Tag: Sex

Deeper Waters Podcast 9/21/2019

What’s coming up? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Happy families are all alike, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. Many families will not put their dysfunction out there for the world to see. If you post on Facebook, very rarely will you see something like, “Wife and I got into an awful fight over how to do the laundry and we ended up yelling at each other for an hour.”

The LGBT community might look happy on the outside. We just want to get along. This is a group all about love and tolerance. Right? Maybe not. Maybe there’s a lot of chaos going on in this family as well. What if they can’t all just get along?

My guest this Saturday has done a lot of looking into this community. Things are not as they seem. The feminist movement already doesn’t like what’s happening with transgenderism which puts a lot of tension between the L and the T. The B movement isn’t going so well with that either since that assumes that there are only two genders.

Okay. So the LGBT community isn’t getting along with itself. What does that have to do with us? For one thing, if this is accurate, this can show us the path we could be going on. What if we Christians are right and this is a war against reality? What if the tensions underlie a much deeper issue? What if issues of sexuality have to do with more than just whoever you sleep with?

To discuss this, I’m bringing on someone who has researched this movement and has the knowledge about what’s going on. He came highly recommended by Dr. J of the Ruth Institute. He’s a writer for the Christian Post and his name is Brandon Showalter.

So who is he?

Brandon Showalter is a 2007 graduate of Bridgewater College of Virginia. He earned a BA (cum laude) in International Studies and Spanish and was a fellow the Flory Honors program, studying abroad at the University of Barcelona in Barcelona, Spain in 2005. He is also a fellow of the John Jay Institute for Faith, Society, and Law.

Since 2016 he has been a journalist with The Christian Post covering a wide range of topics. His reporting has been cited in the US State Department’s 2017 International Religious Freedom report and in the 2018 book “Braving the Future: Christian Faith in a World of Limitless Tech.” Earlier this year, the Evangelical Press Association awarded him and one of his colleagues first place for best Article series. In late October 2017 he traveled to Germany to report on the 500th anniversary of the Reformation.

Tomorrow then, that’s what we’ll be talking about. We are working on updating the shows and getting them to you. I hope to be fully caught up before too long.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Deeper Waters Podcast 8/17/2019

What’s coming up? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

The 60’s were a wild time in America. You had the Kennedy assassination, the Vietnam War, the space race and landing on the moon, and Woodstock. You also had a revolution that drastically changed society and that was the sexual revolution. This revolution has been on the move and is still in effect to this day. Unfortunately, while the American Revolution did bring about much good for us, the same cannot be said of this one.

Today, we live in a culture that is thoroughly confused about sexuality. Sure, we’re watching sex, we’re talking about sex, we’re dreaming about sex, and we’re just plain having sex, but we’re not really thinking about sex. We keep chasing after the god of Eros wondering why he flies away so often.

Maybe instead of moving forward on this path, we need to move backward. Maybe we need to undo the sexual revolution. Maybe we need to think more about what sex is and why it is so important to think about it.

To discuss the Sexual Revolution, I am bringing on someone who has written and spoken profusely about this topic. It is a field she never thought she would get into being an economics major, but it is where she has found herself. Today, she teaches from a Catholic perspective on the issues of sexuality and family. We are going to be talking about her new book, The Sexual State. Her name is Jennifer Roback Morse.

So who is she?

According to her bio:

Dr. Morse is the founder of The Ruth Institute, a global non-profit organization equipping Christians to defend the family and build a Civilization of Love. 

Dr. Morse was a campaign spokeswoman for California’s winning Proposition 8 campaign, defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman. She has authored or co-authored six books and spoken around the globe. Her work has been translated into Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Polish and Chuukese, the native language of the Micronesian Islands. 

Her latest book is The Sexual State: How Elite Ideologies are Destroying Lives and Why the Church was Right Along. (See below for a complete list of Dr. Morse’s books.) 

She earned her Ph.D. at the University of Rochester and taught economics at Yale and George Mason Universities. 

Dr. Morse was named one of the “Catholic Stars of 2013,” on a list that included Pope Francis and Pope Benedict XVI.

