Dinner for two at Angelo's

Now for a collection of links... I will write some of my own stuff again soon I promise :P. It's just that these posts were too good to miss (thanks to Laura for drawing them to my attention).

Douglas Wilson is responding to Mark and Grace Driscoll's recent and controversial book, Real Marriage. He introduces the discussion with great wisdom and fair-mindedness here. He then continues his introduction by drawing on 1 Thessalonians 4:4-5, making the following observation:

So we do not yet know what the distinction is exactly, but the important thing is that we now know that there is one. This means that there should be some kind of qualitative difference in how a sanctified and honorable man approaches a woman and how a man full of the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life does. From the passages noted above, the difference is clearly not a difference with intensity.

Next Wilson explains frankly and persuasively why anal intercourse is "unnatural, unhealthy, unclean, and unnecessary". He then turns to how you go about deciding what is right and wrong when the Bible fails to mention modern sexual practices. His answer is in part: "a couple who seriously put into practice the great principles in the first part of this book will overwhelmingly not be interested in some of the questions in the controversial section".

 Wilson concludes by explaining how understanding the culture you live is in a right and good thing to do:

The Bible tells women to dress a certain way, in order to achieve a certain effect, and tells them to do this without giving them a dress code. This means that obedience requires women to make decisions about their sexual attractiveness in their culture. Here is the principle -- certain kinds of obedience cannot happen unless we learn how to go beyond Scripture. Women need to learn how to be attractive without attracting all and sundry, and they must do this without specific warrant from the Scriptures for any one of their particular decisions. 

All these same realities apply to the marriage bed . . . . In order to able to obey this, in order to make love not like they do, it is required that we be able to read what they are doing. And when we read what they are doing, and why, we are not reading it in the pages of the Bible. But we are doing something better -- we are obeying the pages of the Bible.