Answers to the 10 questions from kids

Here’s how I answered the questions put to me by five and six year olds at church last week.

General stuff about the building:

1. Why do churches look like castles?
Because, when you build with stone you need to shape the windows and strengthen the walls using the same sort of shapes.

2. Why do churches have stained glass windows?
Because, when not everyone could read, pictures were used to tell bible stories, to help people learn about Jesus.

3. How old is this church?
165 years old.

4. Who built it?
A local industrialist.

5. Why are churches so big?
So that everyone who wants to hear about Jesus can fit in.

6. Why do churches have towers?
For bells, to remind people that the church meeting is starting.

7. Why do church towers have clocks?
Because, when people didn’t have watches, the factory owners would make their clocks run slowly to get more work out their employees. Church clocks helped workers know that their bosses were not cheating them.

More theological stuff:

1. Why do you use holy water?
We use water for baptism, but the water is not special, it’s just like having a bath. Baptism is a symbol of dying with Jesus to our sin and being raised to new life with him.

2. Why do you eat bread and wine?
Jesus told us to, so we could remember his death on the cross for our sin.

3. Why do you tell people about Jesus?
Because he told all Christians to and it’s really important that people know that they can have their sins forgiven and live with Jesus forever.

4. How old is this church?
I’ve answered that already. You tell me.

5. Do all people have one God?
God made the world and everyone in it, so in that sense, yes.

One of the grown ups asked a question for the kids:

1. What is the bible?
A collection of 66 books, written over 1500 years, by lots of different people, which together tell the story of God’s work in the world, who God is and how we can know him.

And, oh yes, “how old is this church?”
You tell me!

Assurance of faith and assurance of sense

I posted yesterday on baptism as “an outward sign of an external reality.” This extract from Joel Beeke’s introduction to the Beauties of Ebenezer Erskine really helpfully distinguishes between the assurance of faith and the assurance of sense. On what basis should people be baptised? The assurance of faith, which has it’s object in Christ, or the assurance of faith and sense, when the candidate for baptism feels that they trust Christ?

Paedobaptists will baptise children based on the assurance of faith, because children rightly taught the gospel will understand that their baptism points outside of them to the cross and the empty tomb. Anti-paedobaptists, I believe, will only baptise people on the assurance of sense, when people feel that they believe in Christ and can make a conscious decision based on this feeling of being saved. This is what is meant by the saying “baptism is an outward sign of an inward reality.”

If baptism is an outward sign of an external reality, we’ll baptise all those who can say “I am sure of my salvation because Jesus died for my sin” whether they feel it or not, as Erskine writes, the assurance of sense is not necessary for salvation but for comfort.

11. Assurance and the Promises

Proper self-examination helps the believer grow in assurance
and sanctification. The Erskines differentiated between the assurance of faith that rests in the promises of God and the assurance of sense, or feeling, that rests in inward evidences of God’s grace. The former works justification; the latter, consolation. By assurance of faith, we receive Christ as ours; by assurance of sense, we know Him to be ours. Assurance of faith says, “I am sure because God says it,” while assurance of sense says, “I am sure because I feel it.”

Ralph Erskine said that every believer must experience some assurance of faith but that not every believer has assurance of sense (3:28-29, 348; 4:184). In his famous sermon “The Assurance of Faith,” Ebenezer Erskine said,

There is a great difference betwixt the assurance of faith, and the assurance of sense, which follows upon faith. The assurance of faith is a direct, but the assurance of sense is a reflex act of the soul. The assurance of faith hath its object and foundation from without, but that of sense has them within. The object of the assurance of faith is a Christ revealed, promised, and offered in the word; the object of the assurance of sense is a Christ formed within us by the Holy Spirit. The assurance of faith is the cause, that of sense is the effect; the first is the root, and the other is the fruit. The assurance of faith eyes the promise in its stability, flowing from the veracity of the promiser; the assurance of sense, it eyes the promise in its actual accomplishinent. By the assurance of faith, Abraham believed that he should have a son in his old age, because God who cannot lie had promised; but by the assurance of sense, he believed it when he got Isaac in his arms (1:254).

