Friday, March 21, 2014

A Christian Neuroscientist Explains How Pornography Perverts A Man's Interactions With Women

"As men fall deeper into the mental habit of fixating on these images, the exposure to them creates neural pathways. Like a path is created in the woods with each successive hiker, so do the neural paths set the course for the next time an erotic image is viewed. Over time these neural paths become wider as they are repeatedly traveled with each exposure to pornography. They become the automatic pathway through which interactions with women are routed. The neural circuitry anchors this process solidly in the brain. With each lingering stare, pornography deepens the Grand Canyon-like gorge in the brain through with images of women are destined to flow. This extends to women that they have not seen naked or engaging in sexual acts as well. All women become potential porn stars in the minds of these men. They have unknowingly created a neurological circuit that imprisons their ability to see women rightly as created in God's image."

Wired for Intimacy: How Pornography Hijacks the Male Brain
William M. Struthers
page 85, (IVP Books, 2009)

Thursday, March 13, 2014

"When I run, I feel His pleasure"



In the film Chariots of Fire there is a memorable scene involving Eric Liddell and his sister, Jenny. She is chiding him for what she regards as his divided loyalty between his athletics and his commitment to Christ. She reminds him that God made him for Himself. He replies: 

“Aye, Jenny, I know, but He also made me fast, and when I run, I feel His pleasure.”

For us, this may not be athletics. It may be accounting or selling or teaching or nursing or mothering. In the latter case, this would allow a mother to declare with conviction:  “And when I make the lunches, I feel His pleasure.”


Alistair Begg
Made For His Pleasure, pages xviii - xix

(Moody Press)

Trust in the LORD! (Psalm 115:9-11)

  9 O Israel, trust in the LORD! He is their help and their shield. 10 O house of Aaron, trust in the LORD! He is their help and their...