated by your wife’s love, you’re less likely to
be trapped by pornography. So if you’re not married and have strong sexual desires,
pray that for greater self-control or for a spouse to love and share your passion.
Scripture says, “It is better to marry than to burn with passion” (1 Corinthians 7:9).
Marriage has huge spiritual importance as a union of two people designed to
dramatize the union of Christ and his church, but marriage also has the matter-of-fact,
down-to-earth value of channeling sexual energy in a way that’s healthy, not harmful.
Scripture says, “Since there is so much immorality, each man should have his own wife,
and each woman her own husband” (1 Corinthians 7:2). If you are married, do all you
can to make the marriage stronger and warmer—and don’t neglect lovemaking. The
Bible is refreshing blunt about this: “The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his

5
wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife’s body does not belong to herself
alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband’s body does not belong to
himself alone but also to his wife. Do not deprive each other… so that Satan will not
tempt you because of your lack of self-control” (1 Corinthians 7:4-5).
In some relationships, sex is used as a bargaining chip, as something to be
withheld unless your spouse goes along with your wishes on some matter. That’s a
huge mistake. If you treat your body as a bargaining chip, your spouse may start seeing
it as an object as well and may be more tempted to seek out other objects that are more
willing—those who pose for him in pornography. Does this mean that if a man falls into
the pornography trap, his wife is to blame? Absolutely not. A man is always responsible
for his own actions, even in situations where his wife might be cold or manipulative. In
many cases, the wife is wonderful—a lovely person and a passionate lover—but the
husband still somehow got himself into the pornography trap. The last thing such a
woman should do is blame herself for not being woman enough to satisfy her husband.
No woman is woman enough to satisfy a man once he walks into the pornography trap
and activates all sorts of depraved lusts. He must get out of the trap and get back on
track with God and his wife before he can find sexual satisfaction in the embrace of his
wife.
Singles with strong sexual passions should seek and pray for someone to marry,
and married couples should enjoy each other’s bodies passionately and frequently—
that’s part of biblical wisdom and common sense for handling God-given sexual desires.
But if you’re already in the pornography trap, don’t assume a good marriage will fix it. If
you’re single and have a porn habit, don’t assume you’ll be able to kick the habit simply
by getting married and having a real woman. While you’re still unmarried, before you
have a wife, face your problem and fight it. Otherwise, you’re likely to carry the
pornography habit into the marriage, and you’ll hurt your wife, yourself, and your
relationship. Married men who have a porn habit shouldn’t try to say that their habit
would vanish if only their wife was nicer and sexier. If you have a porn problem, don’t
make it someone else’s problem. Take responsibility for your own actions and
character. Seek to change what’s wrong with you, not what might be wrong with
someone else. Bring your problem to God, ask for forgiveness and help, and become
accountable to someone else.

Filling the Emptiness

Having said all that, let’s get back to where we started. When a man looks at
pornography, he is really looking for God. He is trying to satisfy an emptiness than only
God can fill. So don’t settle for trying to remove pornography from your life. You don’t
just need less pornography; you need more of the grace of God and the Spirit of God.
If you have not been born again and don’t belong to Jesus, you must be born
again into a living relationship with the Lord. Pornography may be a sin, but it’s not your
most serious sin. Your most serious sin is unbelief: turning from God and choosing to
live without him. Repent. Confess your rebellion. Ask God to forgive you for Jesus’
sake, and trust that he will do so. His blood can cover your sin, and his Spirit can put the
God-life inside you, transforming you into a new person.
If you’re already a born-again, committed Christian, keep growing in God’s grace
and in having more and more of your heart and life filled by the Holy Spirit. Just
because you’re a genuine Christian doesn’t mean you’ll never be tempted. Just

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because you’re a real Christian doesn’t mean you’ll never sin. You fight temptation more
effectively, and you’ll sin less frequently than you did without Christ, but you are still far
from perfect in this life. Be realistic about that, but don’t let it discourage you. The Bible
says, “Though a righteous man falls seven times, he rises again” (Proverbs 24:16).
Even if you still sin, it is spiritual growth to hate sin rather than love it, to fight it rather
than wallow in it.
Pray for God to fill you with more of his living water and to keep you from trying to
satisfy your deepest thirst with pornography or any other idol. Spend time with the Lord
each day in prayer and Bible reading. Worship with other Christians every week in
church, and if you need special help, find an accountability partner to encourage you
and help you stay on track. None of this is a magic cure for pornography, but these
things will help you get closer to God. The more you seek the Lord and the closer you
get to him, the more he will fill your heart and the less room there will be for
pornography.
Trust God’s grace to pardon you and liberate you, and live in dependence on the
Holy Spirit’s power. Take to heart God’s Word: “The grace of God that brings salvation
has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say ‘No’ to ungodliness and worldly passions,
and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age” (Titus 2:12). “Live
by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature” (Galatians 5:16).

Originally prepared by David Feddes for Back to God Ministries International. Used with permission.