Assurance of sense, experiential piety, sanctification, and communion with God were highly treasured by the Erskines. Ralph Erskine spoke of “experimental sense and feeling” as a foretaste of heaven and an important means of glorifying God on earth. But he also warned against making the assurance of sense and experimental feelings the ground of faith, saying, “They are ebbing and flowing, up and down, it may be twenty times, in the space of one sermon; and your faith that is built thereupon, will be up and down therewith” (5:35). If we depend on our feelings rather than upon God’s promises, the water in our cistern will soon be used up, Ebenezer Erskine said.

Baptism, an outward sign of what?

There’s a phrase describing baptism which is used by lots of evangelicals:

“baptism is an outward sign of an internal reality.”

In other words, baptism is a signpost to the believer and to other believers that the person being baptised has experienced faith in Jesus.  But this is only half the truth. Baptism first points people to Christ, as:

“baptism is an outward sign of an external reality.”

The sign of baptism does not first point us inwards to a sense of faith but first outwards to the object of faith, who is Christ crucified and resurrected. 

I teach my baptised children about their baptism and do not ask “does your baptism help you feel saved” but “remember, your baptism points you to Jesus who died for your sin and that you must die with him (Romans 6:3) and to his empty tomb, and that you should live a resurrected new life in him (Romans 6:4-5).” As I teach teach them this, I pray that the Holy Spirit will grow their sense, or feeling, their experience, of faith in Christ.

Baptism is a means of God’s grace which strengthens faith in Christ, when we are taught that he is the object of our baptism. The internal reality follows the external reality.

If paedobaptists and anti-paedobaptists could agree on this, then we might work much better together.  Christ is the the thing signified in baptism, not our sense of faith in him.

10 questions for the vicar from 6 year olds

I had a bunch of five and six year old kids from our church school on a visit to the church on Thursday last week. The idea was, they’d ask me questions and I’d try to answer.

I started by clearing up the meaning of the word “church”. The church being the gathering of God’s people, who love Jesus as their Saviour and so love each other.

The questions the kids asked me follow.  I’ll blog the answers I gave them on Thursday. Any suggestions of how I might have answered them are welcome.

General stuff about the building:

1. Why do churches look like castles?
2. Why do churches have stained glass windows?
3. How old is this church?
4. Who built it?
5. Why are churches so big?
6. Why do churches have towers?
7. Why do church towers have clocks?

More theological stuff:

1. Why do you use holy water?
2. Why do you eat bread and wine?
3. Why do you tell people about Jesus?
4. How old is this church?
5. Do all people have one God?

One of the grown ups asked a question for the kids:

1. What is the bible?

And, oh yes, “how old is this church?”

Answers, please, on the back of a postcard.

Jesus, divorce and remarriage.

In my last two posts I have set out the way someone who is divorced might “remarry” (make Christian promises to another believing Christian) at Holy Trinity. In this post I’ll set out the teaching of Jesus from Mark’s gospel chapters 9:42 – 10:34 which underlies this practice. In these chapters the over-riding concern of Jesus is the kingdom of God and how sinners (those who break God’s law) get there.

In Mark 9:42 -10:34, Jesus teaches different groups of people in five different settings. These settings all work together like scenes in a film. Each scene adds to the plot and we only make sense of all five when we get to the last scene.

Jesus starts by teaching his disciples about the seriousness of sin and the reality of hell. His teaching here is quite disturbing. It is meant to be. Jesus says “it would be better to cut off your hand, foot or gouge out your eyes, if they caused you to sin” because if you sin you cannot enter the Kingdom of God. And, if you can’t enter the Kingdom of God then the alternative is hell and no one wants to go there.

In the next scene, the religious teachers of Jesus’ day try to trick him. They ask if divorce is allowed by the law. Jesus replies with a question, asking the religious teachers what Moses taught. Now, Moses taught two things. When the people of Israel first escaped from Egypt by God’s power and might, God gave Moses the ten commandments where God says clearly, “do not commit adultery”. But, God’s people made an instant mess of things by disobeying the first and second commandments “I am the Lord your God you shall not worship any other gods or make idols”. So, God disciplined them by making them spend 40 years in the wilderness. At the end of their 40 years of wandering, Moses taught them second law, and in Deuteronomy 24.1, he said that a man is allowed to divorce his wife. This was a relaxation of God’s commandments.

