C (3:01)

Why don't people quote that kind of Augustine towards us?

A (3:04)

That's seriously cheaper. Grant me chastity, but not yet. I mean, that is so. That is like the realist.

C (3:10)

Yeah, totally.

A (3:12)

The other part of our cold opener is. Is from Beechner. He says, lust is the craving for salt of a man dying of thirst.

B (3:22)

Wow.

A (3:22)

So let's get into it. Let's do a little sketch of lust here. As we're going to see going through especially these first three vices that are going to be lust, gluttony, and greed. We're going to be talking about them as like a desire that is actually a good desire, but that has gotten kind of out of whack. Something that is really disordered, that's taking up too much space, too much space in the soul, in. In the mind, in the. The energy. And so gluttony, as we're going to see, is going to be about a disordered desire for consuming things, and greed is going to be about a disordered desire for acquiring things. But we start with lust.

C (4:05)

And you're saying. I'm going to interrupt you here, Reid.

A (4:07)

Yeah, yeah.

C (4:07)

What you're saying is that consumption or acquisition are a natural part of things. They are not bad in and of themselves.

A (4:14)

It's the not at all.

C (4:15)

Gluttony and greed become the disordering of these kind of amoral, natural, not good, not bad. Consumption is a part of how we live. Acquisition is a part of what we do, but the disorder of those things.

A (4:26)

Correct. So like a quick, like with greed, you know, it's like we all want security, right? We want provision. We want to know, make sure we're going to have enough and be taken care of. That's perfectly good. But Then it gets out of whack and that's all we, we become obsessed with just having things for the sake of having things. So does that make sense?

C (4:43)

Yeah, absolutely. I love it. Thanks.

A (4:45)

Yeah, so. So with lust, we're talking about pleasure, a disordered desire for pleasure and specifically sexual pleasure. As is well known, lust is not actually the most complicated of the vices. And actually in, in a lot of classical thought, it is seen as the first or one of the first vices. It's like the entry level vice, like in Dante's Inferno, which I read with my friends Alan and Brad and Derek shout out years ago. Lust is actually. It's the first thing you get to when you come in from what he describes, limbo. And then in order of severity, lust is actually like the least severe. They talk about lust as a vice of, of weakness instead of of malice. Like it's, it's just a natural appetite that we have for something good. And just a disclaimer off the top. The Bible, as we have talked about many times, endorses the body. The body is good, bodily things are good. Sex is a good thing in the world of the biblical mind. Also, don't forget that the Bible also warns against a lack of restraint and boundaries when it comes to these good things. So it's good, but also with proper place and time. And so lust is like that, that desire for a good thing that's kind of getting out of whack. And we, we begin a slippery descent from what is like a quote unquote harmless indulgence of pleasure to then something that becomes all consuming. A book that we're going to be talking about throughout the series that I've been referencing a lot. It's my favorite one, specifically on vices. It's called Glittering Vices by Rebecca Conundick DeYoung. We're just going to short it to Rebecca DeYoung. She says this. She says, lust is the habit of trying to engineer my own happiness for myself on my own terms. My own pleasure is the goal, and I decide where to get it and when and with whom. My life revolves around my desires and wants and needs. So when this pursuit of pleasure for its own sake starts to get out of whack, these other aspects of relationship that are meant to be interwoven with sexual pleasure, like actual connection, intimacy, real responsibility, those become unimportant and we can kind of just jettison them because all we're after is the experience of pleasure and in and of itself. And many people over the centuries have Noticed this peculiar sort of paradox about pleasure and that is that you can't really get it trying to seek it directly. You can't just set out and just take pleasure and have it be genuinely pleasurable because genuine pleasure or like a deep satisfaction, it comes as the result of, of doing good things in the right ways. And that's going to involve commitment, that's going to involve sacrifice, that's going to involve long term sustained effort, deliberate effort and commitment. I think about it like Marty. Okay, so we're about the same age. You remember the era of Nintendo and Game Genie?

C (7:53)

Oh baby. Do I? Oh yeah.

A (7:55)

Tell us a little bit about what the Game Genie is or was.

C (7:58)

Well, Game Genie, I was thinking, I was thinking Nintendo Game Genie. Do I remember?

A (8:04)

No, Nintendo. It was an accessory you would get for Nintendo games. You remember what it did?

C (8:08)

I don't remember the Game Genie part of it. No.

A (8:09)

You were too, you were too pure hearted.

C (8:11)

I was probably too pure, of course.

A (8:13)

Brand. Do you know about Game Genie?

B (8:15)

Vaguely. If I'm thinking of the right thing. It's like an insert where you have a bunch of different games and you can just like flip some switches.

A (8:22)

Yeah.

B (8:23)

Am I thinking of the right thing?

A (8:24)

You are thinking of the right thing. It was like. So you remember Nintendo games? You'd slip them into the machine. Yeah, well, the Game Genie was like a cartridge, like a, like a, like a little frame basically that you would slip the game into and then you would put the Game Genie into your Nintendo. So it would make the game the actual. Normally the games would go in and the little cover would flip down, you know, and they would. You wouldn't. But the Game Genie would force them to kind of stick out. Anyway, Game Genie was basically just like this database of all the cheat codes for all the Nintendo games. And so you could go in and be like, well, I'm playing Metroid. And then you would put in whatever the code was and it would basically just let you play God mode on all of the different Nintendo games. I never had one, but one of my neighbors, he had a Game Genie and I remember thinking like, this is going to be the coolest thing ever because we can just have all the power ups right off the bat, all this kind of thing. And you know how it is like. Or if you've ever. It doesn't have to just be Game Genie but like if you've ever played video games and you use the cheat code. We used to do this also with SimCity. There was like a code you could put in to get infinite money and just build everything you wanted to build. It sucks playing video games that way, right?

C (9:34)

So, yeah, I can remember there was a. I used to play World of Warcraft with, like, a whole group of us. We do all these LAN parties and stuff. And there was one time where somebody had their own server. And I don't know, I'm sure it was probably against the rules, what we had set up, but somebody had their own. Like, it was our server, and they had ways that you had coded things to where you could travel anywhere in the blink of an instant. You could. You basically had unlimited hit points. And. Yeah, it was like, the coolest thing for about four minutes.

A (10:04)

Yeah.

