Are you a Prude?

Ephesians 5:3-12

Are Christians called to the life of a prude?  Before you answer, it may be wise to examine or define the meaning of the word prude: “somebody who is easily shocked by sex or nudity and who pays a great deal of attention to proper social behavior.”  My wife has been called a prude and thanked the person for the complement.  It matters not my opinion of the question above, but has God said anything on the subject?  If He has, and it does not agree with the way you think, talk, or act, you have a serious problem of disobedience.  Verses 3,4, give us this insight about our Lord’s requirements, and they are not a suggestion; “But sexual immorality and all impurity orf covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints.  Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving.”  I will not attempt to answer the question for you, but it does seem clear that many of us in the church will not be called prudes.

This verse has dominated my thought life as of late; “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.  I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” (John 10:10)  In one statement Jesus said this, and we the church have missed the meaning; life on this earth is going to be a war, two opposing forces, one evil and the other good, and there is no middle ground.  Many of us and I used the word us, have tried to not offend those who are non-Christians, and by doing so have lost our salt, and have no light to shine, we are deemed religious and the non-Christians see nothing appealing in our lives.

The apostle Peter calls us who are in Christ a holy people in 1 Peter 2:4-5, “As you come to him, a living stone (Jesus) rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual sacrifice acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”  Peter did not stop he also told us that we were engaging a war against our soul in verse 11.  The battle is love God or to be in love with the world, and to our shame we have believed a lie, that we could do both.  The apostle John states in 1John 2:15-17, mans inability to do that.  Verse 16, “For all that is in the world – the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions – is not from the Father but is from the world.”  James calls us adulterous people, that we would believe that we could have friendship with the world, and goes on to say we are an enemy of God.  If you are loved by the world, if the religious and the non-Christian speak well of you, it is time to take serious inventory.  Jesus said in John 15:18, “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.” 

You and I were called to standout in our neighborhoods, to let God renew our minds and not to conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, to live before God and men as a holy people.

From the Back Porch,

Bob