Dead Men/Alive Men Walking

Today's Three-minute Bible Study
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Title: Dead Men/Alive Men Walking
Keywords:   "dead"  "immorality" "impurity"
Welcome to eXXit, the web site designed to help you stand strong in the face of sexual temptation.

Passage: Colossians 3:5-7*

5. Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry.

6. For it is on account of these things that the wrath of God will come,

7. and in them you also once walked, when you were living in them.

Questions

1. How is the Christian to think about the members of his body with respect to sexual immorality?

 

2. Do you see a difference between “immorality” “impurity” “passion” and “evil desire”? How would you state the difference?

 

3. How do any (or all) of these words relate to pornography?

 

Practical help

The apostle Paul is writing to Christians in this passage. Christians are to think of all their body parts (hands, feet, eyes, and other body members!) as dead with respect to inappropriate, sinful ways of using those body parts. How useful is a dead body part? Not very! How useful are a paraplegic’s legs for walking? A blind person’s eyes for seeing? A deaf person’s ears for hearing?

So, when the Christian is tempted to sexual sin — like lustfully viewing pornography on the Web or elsewhere — he is called to THINK like the born-again man he is. Of course, he may still be able to see the picture on the screen and be sexually stimulated by what he sees. BUT, because he is saved, those body parts are now off-limits for those purposes.

That makes sense. After all, sexual sin was one of the sins that had previously condemned him to God’s wrath. Now, having escaped the wrath of God through faith in Jesus, how nutty is it to pursue those activities that would have brought about that wrath had he not become a Christian!?

Next time you are tempted to view Web porn, remember. Your body parts aren’t “wired” for that use anymore. God has given them a new application, that of bringing glory to Jesus!

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*"Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, © Copyright The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995. Used by permission."