Dr. Morse and her husband are parents of an adopted child, a birth child, a goddaughter and were foster parents for San Diego County to eight foster children. In 2015, Dr. Morse and her husband relocated to Lake Charles, Louisiana, where the work of the Ruth Institute continues. 

Complete list of Dr. Morse’s books: 

  1. Love and Economics: It Takes a Family to Raise a Village (2001) 
  2. Smart Sex: Finding Lifelong Love in a Hookup World (2005)
  3. 101 Tips for a Happier Marriage (2013) coauthored with Betsy Kerekes.
  4. The Sexual Revolution and Its Victims (2015)
  5. 101 Tips for Marrying the Right Person (2016) coauthored with Betsy Kerekes. 
  6. The Sexual State: How Elite Ideologies are Destroying Lives and Why the Church was Right Along. (2018) 

I hope you’ll be watching for this new one. If you’ve been watching for awhile, the episodes are being worked on and coming up. There have been some snags lately, but they are coming. Just please bear with us.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Some Thoughts On Gun Violence

What is the real cause of the violence we see in our society? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

At the start, I will tell you my political persuasion on the issues involving mass shootings. I am the type that is so conservative that I would only fly on planes that have two right wings. I am very much for the second amendment and the right to bear arms. However, when I listen to the gun debate there is something that is missed. I understand it being missed by the secularist mindset, but I don’t expect it to be missed by Christians.

Many times, we hear talk about needing help for mental illness. It’s true I am sure that many people who do the wicked acts of mass shootings could have mental illness. The problem with this is it creates a stigma on mental illness that keeps people with mental illness who would never do something like this from getting help. Imagine what it would be like if whenever the news talked about something like ALS, we also heard it in connection with mass shootings.

Here’s one of the main problems with this. I am not at all opposed to good therapy and psychiatric medicine. I think such tools are extremely helpful. My wife’s own therapist has said that she thinks everyone should see a therapist and even many therapists see therapists.

If we paint the problem as mental illness, then the solution would be that if we could eliminate this mental illness, we would eliminate these mass shootings. This overlooks one of the most important Christian doctrines. It assumes that man as he is will not do evil and that if we can just fix that defective part in his brain, we can prevent that.

But the real problem is not really mental illness, though it can compound that.

The real problem is sin.

And we all have it.

Earlier I said that some people with mental illness would never do something like a mass shooting. I am not recanting that, but I don’t think it’s entirely accurate. In actuality, I think every single one of us, you and me both, are capable of greater evil than we can imagine.

Maybe you wouldn’t now, but if you were in a position of power, would you take the opportunity? Most of us don’t wake up in the morning thinking of some great wrong we want to do. Consider having an affair. Most husbands and wives don’t wake up in the morning and say “I think I’ll ruin my marriage today and have an affair.”

Instead, it starts with the opportunity to have lunch with a co-worker or just talk to someone casually. Before too long, one is looking for more and more opportunities to be with that person. Then suddenly they find themselves meeting one another in a hotel room. The evil just came gradually.

It’s hard to avoid looking back to Nazi Germany when thinking about this. Look at the evil that they did. We know now it is very easy to lead people to do great evil. Milgram established this with his experiments.

We don’t need to look that far. Consider the abortion industry. We have killed numerous babies in our culture and many people have done so with a clean conscience. This is defended as a moral right. (Ironically, these same people complain about God in the Old Testament putting children to death. Go figure.) This evil has become so normalized many people no longer see it as evil.

Chesterton once said we don’t differ on what we will call evils so much. We differ on what we will call excusable. I really think a lot of gun violence goes back to the sexual revolution and the breakdown of the family. What a shock that many of the evils we tolerate, sex outside of marriage, pornography, abortion, homosexual practice, etc. are all connected to sex. Even now society is trying to make pedophilia more acceptable. Many Christians I know have no problem with the concept of living together before marriage, something Christians for hundreds of years would have condemned immediately.

It’s easy to blame the problem on many other factors. If we remove violent video games, this will help deal with it! I don’t care for many overly violent video games, but at the same time, I am a gamer and one of the most peaceful people I think there is. The overwhelming majority of gamers are not like this.

