flatirons teaching team

Question: What does the Bible say about birth control? 

Answer:  Much of what I’m going to say is taken from the opening chapter of Mark Driscoll’s book “Religion Saves and 9 other misconceptions” so go buy it if you want further explanation on this question and several others.  There are differing levels of birth control and the Bible has different things to say about them.  The first level of birth control would be not to employ any  method, meaning no birth control at all.  Some Christian couples determine they will not try to control how many children they have in any way and however many children God chooses to give them, they will be fine with.  Which, Biblically speaking is a totally acceptable position to take.  It is however when people who have made this decision tell others who have not arrived at the same decision that they are being sinful through trying to control the amount of children they have, that people fall into error.  This is saying more than the Bible does.  Children are described in the Bible as a gift/blessing from God (Genesis 1:28).  Notice this took the form of a blessing, not a command.  Meaning, finding a wife is also called a gift from God, that doesn’t make remaining single a sin 1 Corinthians 7 has a lot to say about that.  This means couples should be wise and prayerful in their decisions on how many children to have, and when to have those children.  

There is also “natural birth control”.  This includes the rhythm method, or more hi-tech methods such as symptothermal method.  These are also totally acceptable, Biblically speaking.  These do however rely on self control, discipline and planning which are not everyone’s strong suit.  

There is also “non-abortive birth control”.  This includes barrier methods such as condoms, diaphragm, sponge, cervical cap and female condoms.  Barrier methods simply attempt to prevent an egg from being fertilized by sperm by blocking the sperm. This is a Biblically acceptable method because it does not harm a fertilized egg.  

There are also permanent methods such as tubal ligation (for women) and vasectomy (for men).  These would fall into the same category as non-abortive barrier methods Biblically speaking.  The decision to undergo these procedures should be prayerfully considered and viewed as permanent.  It has become increasingly popular for young single men to undergo vasectomy so that they can avoid the nuisance of having their sexual immorality being interrupted by an unwanted pregnancy.  Quite honestly this is not only immature but something most men would live to regret once they grow out of their immaturity.  

The Pill is perhaps one of the trickiest birth control methods to think biblically about.  I am going to oversimplify and generalize a bit here so I would recommend doing further study.  There are at least 40 different kinds of oral contraceptives and they all work a bit differently but in general they all have the same 3 purposes.  

1) to inhibit ovulation, which is its primary means of birth control.  

2) to thicken the cervix so that it becomes more difficult for sperm to reach the egg.  

both of these are obviously contraceptive in nature much like the methods mentioned above.  It is the 3rd purpose that causes much debate.  

3) to thin the lining of the uterus so that a fertilized egg has more difficulty implanting in the uterus.  

Not only are most users of the pill probably not aware of this, but for those who are its been the cause of much concern and debate, and there has not been total agreement amongst Christian doctors in regards to whether this would disqualify the pill based on the potential of destroying life.  

Because of this It would be wrong to call the use of the “pill” sinful, but would it would be wise for any couple to talk to their doctor and prayerfully consider what their conscience will allow.  As a side note, my wife has at different times taken the pill and we always assumed it was totally contraceptive in nature.  This gives us something to think about.  

The last method of “birth control” to look at Biblically is abortion.  Abortion is the destroying of human life by killing a fertilized egg. This would include the various forms of procedures that are legal in our country along with RU-486, aka the “morning after pill”.  Here are just some of the scriptures that reflect God’s view that life, including pre-born babies are to be protected.  

Genesis 1-2; Psalm 139:13-16, Jeremiah 1:5, Luke 1:41-42 

In closing as someone who has been through 4 pregnancies and has 3 children on this earth and one waiting for me in heaven I really believe that children are a gift from God. I’ve been astonished each time I’ve gone with my wife to an ultrasound as early as 8-10 weeks in pregnancy and seen a tiny heartbeat.  I’ve been devastated to sit in the same ultrasound room and see no heartbeat.  Life is precious, and each one is made in the image of God and should be protected.  Finally, I know there are many couples who have decided not to have children.  I think there are likely several good, wise and Biblical reasons not to have children either in specific seasons of life, or permanently.  I also believe some people decide not to have children because they selfishly want to live the rest of their lives without being troubled by children and the responsibility they bring. I can say without reservation that nothing outside of the Bible itself has taught me more about God than having children.  I would encourage everyone to search their own hearts on this, explore the Bible and ask God to test their motivations.