7
Gay  Liberation  

David Feddes
 Two-­‐front  battle  
1.  Bringing good news: Show God’s love and
proclaim the gospel of forgiveness and
new life in Christ to homosexual sinners.
As fellow sinners, we must relate to people
humbly, gently, and respectfully.
2.  Battling evil agenda: Stand against an
organized movement that declares evil to
be good. Many homosexuals don’t seek
forgiveness or new life. They seek blessing
from church and support from government.
 Unnatural  abomination  
You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it
is an abomination. (Leviticus 18:22)
Women exchanged natural relations for those
that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise
gave up natural relations with women and were
consumed with passion for one another, men
committing shameless acts with men and
receiving in themselves the due penalty for their
error… Though they know God's decree that
those who practice such things deserve to die,
they not only do them but give approval to those
who practice them. (Romans 1:26-27)
Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding
cities, which likewise indulged in sexual
immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve
as an example by undergoing a punishment of
eternal fire. (Jude 1:7; see Genesis 19)
 Washed,  sanctified,  justified  
Or do you not know that the unrighteous will
not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be
deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor
idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who
practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the
greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor
swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And
such were some of you. But you were washed,
you were sanctified, you were justified in the
name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the
Spirit of our God. (1 Corinthians 6:9-11)
What  about  scientific  studies?  
•  Identical twin studies: less than 50% with
gay identical twin are gay themselves
•  “Gay gene” studies: some correlation, but
not decisive of itself.
•  Don’t overlook the obvious about genes:
males are XY, females are XX.
•  Don’t overlook the obvious about anatomy:
male and female organs match.
•  Homosexuality may be partly inherited, just
as our sin nature is inherited.
 Putting  off  the  old  self,  
 putting  on  the  new  self  
You were taught to put off your old self, which
belongs to your former manner of life and is
corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be
renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to
put on the new self, created after the
likeness of God in true righteousness and
holiness. (Ephesians 4:22-24)
 Two-­‐front  battle  
1.  Bringing good news: Show God’s love and
proclaim the gospel of forgiveness and
new life in Christ to homosexual sinners.
As fellow sinners, we must relate to people
humbly, gently, and respectfully.
2.  Battling evil agenda: Stand against an
organized movement that declares evil to
be good. Many homosexuals don’t seek
forgiveness or new life. They seek blessing
from church and support from government.
 Understanding  the  times  
•  Gay activism is well funded and organized
•  Homosexuality gained support even as
thousands of gay men were dying of AIDS.
•  Heterosexuals acting like homosexuals:
minimized gender differences, got sterilized,
had sex without marriage.
•  Many church supporters of homosexuality
are universalists: nobody goes to to hell.
•  Churches blessed homosexual unions
before government did.
 Gay  marriage?  
• Dutch study of gay “committed partnerships”
ü Lasted an average of two years
ü More than 95 percent had other sexual
partners during those two years.
ü Average was eight other partners per year.
• Some activists fear that official approval of
gay marriage will not be inclusive enough.
ü Might exclude bisexuals and transgenders
ü Might exclude legalized polygamy
 Gay  editor’s  view  of  marriage  
• “I’d be for marriage if I thought gay people
would challenge and change the institution
and not buy into the traditional meaning of
‘till death do us part’ and monogamy forever.”
• If marriage had none of the things that make
marriage what it is, he’d be all for it!
1.  NOT between a man and a woman
2.  NOT a commitment to be sexually faithful
to one person
3.  NOT meant to last a lifetime
  What  is  a  healthy  home?  
David Frum: If you think of coupledom as a
partnership that may or may not involve
children, or if you have become accustomed to
the idea that the children in a home will often
have a biological relationship with one adult
but not necessarily the other, then you will not
find same-sex marriage a very exotic idea;
indeed, you will be ready to believe that
prejudice and hatred are the only possible
reasons that somebody might oppose same-
sex marriage.
 Not  just  consenting  adults  
David Frum: To oppose same-sex marriage
effectively, you have to believe that marriage
is more than a contract between two
consenting adults, more than a claim on
employers and the government for economic
benefits. You have to believe that children
need mothers and fathers, their own
mothers and fathers. You have to believe
that unmarried cohabitation is wrong, even
when heterosexuals do it. Lose those beliefs
and the case for marriage has been lost.
 Government’s  stance:  
four  possibilities  
1.  Prohibit and punish (e.g. theft, murder)
2.  Permit but penalize (e.g. “sin taxes” on
cigarettes and alcohol)
3.  Privatize without penalizing or promoting
(e.g. heresy, swearing, gossip, rage)
4.  Promote and privilege (favor some
things by teaching in school curriculum,
tax breaks, subsidies)
 Contradictory  arguments  
•  Gays who demand, “Keep the government
out of our bedroom,” should not demand,
“Have the government license and support
what we do in our bedroom.”
•  Gays who say, “What we’re doing is nobody
else’s business,” shouldn’t go on to say,
“What we’re doing is so important to the
public good and the future of the society
that it should have the same public standing
and government approval as marriage.”
• Sinners want king and priest to bless them.
 False  prophets  
• Watch out for false prophets. They come to
you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they
are ferocious wolves. (Matthew 7:15)
• They are godless men, who change the
grace of our God into a license for
immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only
Sovereign and Lord. (Jude 4)
• Secular humanism and apostate theological
liberalism are the driving forces behind the
sexual revolution.
 Churches  standing  firm  
•  If society rejects Christian influence, the
church must still teach God’s Word.
•  Government need not punish every sin, but
God will punish sin with hell if there is no
repentance and trust in Christ. Churches
must warn of God’s wrath against sin, even if
it’s not something government must punish.
•  Churches must excommunicate gay couples,
not bless them or make them leaders.
 Ministry  to  homosexuals  
•  It is not right or loving to treat homosexual
behavior as normal and pleasing to God.
•  Love, pray, and care.
•  Don’t single out homosexual sin as worse.
•  Sin involves inborn or ingrained tendencies.
•  Emphasize that Jesus’ blood removes guilt,
and the Spirit’s power transforms life.
•  Change orientation, or abstain from sex.
•  Teach godly self denial and self control.
•  Support Christians who still struggle.
 Two-­‐front  battle  
1.  Bringing good news: Show God’s love and
proclaim the gospel of forgiveness and
new life in Christ to homosexual sinners.
As fellow sinners, we must relate to people
humbly, gently, and respectfully.
2.  Battling evil agenda: Stand against an
organized movement that declares evil to
be good. Many homosexuals don’t seek
forgiveness or new life. They seek blessing
from church and support from government.
Body Modification
By David Feddes

Piercing parlors are a growth industry. For a fee, you can get holes pierced in
your lips, eyebrows, tongue, nose, navel, and other, more private, body parts. Then you
can buy jewelry to wear in the holes. Piercing is becoming more common, especially
among younger people. Tattoos are also popular. You can get just one small tattoo, if
you like, but you can also get lots of tattoos that cover sizeable portions of your body.
Piercing, tattoos, and other forms of body modification are increasing.
Why do so many people want body modification? For some, BodMod is a fashion
choice. If your friends or favorite stars do it, you may want to do it too. It makes you feel
more stylish or sexy. One young man says, "I just thought it would be cool to have. I
didn't do it to be a rebel or anything like that. I could sure come up with better ideas than
that to rebel." Some people choose body modification just because they feel like it,
without knowing why. When a church-going woman with a husband and children was
asked why she got her navel pierced, she replied, "I don't know exactly why I wanted to
get it. I have this certain image as a soccer mom, going to church and going to school,
and the belly ring is a way to show a different side."
Other people don't choose BodMod so casually. It means much more to them.
Many use BodMod as a way to deal with inner pain and take control. One woman,
Laura, says, "It's been my experience that many people into BodMod have come out of
abusive childhoods. I guess, for myself, I think of my piercings and tattoo as a way of
reclaiming (or marking) my body for myself!"
For still other people, body modification is nothing less than their way of revealing
their souls and connecting with the spiritual realm. They know that piercing, tattooing,
and more extreme and painful forms of body modification were common among tribal
peoples and pagan religions, and they want that same tribal and religious experience for
themselves. A BodMod enthusiast says,
Body piercing and Tattooing are sacred rituals. Through these mediums we can
costumize our bodies and proclaim publicly that we are in control of our destinies.
Any spiritual quest demands sacrifice if it is to have meaning. The pain of a
piercing or a tattoo is the path for transformation. If it didn't hurt and wasn't
difficult it wouldn't mean anything. To me a tattoo is my embodiment of my spirit
and soul, as well as an important step on my spiritual quest.
Not only is BodMod viewed as part of a personal spiritual journey, it's considered a way
to save the earth. As one of the thousands of websites devoted to body modification
puts it, "Through the lost tribal arts, we believe we can reclaim our forgotten respect and
understanding of nature by symbolizing that the body is sacred like our planet mother
earth."
There's even a group that calls itself the Church of Body Modification. It's
officially recognized by the government as a religion. It has no doctrine of a Creator
God. Instead, it teaches that we create a world of our own choosing. The mission
statement of the Church of Body Modification declares,
Each of us is wise in our reasons. Each of us is powerful in authority over
ourselves. Our bodies are the physical structure, our temple; the encasement of
our own very personal dreams and experiences, our beliefs and our hopes. We

