Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 Hey friends, welcome back to Unfazed Christianity. We are in the middle of reviewing my book Live Free Making Sense of Male Sexuality. If you haven't read it and you're curious what it's about and you'd be curious to hear more of the review, just go ahead, click the link below, it'll take you right to the, all the previous videos. We are in chapter six called Fig Leave. So there's been five videos, actually six videos because I did an intro one as well. So, uh, we're doing this just kind of in celebration of the four year anniversary of publishing it. Also, prepping for the release of the audio version. I'm listening through the audio files and I'm gonna produce its rather homemade audiobook just to get it done. It's, it's been a bit of an embarrassing part of the project, but I want to get the audio version out there because, uh, some of you have been waiting for it.
Speaker 0 00:00:56 You were told that you were gonna get it. Others of you have been asking about it. You have friends you'd like to share the book with, and you know that they don't read very well and you'd like an audio version. And so I am gonna get that to you by the end of the month as a part of that process. We're taking 20 days to just go through every chapter and review it, particularly because there are things that I would say differently, and I've already addressed a couple of those in really the last two, two chapters, two videos. I think I've, I've had something in each one that I would say differently. And just as I was listening to, I just got done listening to a couple chapters at a time, and I was just realizing I, the way I use Bible stories and the way I use scripture, I think that's one of the things that I would probably do differently if I wrote it.
Speaker 0 00:01:46 Again, I don't, I don't know that I'm, I don't think I'm twisting scripture, but I'm using stories that, that seem to indicate, uh, things that, that we might, that I might be talking about. But it's, you can't really, like, it's a little bit of presumption on my part to assume that that's what's being used. And so I'm not sure that I would use scripture quite in that way. Um, I would probably lean a little bit more on data science and, and just some psychological data I do in the book. I do reference several different studies in the footnotes, um, that, that back various things. I don't know that we've really gotten any into anything like that yet, but more as we get into some of the ways that, um, our body is wired sexually and how trauma can affect our pH physical bodies, I think there, I link some, some things.
Speaker 0 00:02:43 But anyways, chapter five was drinking from a wall that doesn't satisfy and basically just kinda agitating this thing of we're looking for something when we go to sexual exploits, especially when they're, when we're compromising, right? And or just any kind of addiction, we're, there's something that we're needing to fill within ourselves. And no matter what we use, whether it's sex or something else, it's not gonna satisfy because what we're really needing is God, we're needing a relationship and identity with God. And so that's kind of what chapter five was. Agitating chapter six goes even deeper, and we talk about fig leaves, and it's just pulling from the story of creation where Adam and Eve sinned and then they immediately feel shame and they pull themselves to pull fig leaves together as one, one of the projects. Since writing this book, um, I've started going through Bible college.
Speaker 0 00:03:43 I'm in the middle of Bible college, and I did a project a couple years ago on the biblical theme of fig leaves and specifically this notion of we as humanity, we mess up and then we try to fix the mess ourselves. And that's traceable, like throughout scripture, Genesis sets up that narrative that man disobeys God sees their nakedness, they feel shame, they cover themselves up, and that that is then thematic throughout scripture as we see it. And I tell the story of Saul, and I just briefly touched on it in the last video, but Saul, you see this story unfolding. He's from the lowest Klan in all the tribe of Israel, and he's called to be king. And people are saying, Long live King Saul. And, and he's excited about it. And then all of a sudden he's in a couple situations where everybody's running away and they no longer have confidence in him as their leader, and it leads him to compromise.
Speaker 0 00:04:42 It leads him to disobey God because he's got to have that, right. He's got to have that vote of confidence from his people. And so really, we're, we're talking here about insecurity. We're talking about ways that we try to, to make ourselves feel less secure. And the whole point of this chapter was designed, yes, we may be using sex in this way, but even more so, it helps us understand what the underlying issues are when we can figure out what we're using to cover up. So I talk about several different forms of fig leaves that I use in my, that I have used in my own life, being a fast runner, being a good worship leader, like being a good writer, like stuff like that where people praised me and I felt significant. And so specifically those things, somebody praises you. It's often something good, something you are good at, and we get this shot of significance or even dopamine or whatever, and we begin to lean into it thinking that, that, that gives me purpose, that gives me value.
Speaker 0 00:05:57 But then at some point in time, there's gonna come, we're gonna be confronted with how we don't always have that. I'm not always the fastest guy on the track. I'm not always the best worship leader around. I'm not always the best writer. And when I bump into people who are better or when people no longer praise me for that, then I go into compromising things to try to stir up, make myself feel significant. I don't get into the, in this book at all, but I, I think, um, we, we can often go into depression or go into like this disillusioning period of time whenever like what we're using to make us feel secure is threatened, is taken away. Um, and so I it's, it's more just this notion that fig, fig leaves are things that kind of make us feel like we're somebody. And when those, when we're confronted with how thin and how fickle those fig leaves are, then we, we grasp for anything even disobeying God.
Speaker 0 00:07:08 And so that's just kind of what this, this chapter's about. I don't really have a whole lot, I would say differently. I, I reference Martha, you know, and, and how she was so concerned about taking care of people, you know, was Martha dealing with an ins insecurity there? I don't know. Like, is that reading too much onto scripture? I don't know. I think we can observe that there's something like Jesus clearly says, Martha, you are worried about many things. And his whole point seems to be that he wants Martha to just delight in him and just rest in his presence. And so I think there, there is an aspect of that that we can get so focused on being the person who's always looking after taking care of people or whatever, doing, doing something that we're good at, and we're missing the communion and just intimacy with Jesus.
Speaker 0 00:08:05 That is what we were made for what we need. So anyways, I'd love to hear your feedback. Uh, have you read this book? If you have read this book, were there anything in chapter six, <laugh>, How's that for grammar? Was there anything in chapter six that you were like, Yeah, you know, I don't know if I agree with that or, you know, I'm not sure what you're saying here, but I, I do very much believe that part of finding the root of your sexual addiction or your sexual struggle is going to be observing. What are those things that you use to cover your sense of shame, to cover a sense of insecurity? Um, because any struggle, ongoing struggle or addiction is there to feed something like you're, you're really
Speaker 1 00:08:54 Needing a sense of significance and self-worth. And so as we can spot kind of the surface things, what we're going to, that'll help us get down to the root so that we can address that and overcome sexual immorality.
