In Genesis, for two chapters we are given the account of the creation story. God calls forth the plants, animals etc. and they come into existence. When it got to the turn of man, God said ‘Let us make man in our own image and in our likeness…’. God indeed set out to create a being that would bear his image, his likeness and have dominion over creation. Genesis goes on to state a very important truth that we must bear in mind as we move on. It said ‘… male and female he created them’. This is interesting. It means no single sex owns the rights to the image of God. Not males. Not females. Both men and women equally bear the image of God. Therefore, none of us has the right to claim we are better image bearers of God or we bear God’s image in a greater measure than another person because of our sex. He made us all in his image.

The bible states that God is not a man. ‘Man’ here doesn’t necessarily mean male but human. Jesus also tells us that ‘God is spirit…’. One of the major reasons why God made the two sexes is, reproduction. We are sure of this because the first command God gave to Adam and Eve is to ‘be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth…’. To the best of my knowledge, we are not told anywhere in scripture that spirit beings reproduce. Spirit beings are not sexual beings. So is it right to classify God who is spirit as either male or female?

The Incarnation of Christ

God made men and women in his image and this is a fact that cannot be disputed because it has been emphatically stated in scripture. However, the incarnation of THE WORD, Jesus Christ, poses a bit of a problem for us so far as this topic is concerned. Not only that but the fact that Jesus referred to God while he was on earth as his father. Also, the Bible describes Jesus as the express image of the invisible God, so if Jesus is a male then are we to assume God is a male too? This is what I have to say to that, sex (male and female) only came into existence when God created living things. The Bible describes God as the God who was, who is and who is to come. God existed way before he made anything material. He decided to come down as one of the two sexes and reveal himself to us as the father. That is it. However, how do we understand this truth in light of the already stated fact that women too are made in the image of God?

From the get-go, the Jews knew Jesus was going to be a male because of Old Testament prophecy. Isaiah said ‘unto us, a child is born, unto us, a son is given’. Jesus being a man is a fact that transcends time. For when he died he died as a man when he resurrected he did so as a man. A man who could be touched and felt. He even sat and ate with his disciples when he resurrected. Also, he is God. So we are very confident about the sex of Jesus. Concerning God, the first person of the Trinity, he has revealed himself to us as the Father. This is also a fact that we cannot overlook in this discussion. The Trinity is made up of three distinct personalities and we know that Jesus was incarnated as a man amongst the three. Therefore it is Jesus’ sex (both on earth and in eternity) we are 100% percent sure of. There is no contradiction in the fact that God made both men and women in his image, came down as a man and has revealed himself to us as the father. To state that this is a contradiction is to say God’s entire being can ONLY be expressed as a male. Or that God exhausted his entire nature in his coming to earth as a man. And this is rather a contradiction of what is stated in Genesis regarding God making both men and women in his image and after his likeness.  This tells us that bearing the image of God goes beyond sex and any human classification. To bear God’s image is to literally have his DNA and his imprint on you. Whether you are a man or a woman once you find yourself on this earth you are made in God’s image and likeness. So yes, we are sure of the fact that Jesus is male, God is revealed to us as the father and lastly, both men and women are made in the image of God. This is to say that men get their maleness from God and women get their femaleness from God.

The Idolatry of having a wrong image of God

“People are not allowed to make images of God because he already made images of himself – the Bible Project (Image of God)”

Paul makes a very important statement in his letter to the Corinthians that addresses the topic under discussion. He says in 2 Corinthians 5:16 that ‘Wherefore, henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more’. The new creation realities are in reference to the regenerated spirit, not the flesh. So when a man comes to the saving knowledge of Christ we say he is born again, not his body but his spirit. Therefore, we regard no man after the flesh but we know each man in spirit or we regard each person as spirit. Paul says if in the past we knew Christ after the flesh, we do so no more. Jesus is not a man that we have deified but rather he is God who came down to this earth as a man. There are people who raise who Jesus was on earth above his deity or they simply have little or no regard at all for his deity. Some say he was merely a moral teacher, others see him as a Jewish mythological character and some others see him as an ancient street magician. What a poor way to regard Jesus Christ!