1
 stand absolutely firm on our birthright of ownership of our individual bodies...
Together now we share a New World of our own creation.
Now, if you're sporting a ring in your eyebrow or navel just because it seems cool
to you, some of these other reasons for BodMod may sound strange to you. If you're
living a tame, safe life and want a little BodMod just to spice it up a bit, it may sound
strange that some people see BodMod as a response to inner anguish and an abusive
past. If you think getting pierced or tattooed includes pain only as an unfortunate side
effect, it may sound strange that many people actually want the pain and embrace it as
a sacred sacrifice. If you see no religious meaning in BodMod, it may sound odd to hear
about body modification as a religion. But what if the people who make a religion out of
it actually understand the meaning of BodMod better than you do?

Body Language
Body language talks loudly. Bodies communicate. The way we treat our bodies
tells much about us and about what we worship. The hardcore disciples of body
modification understand this. They reject the Creator God and the Lord Jesus Christ of
the Bible. They choose tribal religion or self-worship instead. And they show their
religion by what they do to their bodies.
Meanwhile, some of the milder practices of BodMod are becoming common
among churchgoing young people. They see nothing wrong with it, and their parents
aren't quite sure what to say. Many dads and moms don't really want their kids to get
pierced or tattooed. They may think a kid with steel eyebrows, jeweled nostrils, studded
tongue, and metallic belly button looks pretty crazy. They may fear that a tattoo which
appeals to a seventeen-year-old might look pretty silly when the person is forty. But
they're not sure if there's any moral or spiritual objection to body modification. Parents
don't know if BodMod is really wrong or if it's just a harmless fad for a new generation.
Even most preachers remain silent about body modification. Why make a big
deal about kids poking a few extra holes in their body and wearing jewelry in some
strange places? Aren't there bigger issues to deal with? If a preacher criticizes body
piercing or tattoos, young people might just get turned off and find it harder to accept
Christ and be part of the church. As a pastor and father myself, I don't want to speak
against something just because it doesn't happen to suit my taste. I know that God
looks at the heart, not just on outer appearances.
But we need to ask: is body modification just a matter of fashion? Is it just a
recent fad? No, it's not a new fad at all. It has very old roots, and those roots go deep
into pagan religion. Throughout history, BodMod has been common in cultures that
worship idols or nature or mother earth or self. Tattooing, piercing, cutting, branding,
scarring, and mutilation have been part of pagan religions for thousands of years.
Whenever the message of the Bible would reach a pagan society, whenever
more and more people trusted and worshiped the true God, body modification would
diminish and almost disappear. People who believed the Bible and trusted Jesus Christ
understood that God created their body, that Christ paid for their body with his blood,
and that God's Holy Spirit lived in their body. Their body was not their own but God's. It
was wrong to damage, deface, or distort it. Their body was treasured as God's
handiwork and offered to God for his honor. As Christian truth replaced paganism, it
moved people to abandon pagan body modification.

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 BodMod isn't just a new style. It's body language for a religious shift, a shift away
from biblical Christianity back toward pagan religion and pagan sexual practices. The
leading figures in the recent upsurge of BodMod are people who detest Christianity and
delight in old pagan practices of self-inflicted pain and perverted sexuality. Other people
may jump on the BodMod bandwagon without being aware of its pagan roots and the
modern-day pagans who are driving it. But if we know what's really happening and what
the Bible says about these things, we'll know that BodMod is not from God.
Your body sends signals. What you do to your body and what you wear (or don't
wear) sends a message. A girl who dresses like Lady Gaga is sending the message, "I
am a sex object who follows MTV, not the Bible." The Bible says, "I want women to
dress modestly, with decency and propriety" (1 Timothy 2:9). A boy with jewelry or hair
like a girl is sending the message, "I don't know what I am, and I'd rather be a gender
blender than obey the Bible." In the Bible, God not only opposes homosexual activity,
he also opposes body language that blurs the created difference between male and
female. In the Old Testament, he says, "A woman must not wear men's clothing, nor a
man wear women's clothing, for the Lord detests anyone who does this" (Deuteronomy
22:5). In the New Testament, God insists that men and women honor the difference
between the sexes even in their hairstyle or head covering (1 Corinthians 11:2-16).
Now, if your body sends signals by clothing and grooming, then making
permanent modifications to your body sends an even stronger signal. When you do
things to your body that have always marked pagans, you are sending the message that
you favor paganism over Christianity. Even if you don't intend to send that message,
that's what your body is saying.
The Bible teaches a different view of the body than pagans do, and God
commands his people to treat their bodies differently than pagans do. In the time of
Moses, God commanded, "Do not cut your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on
yourselves. I am the Lord" (Leviticus 19:27). God's priests, especially, were not to cut
their bodies (Leviticus 21:5). Pagan people did that sort of thing, and God didn't want his
people to imitate idol worshipers. Moses declared, "You are the children of the Lord
your God. Do not cut yourselves or shave the front of your heads for the dead, for you
are a people holy to the Lord your God. Out of all the peoples on the face of the earth,
the Lord has chosen you to be his treasured possession" (Deuteronomy 14:1-2).
Centuries later, the prophet Elijah had a showdown with the priests of an idol
called Baal. As these pagan priests tried to get their idol's attention and bring down his
power, "they shouted louder and slashed themselves with swords and spears, as was
their custom, until the blood flowed" (1 Kings 18:28). But the Lord's prophet, Elijah, did
no such thing. He didn't need piercing, tattooing, or slashing. Elijah prayed by simply
talking to God, and the Lord answered his prayer in a mighty way.
God takes body language seriously. He doesn't want us to desecrate our bodies
like idol worshipers. If you think body language doesn't matter, you're out of tune with
God's Word. Some church people looking for loopholes to allow body modification might
emphasize Christian freedom. But the Bible says, "Do not use your freedom to indulge
the sinful nature" (Galatians 5:130). Some might say that times change and that some
parts of the Bible address different cultural issues than we face today. Maybe so. We
might not always know exactly how to apply a biblical rule in a new setting. But is this
issue really unclear? Are paganism and perversion really so different today than in the