C (10:04)

And then all of a sudden, you were like, well, what do I. What do I do now? It was so lame. Totally lame.

A (10:10)

Yes. That is kind of my analogy for this idea about trying to just get pleasure for the sake of pleasure. Like, it seems super promising up front. And then you get into it and it devoid of, like, the actual attachment to work, to responsibility, to all of those things that come along, that are meant to come along with it. It just is, like, really empty, really quickly. And with lust, when it becomes habitual, it's like you just keep going back to, like, you. You plug it in, you turn it on, you do the game genie thing, and you're like, well, this is lame. And then you turn it off. And then, like, the next day you're like, oh, but this time. This time it's going to be good. And you just keep seeking pleasure for the sake of pleasure. And. And there's this, like, horrible, dark irony that, like, the more you try to chase it, the more you become unable of actually being satisfied. Is that. Does that make sense?

C (11:06)

Yep, totally.

A (11:07)

With some of these vices. Just to help us sketch this out a little bit more, we're going to be looking at. So in the intro, Marty, we talked about Thomas Aquinas and kind of his work, thinking about vices.

C (11:18)

Yep.

A (11:19)

And he would name these sort of like, he called them daughters, you know, of the capital. Vice was so capital vice. Here is lust. And then there would be these, I guess, these consequences, or even these, like, kind of sinful behaviors that would follow from the vice of lust. And I want to know if any of these ring true to you in your experiences. This is for either of you. And so I'm just going to go through. There are like, five or six of these. The first one that he talks about, he calls it blindness of the mind, where when lust has kind of gotten its claws into you, you start to lose the ability to appreciate or consider kind of anything beyond the flesh. It's just things of the flesh. They start to become sort of like blinders to everything else. Right. And you, like, become unconcerned with the real good that is around you because you become kind of, I guess, obsessed with, like, sexual things.

C (12:18)

Yeah. And when you're in that space, part of the difference between what I might call. And I'm probably getting ahead of our conversation right now, but, like, fake relationships. The lustful relationship.

A (12:30)

Yeah, yeah.

C (12:30)

And what I might have with my wife.

A (12:32)

Yeah. Or.

C (12:33)

And not just to make it sexual, but when I'm in that fake relationship space. There's no story, there's no context. There's no emotion. Feeling it. It's. It's a blindness of the mind because it's only the one thing. It's like one channel and all. There's no complexity. There's no color, there's no dance.

A (12:56)

Well, I'm glad you said the word context. I mean, in store thinking of it as a story, to me, it feels like, you know, if you're into the MCU and you just go straight to the battle scene every time, you know, and if you just watch like a. Like a highlight reel of battle scenes, like, that seems like it will be super exciting, but it's actually really ungratifying. But then what? I mean, if you keep indulging that, you start to lose even a. A care for the flavor of the context. Right. You're like, I'm bored with the conversation that they had. You know, I'm bored with, like, the long, slow scene setting shot. Like, just give me the stuff where correct people are getting punched in the face by Iron Man.

C (13:33)

You could even be like, an expert in, like, all the fight scenes from every single movie because you've watched them so many times and you totally. But you've lost the. The arc and the narrative that matters.

A (13:43)

Yeah. So again, it's this picture of something that's cyclical. We're returning to it, but we're actually never getting the real marrow out of the thing. It's only ever this kind of pale surface level sort of thing. That's what, like, lust does to our human relationships. Aquinus also names thoughtlessness, and he actually has these distinct. I was reading through thoughtlessness and rashness, but I see them as fairly similar. And that's basically like what lust does to you in making you a really impulsive creature, where you are, like, sort of driven by your appetite rather than you Being able to master it and be in control of it. And it's also like a sort of dis. Like you're. You're only thinking about the next second. You're not thinking about, like, what is this going to do to my life a day from now or a week from now? What's it going to do to my relationships, you know, a week from now? It's just all you can see because lust is. Is. Is making you rash. Another one is what he calls inconstancy, which basically just means it's like a. It is like your will starts to get weaker and weaker where, like, you know what is good, it's sort of different than being rash, right? Like, you actually understand what is right and good. But the more that vice gets its claws into us, the more we lose the ability to actually then decide and go with what is good. And it starts little by little. It's bit by bit, the will starts to get eroded until we find ourselves kind of totally conquered by the thing.

C (15:12)

Maybe another way to put this would be in the inverse to think, like, in order to be a part of the good, there is a choice that gets made. We choose to give ourselves to it. So. So when you stop doing that, it erodes. Like, it becomes harder and harder and harder to be a part of the good thing becomes more difficult in the intro episode.

A (15:32)

I mean, the overarching idea here with vice and virtue is we're talking about living as the image of God, like, rightly in the world, right? Being partnered with God, being the kind of people God wants us to be. And it seems like whichever way you're sliding on the spectrum, like, am I going more towards, like, the image of God or am I going away from that? It's happening incrementally, like small choices, right? So, like, when, you know, when we talk about lives of faithfulness and doing the right thing, don't look for some big grand swing. It's little by little we make these decisions. And so when we indulge the vices, and especially here we're talking about lust, even just bit by bit, it has a cumulative effect over time that we can't see at first. So I have teenage boys, you know, and they struggle like anybody does with, like, the lusts of the flesh. And the conversations that we have are sort of. I sometimes feel like the old man down the road where I'm like, you can't see where all of this is going, but he heed the wisdom, right? Just, like bit by bit is how these things end. Up mastering us, not in some big one time thing, all at once. The next one, actually, the next two I'll talk about. These are the last two with, with Aquinus, the, the sort of outworkings of the vice of lust is one is like a, a self love, like a growing self love, a turning inward where I start to mostly just think of me and my own desire for pleasure. And what happens then to other people is that they become objects to satisfy whatever it is that I am after. And then also I thought this one, this one was, it's getting his claws into me and thinking about like, this is a tough word for me and I think a tough word for the culture. Aquinas talks about it as hatred of God, but what he means is that there is this growing resentment for Aquinas toward God. Maybe if people don't believe in God, then it's toward, you know, whatever the, the moral ethical fabric of the universe is. But you resent God because restraint of desire, that word restraint, you know, is like such a tough word for us, but that becomes intolerable and detestable. And what we're always looking for then is like, what's a reason, what's an excuse that I can make for why restraint shouldn't have to apply to me in the here and now. Because, you know, in some ways, like I don't want to paint a picture of God where God's just looking to kill everybody's fun, you know, but there is like the, the life that God calls us to involves actually saying no to ourselves at times, restraint and the lustful. The person that has let themselves go to the vice of lust looks at God and basically just sees they, they see God as like a big buzzkill in the sky. That's like, stop, stop trying to ruin my fun. You know what I'm saying?