In answer to Jesus’ question, the religious leaders quoted the second law. In practice, at that time, they supported a liberal attitude to marriage and divorce. But Jesus gave the religious leaders an answer to their question that they did not want to hear; “Moses allowed you to divorce because your hearts are hard.” According to Jesus, people divorce because they are hard hearted. Hard hearts lead to uncaring, sinful behaviour, which leads to marriage breakdown.

Jesus then reminded the religious leaders that God’s standard for marriage which is one man and one woman for life, quoted from Genesis 2. And then, when he was alone with his disciples, Jesus told them that anyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her. Adultery is breaking God’s first law, and breaking the law is sin. Anyone who has had more than one marriage partner is an adulterer in God’s eyes according to the law and Jesus says that they cannot enter the kingdom of God, he or she will end up in hell. The answer to the Pharisees question, “is it lawful”, is “no it is not lawful.”

At this point, church tradition has held that remarriage is sinful, a breach of God’s law, and therefore no-one should remarry. The problem with this ruling is that we need to go on reading Mark’s gospel. We’ve not reached the end of the film. What Jesus teaches his disciples after his discussion with the religious leaders was not really about divorce per se, but about the law and how people get into the Kingdom of God. The religious leaders were strict on religious laws, like having clean hands and following religious traditions, as they thought that by doing these circus tricks that God would accept them into his kingdom. But the religious teachers were relaxed about some moral laws, because they couldn’t keep them. As Jesus said, their hearts were hard. They thought they would get into God’s kingdom, but they couldn’t get there by keeping the law, as Jesus goes onto teach on the next few scenes.

In this next scene, Jesus gives his disciples a furious telling off. He was indignant because his disciples were stopping kids from coming to him. Jesus said “to such as these belongs the Kingdom of God” and “you must receive the Kingdom of God like a child or you will not enter it.”

Here’s the contrast between the religious teachers and Jesus. For the Pharisees, life is all about laws. Do this and you’ll get into the Kingdom of God, don’t to that or you’ll go to hell. Jesus says the kingdom of God is a gift which is received with soft, child-like hearts full of the grace of God and love for Jesus, trust in him and obedience to him.

Jesus makes a second point in this scene; Christian ministers, who are disciples of Christ, or any other disciple of Christ for that matter, must never stop people from coming to Jesus by making up rules. Telling people that their past sin stops them from remarrying because it their past makes them adulterer in the present, is legalistic and so puts obstacles in the way of people coming to Jesus.

And, this is still not the end of the story. Christians are not to condone sin but resist it. A divorcee, or anyone with a second sexual partner, is committing adultery and therefore cannot enter the kingdom of God and will go to hell. So, what are we to do?

In the next scene, a rich young man runs up to Jesus, desperate to know what he must do to inherit eternal life. He knows Jesus has the answer.

Jesus tells him that the 10 commandments still stand. The law of God given in Exodus is the way God wants us to live. The man says he has kept all these laws. So Jesus loves him and says, “good going Son, now, go and do some more good; sell all your stuff and give the money to the poor.”

The point Jesus is making here is that it is not possible to do anything to enter the Kingdom of God, because God’s standards are unattainable. God is so holy, so righteous, so self-less, so loving, so kind, that we can never match his standards and so it is impossible to get into the kingdom of God by doing good. It is easier for a camel (the biggest animal in the middle east to go through the eye of a needle (the smallest physical hole in the middle east), than it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. The disciples can’t take this in, “how can anyone be saved from hell, Jesus? Tell us!”

Jesus’ reply is amazing. It is truly good news. He says it is not possible to enter the kingdom of God by keeping the law, but it is possible for God to get people to heaven. And we get there by following Jesus. His disciples were following him and he said, “you’ll get to the kingdom by following me.”

How do people follow Jesus? How does God make it possible for people to receive eternal life like little children? The answer is in verses 32-34. Jesus said: Mark 10:33-34

“See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles. And they will mock him and spit on him, and flog him and kill him. And after three days he will rise.”

Jesus knew what his mission was. The final scene of our film reveals the plot. He was going to die for our sin, which is breaking the law, including the law on adultery, and rise again. He is the way to the Kingdom of God. He died to take away the sins of the world. And following Jesus means looking at him as Saviour, just believing that he is the one who saves us from hell, the one who opens the kingdom of God for all sinners. And following him means listening to his teaching, living for the sake of others not for ourselves. It means keeping God’s ten commandments and doing much more, not in order to get to heaven but because we’re going the way of Jesus, to the cross.

