John Piper and Justin Taylor have edited a series of essays by several evangelical luminaries on the subject of sex which make up the contents of the book Sex and the Supremacy of Christ. Crossway Publishers has generously made this book available to me and several other bloggers free of charge for the purpose of review. So, I want to thank Crossway and Tim Challies and Diet of Bookworms for facilitating this.
As I mention, this is a compilation of essays by authors including John Piper, Justin Taylor, C. J. Mahaney, Al Mohler, Carolyn Mahaney, and Carolyn McCulley. The book is divided into five sections, with several chapters in each section, and these give a good indication of the content:
1. God and Sex.
2. Sin and Sex.
3. Men and Sex.
4. Women and Sex.
5. History and Sex.
Thus, the book covers a wide spectrum of issues related to sex, and I don't have the time or space to give a comprehensive review of every area mentioned. For instance, I won't presume to review in detail the section devoted to women, I think that it would be most appropriate for a lady to talk about how these chapters affected her. I will just say that Carolyn McCulley seems an able guide to whom single women can look for advice on negotiating the difficult waters of being a single woman in today's world. I will also mention that I know C. J. Mahaney writes many wonderful love letters to his wife Carolyn. But, based on what she has written here and in her previous book on femininity, I wouldn't be surprised if Carolyn doesn't get thousands of love letters from husbands all over the country. Her view of sex is so positive and encouraging to ladies that I know men everywhere must be rejoicing, and if she isn't inundated with the aforesaid love letters, I bet she gets lots of thank you notes from husbands everywhere.
So, that's all I'll say about what was written to the ladies, as I want to focus more on things that appeal and apply to me as a man and a husband.
The first and most important point the book makes is that sex is good. Fortunately, this is a theme that has been proclaimed much in the evangelical church in recent years. Although evangelicals still tend to talk about sex in the negative alot and focus on what we shouldn't be doing, I have seen and heard many in recent years take a more positive approach to sexuality. The emphasis is more and more on the glories and goodness of sex and I am hearing more and more arguments against illicit sex beginning with the idea that sex is a good to be protected, not a bad to be avoided. This is much more compelling and this book is in that genre of "more positive views of sexuality."
Any book with the fingerprints of John Piper on it is going to be influenced by his passion for Christian hedonism - that our desires for pleasure and happiness are good, God given desires to be stoked, not avoided. Piper continually points us to the fact that our greatest joys are found in Christ, and our pursuit of happiness is a good and godly thing as this pursuit becomes a pursuit of the God of all pleasures. In that vein, he relates sex to this pursuit of God, affirming that sex is not the highest pleasure there is, the highest pleasure in life is to be found in Christ. Knowing this properly relativizes sex, but it also enables sex to become just that more pleasurable as it is engaged in as a part of our pursuit of pleasure in Christ.
There are many practical points that are helpful but I'll just point out two that were particularly helpful to me.
One of the great challenges we all have, but that pastors and those in ministry have in particular, is the challenge of helping singles deal with sexual issues. A perennial question is "how far is too far." The authors wisely don't seek to answer this question, but one of the authors gives a wonderful insight that I encourage all singles to seriously consider.
In this Clintonian moment in which we live we have defined our terms in such a way that "sex" only refers to sexual intercourse. Thus, french kissing, heavy petting and even oral sex and other things aren't considered "sex," because intercourse hasn't taken place. I should point out that this is mainly in evangelical circles that such thinking predominates. Outside the evangelical circle, folks have no pangs of conscience about sexual expression. But evangelicals are faced with the tricky moral problem and crisis of conscience that comes from their desires to indulge their fleshly appetites while maintaining sexual purity. So, a la our former president, many redefine sex so that all of that "pre-intercourse" stuff isn't really "sex" and thus virginity and purity are maintained.
The book points out the way that singles and married people look at this stuff. Singles think that all of this stuff that leads up to sex isn't sex because it isn't intercourse. Married folks, on the other hand, have a different word for all of this. We call it "foreplay." And married folks call all of this foreplay "sex" because we know it is all a part of sex. All of this stuff that is a runup to sex is foreplay and is a part of sex. Foreplay is the onramp to sex and it only goes one way. The book does a good job of showing how it is unbiblical to distinguish foreplay from sex. I should also point out that the authors do offer hope in this regard. There is redemption, and God can and will restore those who are broken by sexual sin.
I also appreciated C. J. Mahaney's insights on the Song of Solomon. C. J. rightly shows that the Song of Solomon authorizes a very positive and celebratory view of sex. But he goes on to point out that the Song of Solomon is about much more than the sex act itself. The Song of Solomon is full of expressions about the beauty and desirability of the object of our affections. He says it is a book about talk as much as it is a book about sex. The bulk of the book is the lover's descriptions of the beauties they find in each other. Mahaney says this shows that we need to learn to talk romantically to one another in marriage. This is something I definitely haven't done and I wonder if many evangelicals do. I sometimes wonder if we don't spend so much time talking about the dangers of illicit sex that we haven't realized that there is a proper Christian eroticism (my word, not the book's).
Finally, I'll mention that I also enjoyed the chapter on Martin Luther's courtship and marriage to Katie Von Bora. When I was in seminary my history prof spent a few hours talking about Luther's marriage and it really is quite a wonderful story. I have told the story of Martin and Katie many times and have never failed to generate quite a few smiles on people's faces. I've even told the story of their courtship to youth and have been able to hold them in rapt attention. This story is full of drama, comedy, and romance and it gives a wonderful picture of the beauties of married love.
All in all, this is a book I recommend highly, and I again thank Crossway and the authors for making it available to us.
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