In Sophomore Bible Study (SBS) somebody requested last semester that we study purity. So we did. Since then we’ve moved on to studying 1 Peter, but I’ll get to that later. Megan and
Lucia, who both attend SBS, wanted to discuss purity further than was possible in SBS, so together we read a book by Lauren Winner, which we recently finished, entitled Real Sex: The Naked Truth about Chastity.
Megan and Lucia read Winner’s book and met weekly with me, always intent to discuss what they read and how it applies to them. Winner showed us how to better understand our foundation and what God wants for us. Through these times together, we began to see more clearly the broader framework of God’s story of His love for us, including Jesus Christ, and how we fit into that, and not simply additional rules to add to our lives which are frequently unhelpful. Some things we covered include: how in Gen. 1:31, “God saw all that he had made,” including humans with physical bodies, and declared, “it was very good;” a few lies our culture tells us about sex, as well as lies the church tells us about sex; how what we do with our own bodies matters not only for ourselves, but it matters to our community, the Body of Christ; and why, as one of the chapters discussed, we have any right to ask our neighbor what they did last night (see Gal. 6:1-2). As the Body of Christ we believe that we cannot simply be autonomous (see 1 Cor. 12:12-26), but that everything we do – including sex – affects the community of which we are intimately a part.
(Remember, in SBS we’re in 1 Peter now.) One of our last weeks together studying Real Sex, Lucia was incredibly excited. During the previous SBS part of what we read was 1 Pet. 1:15-16, “But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: ‘Be holy, because I am holy.’” Lucia said that when she read that she thought of what we had been discussing. It really struck her and everything fell into place for her why that applies to everything in our lives, including sex.
I praise God that I am able to be witness to what He is doing here at
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