Bought with a Price

For about a year and a half, I have been taking the materials from the Sexual Integrity for Men class and turning it into a book. Why would I do that? It started when I began to get requests for my class materials from missionary friends overseas. The national and foreign workers over there were struggling with pornography, and they wanted to have something they could study together to combat this. At the same time, there were others locally who couldn’t take a 10-week class on Wednesday nights, or were too far out of town, like the northeast Ohio Xenos people. There are also those who would never really come out to a class because of shame, but they might get together with another brother to study, confess, and pray.

For some time now I have thought that the venue of a class that lasts 10 weeks is too impermanent. Here at Xenos we have men’s and women’s groups that meet weekly that are the right size and place for deep relating and accountability. That would be the perfect place for our group to go over this material. If a man needs to attend the class, but is reluctant, he might find himself studying it anyway in his men’s group. Once the 10 chapters are done, the openness and sharing can continue for months and years, a lifetime. This is the place that should happen.

So what is left is for me is to ruthlessly edit the content, and decide whether to find a publisher or self-publish. I’ve had the advantage of going over the material with my own men’s group, so I know which sentences sound really bad read aloud. I also used the book as the basis for the Spring SI for Men, so I know which content just didn’t connect as well as I thought. I have a couple of people who have given me editorial feedback (there seems to be no shortage of critics) and a real editor who has volunteered as well. Things are looking up for the summer.

I’m heading to Sanibel Island for two weeks, and in between time with my wife and a couple of friends who are coming down for the second week, I will be working on editing, adding more interactivity, layout, and generally holding a gun to the head of each of the 40,000 words. I will have the introduction and chapter 1 available for download on this web site soon.

Brian

In the movie Unbreakable the main character, David Dunne, is a kind of superhero. The problem is that, for most of the movie, he doesn’t know it. There is a profound sadness to his life, as if something unidentified were fundamentally wrong, and this clouds everything he does. He is never really happy until he knows who he is, and what he is to do.

This reminds me a lot of what pornography addiction does to us. After another failure, there is a profound sadness that puts a cloud of guilt, shame, and despair over our lives. “I can’t believe I did that again!” “What’s wrong with me, when am I going to wake up?” The problem here is that we have forgotten who we really are, and we are living a false life that refuses to stay only in the shadows of the late night, and creeps over us throughout the day. Does that describe you sometimes?

You are not what you do; you live according to your identity. As believers in Christ we have a new identity by His grace, formed in the likeness of Him who called you from darkness into His light (1 Pet. 2:9). At the same time, we carry around with us a parallel identity, one that is still decaying because of sin. Our struggles to vanquish this person by moral effort are vain, and feed into pleasure-seeking habits long established. It’s only as we choose to live by faith in the new person that we truly are that the cloud is lifted, and we see things clearly (2 Cor. 5:16-17).

The intimacy that we seek cannot be found in pleasure. Sought for itself, pleasure does not give us what we are looking for, it enslaves. Listen to the voice of God through the prophet Isaiah: “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.” (Isaiah 55:1-2)

Note the second verse: God knows that you are looking for what only He can give in other places besides in Him when He makes His offer in verse 1. He knows that you are following a false idol that enslaves you, and yet He makes His offer nonetheless. What grace! What meekness! Who is like God?

The spring quarter session of Sexual Integrity for Men will begin April 1, 2009, from 7-9 PM, and will run for 10 weeks. The class is open to anyone and costs $10. To register for the class, go to the registration page on the Xenos web site, and select SI for Men from the drop-down. Be sure to enter your email address on the form so that I can more easily communicate with you. The syllabus and other class materials will be available on the Resources page on this site.

If you’re registered for the class, you can also use the discussion forum here at Bought with a Price to discuss with other men in the class. You will need to register for the forum to be able to read or post anything. To provide some anonymity from the wider world only registered forum users will be able to read your comments.

I’m looking forward to seeing you at the class.
Brian