The Atonement (20 page)

Twenty

The Brotherhood Bible Study
was well underway as Daniel was concluding a series of lessons
called “Holding Your Vessel” or particular instructions on how men
should walk in the Lord. The past couple of Sundays, he talked
about the things they could do for their mental, and spiritual
well-being and today they were to begin to talk about the physical
side. Tim was trying to stay focused on the lesson at hand, but a
part of him was trying to figure out what Allyson and his mother
were up to. Most likely another plot to separate him from his God,
his friends and the church since their first attempt while he was
in the hospital in Baltimore failed. Thinking back on that
incident, Tim really didn’t want to have anything to do with either
of them anymore. Now he understood that scripture that he’d heard
Miko sometimes quote: the one about Christ being sent with a sword
and how the father would be against the son and the son against his
own father.
¹
Maybe he needed to accept the fact that his family did not
want to be saved and just let them go. But then he remembered that
scripture that he’d read several days ago:

‘
Therefore if thou bring
thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath
ought against thee: Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go
thy way: first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and
offer thy gift’.
²

At the time that he had read it, he pondered
the possibility of reconciling with Allyson, but it just didn’t
seem possible. It wasn’t that Tim was against reconciling with her.
He’d tried in the past, but it seemed that nothing could get
Allyson to put aside her anger toward him. He understood that a lot
of the bitterness and anger that she directed toward him was due
primarily to the circumstances they were born into: a family
created out of an adulterous affair, with self-absorbed parents who
were struggling with their own identity issues and couldn’t invest
much in their children. As such, Tim really didn’t have much
against her. However, he knew that there was something else.
Allyson had something against him personally and it went deep.
Whatever it was, it was most likely the motivation for her
involvement in his mother’s latest shenanigans. But then he had
another thought. “What if this is no coincidence?” It made him
think back to how things worked out for him at work a couple of
years earlier. Maybe this was a sign God had been working on their
behalf, and that he should reach out to her. He’d have to pray to
God to show him how. “In any case, we’ll see what happens at dinner
tonight,” he mused before Daniel intruded on his thoughts.

“Tim?”

“What?”

“We were talking about the different ways a
man can sin against or defile his body making it impure. Do you
have any suggestions? Allen mentioned tattoos, piercings, and
carvings, and Davis mentioned drugs and alcohol. I was wondering
what you think we should add?”

“I’d say a poor diet. In the
book of proverbs it speaks against gluttony and in Leviticus Moses
spent a lot of time distinguishing between things that were clean
and unclean to eat and there had to be a reason why God ordained
that. I’m assuming that was for people’s physical as well as
spiritual health.”
³

“Good. We’ll add that,” said Daniel as he
turned to write it on the whiteboard. “Now can anyone think of
anything else?”

“All the men looked around at each other, but
no one said anything.”

“Now all the others seem self-explanatory,
but I will add one more to our list.”

Daniel wrote on the whiteboard in big block
letters: FORNICATION.

“This is the biggest obstacle for some us
brothers in our Christian walk,” Daniel continued.

Tim slumped down in his seat and pulled at
his tie. All of a sudden he felt hot and the air seemed a little
thin. He felt like he knew whom Daniel was directing this part of
the conversation toward, and wished he could disappear. Fornication
was certainly a big issue for Tim who was used to having women for
his amusement on a regular basis. Since coming to faith, he knew
that what he was doing was wrong and had stopped cold turkey. The
first six months weren’t that hard since he was recovering from
surgery and after that acclimating to his new job kept him busy,
but then he started to get restless. It wasn’t that he wanted sex –
in fact, the longer he abstained, the less he wanted it – but he
did miss having female companionship. After seeing Allen and Callie
together and Tamiko pursuing Davis, he started to feel that maybe
it was time to find a special someone for him. So Tim decided to
date only girls from their church reasoning since the Pastor and
most of his friends who frequented the church were true to their
faith, everyone else would be as well. If that were the case, then
the women at this church wouldn’t be as much of a temptation as the
average woman he’d meet in the city. At least that’s what he
thought.

One of those women he’d been interested in
was Mya. She was beautiful, a good conversationalist, and she
seemed to be just the kind of woman he needed to help him take his
mind off a certain unattainable one who had managed to steal a good
portion of his heart. They went on a couple of dates and things
were pretty innocent – that is until they had dinner at his
apartment one night. After dinner, she asked if she could use the
bathroom, and Tim thought nothing of it. However, he was totally
astonished when she came out without her clothes! It was weird
because this hadn’t ever happened to him before. He had no idea how
to respond, except the way he used to.

Tim hated thinking about what happened that
night. He felt so guilty about what happened afterward, that he
felt he had no choice but to end the relationship with her. Little
did he know how much drama would ensue from that one decision. Tim
felt as if that was God’s punishment for his sin. He knew it was
wrong, but the problem was that he wasn’t exactly clear as to why
it was wrong. In any case, he just hoped Daniel would lecture and
not call on him for his take on anything. He was the last person
that could say anything on this topic.

“Just to be clear, do we all understand just
what fornication is?”

“It’s basically premarital sex,” said
Allen.

“Exactly. If you are not married and the
woman you’re with is not married, it’s still wrong and you’re
defiling your body. Let’s look at today’s scripture reading.”

Everyone read the scripture
passage together. It basically, said that sex outside of marriage
was corrupting the body. This was like saying that sex was evil.
“But how could sex be evil if that was how people showed
affection?” thought Tim. It was necessary to populate the earth,
and he’d always been told it was a natural appetite just like
hunger or thirst. So how could it be wrong? He wanted to ask
Daniel, but he didn’t feel confident about raising the
issue.
⁴

“So what do you guys think about what you
just read?”