C (18:20)

Yeah, this is a hard word because a lot of times the spaces that we're in are having conversations like we're reacting against something and the danger is an overcorrection. So as we critique or think critically about purity culture, totally, you swing the pendulum to like this total lack of restraint.

A (18:39)

Yep.

C (18:39)

Complete freedom, which lacks wisdom. It's like the other side of foolishness.

A (18:44)

Yeah, we're going to get to that here in just a couple minutes. We're going to have the culture conversation, especially with the way the church and the culture have sort of pinballed off of each other. The last thing I want to point out and just like the sort of viciousness of lust as a vice and I think what's kind of unique to it from some other of the vices. And we'll see as we go on and we'll talk about it through this series, how the vices, they all are kind of connected and they overlap. Like, there's not a super. Always a super clean, like, lust and gluttony, their original desire. One is about sex, one is about consumption and food. They're very different, but the more they get distorted, the more they start to look like each other and sound like each other. But with lust, I think the tough thing, the really dangerous thing, is that it's the vice that uses people most directly. So, like, what I'm saying is gluttony is about, you know, at its most basic level, it's about food, right? And greed is about money. But the vice of lust is its perniciousness, is that somebody's own body becomes an object for my gratification. And I think that's. And we'll get in. When we start talking about, like, the rippling effects of this. It has such a powerful capacity to destroy how I see human beings around me and how I relate to them and how I want to relate to them, you start to see how it becomes a very deadly thing. It's just a question that I think is worth talking about. Circling back to. If what we're after is a good thing, what is it? What is the good desire that we have that lust grabs hold of and distorts and destroys? I mean, I've got a few notes here, but you got any. Any thoughts on this?

C (20:28)

I mean, intimacy, relationship? And you could talk about the specific nature of. Of sex, but it's. It's bigger than that. It's connection. It's all of that. I think when you were reading stuff earlier, I had to, like, check myself of like, oh, is it desire? Is it pleasure? Is it like, maybe those things. Maybe I've automatically actually associated some of those things with such a negative connotation. I don't recognize that there's even some good in them as well.

A (20:57)

Desire is good, man. Desire is good. That's the thing is, like, even to want sex is a perfectly good thing to want sexual pleasure. And I think you're absolutely right that in hitting on the intimacy thing and hitting on. I think about what we probably want deep down is not just sexual intimacy, because I think a lot of us find that in quick or cheap ways. And when it's done, it's like, well, that's not actually very satisfying, but what we want Is like a deep and abiding connection with somebody. I was thinking about in this, you know, this is my own weird brain. But like, we go through most of our lives inside our own heads and which is an isolated kind of experience. You know, we think our own thoughts, we feel our own pain. When we feel excitement or when we feel desire or joy or grief, we alone experience that within ourselves. Right. And I think what we want is to know that, like, we can reach out and connect with somebody and be known by them. Like, nobody wants to be alone. And like, sexual union is a way that, you know, it's just, it is a way of just getting bodily pleasure. But I think what we're looking for deep down is we want to be known as human beings, you know, not just as sexual creatures, but sexual creature, sexual activity. That's a way of like trying to get at like the, the deep humanness of a person. And that is all very good. And so then lust comes in and it's like, yeah, but forget about the connection stuff, forget about that. But really what you want, really what you need, all you need to get by or to really be satisfied is just that immediate experience of the pleasure. And what then it's like whatever gives you the pleasure, you know, and whether or not that you don't have to be connected to that person deeply to get an experience of like, sexual pleasure from them. And then like, you're into the. You're into the cycle, you're spiraling down. So I want to move into, then talking about, you know, there's many, many resources. Lots of people have examined the nature or the relationship of, you know, American church and it's go its relationship to sex and sexuality going all the way back to, you know, the sexual revolution in the 60s. And I'm not trying to give like a detailed account of all of that, but just conversationally. What are some ways that our church culture, the church culture of our generation, Marty and Brent, has complicated our wrestling match with lust, sex and sexuality?

C (23:33)

Well, I did a whole episode of this years ago, which still plagues me because the emails don't stop rolling in. So I, I still don't have thoughts tied up. I get really close to Ranty when I start waxing eloquent about this.

A (23:47)

Okay.

C (23:48)

I think, I mean, part of it is we have not taken responsibility for the way culture has progressed. I think is over the years how I've come to repackage one of my main thoughts, which is post industrial revolution, like culture has continued to move on and we keep Moving further and further away from the way our bodies, our physical bodies have functioned or been designed to function or how biology works and how biology relates to sociology and what's appropriate and what's acceptable culturally. All of those things are fine. I'm not suggesting that those are the wrong things. But we also haven't been honest about what that costs us, about what it does to our development as young adults, men and women. So now you. I mean, your body is going through whatever changes we want to talk about at whatever age, but it's younger than culturally. The rest of our development is moving on. So now you have college. And most of our parents would tell us, like, well, you can't get married till, like, get your education done, then get married. And like, the timeline just keeps elongating itself and warring against. Which is fine if we were honest about the war, but we're not honest about the war. We just kind of act like, well, duh, it's just about morality. And we just keep serving some of these other. The Gods of Mammon without realizing what the fallout of that is. I think maybe that was the safest way I've ever said that. Probably not. I'll probably get some email.

A (25:14)

And it wasn't even a rant. It wasn't even a rant at all. And, you know, I want to, like, I'll keep bringing us back to this just as a quick side disclaimer or qualification, I guess. And that is like, I want our. Our tone, our tenor throughout these conversations to be like, we're not being. We're not here to be judgmental. We're not here to throw stones. Like, we are here to try to talk honestly about things that are difficult and, like, be. And sympathetically. Because, I mean, Brent, as we have done these, even though this one is being recorded out of order. I mean, we. We talk pretty much every single week. And it's like, oh, man, I thought maybe I was going to talk about a vice that wasn't my vice, you know, and the fact is that we're. We're all struggling in various ways, I think, with all of these. And so, yeah, I mean, we're. We're. That's just a. Maybe I should have said that earlier on in, like, a preface. But we're trying to be sympathetic, open. Like, we're not trying to be judgmental about anything or ranty.