1.  What does God say about Orgies? 

Answer:  historically and biblically orgies were typically associated with pagan worship.  To the degree that pagan temples would have designated places for orgies to take place as acts of worship to false gods and idols.  There is lots of background on this in 1,2 Kings and in the new testament in places like Corinth.  Which is why orgies are mentioned in the new testament. Check out Romans 13:13, Galatians 5:19-26, and 1 Peter 4:3.  Interestingly Christians were accused of having orgies because their celebration of the Lord’s Supper was often called a “love feast”, this shows that the idea of having an orgy as an act of worship was certainly not foreign in the new testament. 

2.  We dated for a few months, talked about getting married so we moved in together.  We are now broken up because he drove me crazy.  How do you find out sooner if you are not a match? 

Answer: Don’t move in together. The prevailing “wisdom” of our culture is that it makes sense to test drive the car before you drive it.  Where has that gotten us?  Statistics prove, year after year that the divorce rate among those who live together before they get married is much greater than that of those who don’t.  With a divorce rate that has hovered around 50% of all marriages for decades now that means that if you live together before you get married the odds are totally against you staying married.  I would submit that the perceived benefits of living together before marriage don’t even come close to outweighing the drawbacks.  Finding out whether he squeezes the tooth paste from the top or the bottom of the tube is not worth sinning against God and your own body as 1 Corinthians 6: 18-20 talks about.  Finding out if she has an annoying sound she makes when she sleeps is not worth stacking even more odds against the success of your marriage.  It is a huge misconception that you should find out if you are “sexually compatible” before marriage. You are sexually compatible because God designed you to be sexually compatible.  The fastest track to harming your sex life within your marriage is to have sex before your marriage.  Its not irreparable by any stretch of the imagination, but it will set you back, not push you forward.  Sex has a way of clouding your vision prior to marriage.  Your emotional, mental and spiritual growth towards one another most often gets stunted because you have sex prior to marriage.

Last night about 100 college age people came to text in their questions regarding sex. Just like last week we didn’t have time to get through all of them even after and hour and a half of discussion. I’m going to post some of the questions we didn’t get to answer along with my response to those questions this week. Here are the first three.
1.Is it a sin if I am sexually active, but I’m in a committed non-marital relationship versus just sleeping around?

Answer: Yes. While the physical, emotional, mental consequences of sleeping around may be greater than in the type of “committed” relationship described here, that does not change what God clearly says regarding sexual immorality. As Jim said this weekend sexual immorality is any sexual activity outside of the context of one man, one woman who are married. 1 Corinthians 6:18-20 puts it pretty plainly.

2. What does the Bible say about secondary virginity? Is there such a thing?

Answer: Nothing and no. That’s the most direct way to put it. What the Bible does talk about is being transformed into the image of Christ, being made into a new creation, a putting off of the old self and a putting on of the new self, being clothed in Christ’s righteousness ( Romans 12:1-2, 1 corinthians 6:11, Galatians 4:19, Ephesians 2:1-10) etc…So instead of claiming secondary virginity, which I believe is a mental mind game many use to deal with guilt, I would say claim the cross of Jesus and recognize that your sexual sin is well within the reach of the grace the cross produced. Then continue following Jesus through love and obedience in every area of your life.

3.Am I contributing to someone’s sin, If I’m working in a sex shop and selling sex toys to married and unmarried men and women?

Answer: This is a good question. The question could be raised by someone who works at a fast food joint, or serves alcohol as a waiter, waitress, bartender etc… Yet I think there is a difference. There is a difference between selling someone something that is morally neutral like a glass of wine, or a cheeseburger, or a car for that matter and them using it to sin through gluttony, getting drunk, or harming someone with or in their vehicle and selling pornography, which is not morally neutral. While there are some web sites that sell sex toys, that are designed for those who don’t want to look at pornographic images but want to enhance their sexual experiences in the context of their marriage, my suspicion is (and I could be wrong) that this sex shop also sells pornography. If that is the case I think this is different territory than the person who sells cheeseburgers because pornography is not morally neutral, its sinful in both in its production, and consumption.

Real Sex by Lauren Winner

Every Women’s Battle: Discovering God’s Plan for Sexual Fulfillment by Shannon Ethridge

 Every Man’s Battle: Winning the War on Sexual Temptation One Victory at a Time by Stephen Arterburn and Fred
Stoeker and Mike Yorkey

Several of our counseling and care staff helped me compile a list of resources regarding sex. We will do a few updates to this list throughout this week, but I wanted to go ahead and give you some of those tonight. So here you go!