The great news of the death of Jesus for sin is that anyone who comes to him for the first time has all his or her sin cleansed, forgiven, washed away, nailed to the cross. Those who follow Christ cannot be adulterers because he has made them brand new. God makes people new, gives us a fresh start, wipes the slate clean, every morning. And, that is why I will “marry” some divorcees after a divorce if they have received the Kingdom of God like a child and now follow Christ with their heart.

2 Corinthians 5:17-21 if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. 18 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. 20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Changing Church of England policy on divorce

I said yesterday that attitudes to Christian marriage have ebbed and flowed as times changed over the last two thousand years.

How have things changed?
In the early Christian era, marriage was largely a private matter, where consenting adults committed to be faithful to each other.

The roots of modern marriage ceremonies:
The Catholic Church introduced the need for a priest and two witnesses at a marriage in 1545. The Reformation brought the State into the arrangement, making marriage something which was both legal and ceremonial. In Britain, the marriage act of 1753 required a formal ceremony, to outlaw fleet marriages, requiring Banns and licenses for weddings to take place. This was the uniform practice of the country until recently.

We live in a time of transition.
The uniform tradition that almost everyone got married in their parish church, in white, according to Banns has passed and a new approach is emerging. Today, couples co-habit, marry in various locations, including overseas. There are Sikh, Hindu, Muslim, Humanist, Jewish, civil and Christian marriages.

What happened in the Church of England since the 1960s.

Since the 1960s, many ministers would quietly marry close friends or members of church or community who had been divorced. In 2002, the General Synod of the Church of England passed a motion formalising this practice. Since then, ministers in the church have been seeking to find a best practice in this very complex pastoral issue as the door was opened for all people to approach the church for remarriage.

For reasons which are not clear, the members of synod passed a motion to allow the remarriage of divorcees in exceptional circumstances. To ensure these exceptional circumstances were met, ministers were required by synod to interview couples in depth and pass a judgement on their suitability for marriage.

It was said by many at the time of this motion that this practice would be pastorally disastrous, and this has proved to be the case. There are many reported instances of ministers seeking to follow the General Synod’s guidelines, making judgements on couples which, in the eyes of community around the church, were naïve, divisive and simplistic. Church witness can be destroyed by ministers acting as judge. Indeed, Jesus teaches against this (Matthew 7:1ff, Romans 2:1ff)

Given the failure of the first two options, the only other apparent option is to marry everyone. This has its own problems as no standards can be applied. When Christian ministers marry everyone, some marriages will undermine God’s teaching in the bible. For example, the man on his fourth marriage, where his new wife is the woman he had an affair with which ended his third marriage, and he shows now sign of repentance or comprehension that what he is doing is against God’s law.

In short, none of these three options works pastorally. This is why it is important to separate marriage in the eyes of the government and marriage according to the teaching of the bible. By taking off the hat of the civil registrar and only offering to wear the hat of the Christian minister, I make the choice they face “Christian commitment or non-Christian” rather than “married or not married”.

I teach couples what Jesus teaches on divorce and remarriage, and what it means to follow him as husband and wife. I then ask the couple what they want to do. Do you want to follow Jesus in your life and marriage? If so, we can proceed with a Christian service of commitment apart from the civil registration. Thus, the couple’s choice is made clear because it is not confused by the legal aspect of marriage and I don’t need to act as judge.

Tomorrow I’ll post a study on Mark 9:42 to 10:34 which gives the biblical background to why some divorcees can marry.

How divorcees can “remarry” at Holy Trinity

Can divorcees remarry in church? The answer is, yes and no. I am starting a series of blog posts today in which I’ll explain how and why I will “marry” some divorcees at Holy Trinity.

Attitudes to Christian marriage have ebbed and flowed as times changed over the last two thousand years. We are living in a time of change and, as with all change, it is a cause of pain for some people, because we don’t like change.