C (26:13)

Right. Yeah. And let me. Let me add to. Because I can see your notes. So maybe this will serve as a good segue, because the reason why I even was like, Even when you asked me that question, Reed, and I was like, well, I mean, I don't want to talk about it because I get ranty. Like, there's a reason why I'm not like that. But there's a few topics, and this is one of them, which is connected to also what you're asking me about, which is, do not screw this topic up. Not in the church. You lose everything.

A (26:42)

Yeah. Yeah.

C (26:43)

Whether we're talking about careers as pastors or people in churches, it's not just pastors and content creators. It's people in pews. It's youth and youth groups. It's. You screw up on the sex and lust thing, you don't come back from that. You screw up on money. Ah, no one even knows. Who cares. You screw up on gluttony. Nobody's doing a youth group lesson on gluttony.

A (27:05)

You.

C (27:05)

You do something wrong. Lust and woe.

A (27:09)

Which is interesting because, you know, what we said earlier, like, this is actually in the desert. You know, fathers and mothers like tradition. And going back classically, like, lust is, Is sort of the. Like we said, that's the first level. You know, that's not even, like, that's not the worst by far, if you want to try to rank them, which, again, may be a silly exercise, but some of the other things that we, we just indulge more openly. Greed. I'll throw that one out there that we don't call out in the church. Those are actually, like, more dangerous to us and to our communities. But I, I, I do think, Marty, I think we've been given. It's been tough because we talk out of both sides of our mouth a little bit. Where sex is talked about as, like, the zenith of human relationship. Right? Like, this is the pinnacle of a human experience you can have with another person is like, sexual relationship. But also, it's, like, got all of this baggage, and it's like this deep source of shame in church culture where it's sort of like, don't talk about it. Don't talk about it. Don't think about it, don't engage with it. And. But then you get married, like, all bets are off, and just whatever you want, whenever you want, you know? And it's going to be the greatest thing that's ever happened to you, I promise. And there's. I found this amaz. This, this quote hit me, dude. This was from. There's a book I've been reading, the Cardinal and the Deadly, by Carl Clifton Soderstrom, and he's quoting somebody Else, a guy named Simon Black, who. There was a series of books on vices, and he. He. He wrote the run on the one on lust. And this is the line. It says, when something is both intensely desirable and culturally identified as intensely shameful, we can expect psychic turmoil. Yeah, Psychic turmoil is exactly the way to describe what so many of us have been through. Because, yes, it is intensely desirable, but culturally, in our. In our church culture, like, it has been in some circles labeled as intensely shameful. And it's like, oh, man. Like, I'm struggling so much with this, but I don't know what to do. And I feel like I'm the worst person in the world because lust is my vice, and we just get trapped in it, you know, because we can't talk about it.

C (29:22)

Yeah. And it's not just connected to, like, ignorance or youthful naivete or immaturity, because how many friends do I have in my 40s and 50s that are going on their second marriage or. So this is like, it's not even their first time into this conversation. They've even. They've been around the block, maybe not even in great ways a couple times, and they still are deeply rooted in some form of deep. They deal with deep shame, deep insecurities. Deep insecurities, yeah. Totally.

A (29:55)

Yeah.

B (29:55)

I've seen a few headlines scroll by recently. I haven't actually looked into this, so maybe I'm completely misreading whatever this is about, but it's something about Generation X being obsessed with sex more than any other generation. And I think about the churches that I've been in and what the culture has been like in those churches where this conversation is like, oh, we gotta deal with this battle. We gotta take care of this. And there's been put so much time into it that it's almost working against, like, what we talk about with the creating a space episode in the. The whole session seven of the podcast where, like, we should be making space for God and letting God fill that, but instead we're not making that space at all. We're trying so hard to, like, close down and, like, keep this lust stuff away from us. And then it's that bit by bit thing where it's like, oh, well, it's just this one little thing, and just those cracks slowly form out. And so, yeah, it's almost like we're focusing on it too much, because I don't struggle with lust as much as some of the other vices. Maybe most of the other vices, as I'm starting to learn.

A (31:11)

Wow. Brant finally finally an episode where you can just breathe easy.

B (31:14)

I mean, not. Not quite, but I found myself in all these church settings where it's like, this is all we're ever talking about. And then I found myself struggling with it way more because it's the only thing on my mind. So I would say my experience of church culture in it is very strange and has actually made it worse because there's just this over indexing on. I mean, like Marty was saying, like, this is the thing you do not do, like the other stuff, whatever. We can kind of shrug it off or even ignore it, but this is the one thing. And so this obsession with trying to deal with it actually makes it worse, at least for me.

A (31:50)

Yeah, thanks for sharing that experience, for sure. I mean, I. We're going to keep coming back to the word tension, which I know is kind of like a fad in vogue word, but it really is like when it comes to navigating, because what we're talking about is a good desire on one hand and a distortion on the other end. We've got to examine like, where the sweet spot is in the tension. And so, like, if we just stop talking about it or like decide, well, we've been way too tight and so now we're just going to let up to the extent that the ethic, the sexual ethic is contra, you know, sort of the no stakes, like casual hookup, sexual revolution culture. Like, it's probably good that we're pushing back against that. But like we've, you know, there's. There's a. The Four Loves is like a famous book from C.S. lewis about different kinds of human relationships. And in the. In the introduction to it, he's actually quoting a guy named Rougemont who is a writer. And Lewis is kind of affirming what this guy said. He says love ceases to be a demon only when he ceases to be a God. And so like, we've got to stop making it like this is the best thing that can ever happen to you. Because of course, then what. What happens? Like, what happens when you have people where you're saying this is the best thing that can happen to you, but you can't have it. Then it creates this like. Well, this psychic turmoil. And like you. You go and you seek it out however you can get it, but you just kind of do it in the darker and secret. Beakner's got a good line on this. He says, contrary to Mrs. Grundy, who. I had to look this up. Mrs. Grundy is just sort of Like a, like, was a pop culture sort of symbol from, like, the 19th century that became like, a symbol of, like, somebody who's really prudish and priggish, you know, and uptight. So he says, contrary to Mrs. Grundy, sex is not sin. Contrary to Hugh Hefner, it's not salvation either. Like nitroglycerin, it can be used either to blow up bridges or heal hearts. Did you know that nitroglycerin is actually used as medicine?

