Sexual chemistry is extremely powerful, with effects that have been compared to that of taking highly addictive drugs such as cocaine. It is nothing to be dealt with lightly, as can be seen from the havoc and wrecked lives left in its wake.

Most Christians enter into marriage thinking neither spouse will have an extramarital affair, but it does happen, as we sadly know. Here is some practical advice for protecting and strengthening your marriage.
Countless affairs are ignited by “chemistry.”
Extramarital affairs can start because of sexual chemistry—and Christians should never underestimate the power of this kind of chemistry. We hear stories of pastors having affairs, and we wonder how that could happen. Of course he knew better—he is a pastor! What a hypocrite! Well, most of the time, it’s likely that sexual chemistry ignited the fuse.
It is helpful to recognize the role hormones play when it comes to the feelings of sexual attraction humans experience. According to the research institute ASDN (Atomic Scale Design Network),
First attraction, first “sparks” in the air followed by falling in love are caused by combination of three neurochemicals: phenylethylamine, norepinephrine and dopamine. Later stages of long relationships are guided by another two: oxytocin and serotonin…Phenylethylamine (PEA), acts as a releasing agent of norepinephrine and dopamine. The first attraction causes us to produce more PEA, which results in those dizzying feelings associated with romantic love. Large quantities of PEA increase both physical and emotional energy and at the same time release more dopamine.
Be acutely aware of the difference between feelings of friendship and sexual chemistry.
To be clear, this kind of chemistry is not a deep, abiding feeling of friendship for someone of the opposite sex. According to psychologist Dario Nardi in his article “PEA—The Hormone of Love,” the hormones involved in feelings of sexual attraction result in infatuation and produce sensations that include giddiness, “butterflies” in the stomach, sleeplessness, and a narrow focus on a particular person.
“Chemistry” can ignite suddenly and unexpectedly. What was once a nice friendship can become sexually charged in an instant.
Sexual chemistry can be even more powerful when the illicit relationship has appealing aspects that are missing in your marriage, because you may be starved for them and not even realize it. Yet, as Nardi explains, the effects of hormones such as phenylethylamine (PEA), norepinephrine, and dopamine don’t last forever:

For better or worse, after a certain period of eighteen months to four years the body builds up a tolerance to the effects of PEA and related hormones.

Even though the feelings of attraction that are produced by hormones such as PEA are likely to diminish over time, the destructive effects of an affair remain. Sometimes a marriage can still be saved at that point—but not always.
This reduction in certain hormones may also be a significant reason why married couples tend to struggle with feeling as romantic with each other as they did when they were dating. It’s good to be aware of this, so you don’t think there is something wrong because these feelings have diminished.
Flee from inappropriate sexual chemistry.
You should never play with fire and sexual chemistry is no different in that aspect, as both can produce disastrous results. If you find you have sexual chemistry with someone who is not your spouse—or the person is married and you are single—the best thing you can do is stay away from that person as much as possible. We find a good example of this in the Bible where Joseph had to repeatedly refuse the advances of Potiphar’s wife and eventually had to flee from her presence to avoid committing sexual sin (Gen. 39).
Read More

The process of compiling an anthology of devotional classics was for me a continuous process of tracking down bits and pieces that were part of my literary and religious life that I had never pursued in detail. I will feel rewarded if my readers come to love the entries in my anthology as I have come to love them, and I will be doubly rewarded if my readers catch a vision for finding devotional riches in overlooked corners of their own reading lives.

The Devoted Heart
The following reflections on the devoted heart are occasioned by the recent release of my anthology of devotional classics, a book in which each devotional text is accompanied by a 500-word explication by me. I called the texts classics to denote that they possess qualities that raise them above the conventional entries in a daily devotional guide. The problems with the conventional devotional guide are multiple, as Charles Spurgeon discovered when he made a survey of existing devotional books. What Spurgeon found was predictability, monotony, a tendency toward abstraction, and lack of fresh insight and expression.
In compiling my anthology, I worked hard to find devotional riches in unexpected places. Many of the authors would doubtless be surprised by what I chose for devotional purposes. Although I did not primarily go in quest of superior expression, I found that freshness of insight and expression just naturally appeared, often because of the real-life situations from which the devotionals arose.

I will adduce four examples to illustrate what I am describing, and then I will explore the common ingredients that the selections in my book share, in effect offering a definition of the genre of a devotional classic.

Devotional Riches in Unexpected Places
The burial service in The Book of Common Prayer was not composed as a devotional. It was instead intended to be part of a funeral service. Yet it is a moving meditation on human mortality and immortality. Here is a brief excerpt:
In the midst of life we are in death; of whom may we seek for help, but of thee, O Lord, who for our sins art justly displeased? . . . O holy and most merciful Savior, deliver us not into the bitter pains of eternal death . . . [and] suffer us not, at our last hour, for any pains of death, to fall from thee.
When Victorian poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson was walking with a visitor in a garden, the visitor asked the poet what he thought of Christ. Tennyson’s response was not offered as a devotional, but it nonetheless rises to that status: “What the sun is to that flower, Jesus Christ is to my soul. He is the sun of my soul.”
William Shakespeare finalized and signed his will a month before his death in 1616. In doing so, he did not envision himself as writing something devotional, yet part of the preamble reads as follows: “I commend my soul into the hands of God my Creator, hoping and assuredly believing through the only merits of Jesus Christ my Savior to be made partaker of life everlasting. And my body to the earth whereof it is made.”
Painter Lilias Trotter made a practice of drawing plants in Algeria, where she served as a missionary in the latter nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As Trotter pondered the plants that she came to know intimately, the idea occurred to her that they were parables of spiritual truths. One of these parables was built around the idea that just as plants die and then revive to new life, for people, too, death is in multiple ways the gate of life. Here is a brief excerpt: “A gateway is never a dwelling-place; the death-stage is never meant for our souls to stay and brood over, but to pass through with a will into the light beyond . . . for above all and through all is the inflowing, overflowing life of Jesus.”
A Devoted Life is the Seedbed of a Devoted Heart
Before I turn to an analysis of the common ingredients of the genre of a classical devotional, I will pause to draw a conclusion from the examples I have just quoted.
Read More
Related Posts:

Jesus had to reveal the true meaning of the Old Testament to His disciples after the resurrection despite the fact that they had been acquainted with it their entire lives.  We too have no hope of understanding Scripture unless the Spirit reveals it to us as Jesus promised He would.  So we must pray for His guidance to understand the Scriptures He inspired whenever we read them.  Finally, all theology should lead to doxology (worship), so read any passage looking for things that can aid your worship. 

But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
-2 Timothy 3:14-17, ESV
With any new year, many Christians begin a quest to read through the entire Bible that often gets bogged down and fails just like many health and fitness resolutions.  Interestingly, the reason is the same: people lack a greater purpose for wanting to read through the entire Bible. They get lost in the confusing history of Genesis, the seemingly-insignificant tabernacle details of Exodus, the puzzling ceremonial laws of Leviticus, or the endless genealogies of Numbers.  Then they face a myriad of difficult names in Joshua, a bewildering barrage of strange stories and more genealogies in the history books and cryptic language in the poetry, wisdom, and prophetic books.  When you see little of relevance in these passages, it is easy to become discouraged and quit reading, returning instead to the familiarity of the New Testament.  If your sole reason for reading the Old Testament is because you are supposed to since it is part of the Bible, that reason will not sustain you through “the doldrums”.  In this post, I hope to give you reasons not only to read the Old Testament, but to love the Old Testament.
Inspired and Profitable
The doctrine of Scripture is the foundation of all other doctrines, which is why my theology page and posts on theological illiteracy begin with the doctrine of Scripture.  A biblical theology of Scripture holds that every bit of the Bible is inspired by God and that the Bible in its entirety is sufficient to equip us for life and godliness: “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17).  While this certainly applies to all of Scripture, we can see from context that this is particularly referring to the Old Testament.  Paul started the letter by recalling the faith of Timothy’s grandmother Lois and mother Eunice (2 Timothy 1:5), so they are the ones who taught him “the sacred writings”.  Eunice was a Jewish Christian, but Timothy’s father was a Gentile (Acts 16:1-3) so he was not brought up in the Jewish community.  Still Eunice and Lois taught Timothy the Old Testament.  Therefore, Paul is reminding Timothy that the Old Testament is able to make him wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.  So along with the New Testament, every word of the Old Testament is inspired and profitable.  Additionally, Paul specifically says that they are useful because they “are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus”.  Yes, the Old Testament is able to make you wise for salvation.  The New Testament did not come in a vacuum but into the context of the Old Testament.  This is seen in countless direct quotes and references to the Old Testament found throughout the New Testament, especially in its first and last books.  Written to Jews to prove that Jesus was their King, Matthew includes numerous references to Old Testament prophesies.  And Revelation contains more Old Testament references than any other New Testament book, so you cannot hope to understand Revelation if you do not understand the Old Testament.  Therefore, studying the Old Testament will greatly enrich your understanding of the New Testament.
Jesus is the Point
We are tempted to focus on the New Testament not only because it is often easier to understand but also that we find Jesus there. But you can find Jesus in the Old Testament as well—and not just a few places.  If you have a keen eye, you can spot Jesus everywhere in the Old Testament because the entire Old Testament like the New Testament is about Him.  He said as much on the Emmaus road after the resurrection:
And he said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.
-Luke 24:25-27, ESV
Notice how Jesus interpreted “in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself” in Moses and the Prophets—i.e. the entire Old Testament.  He is even clearer to his disciples:
Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.
-Luke 24:44-47, ESV
Here Jesus sums up the meaning of the Old Testament in statement that followed: He would suffer, die, and rise again, bringing forgiveness through faith and repentance that would start in Jerusalem and spread to all the nations.  The entire Old Testament therefore points to Christ and prepares the way for Christ, so if you diligently search for Jesus throughout the Old Testament, you will find Him.
Finding Jesus in the Old Testament
If Jesus can be found throughout the Old Testament, how do we find Him?  The first step is to properly interpret that passage within the context of redemptive history.  Since the Old Testament covers thousands of years, observing where a passage falls within that history is vital.  Every passage was written to specific people at a specific time in a specific context, so bear in mind how the original audience would have interpreted the passage.  Remember, the Bible was written for us but not to us.  Still, we have an enormous advantage over the original audience because we have the entirety of God’s revelation in the form of the complete Bible.  We can read the Old Testament with the New Testament in mind and therefore see how Old Testament passages fit within the greater story of redemption.  In addition to what we discussed on how to study the Bible, look for what the passage teaches us about who God is, who we are, and the plan of redemption.
Read More
Related Posts: