Naked Awe
Today's Three-minute Bible Study
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Title: Naked Awe------------------------------ Date: 3/20/2002
Keywords:
"awe" "repulsion"
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temptation.
Passage: Genesis 9:20-27*
20. Noah, a man of the soil, proceeded to plant a vineyard.
21. When he drank some of its wine, he became drunk and lay uncovered inside his tent.
22. Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father's nakedness and told his two brothers outside.
23. But Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it across their shoulders; then they walked in backward and covered their father's nakedness. Their faces were turned the other way so that they would not see their father's nakedness.
24. When Noah awoke from his wine and found out what his youngest son had done to him,
25. he said, "Cursed be Canaan! The lowest of slaves will he be to his brothers."
26. He also said, "Blessed be the LORD, the God of Shem! May Canaan be the slave of Shem.
27. May God extend the territory of Japheth; may Japheth live in the tents of Shem, and may Canaan be his slave"
Questions
1. Why did Noah curse Canaan and bless Shem and Japheth?
2. How can we apply the message of this passage to pornography?
Practical help
The West holds up sex as the cure for all our ills. Frustrated? Look into your libido. Angry? Chalk it up to issues with your mother. Sex is the god of post-modernism.
Noah understood that untethered sexuality acts as a rival to the true God. That's why he blasted poor Canaan. Acting without proper respect for nakedness, Canaan threw in his lot with the pagans. The same idolatrous impulse fuels the pornography industry. It's credo: Nakedness rules.
As a result, Christians should fight the false god of pornography with Noah's tools. Curses and eviction have their place. And so does Noah's motive. Pornography denigrates as it deifies. Avoid these images not out of repulsion, but out of awe. Respect God's creation enough to look away from its corruption.
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*Scriptures are from The Holy Bible: New International Version © Copyright 1973,
1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. All rights reserved.