Sheet Music by Dr. Kevin Leman

Intended for Pleasure:Sex Technique and Sexual Fulfillment in Christian Marriage by Ed Wheat and Gaye Wheat

A Celebration of Sex: a guide to enjoying God’s gift of sexual intimacy by Douglas Rosenau

Sacred Sex: A spiritual celebration of oneness in marriage by Tim Gardner

Intimate Issues:21 Questions Christian Women ask about Sex by Linda Dillow and Lorraine Pintus

On Monday night of this week, a bunch of college age people gathered for “Monday Night Mix” and took an opportunity to text in questions regarding alcohol.  I was a part of the panel answering the questions and I have to say it was a great evening of engaging with the scripture and each other.  As the evening rolled on and the questions kept pouring in I knew at some point a form of a question I get asked all the time would pop up on the screen behind me.  Sure enough it did.  The question goes something like this:  ”Aren’t you worried that with all this talk of ‘me too’ and grace that some people will use that teaching as an excuse to go on sinning?”.  My answer is always the same.  I’m not worried or afraid that might happen, I’m quite positive that it will.  People have always been prone to abuse grace, prone to wander, prone to see grace as some sort of loophole they can use to continue sinning.  People have always done this and they always will.  Now, just because there are some people who will abuse freedom doesn’t mean we should stop teaching about freedom.  Put it this way, just because there are some people who break the laws of this land doesn’t mean we should throw everybody in jail.  That’s what the Pharisees did, they locked themselves and others up with countless rules.  Paul spent the first five chapters of  Romans articulating the freedom that comes from Grace versus the bondage that was present in the law.  Paul knew at the conclusion of chapter five that some of his readers would be asking the same question that was asked on Monday night, which is why he writes Romans 6:1-2.  Paul uses very strong language here when he says, “by no means”.  In fact the NIV translation here is to weak in my opinion.  It literally translates, “may it never be” or “it cannot be”.  Jim and I have taught on this scripture countless times over the years and the fact still remains some will abuse grace but that doesn’t mean we should ever stop proclaiming the freedom we have in Christ, may it never be!

I was at a wedding a couple weeks ago and the guy who officiated did a good job.  By that I mean I didn’t disengage after the first sentence out of his mouth like I normally do when I attend weddings.  Not only did he keep it interesting but he spoke a profound truth to the couple getting married that day and to all of us witnessing.  Often the jargon of weddings is so cliche’ and the verses quoted from scripture are so removed from their context it just frustrates me, but this wedding was different.  This wedding was different because the pastor focussed on a cliche’ that has a track record of destroying lives and the cliche’ is “follow your heart”.  It sounds good doesn’t it?  It sounds like something that should be said at a wedding.  Isn’t the principle of following your heart precisely what brought that couple to the place they were standing in on their wedding day?  That is far too often exactly what draws people to marriage and probably why over half of them fail in this country.  We live in a culture that has put the principle of following your heart as the trump card principle above all others, and we use it to justify the choices we make.  It comes back to what Jim talked about this weekend, desires.  When we assume that what we desire is a good thing, or a wise thing, or the right thing, simply because we desire it we run the risk of making a devastating decision.  Why? Jeremiah 17:9 explains it well.  Our hearts and the desires we find within them can be very deceitful.  So if you trust your heart above all else you will get hurt.  If you have lived longer than a few minutes you know that to be true from experience.  Some would still argue that they followed their heart and it turned out well.  I would argue that it was more than your heart that was involved in the decision.  Somewhere a higher principle than “follow your heart” got involved in the decision making process.  At some point you engaged your mind in the process, or the wise counsel of others, or you prayed about it.  With all that said, I think its very important to understand that there is a desire that we can trust.  There is a yearning, a longing from deep within our hearts that you should follow every time.  Its the desire for God.  If you are a follower of Jesus then your deepest desire is to follow Him.  By that I mean that when you give into desires for other things that Jesus talked about in Mark 4:18-19 you are grieved.  Followers of Jesus wrestle and struggle with sinful desires, but their deepest desire is for God.  So if we can make all of our desires serve our greatest desire then our choices will be wise.  Too many Christians have tried to get through their lives crushing, suffocating and despising every desire they have.  I would contend that when desire gets out of control and becomes sinful desire it is not because our desires are too strong, but too weak.  

C.S. Lewis said it this way in The Weight of Glory  ”If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is not part of the Christian faith.  Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak.  We are half hearted creatures, fooling around with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.  We are far too easily pleased.”  

