Friday, August 8, 2008

Sex is currency. She sells cars, she sells magazines

I read, on xxxchurch, about a new "reality" show coming out about one of the members of the 2 Live Crew. It's sort of a "Where are they now?" show, making someone who was sort of famous at one point in time sort of famous again. This show follows Luke Campbell as he has left the world of rap (I would advise anyone reading this NEVER to look up 2 Live Crew, who helped bring about the term "booty-shaking" and whose song titles I won't even post). What is Mr. Campbell doing now that his rap career is over? He's working in the pornography industry. And this is going to be a show, not on HBO or Showtime, but on VH-1, a station that used to show music videos.

When did it become OK to have shows that revolve around sex? It was once taboo for Lucy and Ricki to share a bed, and they were married. Nowadays, if you catch an episode of "Friends," it's pretty much a guessing game as to who's sleeping with who. It's getting so that I can hardly watch TV anymore (which isn't such a bad thing, seeing as how the quality of TV has taken a downward spiral, leaving only a handful of shoes I watch, anyway). And then there are movies. I swear, they add sex and nudity into movies just to lure people in. 300 was a great movie, but there were like 3 scenes with nudity, and they had 0 point in advancing the plot. The same with Wanted. And need I remind anyone of the shipwreck that was Titanic? And that got PG-13 rating! We've become so saturated with sex that these scenes are commonplace in TV and movies. Even commercials have started using sex in their TV spots (look up any Jack-in-the-Box or Axe commercial... on second thought, don't).

It's things like this that makes Ephesians 6 so necessary nowadays. There is a war, and we Christians need to be on our guard for this. Ephesians 5:3 says that sexual immorality should not be named among the believers (the NIV says that there shouldn't even be a hint of sexual immorality). That is an extremely high standard that God set for us, and seems impossible in a world where the phrase "sex sells" has proved true time and time again.

Lord Jesus, I pray for myself and my brothers and sisters, that we would seek you for gratification, knowing that anything that the world has to offer will only leave us wanting more. Lord, I pray that you would remind us that you are the only one who fulfills. I pray that we'd want perfection instead of the perversion of what you've created perfect. Lord, I pray for our sanctification, and that would be in the world, but not of it, living in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. Amen

1 comments:

Susan said...

Thank you so much for this post, J-Ra. I had recently been personally very frustrated with the amount of sexual connotations and jokes that even believers will bring up amongst each other, and that verse from Ephesians was exactly what kept hitting me about it. Seriously...I really appreciate this post!

I hope you've had a great summer!