Maybe it’s guns? Guns can give people a means to do something, but the evil is still there in their heart. Oklahoma City took place with everyday products. 9/11 was done with planes. People have used cars to go on mass rampages. I really don’t think gun control laws will work. Such laws will take guns out of the hands of law-abiding citizens while criminals who don’t care about the law will use them. If you really don’t care about the law against murder, you’re not gonna care about the one against having a gun.

At the heart, the real issue is sin and we need to return to that. The reality is you and I are both capable of being the next mass shooter. The huge overwhelming majority of us won’t do something like this, but if we dare deny our capability, then we are denying the great evil we have within us. If any of us had the opportunity, we need to be vigilant. One of the surest ways you can fall for an evil is to say it is one you will never commit.

If the issue is sin, there is only one solution. Christianity. It alone is the means to deal with sin in one’s life. Politics has its purpose, but it cannot save society. Only Jesus can do that.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Should You Live Together Before Marriage?

Don’t you need to see if you will work out? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Go back a few decades in time and it would have been taboo to be pregnant before you were married. There was just this idea that if you are pregnant out of wedlock, you have done something wrong. That doesn’t mean that the treatment of such a person was always right, but we did recognize the wrong.

In a couple of decades, things have changed. Now not only is it entirely acceptable to many, but many couples are also living together before they get married. This includes nowadays people who are Christians and get divorced and then do so before they remarry, or people who are Christians and haven’t been divorced, but they are sleeping together without marriage. You can hear a news story about a woman and her boyfriend living together spoken of so casually.

Yes. It is a big deal. Something we have lost sight of is that Christianity entails a certain sexual ethic. One such rule is that sexual intercourse is to be reserved only for marriage. Some might say we’re going to live together, but we’re not going to have sex. Yeah. Just keep fooling yourself. You’ll sleep in the same house together and shower in the same house together and all that, but nope, sex will never happen.

Some people will say marriage is a big deal, of which they are right. They will say that one should not make the decision lightly, which is again right. Then comes forward the analogy that they use. You wouldn’t buy a car without taking it for a test drive would you?

The question has to be asked who is the driver and who is the car? In each case, the person is asking if the other person is capable of meeting their needs. Marriage is much more about meeting the needs of the other person instead of getting your own needs met. If both parties work at that, they all get their needs met.

If the driver decides they don’t want the car, the car won’t tell. A person will care. A person will care if they have been rejected as they are while giving all that they have. This is one reason why it’s so especially devastating on girls when a guy they love will sleep with them and then dump them the very next day.

Sexuality is something too beautiful and too sacred to treat as a test or to treat as no big deal. There is something awesome and magical going on when a person gives someone else so much trust with their whole body. When a person is giving sex, it is a way of saying they are giving themselves entirely. Women especially need to realize this since they usually set the standards.

There are exceptions of course, but normally the men are the pursuers and unless they’re willing to rape, they take no for no, although they could beg and plead some before finally accepting. Women are normally the determiners then of if sex will happen and when a woman says yes before marriage, she has said what has to be done to get all of her. What is she worth? Dinner? Three dates? A month? A year? Engagement? Perhaps instead, full marriage?

When you live together, you are not upholding the Christian sexual ethic and as Paul said in 1 Cor. 6, sexual sin is in a different category. He who sins sexually sins against his own body. It is essentially testing each person and treating the relationship as a contract instead of a covenant.

Ladies. You’re the big losers here. Guys who move in with you get what they want, the sex, without the cost that they want, the commitment. They can pack up and go at any time and you are the ones who are living most often in fear of that. Guys don’t have to worry about being stuck with alimony and get their fun in at the same time. You’re not giving them incentive to commit. You’re removing incentive. Want to give them incentive? They only get to have their fun if they make that commitment to you.

This is also why sexual refusal is so painful in marriage. For a guy, it is them getting a message that they are still not good enough. This is not to say a woman can never say no, but there’s a reason Paul encourages couples to make the withholding something mutual and only for a short time. Paul knew what he was talking about.

