“Oh, another one!”. Those were the words of a TFT member, spoken in jest, at a recent conference after I told them I’m studying part-time for a graduate diploma in theology. I’m not sure if the proportion of Christians who experience SSA that go on to study theology is statistically abnormal, but I’ve enjoyed doing something that has been on my heart for a number of years.
An article that looks in particular at understanding biblical teaching
We all bring baggage with us when we approach Scripture. It might be personality quirks like introversion and self-reliance, or culturally conditioned philosophical concepts like individualism. These things act as static that we must try and tune out. When we do, we are better placed to hear what Scripture teaches on community...
This a beautiful story, very well told. Becket Cook tells the reader what it was like to be immersed in the gay lifestyle on the US West Coast, and how the world looks from that perspective: “I wanted everyone to be free to be who they were with wild abandon and without shame, completely comfortable in their own skin.”
I need to make a declaration right at the outset, for transparency. I’m an unmarried man. There, I’ve said it. Not an easy thing to admit to as a Christian in your early fifties. Particularly in a social media-driven culture where your ‘relationship status’ is considered to be a key aspect of your identity.
The article “Is it OK to masturbate?” is never out of the top three most-read articles on the TFT website. But the topic is rarely addressed Biblically and so we can find ourselves conflicted by feelings of shame, confusion and self-justification. Because of the taboos that surround discussing masturbation, many of our beliefs and feelings about this subject were probably formed in our teenage years.
Receiving a gift should stir feelings of great gratitude. But if we were to play a word association game with ‘singleness’ - described in Scripture as a gift (1 Corinthians 7:7) - how many of us would associate it with joy, thankfulness and other positive emotions? There have certainly been times I’ve failed to treat this gift as something good, provided by our loving heavenly Father. So, why is singleness not valued as it should be?