“I think its saying that as
a Christian we have to even treat our physical bodies as a holy
vessel because Christ lives in us and He’s holy. Like the scripture
says ‘Be ye holy for I am holy.’
⁵
It’s the Christ that’s in us
that we have to be aware of and respect. I think that’s why he
tells us in Romans, ‘that ye present your bodies a living
sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable
service.’
⁶
That’s the life we are supposed to live and that’s why Christ
sacrificed Himself. But when we treat our bodies casually, and
you’re out there getting’ yo’ freak on, it’s like treating Christ
and his sacrifice like it’s nothing,” answered Davis.

“That’s a good reading of it Davis and I like
the way you referred to other scriptures to back up your points.
I’d say I agree with you. Does anyone else have any revelations
they would like to share?”

“I think it’s defiling your
body in that it’s a sin, and we know all sin is going out of the
will of God. In this scripture he tells us what his will is when he
says, ‘Now the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord; and
the Lord for the body.’
⁷
I think he’s saying our primary purpose is
spiritual for God and not physical for ourselves. So when we go out
of the Lord’s will and get caught up in the physical part, we are
going to suffer. If you think about all the consequences of
premarital sex, there is a lot of suffering like all of the
children born out of wedlock, the STDs that are passed around and
just all of the jealousy and violence that can come from it. I
think God wants to keep us from that. That’s how He shows that He
loves us and we honor that and glorify Him by honoring our bodies
and submitting to His will. I think that’s why it says in
Corinthians 6:20, ‘…glorify God in your body and in your spirit
which are God’s” said Chris.
⁸

“Word,” said Brother Darryl, the oldest
member of the group, “cause we belong to Him. That’s why we submit,
because once you are a Christian and Christ puts his Spirit in you,
you are not under your own will any more, but you want to do what
He wants you to do.”

“Amen, brother” said Daniel.

Now Tim was starting to feel like he was
getting lost, but he was afraid to ask any questions because he
thought they would misinterpret his intentions.

“But hold on – I get what you guys are saying
about how as Christians we need to live holy lives and honor God
and all, but what does sex have to do with it? It just seems like
you’re saying sex is a bad thing,” said Allen. “And if fornication
is a sin, how come there’s no commandment against it, like there is
for adultery?”

As always, Allen was the man. Tim was
grateful to him for asking the question that was on his mind and
probably some of the others as well.

“Don’t get me wrong brother.
No one is saying that sex is wrong or bad, or that it should not be
enjoyed. It’s sex
outside
of marriage that we have to worry about. Even
though there’s no commandment against fornication, it is clear from
our last reading in Deuteronomy, that fornication is not
allowed.
⁹
In fact it tells us that the penalty for fornication was that
you had to marry that woman and you couldn’t ever divorce
her.
¹⁰
If we really think about it, we understand that there’s no
commandment because it wasn’t really necessary. It was well
understood by the majority of people at that time how destructive
fornication could be as brother Chris just told us.”

“Even if the two people love each other and
are consenting and are responsible about it?”

Tim thought he knew why Allen was taking that
angle and he was interested in hearing what Daniel was going to
say.

“I see where you’re going with this Al, and
I’m going to level with you. First, a lot of guys want to think
‘well if I’m into her and I love her and she loves me, what’s the
problem?’ I say, and I think God would agree, If you really love
her, you offer her your life, not 15 minutes in the sack, or a
couple of months as a bed buddy. So if you don’t want to marry her,
you probably don’t love her. You might like her, but you don’t love
her.”

“Wooah,” said Allen, “I never thought of it
like that.”

Tim hadn’t thought of it that way either.

“Secondly,” continued Daniel, “there is no
such thing as responsible sex if it is outside of marriage. None of
man’s methods of interfering with God’s processes are foolproof. We
all know condoms can break even when used properly and your girl’s
birth control can’t protect against STDs. So as I said earlier, if
you want to make a responsible choice, you get married and stay
faithful to your spouse.”

“But how are you going to know if you’re in
love unless you have sex?” asked young Brother Jerry who was the
youngest guy in the group. He couldn’t have been more than 19 or
20.

“Sex is not love, it is merely one way to
express love. Love develops by spending time with a woman, talking
to her, getting to know her, opening yourself to her emotionally,
not physically. That’s how a lot of guys get messed up: they get
caught up in superficial stuff, like they think because the sex is
hot, they must be in love.”

“I been there,” said Chris.

Everyone laughed. Tim had to admit to himself
that he had been there a couple of times when he was younger.

“That’s because a lot of us men don’t really
understand what the proper context for sex is. It’s not a sport or
a recreational activity as it’s portrayed in the media and it has
nothing to do with expressing manhood as we discussed previously in
lessons on Godly manhood. Sex is the consummation of marriage or
the physical manifestation of the commitment that marriage is. It
is a part of the commitment in and of itself. When you have sex
outside of marriage, it’s like you’re cheating on your future
wife.”

“I don’t get it. How can you cheat on someone
you’re not married to yet?” Tim couldn’t help blurting out.

“Look at it this way – Sex is supposed to be
exclusive to marriage, so any kind of sex outside of that is
breaking the pact. If you can’t respect the sexual part of the
commitment before you’re married, you’re going to have trouble
respecting it afterward.”

“So like if you take it out of context,
you’re abusing it and it loses its value?” asked Allen through a
yawn.

“Exactly. It’s like what some people do with
drugs. Drugs can be great when they are used in the right way. But
when you abuse drugs and you are taking them out of their proper
use, not only do they lose their value, they can become harmful.
With sex it’s the same thing. When you engage in promiscuous
behaviors you are dulling yourself physically and emotionally. Then
when you finally do decide to settle down, you’ll find you have a
hard time achieving real intimacy, connecting to women or even
experiencing physical satisfaction. That’s what truly sabotages so
many marriages.”