Also, I really don’t think that anyone who is living together with someone of the opposite sex without marriage should be in a position of Christian leadership at all. We are often rightly fighting the marriage battle for marriage being a man and a woman. It does not help us if our own leadership is living like marriage is no big deal. They either get married or one of them moves out. Save sex for the marriage bed.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

The Evil Of Sex Trafficking

What harm can visiting that porn site do? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Last night, my wife and I watched an Indian movie with subtitles called Shivaay about a man going against the sex trafficking industry. It was fictional, but something made along the lines of Taken. Pretty much, you have a one-man wrecking crew going against a sex trafficking industry when his daughter gets kidnapped.

Most of us I hope would never ever want to participate in sex trafficking. While young boys can be the victims, more often than not, I suspect it’s females. After all, sex sells and usually men are in the market to buy. In these cases, young women are ripped away from their safe environments, even here in America, and find themselves in an industry where they are only valued for their bodies.

One such business they can be in is the porn business.

Now I am not saying that everyone who works in the porn industry, even the “performers” are there because they were kidnapped in the sex trafficking industry. However, we don’t know on the outside who was and wasn’t brought into it that way. Statements can be made, but we all know businesses can lie as well.

Readers know I have enough problems with the porn industry as I think it takes something good and beautiful and holy like sex and cheapens it. Many of us married men do indeed value the sex we have with our wives, but we value them for much more than that. If you are a man or a woman one day planning to marry, I recommend you obliterate any porn from your life now. Heck. Even if you’re not planning to, I recommend you do it, because the use of porn will make it easier for you to think of men and women as sex objects only or at least primarily.

When that woman is before that camera, that is someone’s daughter up there. Always remember that. That is a person who is beautiful and special in her own right regardless of what she does or doesn’t do with her body. She is also not just a body. She is a person created in the image of God.

As said at the start, most of us won’t get involved in the sex trafficking industry, but some do or else it wouldn’t be going on today. Many more do get involved in the porn industry. That could be unknowingly leading to the support of the sex trafficking industry. I hope that most who are viewing porn would at least oppose sex trafficking and be willing to give it up at least for that reason.

Please also watch the young people around you. If you suspect someone you know is caught in the industry, get some help from some professionals out there. Every life is precious and no one deserves to be used this way.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

The Bachelorette and Pre-Marital Sex

If all sin is forgiven, what makes pre-marital sex such a big deal? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

A friend of mine pointed me to this news story about Bachelorette star Hannah Brown. Brown has been outspoken about her Christian faith this season. Yea! Unfortunately, she has also been outspoken that she engages in pre-marital sex and it’s no big deal. The headline to the story includes the line of “A man does not control anything I do.”

Well, that makes sense. After all, Jesus Christ is a man and she is certainly not listening to Him on this matter. We also know that one of the best ways to resist a man is to have pre-marital sex with him. Obviously, that is just sticking it to the man entirely.

She says in the story that she has pre-marital sex and Jesus still loves her. Yes. That’s true. However, since Jesus also loves Hitler and everyone else on the planet, that’s not really saying much. If anything, this is Brown saying she wants to take advantage of Jesus. She doesn’t care as long as she has His love, which she has by virtue of being a human being.

We can all have love for people who we know are doing things that are wrong. One great example of this for all of us is ourselves. Most of us love ourselves even though we don’t approve of our behavior always. If you are married, your spouse will wrong you sometimes and you hopefully still love them. If not marriage, most any friendship and family relationship will have this.

On the Bachelorette there was a guy named Luke Parker who is a Bible believing Christian. He has the Biblical stance on pre-marital sex and even said he wants to be sent home if he found out Brown had slept with any of the other guys. Guess who the bad guy is in this scenario? Yep. Claims of toxic masculinity have been raised.

Because, you know, it’s totally toxic to say that a woman is worth waiting for and worth a lifelong covenant before you have sex with her. Bad Parker! Be less toxic and sleep with the girl without a lifetime commitment!

What I have said before, and still stand by, is that sexual behavior really demonstrates how you see yourself. Women are really the gatekeepers because the majority of the time, it is the man who is pursuing. This isn’t to say that there aren’t exceptions, but really, it normally doesn’t take much to get a man going.

