Over the coming month in the Faith, Life and Work channel, we will be running a short series on marriage, sex and celibacy, with a special focus on the themes of desire and devotion.
Because our created maleness and femaleness are such an important aspect of what it means to be human, and because the ordering, directing and sustaining of our loves and desires is so close to the heart of what God calls us to in the gospel, the topics addressed in this series will always have significance for us as Christians. And in our own time, as the contemporary debates about sexual morality and the definition of marriage seem to swirl around us with an ever-increasing intensity, they have an additional timeliness.
Whilst the various topics we address within the the series will inevitably require us to weigh in on those debates from time to time, the main aim of the series will not be apologetic or polemical. Nor will we be attempting to offer a comprehensive theology of marriage and singleness. Our aim, rather, will be to say something biblically faithful and theologically clear about one particular aspect of the experience of marriage and singleness: namely, the way in which they function as arenas within which we experience desire and seek its fulfillment, and are summoned in the gospel to renew our desires in response to the love of God in Christ.
Our great hope is that the various posts in the series will offer encouragement to you, whatever your situation, in living out the undivided devotion to the Lord Jesus that we are all called to in the gospel, whatever our situation, and loving the people whom he has given us to love.
Please pray for the contributors who will be writing posts for the series (Dan Patterson, Keith and Sarah Condie, Andrew and Heather Reid, Kamal Weerakoon, Patricia Weerakoon, Simone Richardson, Andrew Errington and Simon Camilleri), that God would give them wisdom for the task and use their labours toward that end.
Image: Marina Carvalho (via flickr)