3
ancient world? Does God now want us to imitate what pagans do to their bodies? Has
God suddenly decided it's time to blur the difference between Christians and
unbelievers?
No, if you belong to Christ, your body language ought to say so. The Bible says,
"Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, 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). Your body is God's creation to celebrate, not your
own private object to manipulate. If you're a Christian, your body is blood-bought by
Jesus. The Holy Spirit lives in it as his temple. If your body is the Holy Spirit's temple,
then shine with his light. Don't make God's temple look like a copy of Satan's temple.
Let your body language proclaim that you are a child of the Father, purchased by
the Christ the Son, filled with the Holy Spirit. Don't just ask what God will let you get
away with. Ask how you can best honor God with your body. If you look for loopholes in
the Bible to let you do your own thing, you might say, "What's wrong with it?" But ask
instead, "What's right with it?" Does body modification honor God and mark you as a
holy follower of Jesus? If not, don't do it.
Now, I know that not all BodMod folks are purposely plotting to fight God or
destroy themselves. Some are genuine Christians. Maybe you trust and love Jesus but
haven't thought much about body language. Maybe you're basically right with God but
just need some biblical teaching, correction, and training in this area of your life. Up till
now, you weren't really aware of the Bible's call to honor God with your body, and you
weren't aware of the pagan meaning of body modification. Well, now you know. If you
love the Lord and believe the Bible, then honor God with your body from now on. Make
sure your body language says that you belong to Christ and that his Spirit lives within
you.

Hating Wisdom, Loving Death

Not all BodMod folks are Christians who just need a gentle correction. Many are
anti-Christian who need to leave darkness and death in order to find light and life. Many
trendsetters who helped re-popularize body modification hate biblical Christianity and
love paganism. Some hate God's creation of male and female and prefer gender
blender modification. Some even hate good health and love pain for its own sake.
The body modification movement includes a growing gallery of horrors. BodMod
isn't limited to piercing and tattooing. Other, more extreme forms are also on the
increase. Cutting, branding, scarring, even mutilation and amputation, are becoming
more frequent. People who cut themselves say that watching themselves bleed makes
them feel better. A 14-year-old boy says he wants to pierce his tongue, nose, and more
private parts. "I don't really know why," he says. "In the past I have found that by
inflicting pain on myself I could release a lot of anger and emotion without hurting
anyone else. For about 4 months I would say that I was addicted to pain; I would slash
my arms with a razor or a knife every time I became angry."
Some people have what's known as apotemnophilia—a word that literally means
"love of cutting off." Such people don't feel whole or happy with both arms and legs
attached, and they envy people whose limbs have been amputated. Some cut off part of
a finger or their own hand. In Scotland, two people even convinced a surgeon to
amputate their legs for them. Their legs were perfectly healthy, but they didn't want legs,

4
so they got their bodies modified by the surgeon. The surgeon's hospital stopped him
before he could amputate the legs of a third person.
It may seem obvious to most of us that it's crazy to cut off healthy legs. But many
journalists and intellectuals think that another radical kind of surgery on healthy bodies
is okay: they portray sex-change operations in a positive light. A growing number of
women wish they were men and have surgery to cut off some parts and add others.
Males have the opposite procedure so that they can become females. In one case, a
husband and wife both chose sex-change operations. They wanted to stay married, but
the wife became the husband, and the husband became the wife. In media coverage,
the "transgender community" is just another colorful, healthy part of the cultural
landscape. But are surgeons who do sex-change operations any better than the
surgeon who cut off healthy legs upon request?
Another form of body modification that's on the increase is self-starvation.
Doctors consider anorexia an eating disorder that's dangerous, even deadly. But there's
a growing subculture that praises anorexia and encourages other people with eating
disorders to "stay strong" and not eat a normal, healthy diet. “Time” magazine counted
more than 400 websites on the Internet that praise and promote anorexia. The creators
of these websites are proud to be nothing but skin and bones. They encourage other
people who worship extreme thinness and enjoy looking like skeletons to keep up their
quest for "the perfect body" and not let anybody stop them—not their doctor, not their
family or friends, not anybody. It's their body to control. It's their own idea of beauty that
matters. The thinner the better, even if it means sickness and starvation.
From an early age, most of us are not content with our body and would like to
change it. If little children have blue eyes, they wish they had brown eyes. If they're born
with red hair, they wish it was black. Some boys wish they were girls or vice versa.
Some kids wish they'd been born of a different race or had a different name. This
childish dissatisfaction with our own body was always considered something to grow out
of and get over.
But nowadays, rather than growing beyond childish fantasies, adults indulge
those fantasies. They get contact lenses that change their eye color, dyes that change
their hair color, tattoos that make them look more like a billboard than a human,
piercings that make them look like their favorite famous pagans, plastic surgery to
rearrange their face and shape. Men wear earrings as only women did a few years ago;
women choose hairstyles and clothing to resemble men. Cross-dressing pop stars are
adored by millions, and some people get sex-change operations to alter their gender
entirely.
Part of mature wisdom is accepting the body God gave you, learning to live with
it, and honoring God with it. But the spirit of rebellion says, "I am the master of my fate. I
can modify my body as I see fit." Does this bring joy and freedom? No, it brings pain,
slavery, chaos, and death. In the Bible, God's wisdom calls out and says, "Whoever
finds me finds life and receives favor from the Lord. But whoever fails to find me harms
himself; all who hate me love death" (Proverbs 8:35-36).
In the horrid mystery of sin, people actually love death. Ghastly self-abuse such
as anorexia, cutting, self-mutilation and amputation, sex-change surgeries, and other
extremes of body modification are clearly cases of harming self and loving death. But
even milder forms of BodMod, such as tattooing and piercing, point in the same

5
direction. That's not just my opinion. The “New York Times,” hardly a fortress of
Christian truth, sees a clear link: "In an age of tattoos and nose rings, self-mutilation is
the latest expression of adolescent self-loathing." The “Times” recognizes the
relationship between body modification and the estimated "two million people injuring
[themselves] in secret."
In John Milton's epic, Paradise Lost, Satan says, "Evil, be thou my good... Better
to reign in hell than serve in heaven." That's the battle cry of all who insist on doing their
own thing, even if it destroys them. A woman says candidly, "My main attraction to body
modification was initially the control aspect—exerting control over my body and making
my physical body fit the mental and spiritual vision I have of it. Unfortunately, the whole
aspect of using BodMod as a way of expressing control smacks incredibly of self-
mutilation."

Offer Your Bodies to God

Deep within each of us is a sense of sin and unworthiness. We feel that we
deserve to bleed and suffer. We feel that we somehow need to be different than we are.
And it's true: we do deserve to bleed, and we need to be different. But the answer is not
to mutilate ourselves or try to remake our bodies. That's the pagan answer to our need
for atonement, but God's life-giving answer to our need for atonement is the blood of
Jesus Christ. He was pierced for our sins (Isaiah 53:5). Jesus' blood poured out on the
cross has the power to do what our own bleeding cannot do. His blood washes away sin
as nothing else can. So don't count on the pain of body modification or the blood of
mutilation to deal with the guilt of your sin. Count on Christ. Believe in his blood. Count
on his Holy Spirit to live in you and transform you by the power of God's love.
Your body needs to be different, but not in the way that body modification makes
it different. You don't need to put new holes in your body. You don't need to tattoo new
designs on it. You don't need to escape the gender you were born with. You don't need
to reinvent your body or take total control of your own body. How does your body need
to be different? It needs to be ruled by God instead of Satan, devoted to holiness
instead of wickedness. "Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to
impurity and ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness
leading to holiness... For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in
Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 6:19,23).
There's a huge difference between Christian baptism and pagan body
modification. Baptism is painless and bloodless. Christ has already suffered on my
behalf and provided the blood for my washing. I have been baptized in the name of the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. My Father, the Creator, gave me a body that is
wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14). The Son, my Lord Jesus, paid for me, soul and body,
by dying to pay for my sins. My Comforter, the Holy Spirit, lives inside me and makes
my body his temple. My baptism seals these things without hurting or marring my body.
How much better are the wondrous ways of God than the cruel abuse of Satan! I
want to take good care of my body and let the clean, healthy life of God shine through it.
Why try to change the body my Father created for me? Why act as though my body is
my own when Jesus bought and paid for it? Why deface the temple of the Holy Spirit
who lives in me. Why let Satan mess me up, when I can enjoy the love and joy of
Almighty God? The Bible says,

6
 Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as
living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship.
Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the
renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will
is—his good, pleasing, and perfect will (Romans 12:1-2).

Originally prepared by David Feddes for Back to God Ministries International. Used with permission.

7
Dress for Success
By David Feddes

If you are trying to get a job, you need to wear the right clothes to the job
interview. You need to dress for success. If the interviewer doesn’t like your
appearance, your other qualities may not count for much. Someone else will get the job.
Some employers look harder at your shoes than at your list of accomplishments. I’m not
kidding. If lots of applicants want the job, some interviewers weed out people based on
shoes. They see scuffed shoes as a mark of carelessness, while well-polished shoes
indicate a well-prepared person who is more likely to be thorough and project a good
image to company clients.
There are various common sayings about clothing: “Clothes make the man.”
“You are what you wear.” “You don’t get a second chance to make a first impression.”
First impressions are so important that many books and websites offer guidelines on
how to dress for success when you have job interviews.
Most experts offer similar advice. Almost all say that hair should be well-
groomed, not messy. Almost all warn that if you dress too casually, many interviewers
take it as a signal that you don’t want the job badly enough or that you might be too
casual and careless in your work. Almost all experts insist that you not have any visible
tattoos or body piercings. As one adviser tells men, ”If you have an earring or nosering,
leave it at home unless you are auditioning for a rock band.”
Women going to a job interview are advised not to get too fancy with their hair.
They’re also advised against buzz cuts that make them look like men. Women are told,
“Go easy on the makeup.” “Don’t overdo perfume.” “Limit your jewelry.” Every adviser
says that if women want to be taken seriously, they must avoid clothing that is sexually
suggestive. “Low necklines and high hemlines” are out. Absolute no-nos include “mini-
skirts, high heels, long or bright nails, garish makeup, low-cut or tight tops.” Instead,
advisers urge, “Button all the buttons on the blouse.” “Never wear a skirt shorter than
the knee.” As one puts it, ”Don’t think that the workplace is a singles’ bar.”
This advice about dressing for success reminds me of a passage in the Bible. 1
Timothy 2:9-10 calls for “women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, not with
braided hair or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, but with good deeds, appropriate for
women who profess to worship God.” This Bible passage is often ignored or
misunderstood or dismissed as old-fashioned. It’s mocked as a silly attack on pretty
hair, nice clothes, and feminine beauty. But if this Bible passage is so out of date and
unhelpful, then why do so many modern experts make similar points on how to dress for
success?
The Bible calls for clothing that is decent, not skimpy or suggestive. The Bible
says to dress sensibly, without extravagant hairdos, without showy jewelry, without
extreme expense. That’s what the Bible says, and experts on dressing for success say
similar things: dress decently and sensibly so that people won’t look at you as a sex
object or a showoff but can instead focus on who you are and what you’re able to do.
There are major differences, of course, between the Bible’s teaching and the
experts’ advice. The Bible guides us in how to dress for success in worshiping God,
while the experts merely say how to dress for success in getting a job, impressing
clients, and making money. God cares about modesty and good sense; he’s not so

1
concerned whether your shoes are perfectly polished or whether you wear a certain
kind of suit. Still, the Bible and the “dress for success” experts agree that clothing can
send signals, and it’s important to send the right signal.
God doesn’t give us a detailed dress code in the Bible. He doesn’t require
women to hide behind veils or to look as plain as possible. He doesn’t order men to
wear a suit and tie at all times. In God’s eyes, character matters more than clothing.
Whether you’re male or female, it’s more important to dress in good deeds than in a
certain type of clothing. God says in the Bible, “Man looks at the outward appearance,
but the Lord looks at the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7). Still, even though the inner person
matters more than outward impressions, and even though the Bible doesn’t give a
detailed dress code, Scripture does call for modesty in our clothing and appearance.
That message is needed today even more than when it was first written.