Recommended reading:  

Desiring God by John Piper

The weight of Glory by C.S. Lewis

Knowing God by J.I. Packer

When my second child, Elijah was born his doctor quoted a scripture the moment he came out.  Dr. Butler (one of my heros) said as he held my son and as he handed him to my wife, “fearfully and wonderfully made”  that’s Psalm 139:14.   As I’ve been a part of both the loss of a child through miscarriage and the birth of 3 children, not only do I believe these words to be true but I know they are true in the deepest part of me.  I don’t know how anyone can be a part of something like this and not worship God.  At 3:47 am today there was a worship service going on as most of the front range slept. My family’s  hearts were full and God was glorified.  Its worship that is on my mind today.  As I sit here holding the newest arrival to our family, Silas, I can’t help but think about my hopes and dreams for him.  Honestly at the end of the day what I desire most for him comes back to the reason I named him Silas.  In Acts 16:25 it tells us that Paul and Silas were worshipping God in the face of terrible circumstances.  I have lots of hopes and dreams for Silas but none greater than my prayerful hope and desire that he worship God all the days of his life in the face of whatever comes his way.  I want Silas to find his strength, his joy, his peace and his position in the one true God.  I want Silas to be most satisfied in worshipping God.  There is nothing more important.

Jim quoted 1 Timothy 6:10 this weekend and the phrase at the end of that verse stood out to me, “pierced themselves with many griefs”.  What is so tragic about this is that this wound is self- inflicted and in the context refers to a fatal wound.  If you read this verse in its context 1 Timothy 6:3-21 Paul is actually telling Timothy to guard his church against  false teachers and their tendency to use God and people to gain wealth.  Yet the principle applies to more than just religious gold diggers, it applies to all of us who get deceived by wealth.  1 Timothy 6:6-8 gives us the principle that drives this entire teaching, and its so obvious.  This truth much like the truth we looked at with worry (Matthew 6:27) is undeniable.  You cannot argue with this truth, but again we don’t live like we agree with it.  The great disconnect between what we say we believe and what we live like we believe is where the deceitfulness of wealth is revealed.  We say we believe that we brought nothing into the world and we cannot take anything out of it (1 Timothy 6:7)  but we live as if we were preparing to furnish our own houses in heaven.  The problem is Jesus said, “in my fathers’ house there are many ROOMS” (John 14:2)  and He has gone on to prepare a place for us.  God has heaven under control and He has commanded us to travel light as strangers or foreigners (1 Peter 2:11)  just passing through while we are here.  How many of us will get tripped up along the way by the deceitfulness of wealth and in so doing “pierce ourselves with many griefs”?  The good news is that we are not only told what to avoid, but what to run after (1 Timothy 6:11).  Paul doesn’t take things away without replacing them, because Paul was helpful and knew his own heart well enough to know that just telling people what not to do is not helpful.  We need things worth chasing, things worth pursuing and a a life worth living.  With all that in mind Paul tells Timothy to pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness and to fight the good fight of faith.

Two weekends ago over 300 women attended “Brave”, our women’s retreat.  The feedback has been pouring in! Here are some quotes…

“I was trying to put on a facade and pretend like I had it all under control so others would see me “under control” when in fact I’m hurting and wrestling with my past and my choices that hurt me and may be hurting my children and my relationships. God also created perfect opportunities to speak to my heart this weekend and one in particular was connecting me with two young women who shared their hurts in situations with their parents that were similar to mine.”

 ”If community was your goal I’d say it was a direct hit.  Even though we were a mix of 18-50 year olds I left the retreat with lots of names and numbers.”

 ”For me, I can actually say that it was the best weekend I have had in years.  Being a new Christian, I was intimidated by the thought of a retreat.  I signed up not knowing if anyone I knew would be going.  It turned out that one of the girls in my small group was going, which was nice.  I was worried that it would be long and mentally exhausting-but in true Flatirons fashion-it was uplifting and organized and exceeded all my expectations.”

“I was encouraged to hear I have strength of character to keep on believing God is in control and He will walk with us. I have put the word BRAVE on my bathroom mirror……I want to do life different.  I asked God to help me get out of the cage…..  He heard me!”

 ”I have been at Flatirons two years…almost.  I have not been on a ladies retreat for years.  I had lost any desire to every go again.  I pushed myself to go to this one because I have come to know and trust how Flatirons does things………amazingly.  And it was amazing.”

 There will be a men’s retreat this fall! more to come on that.