For 250 years, England had a set pattern for weddings where most people got married in their parish church, in white, according to Banns. But this age has passed and a new approach to marriage is emerging. Today, couples co-habit, marry in various locations, including overseas (and sometimes underwater). There are Sikh, Hindu, Muslim, Humanist, Jewish, civil and Christian marriages. Added to this, almost half of marriages end in divorce and most divorcees seek to remarry.

As a minister in the Church of England I wear two hats at weddings. I am both a civil registrar (legalising marriage in the eyes of the government) and a Christian minister (helping couples to make promises to each other according to the teaching of the bible).

At this present time, I believe that offering a Christian service of commitment (“marriage”) without me acting as civil registrar provides the best practice for the remarriage of divorcees. I take off my civil registrar’s hat and wear only my Christian minister’s hat. This means a couple where one or both partners is divorced needs to go to the civil registrar to ask to be “married” according to the law. And, if you are truly seeking to follow Christ in your relationship, I will enable you to make vows of Christian commitment, exchange rings and so on, according to the teaching of the bible on marriage.

In the case of first marriages, every couple in my parish has a legal right to ask me to marry them. They do not have to be baptised, they do not have to be professing Christians. I’ll outline the history of this fusion, and confusion, of church and state in a later post.

When it comes to divorcees, there is no legal right to marry in the Church of England. Until 2002, no divorcees were officially allowed to marry in the church and since then the decision to marry any divorcee has fallen to the local vicar.

If you live in the parish of Holy Trinity, are divorced, want to remarry and are open to exploring what is different about Christian marriage, please contact me.

Neil Robbie

Antinomian, neonomian or pure gospel?

As a lapsed neonomian and a Scotsman, this extract from Joel Beeke’s introduction to The Beauties of Ebenezer Erskine, has given me the appetite to read on.

Beeke writes:

The beauties of Ebernezer Erkine offers the best portions of his sermons…Read this book as an act of worship. Read it with the goal of being elevated into the great truths of God…I would suggest that you see it as a daily devotional…

Beeke’s summary of the Marrow Controversy, which caused the Erskine brothers and others to be kicked out of the Church of Scotland, shows just how easy it is to mix the law and the gospel. Do sinners need to turn from specific sin before receiving Christ? That was the heart of the controversy.

The Marrow Controversy

The first major trial, which became known as the Marrow Controversy, stirred the Scottish Church from 1717 to 1723. The controversy centered on the Auchterarder creed. In 1717, William Craig, a divinity student, complained to the General Assembly about one of the propositions that the Presbytery of Auchterarder required all candidates for ordination to sign. The proposition, intended as a guard against preparationism, read: “I believe that it is not sound and orthodox to teach that we must forsake sin in order to our coming to Christ, and instating us in covenant with God.” The Assembly sided with Craig, declaring the proposition to be “unsound and most detestable.” It also said the statement tended to “encourage sloth in Christians and slacken people’s obligation to gospel holiness.”

The Assembly’s commission somewhat softened the harshness of the General Assembly’s pronouncement by stating in its report to the 1718 Assembly that the Presbytery was sound and orthodox in its intent, though the word choice was “unwarrantable” and should not to be used again. In the context of that debate, Thomas Boston told John Drummond of Crieff that he had received aid years ago on the disputed issue from a relatively unknown book titled The Marrow of Modern Divinity, written in 1645 by a certain Edward Fisher, who was probably a Presbyterian from London. Drummond mentioned the book to James Webster of Edinburgh, who told James Hog of Carnock about it. Hog wrote a preface for a reprinting of the book in 1718.

Fisher’s book largely reflected the orthodox Reformed thought of its time, despite some Amyraldian overtones. It emphasized an offer of immediate salvation to sinners who looked to Christ in faith. This view was avidly supported by Boston and the Erskines, leaders among the Church’s evangelical minority. Fisher’s emphasis, however, raised the opposition of the controlling party of the Church, which contained many “neonomians” who held that the gospel is a “new law” (neonomos), replacing the Old Testament law with the legal conditions of faith and repentance that must be met before salvation can be offered. These neonomians, who became known as the Moderates, maintained the necessity of forsaking sin before Christ could be received, whereas the Erskines and their evangelical friends said that only union with Christ could empower a sinner to truly forsake sin from the heart.

The Moderates considered a call to immediate trust in Christ and to assurance of faith to be dangerously antinomian (anti=against; nomus=law). An antinomian believes that the law of God is no longer the believer’s rule of life.

I intend to read the sermons and blog extracts…

Hug a liberal?

How many evangelicals would hug a liberal? I don’t mean literally. Paul tells Titus to “rebuke them [the circumcision party] sharply, that they may be sound in the faith” [Titus 1:13] and it is easy to take that as a warrant to kick a liberal, argue with him or get into politicking. But in his letter to Titus, Paul first describes the necessary qualities of anyone who seeks to rebuke others:

Titus 1:7-9 For an overseer, as God’s steward, must be above reproach. He must not be arrogant or quick-tempered or a drunkard or violent or greedy for gain, but hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined. He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it.

John Piper retells the amazing conversion of a liberal minister under the influence of John Newton’s teaching and godly example:

Another instance of remarkable patience and tenderness was toward Thomas Scott, who was a liberal, “nearly…Socinian” clergyman in Ravenstone, a neighbouring parish. Scott made jest of of Newton’s evangelical convictions. He looked upon Newton’s religious sentiments as “rank fanaticism” and found his theology unintelligible. “Once I had the curiosity to hear Newton preach; and, not understanding his sermon, I made very great jest of it, where I could do it without giving offense. I had also read one of his publications; but, for the same reason, I thought the greater part of it whimsical, paradoxical, and unintelligible.”

But things were soon to change. Gospel-driven love triumphed over liberalism and turned Scott into a strong evangelical preacher. The turning point came when Scott was shamed by Newton’s pastoral care for two of his own parishioners whom he had neglected.

In January, 1774 two of my parishioners, a man and his wife, lay at the point of death. I had heard of the circumstance; but, according to my general custom, not being sent for, I took no notice of it: till, one evening, the woman being now dead, and the man dying, I heard that my neighbor Mr. Newton had been several times to visit them. Immediately my conscience reproached me with being shamefully negligent, in sitting at home within a few doors of dying persons, my general hearers, and never going to visit them. Directly it occurred to me, that, whatever contempt I might have for Mr. Newton’ s doctrines, I must acknowledge his practice to be more consistent with the ministerial character than my own.

Scott and Newton exchanged about ten letters between May and December 1775. Scott was impressed with how friendly Newton was, even when Scott was very provocative. Newton “shunned everything controversial as much as possible, and filled his letters with the most useful and least offensive instructions.” After a lull in their correspondence from December 1775 to April 1777, Scott came into “discouraging circumstances” and chose to call on the tenderhearted evangelical. “His discourse so comforted and edified me, that my heart, being by this means relieved from its burden, became susceptible of affection for him.” This affectionate relationship led Scott into the full experience of saving grace and evangelical truth. He became the pastor at Olney when Newton was called to London and wrote a distinctly evangelical book, “The Force of Truth” and was among William Wilberforce’s favourite preachers. Such were the persons and fruit of Newton’s habitual tenderness.

Taken from Roots of Endurance by John Piper.

Porn open season

Has anyone else noticed that the Christian press is writing openly and decisively about the problem of pornography? Christianity magazine ran an article titled Gagged and Bound in its February edition, asking why churches are silent on something which is crippling Christian witness. The current edition of The Briefing has two articles on purity in the age of porn. I’ve written my own blog post For men only:  overcoming porn use.  Richard Perkins has reviewed Mark Driscoll’s Porn Again Christian on his blog Food4Thought. Indeed, Driscoll may have been the one to break the silence.

It has been over a decade since the internet made porn freely, widely, secretly and anonymously available.  In that decade Christian men have talked quietly with their closest friends about struggles with temptation. How do we deal with this menace?  The secrecy of the sin has equalled the secrecy of dealing with it.  But men are now beginning to openly tell other men how the battle can be been won.

Whether the shame of porn is addressed openly in churches, as the magazine articles suggest, is yet to be seen.  I’ve talked about it from the pulpit when the passage in the bible takes us in that direction. Getting the subject out in the open should make it easier for men to say, “I’ve struggled with this, but Christ has freed me, to his glory.”

As Paul wrote,

What a wretched man I am, who will save me from this body of sin and death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.”

There is no shame in confessing sin when Christ receives the glory as Saviour.