B (33:48)

I did not.

C (33:49)

I believe I somehow knew that in the back recesses of my mind. Had a medicinal purpose to it.

A (33:53)

Yeah, if you, like, they use it for unclogging arteries. And so it's. But, like, it's an amazing, you know, analogy that it can either be used very destructively or to heal. And, you know, as we're going to be talking about again and again, the tension comes. Like we. We figure it out in communities with the people who are around us in our. In our families and our churches and our friend circles and being really honest and diligent with each other. Okay, so how here in this particular situation, like, is this. Is this blowing up a bridge or is this healing a heart, you know, and doing the hard work of walking through that together in our communities? I want to get to a couple other cultural, sort of, like, I think, attitudes about sexual. What do you think? And I struggle with this one, knowing how to answer it. But, like, Marty or Brent, what do you think about the line, well, like, as long as no one gets hurt, then it's fine?

C (34:51)

Obviously, I'm greatly annoyed at the reasoning. It's just such a weird, such an anemic logic. Like, what we. What we would want, what ethics, what good ethics would lead to is more human flourishing, which is one of those buzzwords. That's because. Coming in vogue as well.

A (35:07)

But, dude, yes, that is a great point. Say more about that.

C (35:10)

Well, like, what we want is, like, more humanity. What we want is more human flourishing. What we want is more people being more of who they were created to be. Like, all of us were made to be 100%, and we're running less than that. But we would want to be more as close to 100% of what God desires for us as possible. But as long as no one gets hurt is like this, like, it's like the opposite energy. Yeah, it's like, well, well, is it bad enough rather than is it good enough? And so you get. You keep getting sold some false God.

A (35:40)

But yeah, dude, that's good. That's really good. I did not think about that. But that is. That's, like. What is. That is just a sad, anemic picture of, like. Well, yeah, as long as we're like, you know, not hurt. I'm like, is this helping you actually be the best that you can be? Flourishing is such a good word. I'm really glad you brought that up.

B (36:00)

Yeah. It's a lie anyway, because there is hurt that's coming. It just doesn't seem it in the moment.

A (36:05)

Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah. BER talks about that, and he's like, in the end, like, who's to say who gets hurt and who doesn't get hurt? And maybe. Maybe the only person who actually gets hurt is you. Like, there's an internal hurt that you carry. But, like, I think. Are we being honest about it? Goes back to your previous question, Marty. Like, are we actually being honest enough about what counts as hurt? What about the like, well, so long as you love each other.

C (36:28)

Yeah. I feel like it's almost like the same. That one is at least stated in the positive. But it's still. But it's still like a negative bar. Like, it's still. Like, how's. How low can we. Like, what's the. What's the bottom? What's the floor rather than. What's the ceiling?

A (36:41)

What's our minimum requirement just so we can do what we want to do here?

C (36:44)

Yeah, right.

B (36:45)

It's a great argument in English where there's only one word that applies to so many different things.

C (36:50)

Yeah. Right.

A (36:50)

Wait, say more about that, Brent, because that's actually what I was thinking. But say. What do you mean?

B (36:54)

The word love in English can. Can mean just this huge range of feelings and. And commitments and everything. Yeah.

C (37:04)

I love tacos, baby.

A (37:05)

Yeah. No, I mean, it's true, right? Because the question is, like, I can hear. I have heard middle schoolers talk to me about how, like, they use the word love, like, in texting. Like, it'll be somebody that you met a day ago. And, like, you kind of like, will you go out with me? And it's like, oh, I love you. And I'm like, well, that's. That's like, do you know what you mean by that? And they're like, well, what do you want me to. Like, what do you think we should say? I like you? And I was like, yes. Not like, well, that would be weird, but, like, this idea of, do we know what love is in its fullest sense? And are we going for its fullest sense? Or again, like, is it. And I really don't want to be the ranty old man here, but there is something to be said for the different distinctions in love. And are we just talking about the one that basically is the. That's gonna get me in bed anyway? You know, like the. It's like that supercharged. And that. That is good. I don't want to say it's bad. Right. But it's in this whole context of the different kinds of loves operating together that we find the real, the real thing. Okay. There is just this one paragraph from Beekner in this essay he wrote called the Two Loves that I think is so good and actually speaks to what you're kind of saying, Marty, about like are we going for. For flourishing and settling. And so I just want to read it. And this is what he says. He says our society is filled with people. And he wrote this in 1969 by the way. And I would think, I think this is still true. Our society is filled with people for whom the sexual relationship is one where body meets body, but where person fails to meet person. Where the immediate need for sexual gratification is satisfied, but where the deeper need for companionship and understanding is left untouched. The result is that the relationship leads not to fulfillment, but to a half conscious sense of incompleteness, of inner loneliness, which is so much the sickness of our time. And what he's trying to say, the point is he says this isn't about morality. This isn't about like, you know, what is the most moral, the most pure way of doing this or some rule. He said it just that the way we do this isn't working for us. Like it's not leading us to better lives.

C (39:22)

Yeah. Yeah, that's pretty good quote.

A (39:23)

All right, so let's get into the text conversation a little bit then. And here I'm going to be kind of shamelessly ripping off a lesson from Rob Bell. Remember his old NUMA series of. I was actually those are.

B (39:36)

I was in high school.

A (39:38)

His, his bleached tips on his hair are obviously a bad look, but the idea is actually pretty awesome. So shout out Rob for like let's give some dignity to the craft of sermon and like make it this cool artsy film production thing. I know people have various feelings about Rob Bell, but I, I think I can pretty confidently say, you know, this stuff from. Gosh, is this 20 years ago?

B (40:01)

It would have been 2002, 2003, 20.