So if you’re a woman, you have to ask, what does it worth for you to be totally naked to a man and give all of your body to him. Does he just have to show you a really good time? Does he have to date you for a week? A month? A year? Do you have to be engaged to him? Whatever it is, once the threshold is met, then you can give yourself to the guy. The price has been paid as it were.

Here’s the deal. The easier you make it, the more you treat yourself as something common and not worth as much. Does that mean this is a conscious decision? No. Does it mean you automatically realize a degrading of your own self? No. Yet if you haven’t thought about this before, I really urge you to consider it.

Now if you do save this for marriage, then you are going the distance you need to go. You are telling every man that wants to be with you that you are worthy of a lifelong commitment. You are also exclusive with that and won’t give yourself to anyone else.

That also means your relationship with him is different from everyone else. I am a gamer. I love it when my wife plays games with me, but I could just as easily have a male friend come over and do that. My wife loves swimming. I hate it. I can do that with her, but she can just as easily do that with female friends.

What separates our relationship from every other relationship? Well bluntly, we have sex together. That means that I have exclusive rights to her and she has the same with me. I am the only man who has ever had sex with Allie and she is the only woman who has ever had sex with me.

Brown can say all she wants to that she can have sex and Jesus will still love her. As I have said, she is right, but she can also abuse children all she wants to, or anything else. If we are thinking of someone of a more leftist mentality, we could say she could degrade homosexuals and pollute the environment and Jesus would still love her.

The question is if she is loving Jesus. Insofar as she is living a sinful lifestyle, she is not. Am I condemning myself and my fellow Christians some with that? Yep. Our love of Jesus is also lacking in some ways always. None of us love perfectly.

What we have to ask is if we are caring enough about our sin to do something about it. If we are not, then everyone else has all freedom to legitimately question our love for Jesus. It’s necessary in Christianity that Jesus loves us, but the truth of how seriously we take Christianity is how much we love him.

Luke Parker meanwhile is the one who is the hero here and upholding the dignity of women. It’s a strange world where men who think that it’s best to not sleep with women without being married are using women. We need more men like Parker who think a woman is worth a lifetime commitment and he won’t enjoy her sexually until he gives her what she’s worth upfront. Let’s hope more of the women also raise the stakes to that level.

Ladies. Let me also assure you that this will motivate your man to be better. As an Aspie, my parents tried to change my diet for decades with friends working with me, therapists, and everything else. Nothing. Not even close. Allie is married to me for less than a year and she already makes me want to be better. Why? Because of how motivating it is to be with her.

Raise the stakes for your man. You’re worth it and when he pushes himself for you, he’ll think he’s worth it too.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Marriage Realities

What really happens in a marriage? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Yesterday, my wife and I were talking about marriage with a couple that has been married over 30 years and them sharing about how sometimes some difficulties are common. I also have a friend who is about to get married. This leads me to thinking about some realities that take place in marriage.

If you ever read a fairy tale, one of the biggest myths you will read is “And they lived happily ever after.” As I think C.S. Lewis said, Prince Charming sometimes had morning breath. You might have joy, but a feeling of happiness will not last forever.

Ultimately, this is a good thing. No one could have such a feeling last forever. It would make it impossible to do anything at all. Picture how it was if you’re married when you first met the love of your life and knew you wanted to be with them forever. When I came home from mine and Allie’s first night, my roommate was convinced that a wedding chapel would have to be booked soon and our love for each other was openly displayed all over the internet.

Those feelings do fade, and again, that’s not bad. They get replaced with something deeper. Many times, you have a great love for your spouse that you can feel. Sometimes, they honestly get on your nerves and you’re extremely irritated with them. Marriage is made in heaven, but so are thunder and lightning.

So what are some realities?

First, let’s go back to that Prince Charming bit. Not only will he have morning breath, but he will burp and make many other noises that are very unpleasant to the wife. She could be tempted to smother him at night with a pillow if he happens to snore loudly.

