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Mohler: Marriage’s ‘biblical theology’ vital in ‘sex-saturated culture’

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WAKE FOREST, N.C. (BP)–In a culture that has grossly perverted God’s ideals of sex and marriage, the church of the Lord Jesus Christ must champion these gifts according to God’s revealed plan, R. Albert Mohler Jr. said in a two-day lecture series at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., was the featured speaker in the Feb. 8-9 Carver-Barnes Lecture on Southeastern’s Wake Forest, N.C., campus. The lecture series recognizes W.O. Carver and W.W. Barnes for their outstanding contributions to theological education and deals with topics related to the history and mission of the church.

Mohler’s lectures took on such salient cultural topics as homosexuality, pornography and sexuality within marriage. His two addresses were augmented by a Tuesday evening session in which he met with male college and seminary students for a frank discussion about pornography and Christian sexual ethics, followed by a brief question-and-answer session.

In seeking to develop a “comprehensive understanding of a biblical theology of marriage,” Mohler began in Genesis 2 and outlined four characteristics of marriage: partnership, protection, procreation and pleasure. The problem, Mohler noted, comes when society pursues sexual pleasure without the other three characteristics within the marriage relationship.

“We are in the midst of a sex-saturated culture,” Mohler said. “Sex, which was God’s perfect gift, has now become a magnet for perversity, and sexuality, once set loose, becomes an acid that eats away at culture itself…. Every single problem regarding human sexuality is a problem because it is not the right use of God’s gifs within the covenant of marriage.”

One form of sexual perversion into which society is “rushing headlong” is homosexuality, Mohler said.

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“It is one of the most pressing pastoral issues you will face,” he said, adding that “nothing less than the credibility of the Christian church is at stake” in the way it responds to the crisis.

“The most appropriate way for us to think about this is to ask what kind of people we must be to be up to a challenge like this,” Mohler said.

The answer, he said, is for Christians to be people of God’s Word, to take its position in reference to the sin of homosexuality and to humbly show love to those mired in a homosexual lifestyle while extending to them the Gospel of Christ.

Christians, if seen as finite people, are not qualified to give their opinion on the topic of homosexuality, Mohler said. However, as people who have been entrusted with the infallible revelation of God, believers may take their stand confidently and firmly.

“If you take away the Bible, we have nothing to say,” Mohler said. “We’re not smart enough for this. We’re not clever enough for this. If we pool all our wisdom together, we’ve got nothing much to say. But it’s not our wisdom that we use; it’s God’s wisdom. We know what we otherwise would not know because God has revealed Himself to us, and not only is the ‘what’ revealed in Scripture, but also the ‘why.’ We are told that this [standard] is for our good and for the glory of God.”

Mohler concluded by reminding students that every person has sinned sexually, whether in thought or action. For that reason, Christians should adorn themselves with a humble disposition when talking to those ensnared in homosexuality or any other sexual sin.

“We are all sexual sinners speaking to sexual sinners,” Mohler reminded. “There is not one of us who will not have to be shown on the day of judgment where we have failed, and if we have avoided anything, it is by God’s grace, even in restraining us from ourselves and our impulses. The only difference is we are sexual sinners saved by grace. We must be a people with a theology adequate to explain Christ’s victory over sin, even sexual sin.”
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