A (40:04)

Plus years ago these NUMA in Ooma series came out and they're. I think they're worth checking out. And I Think can safely, confidently, like, recommend these things. So he's got this one called Flame, where it's like the cold sort of winter, like, all the trees are dead. And he's driving out to, like, the woods, and he's talking about different words for love that occur in the Hebrew, specifically in the book of Song of Songs. Right. In the Old Testament or in the Hebrew scriptures. This is probably the thing that people most think about when we're talking about sex and lust, etc. Relationships. And he says there are three different Hebrew words that are functioning at various points in the book of Song of Songs. And then you also find them at other places in the Hebrew scriptures, and they. Each one kind of describes a different sort of love or way that we relate to each other. So the first one is the word. You got the pronunciation, Marty. You're the, you know. You know better.

C (41:05)

Raya.

A (41:05)

Raya. Okay. And so he describes this as like a. It's somebody that you hang out with. So, yeah. Song of Songs four and verse seven. Can you. Can you give us that one, Brent?

B (41:15)

You are altogether beautiful, my darling. There is no flaw in you.

A (41:19)

Okay, so that word, my darling, that actually, at various other times, it refers to maidens. Like, it's your crew, it's the people you hang out with. It's your people you pal around with.

C (41:29)

And let me add to that, because I've heard this taught by some other teachers, too. Same idea.

A (41:32)

Yeah.

C (41:33)

But I think it actually connects to what we've been talking about earlier in this episode. So on, like a. Just a regular interpersonal level, this is your friend, this is your neighbor, this is your posse. This is the people on a romantic level, it's the infatuation. It's the electric poetry, which I love, because this is like the base entry level. This isn't the deepest level. This is like. I don't want to call it cheap, but this is the foyer to the house. And it's what we always think is like, that's the good stuff. But in the Hebrew, this same word would be like. Well, that's. That's the friendship level, right?

A (42:08)

Yeah, but I mean, dude, that electricity. Like, I remember when Leanne and I were first starting to date, summer of 2002, and that was like the waters we were swimming in. And it was awesome.

C (42:20)

This is the wedding talk I give at most all my weddings, and I always talk. This is the. Raya is the level where you're like, you hang up first. No, you hang up first, dude. Yes, I love you more. No, I Love you more. And that's the. That's the Raya level.

A (42:32)

And us old men need to not look down at teenagers and be like, well, that's silly. Like, no way, dude. That stuff is amazing. What we have to teach our younger people is that, like, that's also not everything.

C (42:45)

Yeah. And I shouldn't even call it levels. I. I hate that I even use the word level, because it's not level. It's one part. It's three parts, not three levels.

A (42:51)

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And so as Rob is talking about this, he's got a lighter, right? He's got, like. He's flickering like a lighter flame, and he's like, this is one kind of flame. It's one kind of fire. The next one is. Is this Ahava? Ahava.

C (43:05)

Yep. You got it. Ahava.

A (43:06)

Ahava. Which is in Song of Songs, in chapter eight, verse seven. Brent.

B (43:12)

Yeah, I'm gonna actually start in verse six, because I think it kind of ties into this whole idea. Place me like a seal over your heart, Like a seal on your arm. For love is as strong as death. It's jealousy, unyielding as the grave. It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame. Many waters cannot quench love. Rivers cannot sweep it away. If one were to give all the wealth of one's house for love, it would be utterly scorned.

A (43:38)

I mean, that poetry is. That is powerful and speaks for itself, but you get a little bit of a different sense than, like, the people who just come over to, like, watch the Chiefs and Bengals play. Right. This is like an abiding, lasting companionship. I don't know what part of the. If this. If we're talking about a house, you know, if Raya is the entryway. I mean, this feels like the foundation.

C (44:02)

Yeah. I was gonna say living room, but I think it's even the kitchen. Like, this is. This is the.

A (44:06)

Oh, yes.

C (44:07)

This is where everything. I will be here no matter what. When I do the wedding talk, I always say there's the electricity and the poetry. The problem is that will come and go over the course of your life together. What Ahava speaks to is, no matter what comes tragedy, whether my feelings die out, whether there is no poetry and electricity, I'll choose to love you anyway, because you cannot quench love. The grave can't stop it. You can't like it. It will go on no matter what. It's the commitment.

A (44:35)

Yes, the commitment. And this is another. It's not. Not necessarily. We're not. We're not ranking Them better or worse. Right. It's just. This is a different kind of flame.

C (44:42)

Yep.

A (44:43)

And you could imagine, like, there is a cold, giving up version of this that is devoid of the electricity and the spark. Right. Where it's like, yep, well, I'm with you no matter what. I don't really like you, but, like, I'll still be here, you know? And so there's this other flame, and then there is the. The. The flame that maybe applies most to our conversation with the vice of lust. And that is the word dode, which is the word for lover or for lovemaking. Actually, the. When I looked up the blue letter on this, it said it comes from a root that means to boil. And so it's. It's hot, it's boiling. Song of songs 1, verse 2 is the reference I have here.

B (45:21)

Brent, let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth. For your love is more delightful than wine.

A (45:27)

Yeah. So love there that we're talking about this kind of love. We're talking about the physical, the intimacy, the sexual relationship. Marty, what's your. What's your wedding take on that?

C (45:37)

Yeah. I don't spend a whole lot of time because of the nature of a wedding ceremony and people feeling uncomfortable. I just kind of do this one in passing.

A (45:43)

But we know.

C (45:45)

That's why I hated the word levels, because this isn't levels. This is all different parts of the same house. This is now the bedroom, or the point that Rob's going to be making that I'm sure you're headed towards. But these are three parts that when you have them all.

A (45:57)

Yes.

C (45:58)

Sometimes you feel like you only have one of the three or two of the three, and sometimes that's enough. But it's designed to be all three of these things together.

A (46:06)

Yeah. And so in the video, he's got this Bic lighter, and he's talking about, you know, these different kinds of these little flames. And he's like. But when they're all present in the same relationship, there's a. He ignites this huge bonfire as a. And this is the representation of the Raya and the Ahava and the Dode all being present in the same relationship. And it's. It's this massive thing, and it says the fire in this film had flames reaching heights of over 200ft that could be seen from more than 10 miles away. And this is why I actually think Rob Bell. I mean, these new things are genius. Right. Because what a picture. And you want to talk about if what we're going for is human flourishing and like, how does our sexual relationship. Like, how does it contribute to the flourishing? Is it intermingled with those other things and is it bringing about that? Because that is something that is desirable and good. Right. And that is bright. And that actually, I think, is a way of bearing the image of God in the world and of partnering with God and what God wants to do in the world. And so there is that from the Song of Songs. Anything else on that conversation, Marty?