Second, you will get into arguments. It happens. These are usually over sex, money, and in-laws. Take money. Normally in a marriage. One is a spender and one is a saver. Those two often clash. With sex, one person usually has a higher drive than others. Pastor Mark Gungor gave a talk once about that and said “Some of you guys are married to high drive wives. They can’t get enough. To all you men like that, I speak on behalf of all other men when I say ‘We hate you.’ ”

If you go into marriage thinking you’re automatically going to be having sex constantly and walking around naked all the time, you will be disappointed. That won’t even happen on the honeymoon. After all, guys especially need some time to recharge.

Many disagreements will be over stupid stuff. It will be about how toilet paper goes on the roll or how you squeeze the toothpaste tube or other mundane things. There will be disagreements on how the dishes should be loaded in the dishwasher and who does what chore. There will also be mistaken assumptions as each person comes from a household and they presume for the most part that that is normal. Maybe someone grew up in a family where Mom did everything and refused help. A husband like that is going to presume his wife does everything. Suppose she grew up in a household where both worked together. She will think such a man is being rude. Unspoken assumptions do a lot of damage if not realized.

I said feelings will fade. This can give an illusion when someone seems to come along who can spark new feelings again. Has the love faded? No. This is more common than people realize. Guys, especially, can generally find it very easy to get attracted to other women. Some men have said that marriage actually made that more of a temptation, perhaps especially if you’re a Christian man who saved yourself for marriage, liked what you got, and then wonder about other women.

So in this case, marriage does take hard work. One has to consistently cultivate their relationship. If the grass on the other side of the fence looks greener, take care of your own lawn better.

This sounds negative, but let’s get another reality.

It’s worth it.

It really is.

Benefits are nice. Getting to experience sex is something awesome and having someone to sleep next to at night is a gift, but overall, it’s more a lifetime of having someone you can share hopes and dreams and sorrows and pains with. It’s simple joys of sharing meals together and watching Netflix together in the evening. It’s driving together and holding hands. It’s a deep commitment that transcends temporary feelings and emotions. That is true love. Love is not doing good when you feel like it. Love is doing good even if you feel annoyance and such at the time.

Marriage is worth it.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

How Far Is Too Far When Dating?

Is there a place to draw the line? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I host a men’s group on Facebook for Christian men who are married, engaged, dating, or hoping to date and marry called “As Christ Loved The Church.” I had someone last night ask about oral sex. Is that going too far if someone has oral sex with their girlfriend?

Fortunately, the consensus seems to be yes. Naturally, that is one that I agree with. A good rule of thumb I gave the person in private conversation is to not share anything that would go beyond what a swimsuit would cover. Some people might want even less and I respect that decision if that’s what you think. I definitely think that you should be careful if you’re not doing something like swimming together.

If you ask where I draw the line, it’s with kissing. I think it’s good for a dating couple to kiss. There are some who want to save that for the altar, but I think doing that can make it too difficult to move straight from being able to kiss to being able to have total sex together.

One reason to stop there is because temptation beyond that is way too powerful. Once clothes start coming off, it’s really hard to put the brakes on at that point. (That’s another reason if you have a swim date together, make sure it’s a public place, like your local YMCA) If you spend time alone, make sure it’s a place that anyone can walk in. When I was dating Allie, while we were in the basement area of her parents’ house for the most part where her bedroom was, we also knew the door was open and anyone could come down at any time. This helps put the brakes on temptation.

Ideally, as I told this guy, it should be the first time you see your girlfriend naked, or any woman naked for that matter, is on your wedding night. For the latter part of any woman, few guys will be able to say that that will be them even if they avoided watching pornography. It can pop up in a movie or anything these days and even those who make it a practice to avoid porn can still get pop-ups from time to time.

There is nothing like seeing the body of the person you love and when you are married, there will be times you see that body and don’t get to do the deed as it were. That’s when you have to practice self-control. Generally, you’ll have to have it in marriage because there are other things you’ll be doing in married life besides having sex together. Some couples are surprised that there are other things you’re doing on the honeymoon besides having sex together but, yes, yes there are.

So what happens if you make a mistake? Well, you made a mistake. It doesn’t mean you have to end the relationship, but it does mean you need to agree together to not repeat this mistake again. Falling in mud is an accident, but if you stay in it and roll around in it, that’s another problem. It’s not to say you won’t be tempted. Actually, if you’re not tempted with sexual sin with the person you’re with, you could say there’s a problem. You are going to want to be with them. Anticipation is very sweet.