Decency
Part of modesty is decency. Modesty is not indecent. It’s not sexually
provocative. If you’re modest, you have a kind of shyness about sexuality, a discomfort
with crude jokes and lewd stares. This doesn’t mean that you’re ashamed of your body
or that you think sex is bad. If you’re modest, you may be good looking and may have a
passionate love life in marriage, but there’s a strong sense that this passion is very
precious, personal, and private. Nakedness may be lovely in the marriage bed but not
as a public display.
Wendy Shalit wrote a book titled A Return to Modesty: Discovering the Lost
Virtue. Wendy Shalit attended a college which prided itself on being progressive. The
college wanted to make men and women the same, so the common bathrooms for each
dormitory floor were open to both sexes. When Wendy Shalit objected to being in the
same bathroom with men, she says, “I was told by my fellow students that I ‘must not be
comfortable with [my] body.’ Frankly, I didn’t get that, because I was fine with my body;
it was their bodies in such close proximity to mine that I wasn’t thrilled about.”
As Wendy Shalit was alarmed by widespread immodesty, she also noticed that
there were still at least some people who wore very modest clothes. These people
turned out to be some of the most radiantly romantic and happily married people.
Meanwhile, immodest people who flaunted their bodies and hooked up in casual sexual
encounters with various people turned out to be jaded and bored. They were less
happy, less romantic, even less sexy. The truth is that modest people aren’t against
sexuality; they value it too highly to throw it around. In Wendy Shalit’s words, “The more
precious something is, the more it must conceal and protect itself.”
Decency is a sign of dignity. If you feel worthless, you’re more likely to hook up in
casual sex with various people. But if you know the value of your body and of yourself
as a person made in God’s image, you are more likely to be modest and decent in your
clothing and conduct. You don’t need to make others drool at the sight of you to be
worth something. In the Bible’s great love poem, Song of Songs, one lover says to
another, “You are a garden locked up … a spring enclosed, a sealed fountain” (4:12).
Your body and sexuality are too precious to put on display and make available to just
anybody. Modesty is your way to keep something precious “locked up,” “enclosed,”
sealed,” to keep it hidden and unspoiled for the exclusive delight of your spouse.

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 Huge numbers of people in our immodest culture just don’t get it, and they
choose to wear immodest clothing. Pastor and author Douglas Wilson says, “Many of
the current fashions for young women appear to be apparel in standard use down at the
local Hooker Training Academy.” Some styles are so similar to prostitutes that Wilson’s
wife, Nancy, told him, “It must be difficult for men these days trying to figure out which
ones they have to pay for and which ones are free.” Even many church people dress
indecently. As Wilson puts it, “Many Christian women go to worship today dressed in a
manner that would have gotten them thrown out of a bar fifty years ago.”
The problem of worshipers dressing like prostitutes has come up before. In
Proverbs 7, the Old Testament speaks of a wife “dressed like a prostitute” who has just
been at a place of worship. Her husband is out of town, and she uses her sex appeal to
seduce a foolish young man into bed with her. This sexual encounter has a devastating,
deadly impact.
The Bible clearly condemns such adultery. Sex is good and holy between a man
and woman who are married to each other, but sex apart from marriage is sinful, and so
is dressing in a sexually suggestive way when you’re in public and not in a bedroom
with your spouse. The woman in Proverbs 7 was a married, church-going woman, but
she “dressed like a prostitute.”
In our setting, dressing like a prostitute is more and more common. Why?
Because many men and boys aren’t wise enough to value modesty, and they foolishly
fall for any female that puts her body on display. Some girls and women get their sense
of worth from attracting males, so when they realize that all it takes to get men’s
attention is immodest clothing and some flirting, that’s the approach they take. This isn’t
just sinful; it’s stupid. Wise women know that if a man is worth having, he won’t be the
kind that chases every flirt in a short skirt. Wise men know that if a woman is worth
having, she has enough modesty and dignity to save herself for the right man and not
make herself an object for everybody to gawk at.
Corporations such as Victoria’s Secret and Abercrombie & Fitch specialize in
immodesty and in getting people to dress like prostitutes. For many people, dressing
like a prostitute simply means dressing like a favorite singer or movie star. It means
displaying your body in such a way that makes others want you in bed and suggests
that you might be willing. It can mean tight clothing that emphasizes every contour of
your body. Dressing like a prostitute can mean necklines that drop too low and reveal
too much. It can mean dresses or shorts that hide very little. It can mean pants that ride
low and look like they could come off at any moment. It can mean swimsuits for men or
women that hide less than a decent pair of underwear would hide.

Does Modesty Matter?

The Bible says to “dress modestly, with decency and propriety.” Is this a standard
you try to live by? If you don’t follow Jesus or care what the Bible says, then all this talk
about modesty may sound silly to you. Your motto may be, “If you’ve got it, flaunt it,”
and you think there must be more important things to discuss than modesty. I won’t
argue with you. In your case, there is something more important—your need for a
relationship with God. Immodesty and sexual looseness are symptoms of a deeper
problem—not being connected with God. You need to get right with God before you
worry about anything else. If you’re not a Christian and you want to focus on something

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more important than modesty, then focus on how you can get to know Jesus as your
Savior.
But what if you already know Jesus and believe the Bible as the Word of God?
Let me ask you: Are you dressing for success in line with the Bible’s teaching? I’m sure
there are Christians reading this right now who think I’m making a big deal about
nothing when I talk about dressing modestly. But if modesty didn’t matter, God wouldn’t
talk about it in the Bible. A relationship with Christ is more important than clothing
choices, true enough, but clothing choices send a signal about us and our relationship
to the Lord. When the Bible calls for modest clothing, it says the clothing should be
appropriate for those “who profess to worship God.”
Some Christians really do love the Lord, but their clothing (or lack of clothing)
sends the wrong signals. They are genuine Christians, but they are spiritually immature
and unwise in how they dress. They may purposely want to show off their body and turn
heads and stir up desire in members of the opposite sex. Others may not consciously
try to do that; they just want to be in style—and they don’t seem to notice that
sometimes the latest style makes them look more like a prostitute than a faithful follower
of Jesus Christ.
What sort of clothing do you wear? What impact does your appearance have on
others? If you haven’t given this much thought before, please think about it now. When
people look at you, does your clothing and appearance protect them from sinful
thoughts and help them to take you seriously as a person who knows God? Or do you
look like bed bait and tempt them to lust?
Melody Green has long been active in Christian outreach and has firsthand
insight on this. She says,
Many Christians are either oblivious or uncaring about the effect they have on
others. They may even appear to have a real excitement and love for the Lord—
however, their body is sending out a totally different message. I know, because I
have done it—partly in ignorance, but mostly in rebellion. I can remember
thinking, "Well, it's not my fault if they can't keep their eyes off of me and on the
Lord. They just aren't spiritual enough. Why should I have to change just
because they are weak?"
But the Lord showed me that it was my fault. I was responsible for causing
my brother to stumble and it had to change. Once I really saw the damage my
selfishness was doing to others and to the Lord, I was really ashamed of myself
and embarrassed that I had been representing Jesus in such an unbecoming
way.
Modest clothing thoroughly covers what needs to be covered.