Spoken Word poet Jackie Hill-Perry said ‘we have to understand God rightly to know him intimately’ and I agree with her. We have to endeavor to know God rightly to worship him rightly. Take for example someone who believes God listens to prayers only on Wednesdays. This person would have to wait until it is Wednesday to pray to God because perhaps according to his theology God is asleep for the rest of the week. But we know the truth because we are told in scripture that He who watches over Israel neither sleeps nor slumbers, meaning he is accessible all day every day. You can create a caricature of God and worship it because you are not well-informed and lack revelation of who he truly is. This is idolatry.

Apostle Paul said in Romans 1:23 that some men thought of themselves as wise not knowing they were fools and they changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man, and to birds etc. The first stage of idolatry is to change the image of God into something else. The concept of idolatry is more nuanced than we make it out to be. Most times it is more mental, psychological, intellectual than it is spiritual and physical. For some of us so far as we don’t have a physical object in our rooms that we pray to in earnest spirituality, we assume we don’t engage in idolatry. When your understanding of who God is is far from the truth, however you are still devoted to that false image of God in worship, you are an idolater. We have to know God for who he is and not for what we want him to be or what we wish he was.

I say this because I’ve seen people raise concerns about the place of women in the Christian faith because Jesus came down to the world as a man and the fact that God has revealed himself to us as a father. I’ve also seen some people claim that men are superior to women because they believe men bear God’s image in a greater measure than women. Both groups of people do not take into consideration what is said about men and women being made in the image of God in the book of Genesis. Basically, the first group is trying to create God in their own image. The second is exalting males over females because God came down to earth as a male and has revealed himself to us as a father. By insisting on putting God into a human classification that we belong to and refusing to worship him until it is universally accepted as such, we are saying until God is made in our image, he isn’t worthy of our worship. Until God looks like us, we won’t worship him. That, my friends, is idolatry. It is not God we desire to worship it is our nature.

Exalting yourself above others because of your sex for any reason at all (including the misinterpretation of scripture) is sexism. This too is idolatry. When we do this, we worship our maleness and not God. This kind of thinking is based on a lie that the revelation of God as a father and his incarnation as the Son is a fact that makes men generally superior to women. Paul said, ‘…there is neither male nor female… for we are all one in Christ’. This doesn’t mean that there is no sex/gender in Christ, rather it implies that the unifying factor in Christianity far outweighs the physical, features that may distinguish us.

This is clearly not worthy of celebration. In fact, I was appalled at this fact when I read it. Those were 60 million lives that could have been but weren’t given the chance. For various reasons women commit abortions. All kinds of women take this decision: married, single, rich, poor, abused etc. I am not outraged at them, but rather the system that allowed this. I am not quite keen on acquiring a tag but if this viewpoint makes me pro-life, then so be it. One thing I know is that nobody can be more pro-life than the fetus. Within a period of 9 months, what started as a clot of blood develops limbs and transforms rapidly into a full-blown human being in the womb. That is pro-life. Nothing can be more indicative of a pro-life stance than growth. Absolutely nothing. Always remember that humanity loses a pro-lifer after each successful abortion.

But it is an issue of choice, they say. It is an issue of what the bearer of the baby says. I’m really not here to debate that, but I just wanted to point out a few things I noticed from the ongoing discussion on social media. From what I know about abortions, especially the ones I have heard about, it was the guys who forced the idea on the ladies. In Lecrae’s song ‘The Good, The Bad, the Ugly’ he recounts how he forced his woman to get an abortion when he was much younger. He stated in the song that the lady went on with the plan because she loved him. But from all indications, he regrets that decision. I remember hearing a story about this macho man in the neighborhood I grew up in running after a lady with a glass of water and some pills in broad daylight. He was literally forcing her to terminate the pregnancy in the full glare of everybody around.

All lives matter; those in womb matter too. The life of a fetus matters no matter who takes the final decision to end it.