C (47:09)

Not on that one. I think we should give a few more textual examples for all those people whose they just black out and their eyesight goes white with rage whenever they hear the name Rub Bell. So we should probably give some non. Rub Bell textual examples here too.

A (47:22)

Yeah, totally. Speaking to. Well, the. The whole integration of the person. I just want to touch lightly on this. Much has been said about this, but looking at the creation story, right. And the theme of nakedness, we have already said sex is good. The whole of physical creation is certified as good by God in the story. But what I see when I read that story is that it's not good per se, simply because it is physical. In the story, they're like flesh of fleshness, you know, and he's like, this is bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. Their nakedness, it is interwoven with all that they are told to be together. Right. The shared responsibility that they have to lean against each other. You know, that going back to that older Bama episode, to be fruitful and to multiply. Like all of these things are meant to interweave. And the goodness springs from the whole. The both the physical, the spiritual, the relational, all of that. And you notice in the story that the impulse to hide their nakedness.

C (48:23)

Yeah.

A (48:23)

It is part and parcel with the deception and the blaming. And so what I'm. What I'm trying to say is that like the quote unquote, spiritual dimension totally affects the physical one. They are interwoven together.

C (48:35)

Yeah. Their physicality is a part of some larger soulness about them.

A (48:39)

Yes.

C (48:40)

The physicality is not the center of gravity. The physicality actually is revolving around some larger center of gravity, but it is a part of the goodness revolving around.

A (48:47)

Totally. Yeah. What happens, you know, in the body affects the soul and vice versa. It's all interconnected. The last thing that I want to bring up in the text conversation is this is probably the verse that I would bet when people hear the word lust or think of the vice of lust, this is probably what they most think of, and that is from the Sermon on the Mount let's just pull up this passage and read. Is this 5? Is it Matthew 5?

B (49:10)

Yeah, 5. Starting in verse 27, you have heard that it was said, you shall not commit adultery. But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. Is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.

C (49:40)

Yeah, I love that passage. That's the one that always. I mean, that was beaten into us when we were youngins in church Reed, that's for sure.

A (49:46)

Yeah. I mean, it sounds terrifying. It's so violent. It's so graphic. Yeah, but I mean, any sensibility that's like. Yeah, just like, whatever goes, man. Like, when it comes to our sexuality, like, I don't. I mean, Jesus clearly is in favor of some kind of restraint, obviously. But, Marty, what do you. I'm just curious what your thoughts are on this passage. Like, I know you've got some good stuff on Sermon on the Mount things.

C (50:08)

Yeah, I mean, the larger thing we always talked about back in the day is that I was always taught this was Jesus raising the bar. Like in Torah, the bar was here, but now, like, don't. Don't commit adultery, but now you can't even lust, which is always like, again, you said the word terrifying is the right word.

A (50:24)

Right.

C (50:24)

And yet I think what Jesus is trying to get at is you can have all the rules straight and you can have it all memorized and still miss the greater point. And so what Jesus is doing is fulfilling. He's trying to show us how to properly interpret. So this idea of adultery or these relationships is actually about how we see how we. And in the context of the conversation we're having today, I think it's so helpful because it's the whole human being. It's the whole experience. It's all the stuff that we are shortchanging when we engage in lust. And Jesus is trying to get at this. This is about how we see the humanity. What was the part earlier in our discussion today where we were talking about the blindness of the mind and the intellect?

A (51:05)

Yeah.

C (51:06)

You cannot commit adultery and still be deep in lust and your mind blinded. So Jesus is like, there's a deeper principle here, which is that be completely engaged and see the people as people see the woman, as a woman, as somebody's daughter, as somebody's wife, as just her, as who she is and, like, just see her humanity. And I think Jesus is calling us to that.

A (51:28)

Yeah.

C (51:29)

Not raising the bar, but a deep. Not up, but like a deep seated. This is what the law was always trying to connect us to.

A (51:37)

Totally. That's such a good point. I mean, we're going to be talking through the series. We already mentioned into the intro about how, you know, vices and virtues are about other people. It's like you said this throughout the Sermon on the Mount. I remember this from years ago. Marty, you're like, it's about other people. It's about other people.

C (51:52)

Yep.

A (51:52)

And a lot of these vices, really, it's not just about becoming some morally perfect, like, exemplar. It is about how we see other people. One of the things, you know, just when it comes to. For those of us who have a habit, whatever our, our particular manifestation of the vice of lust is. I talk about college guys about this a lot, but it's like, what is this indulgence? Or what is this, this thing? What does it do to my view of a person? There was a writer, David Foster Wallace, who, Who wrote years ago, he did an essay where he went to the adult film industry awards and just wrote about it for, like, Harper's Magazine or something. I do not recommend this to people who might struggle with, like, thoughts of the mind because he doesn't really hold back in his just, like, description. But, but he's, he's not trying to, like, hold it up in a glorious way. He is, like, taking the veneer off and saying, like, this is what this does to, to people within the industry. This is what happens to women especially, but also men. And he just paints this, like, really honest, but bleak picture of what the, the lust of vice and its various products does to the way that we regard other human beings. And that will make you like, oh, man, I need to. I need to think twice about the kinds of things that I am indulging. What are you thinking, Brent?

B (53:17)

I'm just thinking, like, what is the hope here? What can we do about this?

