There’s a new kind of discipleship needed today: sexual discipleship. Somehow those words just don’t seem to fit together—at least not comfortably. They may even sound creepy. But Juli Slattery’s book, “Rethinking Sexuality,” showed us that discipleship is desperately needed in this most crucial aspect of every person’s life.
We live in a sexualized culture, and it is relentlessly making disciples every day.
A disciple is one who follows a teacher and replicates what he or she teaches.
This applies to any subject, whether its music, philosophy, painting, or sex. And clearly, the culture is doing a phenomenal job of discipling our view and practice of sex. Every day, through every medium, the sexual revolution has supplanted a biblical view of sex.
That’s why we need to take seriously what we teach, model, and celebrate regarding sexuality.
Husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, single adults and adolescents need an all-encompassing, creation-centered rethinking of the gift and responsibility of God’s gift of sex. The great challenge we are facing today is not only a rejection of biblical morality but the denial of reality itself.
At stake is the very definition of humanity.
Male and female, we are being told, are not fixed sexes. Gender may include scores of subjective iterations. Marriage has been redefined. The hook-up culture is viewed as simply adult recreation.
All of this strikes at the very heart of our mission.
We are to make disciples, especially where the greatest tensions with culture prevail. We have been entrusted with the truth of scripture, and the infilling of the Holy Spirit. Now God is giving us gifted apologists who are piercing the deceptions and untangling the confusing headlines to help us walk with confidence.
Healthy, whole, sexual integrity is at the heart of every deep relationship.
It is to be celebrated and modeled without shame in the Christian home. It is to be enjoyed in the covenant of marriage. And, it is clearly within the redemptive work of Jesus Christ to restore and heal the brokenness that many have suffered.
I highly recommend that you read and discuss in a small group Juli Slattery’s book Rethinking Sexuality: God’s design and why it matters.
