Day 18 - Pharisees, Pornography and a Hint of Impurity

Jesus tells a parable of two men, a Pharisee and a Tax Collector. The Pharisee stood up at the temple to pray, and expressed: “God, I thank you that I am not like other men…”. In the course of his prayer, the Pharisee then goes on to describe the sins of other men. By contrast the tax collector also prays, but does so with a different posture. He would not even look up to heaven, but cried out, “God, be merciful to me a sinner.” Jesus concludes the parable by explaining that the tax collector, rather than the Pharisee, returned home that day in right standing with God.

Something has happened within the mind of men as a result of the accessibility and prevalence of pornography in our world. Because of its clearly destructive nature, we have come to consider it as the measuring stick of sexual purity. The result is that anything short of what is labeled pornography becomes acceptable. If we have no issue with pornography, we consider ourselves pure. If we struggle with it, we rightly understand that there is impurity in our lives.

But then, Scripture does not call us to avoid pornography. It calls us to avoid even the hint of sexual impurity (Ephesians 5:3). Now that encompasses much more than simply exposure to pornography, doesn’t it? There are many ways in which I can be sexually impure without ever clicking on a pornographic website.

The threat to us is that we would stand up like the Pharisee saying, “I thank you God that I don’t look at pornography (like other men).” Freedom from pornography is something for which we should rightly be thankful, but it is not the measuring stick of purity. As I have considered these verses recently, I am increasingly convinced that we should give less time considering what we don’t do, and more time crying out to the Lord for complete purity. It complete purity is our standard, rather than simply freedom from pornography, I suspect we would all admit that our need for the ongoing work of the Lord in this area of life remains.