Overall, remember it’s possible to love the person you’re with in a dating relationship without having sex or doing anything remotely sexual. If you’re unsure, it’s probably best to not do it until you check and talk to some wiser people who have been there. You want to go into your marriage with as little regret as possible, but if you make a mistake, have grace, since God has that for you.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

 

The Sacredness Of The Human Body

What is it about the body that is sacred? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Yesterday, I found myself on Facebook in a discussion about pornography. Why was I against it? Talking to atheists in this one, I decided to not just quote Scripture left and right, but to accept real evidence that I thought would be more convincing.

I spoke about how pornography ultimately treats women as objects. (I know there is porn the other way, so just alter the figures as needed) They are there to fulfill a sexual need and that is it. There is no more beyond that. Such a position is degrading to the female and if you degrade one woman, you have degraded all of them.

Later last night, I read about a resort called Temptation that is pretty much a millennial sex orgy. While there is supposed to be no public sex there and no is supposed to mean no, I’m quite sure that at least the first rule is violated several times. The sad thing is, this article was written by a married woman who said while she wasn’t going to be sleeping with other guys, she was happily letting it all go there.

I found it ultimately saddening, as if the human body is simply a display object. For myself, I like knowing that there is something of the body that is reserved for me only by my wife and vice-versa. This isn’t talking about you just going to the gym and if you’re with other men or other women, being undressed around them. After all, unless they’re gay, that’s not an issue for them. This is about things reserved for you and your spouse alone.

I really do think this is something that women especially have to face. After all, even most women would say the female body is objectively far more beautiful than the male is, and that’s even if they’re fully straight women. Women were just made to be beautiful and many women are constantly comparing themselves with other women to see if they have that beauty.

By the way women, just a little tip. What you are so obsessed with, we are not obsessed with. If you are married to a good man, he has no objections to you doing things to beautify yourself more, but he also loves you just the way you are. If anything, he wants you to live like you believe that.

Which gets me back to my objection to pornography. I object to the female body being put on display as an object just to arouse men. Now let me be straight forward and say the human female body does arouse men. I was listening to a news story about Notre Dame burning and how it was the building as it was before the fire was the most beautiful sight someone had ever seen. My thought was, “I am sure it is a beautiful sight, but it sure can’t compare to Allie.”

I definitely mean that. Why? Well, Notre Dame, as beautiful as it was, and hopefully will be again, was still built by man. It can’t compare with a design that was originally made by God. As I sit here typing, I see a picture of my wife here next to me and I look over with amazement. I never truly knew what beauty was until I saw her.

If I am sitting on the couch minding my own business and she tells me she’s going to go take a shower, my ears perk up immediately. If there’s anything that can get me to stop what I’m doing, it’s the affection of my wife. It has been a huge motivator for me to get me to stop doing things I shouldn’t be doing and start doing things that I should be doing.

So yes, I am not at all about to deny that the human female body has that function on us men.

The difference is that we who are happily married men should know that that is not just a human female body. That is a person. There’s an adage for married men that says sex begins at breakfast. No. It doesn’t mean you hoist her on to the breakfast table and get your game on. (Not that many of us would object if she was willing) It means that you start being romantic in the morning and that will increase the odds of her being romantic in the evening.

Pornography removes all of that. There is no romance truly in porn. The story of a movie might have some romance, but the man watching to get his stimulation needs to make no requirement. He does not have to romance a woman. He does not have to treat her with dignity. He’s just seeing a body. That’s all that matters.

Not only that, there are likely some in the porn industry who are there because of sex trafficking. Someone watching porn could unknowingly be supporting sex trafficking then. This is especially relevant for those in the atheistic crowd who want to decry slavery in the Bible so much.

There’s also the case that if you watch movies and TV, most of us know that any sex that takes place there is nothing like it is in real life. Porn will go way beyond that to even more unrealistic ideas. That’s why many women today can struggle with their lovers wanting more and more extreme behavior. I’m also convinced this is why many young men struggle with conditions like erectile dysfunction. They have got so used to fake women that a real woman can’t turn them on anymore.