My main concern is the misrepresentation of the word of God in the ensuing debate. I couldn’t help but cringe at some opinions which were expressed based on faulty analyses of scripture. Two bible stories emerged in most of the discussions:

1. Onan spilling his seeds (withdrawing while having sex with Tamar)
2. God declaring that he knew Jeremiah before he formed him in his mother’s womb.

Onan’s story is quite an interesting one. He was the second son of Judah. His older brother Er was married to Tamar and he displeased the Lord so he was killed. As their custom was, Tamar was given to Onan to sleep with for her to bear a child to continue the lineage of Er. Onan knowing that the child wouldn’t be counted as his, chose to spill his seed. God killed Onan for what he did. NOTE: God didn’t kill him for merely spilling his seed, but for the implications of this act. Many times I’ve heard people use this story as the basis to condemn masturbation. Masturbation is indeed sexual sin but Onan didn’t masturbate. What he did was a deliberate act to discontinue his brother’s lineage. It is also worthy for us to note that this is the same Judah whose lineage became the tribe of Judah. Both David and Jesus came from this tribe. It is easy to tell why God had a keen interest in the affairs of this family. I can’t tell the exact reason but I am tempted to believe God’s decision to kill Onan had a lot to do with the implications of his actions on the tribe of Judah (According to Gen 38:9).

It is not right to liken what Onan did to masturbation or even abortion. A sperm is not a fetus. Therefore whatever means of birth control a man applies to prevent conception cannot be likened to abortion. Why? Because conception has not taken place yet. The male body is fashioned to naturally dispose of semen once in a while in the sleep of the said man. Is this abortion too? Does this apply to menstruation too? I get what this is all about, though. It is all because some ladies are of the view that any man who takes a stance against abortion is primarily attempting to take away a certain level of freedom from women. Also, there is this assertion that a man’s opinion is worth very little on the topic of abortion. Are we implying that one can only have an opinion on a topic when it directly affects him/her? Do we need to strip the proponent of a contrary view of his right to express it? Doesn’t that imply our assertions are weak in the face of opposition? Nobody’s view should be discredited because of his gender. That is sexism indeed.

The other bible story that has come up in this discussion is the story of Jeremiah. God told Jeremiah:

‘Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth of the womb I sanctified thee and, I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations’

Many have misinterpreted this because they have either misquoted the verse or have truncated it to suit their interpretation. God didn’t say ‘before you were formed in the belly…’ but ‘before I FORMED THEE in the belly…’. What difference does that make? A lot! The understanding that this verse implies God knows each sperm by name and therefore when a man ‘spills his seed’ he has committed abortion is false. God formed Jeremiah in his mother’s womb. God didn’t just know him before that, he ordained Jeremiah way before he formed him in the womb. This means, that verse up there is not about identity or identification but rather predestination. The verse doesn’t mean God knows each sperm by name. It means God knows which one would eventually fertilize the egg and in this case, it was Jeremiah. So before he was a clot of blood, God had already ordained him to be a prophet unto the nations. As simple as that. Therefore abortion is the termination of that which God has formed. As Ravi Zacharias said ‘We can’t talk about human rights without the right to be human’. If your human right terminates another person’s right to be human, how many humans will be left if everybody exercised that right?

There are so many push factors when it comes to abortion for eg. Poverty, stigmatization, unpreparedness etc. It is my hope that we wouldn’t lose sight of the real issue as we go on to fight these factors. Also, there should be counseling and therapy available for women who have already committed abortions. The trauma they go through is unmatched and therefore special care must be given to their psychological health.

We are all fallible. It is natural to want to deal with your mistakes lest they interrupt your plans for the future or because you can’t afford to live with the consequences. But is it right to end a life so you can live yours comfortably? I believe as many of us that read this post should try and answer this question and please share your views with me in the comment session. Thanks.

Sometimes showmanship is the evidence of the absence of legitimacy

You have to understand that this happened so many years ago – maybe between 2003 and 2005. I still remember the quote because I have applied it to so many areas of life and time and time again it proves to be so true. The reality the quote discloses best describes how I feel about sex tapes. Guy, if you were having legitimate sex, there wouldn’t be a need to tape it to show it to your boys as proof of anything. It is as simple as that. There is no point to prove when it is legitimate. There is absolutely no need to impress a third party if it is legitimate. Usually, people tend to show off when what they are doing isn’t permissible. I have a few married friends and they need not send me a video tape of what they do under the sheets because I already know they do it – rightfully and ‘legally’. There have been stories of married couples taking videos of themselves while at it. It doesn’t concern anybody what married people choose to do in their bedrooms. It only becomes an issue if they carelessly let it slip into the hands of a third party. Now back to the point I was making, since society has managed to deceive many into thinking sex is a precious thing only smart guys can steal from girls, why won’t boys want to show unquestionable proof when they do achieve that ‘feat’? I have heard so many stories of guys lying to their friends that they slept with a particular girl. Since the first of such stories was found out to be a lie, the brethren sat down to develop a new strategy: a way to produce evidence that would silence all doubts. Ladies and gentlemen, that is how sex tapes came about.  

‘Sex tape’ is a genre of porn. ‘Sex tape’ is guiltless porn. ‘Sex tape’ is an amateur home-made porn. ‘Sex tape’ is porn with familiar faces. ‘Sex tape’ is unscripted-porn – so it is probably more enjoyable because you know they are not acting. Sex tapes  invoke pity – usually for the lady – therefore people think it is ok to watch it in order to express how deeply hurt they also are by the actions of the guy.

Sex tapes are worse than porn. Sex tapes are evil!

The thing about porn is, usually, the people involved signed up for it. They actually hope and fervently pray the whole world gets to see them doing whatever – for the money. With sex tapes, one party’s desire for street credibility tarnishes the image, taints the reputation and scars the other party emotionally and psychologically for life!

Well, I know there have been a few cases where the lady in the video appears very much aware the act is being taped. Not to jump to the defence of such ladies, but even if she knew, I doubt she would agree to the idea of the video going viral online. I am yet to read about a sex tape that was initiated by a girl to tarnish the image of a guy. It is always the guy. Why? Biblically, guys are held to a higher sexual purity standard than women, per my understanding of the text. (I have spoken extensively about it in this blog). Therefore until we submit to divine standards for sex and purity, we will never see the end of this.

“[M]odern science allows us to understand that the underlying nature of an addiction to pornography is chemically nearly identical to a heroin addiction.” – Dr. Jeffrey Satinover

Addiction to porn is a field of study on its own. I’m hoping God will grant me grace to talk about it sometime soon. No matter how pious a guy is, I will not be shocked if he opens up and tells me he is battling addiction to porn or has done so in the past. What would shock me is if a guy about my age, says he hasn’t ever battled porn addiction before. It is that serious. I watched a TEDx video sometime ago that changed my perception about the porn industry. The speaker defines porn as ‘visualized sex slavery/ prostitution’. He stated that most of the girls in the videos are actually doing it against their own will. There is somebody benefiting tremendously while these girls go through all the abuse in full global glare. Hence, the speaker resolved to refrain from watching porn. I certainly cannot tell how long this resolve would last, but I found his speech quite remarkable. To some extent, this information may deter somebody from watching porn for a while, because it feels like you are endorsing, encouraging and financially contributing to sex trafficking. The abusive and appalling story behind the porn flick may deter you. But what if the story isn’t that appalling? Does it mean you can watch it? This is one of the reasons why people enjoy sex tapes and actually store lots of them in folders on their PCs. The story behind most sex tapes is that of payback or revenge – which makes it ‘exciting’ to watch. Some jilted lover’s attempt at getting back at his ex he still sleeps with. Some guys actually team up to do it. Yo, it is so not cool. The internet never forgets. One day it will all come back to haunt you.