Gender-Appropriate
Along with decency, modesty includes propriety. For clothing to be proper, it
must be gender-appropriate. If you’re a boy or man, stay away from clothing, hairstyles,
and jewelry that make you appear feminine. If you’re a girl or woman, stay away from
clothing that makes you look masculine. God created male and female, and he likes the
difference. He doesn’t want women to try to look more like men, or men to try to look
more like women. He wants you to accept the way he made you, and he wants your
gender to be evident in your appearance. When God gave his law to Moses, he said, “A

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woman must not wear men’s clothing, nor a man wear women’s clothing, for the Lord
your God detests anyone who does this” (Deuteronomy 22:5).
Clothing customs vary from culture to culture and from age to age. In Scotland,
for example, rugged warriors have worn kilts (skirt-like garments), which were
considered masculine. But in another culture, skirt-like clothing might be considered
feminine, because men wear pants and only women wear skirts. The Bible doesn’t give
a detailed dress code on what’s masculine or feminine. But we should be sensitive to
what sort of clothing and grooming in our cultural setting would make us appear
masculine or feminine.
From time to time, Nigerian Christians have asked me whether it’s okay for
women to wear trousers. If I had to give a short answer, I’d say, “Yes, it’s okay for
women to wear pants.” If the pants are a feminine style and don’t make a woman look
like a man, and if the pants are modest and not too tight or revealing, then there’s no
biblical objection to women wearing trousers. Of course, if a woman prefers to avoid
pants and wear only dresses and skirts in public, that’s perfectly fine.
Some readers might think it odd and quaint for anyone to ask about women
wearing pants. But give these Nigerian believers credit: at least they have a healthy
concern for women to wear clothing that is feminine and not to be look-alikes of men.
That’s wiser than the gender blender approach that approves women in combat boots
and brush cuts, and has no problem with cross-dressing men with lipstick, dresses, and
jewelry. Whatever you think about whether or not women should wear trousers, please
honor the basic principle that women dress like women and men like men. Don’t wear
clothes that would make someone wonder whether you’re male or female. Propriety
means a man looking properly masculine and a woman looking properly feminine.

No Extreme Expense
Another aspect of dressing with propriety is that your clothing be sensible and not
cost a fortune. We’ve seen what 1 Timothy 2:9 says about costly hairdos, gold, pearls,
and expensive clothes. People who profess to honor God and follow Jesus don’t need
such things in order to be valuable. It’s fine to dress neatly and attractively and to be
well groomed, but don’t go overboard on expense.
How much is too much? The Bible isn’t legalistic, and it doesn’t set an exact price
limit. God leaves much to the Holy Spirit’s leading and to Christian freedom of
conscience. But the basic principle is to avoid showiness and extreme expense. If your
clothing and hair styling and jewelry cost enough to feed a poor family for a year, don’t
you think it’s too much? If you use clothes and jewelry to show how successful and
wealthy you are, aren’t you being proud and insensitive to those who have less? The
Bible commands the wealthy “not to be arrogant [but] to be rich in good deeds, and to
be generous and willing to share” (1 Timothy 6:17-19). Would you rather spend your
wealth on clothes and jewelry that tempt poor people to envy, or spend it on helping the
needy?
It’s no better to wear costly clothing that tempts others to envy than it is to wear
skimpy clothing that tempts others to lust. It’s no better to dress and act like money is
everything than to dress and act like sex is everything. Both attitudes come from the
sinful world, not from God (see 1 John 2:15-16).

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 Dress for success: spiritual success. Dress with propriety. Don’t use clothing,
grooming, and jewelry to display status, success, and superiority. Wealthy people
should not dress to impress or intimidate, and the rest of us should not follow the
worldly way of treating wealthy people better than we treat others. In James 2, the Bible
says that if you meet someone “wearing a gold ring and fine clothes” and treat him
better than “a poor man in shabby clothes,” you have “discriminated” and have done
“evil.”
Rich people are important in the business world, but in the church, Jesus
humbles them to the same level as everyone else. Poor people hold low positions in
society, but in the church they are esteemed as precious persons for whom Jesus gave
his life and who will someday rule with Jesus. In James 1, the Bible says, “The brother
in humble circumstances ought to take pride in his high position. But the one who is rich
should take pride in his low position” (James 1:9-10). Take that attitude, and clothing
won’t become a competition.
None of this means that God wants us to dress in the cheapest, ugliest clothes
we can find. In Proverbs 31, the Bible describes a truly valuable woman and concludes,
“Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be
praised” (v. 30). It says that such a woman “is clothed with strength and dignity” (v. 25).
Now, if beauty matters less than being godly, and if the most important clothing is
strength and dignity, does this woman pay no attention to clothes or personal
grooming? Does she look homely and dress poorly? Not at all! “She is clothed in fine
linen and purple,” says the Bible. She wears fine fabric and beautiful colors without
going overboard. The fact that her body is “clothed with fine linen and purple” fits well
with the fact that her spirit “is clothed with strength and dignity.”
Clothing sends signals. It can reveal how a person is doing on the inside. When
someone feels depressed and worthless, she may react by dressing in the baggiest,
ugliest clothes she can find. She may leave her hair tangled and unkempt, and do
nothing to enhance her looks. Then again, she may deal with her sense of inadequacy
by going to the opposite extreme. She piles on makeup, spends hundreds on
hairstyling, and goes on shopping sprees for new clothes, all to make herself feel better.
Both extremes are misguided efforts to deal with a hollow heart.

The Heart of the Matter

If you’re dressing wrong, the clothing itself isn’t the main problem; it’s a signal of
a deeper problem. Your main problem is a heart problem. Your heart is out of tune with
God and in tune with a society that loves money, is confused about gender, and is
shameless about sex. If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem. You
don’t just need to change your clothing; you need God to change your heart. Instead of
going along with the world, you and I need to be different from the world. Who knows—if
we live by God’s Word, we might even change the world! Meanwhile, whether you
eventually change the world or not, first ask God to change your heart. Ask God to
forgive your sins, put your trust in Jesus, and live for him.
When 1 Timothy 2:9 instructs women how to dress, it stresses character and
conduct, not just clothing. This instruction is valuable for women and men alike. If you
“profess to worship God” and know Jesus as your Savior, you have been bought by his
blood. That’s the price that God has paid for you, the value he has placed on you. You

