Sex and the Supremacy of Christ Book

I recommend this book as a solid resource for churches, Christian leaders and individuals to teach and understand a total view of practical and Biblical teaching on human sexuality. Even though the book is a group effort of twelve different writers, it is comprehensive enough to challenge every Christian to grasp the concept that sexuality is not only good, but a God ordained creation for living as the creatures that he has made.

While merely having the word Sex as the first word of any title of a book is sure to gain access to more eyes than not having it there, the title for the interested reader would be best The Supremacy of Christ over Sex. This being a book that comes with John Piper's name as an editor means that the focus will be on what he has termed Christian hedonism and the pleasure of enjoying God's creation, under his redemptive will in Christ, to the fullest extent lawful, to honor God to the greatest extent possible.

Sex, in our time especially, seems to either be either an act of selfishness, guilt or, like the Gnostic heresy of old, a complete separation for the Christian between holy living and action. The purpose of this book is to remind, encourage and develop thought and action in people to embrace sexuality as part of God's world. Even the failings, brokenness, and sin that develop through sex can be redeemed.

The book is divided into five sections covering the theological applications of God and sex and sin and sex in the first two sections. The middle sections of the volume deal with more practical concerns that men and women at various times of life regarding sex, and the book ends with very intriguing histories of Martin Luther and his wife and how the Puritans understood and applied sexuality.

he last section holds interest to me as a reader of history, including church history. The Protestant Reformer Martin Luther's marriage to the former nun Katherine von Bora is described with all its unique joys and foibles. The Luther's are presented as a couple that married out of duty and grew in deep love as their family grew. It is a delightful tale worth checking, especially for what would be shocking to us, 16th century German wedding customs. The book concludes with an attempt to explain the 17thcentury Puritan approaches to sexuality and marriage written by Washington's Capitol Hill Baptist pastor, Mark Dever. Probably no other group suffers today from historical misrepresentation as the Puritans and Dever attempts to change the record a bit by explaining how revolutionary the Puritan approach to marriage was that we are still the beneficiary of it. His attempt to explain the Puritan approaches as a revolution against medieval asceticism helps to explain why marriages in the West developed from loveless matches to passionate matching. Probably no one in history valued the role of the wife towards the success of the growing passion between a Puritan husband and wife.