• Let’s not share the videos when they come out. The director of the sex tape, the viewer and the sharer are all voluntary promoters of this genre of porn. You are very much a part of the problem if you watch and share the videos.
• Let’s not allow ourselves to be taped no matter how deeply we think we are in love. The lady in the first sex tape that was ever made, thought she was in love too.
• There is a reason why bathroom windows are small and way up the wall. In fact, it is not love if he/she is asking for nudes and perv stuff like that.

I can’t trust the conscience of a human being. It takes a higher power and force to keep us all in check. What can end this menace? I don’t know. One thing I know is, you have no business stripping before anybody who hasn’t vowed before the Lord to live with you till death. Safety first, stay pure.   

This scenario is way too familiar. A guy and a girl have sex illegitimately, but the girl is always held responsible or brought before the Pharisaical Court of Justice in public. Somehow we have managed to make sex look like a thing girls give to the satisfaction of the guys that ask for it. Therefore when a guy ‘manages’ to get a lady to sleep with him outside marriage, he is hailed as a champion and the lady is called a slut. Jesus himself had to deal with this very issue. Remember when they brought the adulterous woman to him? The woman was caught in the act of adultery: meaning she was involved with a guy. Of course, the patriarchy in that society was so prominent that the man was left off the hook and the woman was found guilty. Jesus looked on the woman with eyes of love and compassion and not eyes of condemnation. He knew that condemning people would only deepen the scars that the guilt had left in their soul. His aim was to bring redemption. Nothing redeems better than love. So he looked at the woman and told her ‘… neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more’. Jesus didn’t approve of the sexually immoral lifestyle here. He offered the woman a dosage of ‘no-condemnation’ to empower her to stay away from sin. Condemnation leads to guilt; guilt hardens the human heart; a hardened heart is a fertile ground for more sin.

This isn’t Jesus’ only encounter with a sexually immoral woman. At a well in Samaria, he spoke with a woman who had five ex-husbands and was at the time in a relationship with a man who wasn’t her husband. Did Jesus condemn her? Nope. He let his love rain on her to the extent that she was transformed instantly into an evangelist, going about inviting people to come and listen to ‘… a man who told me all I ever did’ – as she put it. That day many Samaritans came to believe Jesus because he chose to be compassionate towards a woman who didn’t deserve it by societal standards.

The double standard of sexual behavior is a moral code that permits sexual promiscuity in men but prohibits women in the same regard. This has deluded many guys into thinking that they can be sexually immoral and at the same time judge girls who are just like them. It doesn’t even make sense. It is like a rapist sentencing another rapist to prison in the court of law. I am all for purity … and yes, it is because the bible says so. Nevertheless, I think the bible isn’t partial in the standards it sets for the children of God (male or female). If we are to make that assertion at all, then it appears that the bible expects greater sexual purity from men than women. In Matthew 5:28 it says that any man who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. The bible says men should stop sleeping with women in their fantasies. Can you see the difference between the sexual standard society sets for men versus that of the bible?

It is hard to go a day without having lustful thoughts, especially when the temptation to do so stalks you every step of the way. Guess what, God in his infinite wisdom wants us to deal with the problem at the roots: the thought-level. Our actions are more premeditated than spontaneous. Which means, once you keep thinking about an activity, it is more likely you will indulge in it when given the opportunity. So if you keep sleeping with women who you are not married to in your mind, the likelihood that you might do it in the physical is extremely high. The truth is, this isn’t what the bible even says. According to the verse I quoted above, once you lustfully fantasize about a woman, it is recorded as adultery. Guys, guard your heart. Watch what you think about. Kill sexual immorality at the roots and don’t cut the leaves and gloat over it just yet.

In Job 31:1 Job said he had made a covenant with his eyes not to look at a woman lustfully. The dude had to literally sign a contract with his eyes lest he lust after a woman. Job is an Old Testament character by the way. If he could do this, we who are enormously empowered by grace should be more than able to do same and even better. Let us be intentional about sexual purity. Let us not treat it like a thing that will fall onto our laps from heaven. Men need to train their hungers. I am not even talking about sexual hungers at this point. Really, you need to train yourself to eat and consume only that which is necessary for growth and development. Your being operates under one law of consumption. This law informs your decisions on everything you let into your system: be it music, movies, books or even conversations. Therefore, if you eat anyhow, everywhere and at any time because there is food, you tend to consume other things with like mentality. So you can sleep with any and every lady who appears appealing to your sight. If she resists engaging in intercourse with you, because you have little control over your fleshly desires you apply force to have your way with her – and that is rape. Train your hungers bro; tame your hungers. Though it is not stated categorically in the Word, I can boldly say that God rarely uses people who have a bad eating habit. Most people God used in the bible were ‘chronic fasters’ who ate to live and didn’t live to eat. Daniel ate greens when he was offered sumptuous royal food and meat. John the Baptist ate locust and wild honey while both of his parents worked in the temple which meant they had an ample supply of meat and food at home. Jesus fasted for 40 days before commencing his ministry. Moses also fasted for 40 days. The 84 year old prophetess Anna vowed not to stop fasting and praying till Jesus was born – and she did get to meet him. Train your hungers bro!

On the flip side, the people who couldn’t train their hungers brought calamity unto themselves and others around them. Adam and Eve were authorized to eat everything in the garden but two fruits. At the end of the day they ate one and that was the root of the sin Jesus had to come to die for. Esau sold his birthright and blessings to his little brother because he couldn’t train his hungers. The Israelites lamented that they were tired of eating manna; hence God sent them an abundant supply of quails. While the meat was still in-between their teeth as they ate, God struck them dead. Amnon raped his own sister Tamar and was murdered because of it. Bro, tame your hungers. As I said, a single law of consumption operates in your being. Therefore the way you eat is sometimes directly related to the level of control you have over your sexual urges. There are two major hungers in every human being: the hunger for food and the hunger for sex. The hunger for food is stronger than the hunger for sex. Therefore if you can master full control over your hunger for food, you are automatically transformed into an intolerant dictator over your hunger for sex. Of course it must be a spiritual activity marked by the reading of the word and prayer – not merely a hunger strike.

Solomon said it is better to have self-control than to conquer a city. Ironically, he married 700 wives coupled with a whopping 300 concubines. David, his father, slept with Bathsheba though she was married and he went on to orchestrate the killing of her husband. Samson was warned against having relations with women from Philistine. He didn’t heed to this warning and that was his undoing. I would like to state emphatically that, contrary to popular belief, the downfall of all these men wasn’t the women, but their lack of self-control. Here we have the wisest man who ever lived; the strongest man who ever lived; and one of the greatest warriors in human history and they all have one thing in common: they couldn’t control their sexual urges. By these three stories, God has illustrated to us that it doesn’t take physical strength, or wisdom, or even battle prowess to have self-control. Only the grace of God can give you complete control over your flesh. The grace is abundant in his presence; intentionally make the effort to dwell there. Pitch a tent; rent a room; chain yourself to a tree… whatever you can, please do it to stay in his presence. Do not rely on your wisdom, strength or battle prowess, if these could do you any good, Solomon, David and Samson wouldn’t have made those mistakes.

He who controls his spirit is mightier than he who conquers a city, as Solomon said. Only a superhero can conquer a city all by himself. Therefore, a man who has self-control is mightier than a superhero.

The Supreme Court verdict shouldn’t have come as a shock to any Christian because the bible hints many of such events leading to the end of time. We are even yet to witness the abomination of desolation that Daniel spoke of. This means there are so many other abominable events yet to occur. In my utopia – my wildest fantasies – everyone on earth would be a Christian and live by the same moral code. But we live on earth and not ‘Eli’s Republic’ hence not everybody believes in Christ and The Supreme Court of the United States(SCOTUS) does not make laws based on what is written in the 1st chapter of the book of Romans(sadly). The Supreme Court is on a mission to make people free to do as they please disguised as offering them their human rights. Really, when you think about it, this decision will not make a straight person gay. It just gave the opportunity to those who are already gays to outwardly express their commitment to each other in a more socially accepted way.

