I formerly struggled with porn. It put undue pressure on my wife, which was destroying both her and our relationship. Learning to heal from that, walking in accountability, and growing in grace set me free to have an incredibly blessed marriage.
As a married male who had a porn addiction for 7 years, I can fully say getting married did not solve my problem. Jesus healing my soul level trauma did.
Some of these X guys should probably go to counseling.
Thank you for speaking up! The line of thinking Knowland is repeating shifts some responsibility for the husband's behavior onto the wife, in contrast to Paul's guidance that "each of you should learn to control your own body." At the same time it overlooks the effects on the wife. It conveniently downplays that sin isn't just about personal guilt for breaking some arbitrary rule; sin hurts other people by failing to love and live in the ways God intended for our common good. If it's worth it for a woman to be used, coerced, and constantly worried about her husband breaking his vows so she can give him some spiritual help, then he is more valuable than she is. (Or he's a child.) Where is his motivation of love for God and for his wife?
Also, porn is not just about personal lust. It's a social justice issue that hurts participants. A person can get help and get free from addiction. They shouldn't use porn as an excuse to demand sex.
Lots of Christians expect people to not have sex when they're single, dating, or engaged. Does getting married suddenly destroy your self-control?
From my perspective, having been married for more than half a century, I'd like to say: Well done. Good insights. And good courage, speaking truth on X.
I wonder if a helpful way of describing it is to say that right sexual living (either in the form of mutual, self-giving, loving sex in a marriage, or chaste singleness) is the aim of our sexual sanctification, rather than the means by which we avoid sexual sin. Thus it’s true that thinking about how we can live rightly can help us to avoid sexual sin, because the point of avoiding sexual sin is so that we can live rightly, rather than living rightly just so that we can avoid sexual sin. This is why we can recognise that loving, self-giving sex in marriage can help us with avoiding sexual sin because God takes us out of sin so that we can live in holiness and love.
I will say though that exegetically speaking I struggle with verse 5, because whilst it does say that the reason why we would be tempted toward sexual sin is because of our lack of self-control (i.e. the sin that is indwelt in us), the logic of verse 5b "then come together again *so* that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control." seems to be “you have this problem, a lack of self-control which leads you towards sexual sin, and this is why you shouldn’t deprive eachother of sex (“you should come together again”)”. I don’t want to think that that is what it’s saying because I find that icky and problematic for many of the same reasons you argue for (primarily that I don’t think it’s providing the sexual sanctification that we need by the Holy Spirit, and because I think it denigrates the marital union by treating the sexual union as a means to avoiding sexual sin rather than loving, self-giving end in its own right), and yet it seems to me still that that is the flow of logic in verse 5. I don’t know if I’ve missed something there so it would be helpful if you had any idea how to deal with that.
You nailed it.
I formerly struggled with porn. It put undue pressure on my wife, which was destroying both her and our relationship. Learning to heal from that, walking in accountability, and growing in grace set me free to have an incredibly blessed marriage.
As a married male who had a porn addiction for 7 years, I can fully say getting married did not solve my problem. Jesus healing my soul level trauma did.
Some of these X guys should probably go to counseling.
Thank you for speaking up! The line of thinking Knowland is repeating shifts some responsibility for the husband's behavior onto the wife, in contrast to Paul's guidance that "each of you should learn to control your own body." At the same time it overlooks the effects on the wife. It conveniently downplays that sin isn't just about personal guilt for breaking some arbitrary rule; sin hurts other people by failing to love and live in the ways God intended for our common good. If it's worth it for a woman to be used, coerced, and constantly worried about her husband breaking his vows so she can give him some spiritual help, then he is more valuable than she is. (Or he's a child.) Where is his motivation of love for God and for his wife?
Also, porn is not just about personal lust. It's a social justice issue that hurts participants. A person can get help and get free from addiction. They shouldn't use porn as an excuse to demand sex.
Lots of Christians expect people to not have sex when they're single, dating, or engaged. Does getting married suddenly destroy your self-control?
From my perspective, having been married for more than half a century, I'd like to say: Well done. Good insights. And good courage, speaking truth on X.
I wonder if a helpful way of describing it is to say that right sexual living (either in the form of mutual, self-giving, loving sex in a marriage, or chaste singleness) is the aim of our sexual sanctification, rather than the means by which we avoid sexual sin. Thus it’s true that thinking about how we can live rightly can help us to avoid sexual sin, because the point of avoiding sexual sin is so that we can live rightly, rather than living rightly just so that we can avoid sexual sin. This is why we can recognise that loving, self-giving sex in marriage can help us with avoiding sexual sin because God takes us out of sin so that we can live in holiness and love.
I will say though that exegetically speaking I struggle with verse 5, because whilst it does say that the reason why we would be tempted toward sexual sin is because of our lack of self-control (i.e. the sin that is indwelt in us), the logic of verse 5b "then come together again *so* that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control." seems to be “you have this problem, a lack of self-control which leads you towards sexual sin, and this is why you shouldn’t deprive eachother of sex (“you should come together again”)”. I don’t want to think that that is what it’s saying because I find that icky and problematic for many of the same reasons you argue for (primarily that I don’t think it’s providing the sexual sanctification that we need by the Holy Spirit, and because I think it denigrates the marital union by treating the sexual union as a means to avoiding sexual sin rather than loving, self-giving end in its own right), and yet it seems to me still that that is the flow of logic in verse 5. I don’t know if I’ve missed something there so it would be helpful if you had any idea how to deal with that.
Similarly, miracles draw people. Jesus used that. He sparingly used it for millennia. It has its place. But faith in Him matters most.