PLANKS AND SPLINTERS

An attitude in the Church toward homosexuality generally bothers me, and should concern us all. While most Christians would agree that Scripture speaks against it, Scripture censures us all for other sexual acts many churchgoers practice with little objection from the pulpit.

As we follow the leading of the Spirit we find freedom and life, but our sinful nature continually tries to draw us back into bondage and death. Bondage to drugs, sex, pornography and other pursuits is only a symptom of our major addiction that encompasses them all: opposition to God, and it’s called sin.

We were sinners before conversion, but afterwards we still fight the war that rages between the sinful nature and the indwelling Spirit. Paul experienced it, Romans 7:21–23, 8:12–14, Galatians 5:16–18, and we must acknowledge it.

The created ideal of marriage is an extension of the truth about God Himself—the love and unity in the Trinity. All that breaks marriage or opposes it is a lie. We cannot live with a lie: it will increasingly torment us, and eventually collapse in on itself.

We are all aware of adultery in the Church. High profile cases make the news, and congregations acknowledge the occasional “moral failure” of one of its leaders. That is only the tip of the iceberg. For every known event, many go unreported and both perpetrator and victim suffer in silence.

Adultery—whether with the same or opposite sex—includes sexual liaisons before marriage. The sex act alters the brain chemistry attaching the partners together. The idea “they will become one flesh,” Genesis 2:24, is more than a picturesque idea; it’s a physical response. In this sense, adultery against a future marriage partner has already occurred.

Pornography, pernicious and addictive, is included in adultery, by Jesus’ use of the Greek word porneia (sexual uncleanness) from which “pornography” comes. He uses it for “marital unfaithfulness” in Matthew 5:32 and 19:9, and those watching pornography commit “adultery with her in his heart,” Matthew 5:28.

All of us struggle with some area of life opposed to the Spirit, different but always equal deviations from God’s ideal. The Spirit is the “paraclete,” One who comes alongside to bring conviction and change, John 16:8–11. As Spirit-filled believers it is also our mandate: to come alongside those who struggle with sin as we ourselves did, not with smug judgment, but with sympathetic love.

If we hide and refuse to stare down these enemies within—both personally and corporately—we engage in the Pharisaical hypocrisy Jesus regularly scorned, placing burdens on others we still carry ourselves. Let’s remove the plank in our own eye before we criticize the splinter in the eye of another.

Let him who is without sin cast the first stone!