The problem I have with the discourse that has been going on about the new law in America is how people think it is now convenient to silence religious people. Did the law offer freedom of expression to one group of people and robbed another of theirs? The very moment a Christian expresses his thoughts on the issue he is either vilified or labelled. Doesn’t this defeat the purpose of a fight for freedom? We can’t all support the same movements but we can agree to disagree and live together in harmony. My whole point is that, I believe Christian doctrine should have a place in these discussions. I believe that in the marketplace of ideas, a Christian can also display his wares and not be unfairly treated. Saying that ‘Christians are trying to shove their doctrines down everyone else’s throat’ is neither here nor there. Essentially, that is what everybody is doing. We all have a picture of an ideal world in our heads we would love to see materialize. Do not make me feel my views which are based on my faith are derived from an archaic stock of religious beliefs. Meanwhile, the popular belief is that humanity has advanced in respect to Human Rights and equality because of the SCOTUS’ decision. Well, that’s very funny. Because when you think about it, we have actually taken a giant step back in time. Because homosexuality was dominant in some ancient cities – remember Sodom and Gomorrah?

A person’s faith or religion is often called a World View for this purpose: it is the lenses through which they view the entire world. Therefore asking them to take it off during any form of discourse is literally coercing them to shut their eyes and make a color-choice.

I don’t really mind the tags – homophobic, fundamentalist or even conservative. I am just worried about the extreme moral decadence of our world today. Nowadays, a good lawyer is all you need to legalize what was otherwise a crime or morally wrong. Lawyers are gods now; we have made them gods. It appears God himself is a tyrant because we can’t understand the logic in some of his laws. Our eyes will be opened to the benevolence of this ‘Tyrant’ we eagerly want to overthrow in the face of the new leaders we are democratically putting in his place. George Orwell warned us in the most dramatic way in Animal Farm. We are all rallying behind the revolutionists now, wielding placards, punching the air with our fists and chanting war songs drenched in diabolic lyrics. We want to overthrow God; we long to stage a coup detat in heaven. Very soon we will see the rise of our kind into the position of supreme power. May we never be dumbfounded when their rise to power implies a rise to stand on their hind feet like the so called tyrant we overthrew. They are mere men and cannot offer Justice and love at the same time – only God can.

God is the only confluence of Justice and Love that has ever existed. The SCOTUS can only offer justice. Just as Frederich Neitzche implied, we are left with no option but to make ourselves gods because we have killed god. Playing God is impossible. Please refuse to take the role even in a students’ play. No man can administer both Love and Justice at the same time like He does.

At this rate I will not be shocked if rape is legalized somewhere in the world in the next five years. It may appear a little farfetched now, but so did the legalization of gay marriages and adultery 10 years ago. Our generation has seen:

•   The legalization of gay marriages in the U.S
• The legalization of adultery in South Korea

And if things stay this way, Germany might just legalize incest. Did anybody ask why all these were abominable in the past before making the attempt to legalize them? G.K Chesterton put it more beautifully when he said ‘don’t take a fence down until you know the reason it was put up’. A fence is either keeping predators out of the reach of what is contained in its boundaries or used as a border to contain the growth of what is inside. The thing about these sexually-immoral-but-now-legalized acts is that, we found a fence but we didn’t find anything within its boundaries. Logically, it meant the fence was not serving any purpose…. so we took it down.

I am a Christian and my opinions – which are God’s ordinances – count on every issue. Of course there are many of my kind that are judgmental and give a bad name to the faith. There are many of your kind that give a bad name to whatever worldview you belong to too. We need to communicate our thoughts – which are God’s decrees – in love, sincerity and meekness. I am a Christian and I prefer a morally upright society to a law abiding one. This will never happen even per the bible’s account, but it is something I fantasize about every now and then. God is king forever and may He bless us all.