A (53:20)

Yeah, we're going to try to talk about that with each of these vices. Talk about what helps. There's this great line that I found from St. John Climacus. He says, do not imagine that you will overwhelm the demon of fornication by entering into an argument with him. Nature is on his side, and he has the best of the argument, meaning, like, if lust is something we struggle with, just simply logic and willpower aren't going to help us a lot. Yeah, there's this great verse in Proverbs, chapter six that says, can a man carry fire close to his chest without his clothes being burned? You can't play with this stuff. And so the. I think the first thing that helps is just being honest about access and whatever that. I mean, I'm not only talking about pornography, but just thinking about, like, if I have a habit, what does access look like? Because thinking about Proverbs again, you know, and I understand that in Proverbs, like, the evil seductress woman is like a metaphor, she's a symbol for something bigger, but is also, I think, stands in for exactly this vice that we are talking about. And the advice is, don't go anywhere near her house. Like, you need to run the other direction. Like, if you see her coming, you know, so if you pass by her house on your way to work, you need to go over a few blocks and around to make sure that you steer as clear of this as you can. And so I think just being honest about access and having other people who know about my access and like, how am I doing with that? And I mean, really treating it, because this is, let's be real, like, this is an addiction for many, many people. And so treating it like an addiction of other kinds of substances and just saying, like, okay, well, this is, this is when it's trouble for me, this is what my access looks like. And then having really hard conversation with yourself about, like, you know, so again, like, we're, we're into the practical weeds here. But, you know, we carry around pornography access in our pockets with our phones, and the phones are used for many great things, but having the real conversation of, like, what kind of convenience would I be willing to sacrifice for some period of time in order to, like, help myself? Because if there is access, then I'm just going to keep giving into this vice. And then I think thinking too about, like, not just, you know, it's not just pornography, but like our broader media diet and what that fosters in us in terms of, like, how we relate to our own desires. I'm going to go on a little bit of a tangent here because I, I had a. A long and spirited conversation with one of our students, shout out Lawson Huff about this. And I was talking about how my kid, my youngest kid, likes to watch these unboxing videos like, of lego sets on YouTube. And I was like this is just like pornography. It's, it's a different subject matter, but I think it has a similar effect where it enables you to kind of indulge a desire without having to actually engage the, the reality of it. Like porn is to lust as Food Network is to gluttony, as unboxing videos and catalogs are to greed. Right. Where it enables me to indulge it. But then the actual, you know, so when it's pornography, the less attractive aspects of bodies, the vulnerabilities and responsibilities, difficulties of maintaining good relationships, I don't have to worry about any of that. But similarly, like, you know, these, these kinds of other sorts of media that make me think I can have this thing without like the expense of having to buy it or the labor of having to maintain it, or the problem of storing it or moving it, or just all the effects of waste. And so just thinking about how do I engage media in general because it can stoke something that is related to lust within me, trying to see it holistically in the person.

C (57:00)

That's a good point. Well said.

A (57:01)

I also think it helps like, you know, the, the ancient church practice of confession, being able to share confession is a path to healing and not confession is a festering kind of wound. Which I totally know is scary too, because, you know, you let something out. This is something that I have done or struggled with. And you don't have any guarantees how the person across from you is going to receive that. Yeah, but find people who love you, who want what is best for you and be, be able to like, say out loud what it looks like for you and then just trying again. Like the thing with vices, they are by nature habitual, but they can be, they can be broken. And so we can keep trying. Like, don't let some bad Christian theology about like works based salvation or whatever get in the way of you being doggedly determined to just keep trying again. And then I think the last thing that I would say that really helps here, Brent, is just a practice of, of friendship, recovering the value in the deep connective tissue of other modes of relationship. So we've got to put out that voice away from us that says, like, sex with another person is like the, the pinnacle of human. Like, that's not true. It is great, but it is not the highest that human relationships have to offer. It is one of the heights among many others, and so recover other kinds of relationship. Kathleen Norris, she wrote a book called Cloister Walk where she writes about her experience, like living among monks and celibate monks is one of the chapters. And she says, when you cannot make love physically, you figure out other ways to do it. And so there are other ways that we can share really meaningful, valuable experiences with other people. I mean, to, to elevate like a view of the whole of relationships like we've talked about. Like what is the image of God look like with this? It's that giant bonfire. What I have seen is that relationships that are not plagued by lust have the potential to be these like unalloyed human relationships where we're not mixing intentions and motives, but we can actually be good to one another and not use people as like a way to gratify, but to see everybody just truly for who they are. I mean, Kathleen Norris writes about that too. The hospitality that the monks were able to offer. Like she talks about women of abuse were able to go and actually find healing in these monasteries because people who had devoted themselves to living lust free or a celibate life. I'm not telling everybody you need to go be a monk and be celibate. But the point is that they were actually to be regarded by somebody who did not have any ulterior motives for what they might get or use from them, even like in their own, their own leering stare or their own thought life, you know. But that is a healing thing that we can be and do for one another to relate to each other with dignity. I think that's kind of maybe what's part of at the heart of what Jesus was saying, Marty, that you were talking about. Like this is about the way that we see each other and that can be healing.

C (60:09)

Yeah, totally.

A (60:10)

I think that's all I got on that we can get into. We're going to be having some self examination questions at the end of each of these episodes that if you want to just take and do something with you, the listener, you can, or you can just, you can just leave them too. That's okay. But anything else? Before we get to that, anything else to wrap up the discussion from, from you, Brent, or you, Marty?

B (60:29)

I'll just point back to the idea that you guys brought up earlier of connection, like being the root desire here, that reciprocity of relationship and the disorderedness of lust being. It's entirely one sided and there's, there's no connection there at all.

A (60:46)

Marty, anything else from you?

C (60:47)

Not a thing. You covered it well. You've added some col to conversations I have often had in the past.

A (60:53)

All right, so here are, here are some questions, Brent. I'm going to ask you to read these as you will going forward in the future.

B (60:59)

How do my non pornographic media consumption habits fuel an inclination to lust? Are there non sexual ways in which I objectify others? How can I engage in deeper levels of friendship with the people in my life, including my own spouse? How can I use my energy as an opportunity to serve others in love?

A (61:23)

Thanks for joining guys. I appreciate you both being on here to talk about this. Just a nice, easy, light entry into the vices.

C (61:30)

Decent use of my time.

B (61:32)

Yeah, pretty good place to start. Well, we do have lots of links, as we will seemingly for all these episodes. Lots of sources if you know if this is a particular vice that you struggle with or that you're interested in for whatever reason. Lots and lots of resources to dig into to continue this conversation. Of course, you can do that in a discussion group as well. The friendship aspect that we were talking about earlier, like the connection, like that stuff is crucial. So don't do this alone. You know, don't leave it alone in your head. As Reid was talking about, get in a relationship with somebody somehow. Go to baemonacepship.com, check out the map. If you're this far into the podcast and you've just never engaged a discussion group but you're like, man, I'm wrestling with this stuff. I need some community. Like it's not too late to join a group. Like, check it out, it's on the website. You can use the contact page to get in touch with us. Everything that you need is going to be on the website. So let us know. And thank you for joining us on the Bama podcast this week. We'll talk to you again soon.