VirtueOnline - News - Islam, Persecution & Culture Wars - Sexual Sin Is Never Just a Private Matter - by Alan Medinger

Alan Medinger writes an excellent article about how sexual sin impacts not just the individual but the whole body of Christ. I'd push it a little further: isn't this true of all sin? There is poignant proverb about adultery in Proverbs 6:27 & 29 "Can a man scoop fire in his lap without being burned?" "So it is with he who sleeps with another man's wife. No one who touches her will go unpunished." But isn't this true not just of sexual sin but all sin? And related to Medinger's article, the truth is that a man who scoops fire in his lap burns himself and pains and damages the entire body of Christ. VirtueOnline - News - Islam, Persecution & Culture Wars - Sexual Sin Is Never Just a Private Matter - by Alan Medinger: "Our sexual sins hurt the entire Body of Christ. Most of us recognize that when we engage in sexual sin with another person-even a very willing one-we have hurt that person by helping to facilitate their sin. But even our 'solitary' sins, such as sexual fantasy or lusting in front of a computer screen, do damage beyond just the corruption that takes place in our own souls. Western culture is individualistic to an excess.* And addicted people tend to be self-focused to an excess. (I recently heard a well know speaker and writer in our ministry refer to homosexuality as a branch of narcissism.) But we're not just individuals, we are a part of a body-the Body of Christ, and our excessive self-focus is destructive to others. There is no victimless sexual sin. Every sexual sin hurts the Body of Christ, and thereby, the culture in which we live."