Guys. If you are struggling with this habit, I really encourage you to go and get help immediately. You are not preparing yourself for a future sex life if you’re still a virgin. You’re doing great damage to your future sex life. If you are not planning to marry, you’re still lowering women everywhere. If you are married, find pleasure in your own wife. You don’t need to look elsewhere for sexual fulfillment.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

My Wife And Emotional Commitment

What does it mean to connect? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I hate to tell you all this, but I am not the husband I should be being. If you watched on Facebook and wondered why I stopped posting to my wife, it’s not because my love died for her one bit, but it’s because it seemed to be more of a show to her and the substance behind the scenes wasn’t all I thought it should be. As it turns out, she hasn’t felt emotionally connected for years and it has been heartbreaking to realize this.

Allie had a hard day yesterday and when we went to bed, we prayed and then we just started talking. Allie takes medications at night and one purpose of one medication is to help her sleep. Because of that, we don’t do anything that will go against that, so that means that once she takes her medicine, nothing sexual will happen. That is then off the table.

So what did we do? We found ourselves just talking. Allie goes to bed early and we went to bed at 8:30. I normally stay up and do some work after that. While I do value that time, tonight, I got a lot more.

As a man, I can too often be pushing for sexual fulfillment way too much. Allie insists I need to wait and let her come to me, but I sadly have a tendency to be boneheaded and not listen. When it was off the table, I found I got something incredibly fulfilling in just talking together. That doesn’t mean I didn’t from time to time give a hug or a kiss, but it was something simple, something that could have been done while we were just dating.

I found my wife amazing in so many ways. She is really one of the strongest women I know if not the strongest. She recently shared on her Instagram a picture called Healer’s Journey. Take a look for yourself.

This is my wife. No matter what pain she is going through, she has care for so many people who come to her, much more than I do. The reality is many of you don’t know what goes on with her. Inside her head every day it is a battle. Every day she has the hardest voices tearing her apart. She resists temptations so much that you and I never really can think about.

Sadly, she takes upon herself the weight of the world often and when she sees people around her in pain, she feels personally responsible. She feels used to being neglected and abandoned and alone and sadly, I fear I have treated her the same way at times unintentionally. Many of you don’t really know what is going on inside of her, but rest assured when she is giving to you, she is often in a place of pain herself.

She lives with a constant perfectionism for instance inside of her and never thinks she’s good enough. This can affect her Christian walk as every sin seems to be unacceptable. In a sense it is, but she does have a struggle with grace. Still, when I see her hungering for God so much and praying for more of Him, I can often think there is something missing in me. It’s easy for me to just come to God with my list of the things I want. Allie is different. She truly wants to come to the table just for the one seated at the table.

This is causing me to look at my own prayer life differently and my own Christian walk. Seeing the way I have unintentionally mistreated her over the years is causing me to look at how others are and have more grace and mercy. Some things Allie has said to me lately would normally get me in anger immediately, but they haven’t been. I’ve had to look at myself a lot more.

I’ve told her that lately, she has given me a great gift. She has given me the opportunity to humble myself. I stress the opportunity aspect because she can’t humble me like that. Humility has to be an act on my own part. I can assure any reader that I take no delight in any sort of self-humiliation on my part here, but I do take delight in getting to tell you more about her.

The thing about her is she really cares. I am convinced that one day she will be a beacon of hope to so many people. I have apologetics and it’s good to answer questions and they need to be answered, but she has a story and I think a story will connect a whole lot more for many other people. She has a story that it will be very hard to argue against.

So today, I want to give this as a tribute to the woman I love so much, my Princess Allie Peters. This is a woman who is giving me an opportunity to have a deeper walk with Christ and take a look at myself and sacrifice my own pride for a greater cause. This is a woman who makes me want to be a better Christian just by being herself. This is a woman who still loves me for some odd reason though I have done much to not deserve it. Her love is a gift that I could never earn, but like I plan to do with God’s love, may I spend the rest of my life showing how much it means to me.

Love you, Princess. Thank God for what you are being used to do in my life and thank you for your willingness to be used by God.

In Christ,
Nick Peters