6
are God’s child, a son or daughter of the King of the universe. You belong to the royal
family. You don’t need to impress or seduce anybody in order to be valuable; you are
God’s treasured possession. If that reality is living in your heart, your body language
and clothing will shine with the beauty of the Lord. Your clothing and grooming will
accent and enhance your physical appearance, even as you know appearance isn’t
everything.
If God renews your heart and puts you in tune with his heart, it will affect how you
dress. You’ll know how precious your sexuality is, you’ll enjoy the gender God created
you to be, you’ll know that money is not God’s measure of value. You won’t get sucked
into worldly standards of grooming and apparel that are indecent, that blur gender, or
that are too showy and expensive. You will dress modestly, with decency and propriety.
Do you care more about your heart or about your appearance? A man’s real
strength is not his appearance. A woman’s real beauty is not her appearance. God
prizes inner strength, inner beauty. He is not impressed when we depend on our
physical shape or on clothing and jewelry to substitute for true strength and beauty.
Character matters more than clothing. What you wear is not nearly as important as who
you are.
Still, what you wear may say something about who you are. Whether you like it or
not, clothing may say something about character. If you wear modest, decent clothing
even though you’re physically attractive, you send a signal that you’re not just a sex
object and that you’re more eager to please God than to make people drool over you. If
you wear clothing that is gender-appropriate even when gender blender styles are
available, you send a signal that you appreciate the God-created distinction between
male and female. If you wear moderately priced clothing even though you could afford
more costly apparel, you send a signal that there’s more to you than money and that
you’re more eager to spend money doing good than looking good. If you dress and
groom yourself in a way that’s both modest and attractive, you send a signal of humility
and dignity as God’s child.
Be slow to judge other people by their clothing, but be quick to examine what
signals your own clothing sends. Clothing doesn’t matter as much as character, but
clothing does send signals about character. God obviously knows this, and that’s why
he gives us biblical directions on clothing. Use wisdom and good judgment in how you
dress your body. And to dress for success in the most important sense, start with your
heart. Dress yourself with Christ and his character. The Bible says, “Therefore, as God’s
chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness,
humility, gentleness, and patience… And over all these virtues put on love, which binds
them together in perfect unity” (Colossians 3:12,14). That is the very best clothing.
Dress that way, and you will truly be a success.

Originally prepared by David Feddes for Back to God Ministries International. Used with permission.

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 E P I S O D E 6

T h e

SCIENTIFIC AGE
I. Church Attacks on Copernican Science Were Philosophical
Galileo’s and Copernicus’ works did not contradict the Bible but the elements of Aristotle’s teaching
which had entered the Church.

II. Examples of Biblical Influence

A. Pascal’s work.
1. First successful barometer; great writing of French prose.
2. Understood Man’s uniqueness: Man could contemplate, and Man had value to God.
B. Newton
1. Speed of sound and gravity.
2. For Newton and the other early scientists, no problem concerning the why, because they
began with the existence of a personal God who had created the universe.
C. Francis Bacon
1. Stressed careful observation and systematic collection of information.
2. Bacon and the other early scientists took the Bible seriously, including its teaching
concerning history and the cosmos.
D. Faraday
1. Crowning discovery was the induction of the electric current.
2. As a Christian, believed God’s Creation is for all men to understand and enjoy, not just for
a scientific elite.

III. Scientific Aspects of Biblical Influence

A. Oppenheimer and Whitehead: biblical foundations of scientific revolution.
B. Not all early scientists individually Christian, but all lived within Christian thought forms. This gave a
base for science to continue and develop.
C. The contrast between Christian-based science and Chinese and Arab science.
D. Christian emphasis on an ordered Creation reflects nature of reality and is therefore acted upon in
all cultures, regardless of what they say their world view is.
1. Einstein’s theory of relativity does not imply relative universe.

— P A G E 20 —
 2. Man acts on assumption of order, whether he likes it or not.
3. Master idea of biblical science.
a) Uniformity of natural causes in an open system: cause and effect works, but God and Man
not trapped in a process.
b) All that exists is not a total cosmic machine.
c) Human choices therefore have meaning and effect.
d) The cosmic machine and the machines people make therefore not a threat.

IV. Shift in Modern Science

A. Change in conviction from earlier modern scientists.
B. From an open to a closed natural system: elimination of belief in a Creator.
1. Closed system derives not from the findings of science but from philosophy.
2. Now there is no place for the significance of Man, for morals, or for love.
C. Darwin taught that all life evolved through the survival of the fittest.
1. Serious problems inherent in Darwinism and Neo-Darwinism.
2. Extension of natural selection to society, politics and ethnics.
D. Natural selection and Nazi ideology.

E. The new authoritarianism: not the crudely dictatorial regimes of Hitler and Stalin. New regimes will
be subtly manipulative, based on sophisticated arsenal of new techniques now available.
1. To obtain organs for transplants forces acceptance of new definition of death. Possible abuses.
2. Without the absolute line which Christianity gives of the total uniqueness of Man, people have
no boundary line between what they can do and what they should do.
3. Moral and legal implications of Artificial Insemination by Donor (A.I.D.)
4. Skinner’s social psychology and the abolition of Man.
5. Tell people they are machines and they will tend to act accordingly.
6. Each theory of conditioning leads to social application.
a) Koestler: tranquilizer to cure human aggression.
b) Clark and Lee: controlling aggressions of politicians.
c) Kranty: control reproduction through the water supply.
7. Who controls the controllers? —The unasked question.
a) The basic question begged: the psycho-civilizer as King?
b) If people are machines, why should biological continuation have value?

— P A G E 21 —
V. Need to Reaffirm That Which Was the Original Base
for Modern Science

Questions
1. Explain the important contributions to science made by biblical principles.
2. How should our knowledge of the biblical view of work and nature affect our own attitudes to
research, study of the Bible, and the use of our minds?
3. Does this segment help you to understand how and why men of great intellectual refinement in
Nazi Germany could accept what was going on?
4. “Without the absolute line which Christianity gives of the total uniqueness of Man, people have no
boundary line between what they can do and what they should do.” Discuss.

Key Events and Persons

Copernicus: 1475-1543
Francis Bacon: 1561-1626
Novum Organum Scientiarum: 1620
Galileo: 1564-1642
Pascal: 1623-1662
Isaac Newton: 1642-1727
Principia Mathematica: 1687
Michael Faraday: 1791-1867
Charles Darwin: 1809-1882
Origin of Species: 1859
Herbert Spencer: 1820-1903
Albert Einstein: 1879-1955
Russel Lee: 1895-
Heinrich Himmler: 1900-1945
B.F. Skinner: 1904-1990
Arthur Koestler: 1905-
Kenneth B. Clark: 1914-
Murray Eden: 1920-
Kermit Kranty: 1923-
Skinner’s Beyond Freedom and Dignity: 1971

— P A G E 22 —
Further Study
Robin Briggs, ed., The Scientific Revolution of the Seventeenth Century (1969).
E.A. Burtt, The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science (1932).
Arthur Koestler, The Watershed. A Biography of Johannes Kepler (1960).
Arthur Koestler, The Ghost in the Machine (1967).
C.S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength (1945).
C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man (1972).
D.M. Mackay, The Clockwork Image (1974).
Mathematical Challenges to the Neo-Darwinian Interpretation of Evolution. Wistar Symposium
Monograph, no. 5 (1967).
B.F. Skinner, Beyond Freedom and Dignity (1971).

— P A G E 23 —