All I wanted was a math-set too. I wanted to use the protractor to draw curves and draw triangles with the sets square. When I was bored, I’d take out either the divider or the compass and punch holes into the eraser. That is all I wanted. I wonder why it is so difficult to get old people to understand the simple needs of a toddler. Better yet, I wonder why it is so impossible to see the wisdom of the elderly until you are older. I wasn’t using those instruments right anytime I laid my infant hands on them. But because my brothers had them, I felt I needed one too. The need to have what the other person has even though you don’t need it; It is called covetousness, right? My mind played back this episode from my childhood because of a picture I saw on twitter some weeks back. In the picture was a guy and a girl both top-naked and the caption suggested that if the guy’s ‘bare-chestedness’ doesn’t offend you, neither should that of the girl. Well well well, this is where we are right now with our fight for gender equality eh? You want to be bare-chested in public merely because men can do that? – Merely because men can do that? Excuse me, what is the point here? In my childhood, I wanted the math-set that my brothers got, merely because they had it. I admit that was rather childish. So seeing grown women literally making childish demands such as this is rather disturbing. You want to unstrap the bra and let those ladies loose and walk around eh? Well go on right ahead. If that will salt your soup, then by all means, knock yourself out. You see, this is everything that is wrong with gender equality; as I have already stated here, let’s fight for equity instead. Where the society gives to each what they deserve. Who knows, probably at the end of the fight, we might realize that women deserve more privileges than men (certainly they do). But this won’t happen if our dear sisters are merely fighting for everything men have. So you want to grow beards and shave too? Do you really feel nature is unfair to you because you don’t have broader shoulders and an Adam’s apple? Just realize that we are different but equal in terms of worth.

The Apostle Peter puts it in a better way  ‘… showing honor to the woman as the WEAKER vessel, since they are HEIRS with you of the grace of life…’. Let’s learn a bit of primitive fisherman wisdom here. If you look closely, you would realize that the bases for showing women honor as the weaker vessel is that we are heirs together with them. In the sense that, we have equal inheritance with women in Christ, and on that level we are equal. But physically, women are generally weaker than men. This isn’t demeaning, but a glaring fact. The bible didn’t say that women are intellectually, spiritually or economically weaker than men. It stated a fact that we all know: men are physically stronger than women. Hence, we men must honor women.  Therefore, where is the wisdom in merely wanting to have anything that a man has? You don’t see men pained because they don’t have menstrual cramps? Besides not everything the society has unduly given to men is good. I am even shocked some of these things are desirable to some women. I know it is all a ploy to prove a point, but that isn’t necessary.

I read a very interesting post recently on the ghanafeminism.wordpress.com blog (here it is). I tell you the truth; I haven’t had a goodnight’s sleep since then. The post was about a young lady who was in the news recently for all the bad reasons. She apparently rose to prominence because she slept with a few famous men and is currently dating a very rich man. All of this is alleged. Now, the post began and even well into the middle with some sound arguments. But getting to the end the writer declared boldly that she found nothing wrong with prostitution. Oh of course I washed my face with detol and read that paragraph again. This is something I wouldn’t be shocked to see in a ghanapatriarchy.wordpress.com blog post. In fact, I am sure it would be one of the main aims of the blokes behind such a blog: to glamorize prostitution, compelling as many young ladies to go into it as possible. After all, prostitution is to the benefit of men because we gain more. I heard one could sleep with a prostitute for as low as any amount under 5gh cedis *it is purely coincidental that I know this*. Therefore I conclude that men gain more from prostitution than the women involved. So when I saw that portion of the post I was in shock. These are her exact words:

‘Nevertheless, prostitution is not bad. Women have the right to control our bodies and if we see it  fit to exchange sexual services for monetary compensation in a safe manner it is our prerogative’

It will interest you to know that she stated early on in the post that a woman selling her body doesn’t amount to objectification. Excuse me again, if this isn’t objectification then what is? You mean you don’t think prostitution is objectification? Ah? I am so lost eh! O and this part is my personal favorite, ‘The ability for women to tap into the erotic and utilize it to navigate the world as we see it’.  ‘The ability to tap into the erotic…’ ha! She describes this heinous act with such beautiful language. Never would it have crossed my mind that a woman somewhere would support the idea of prostitution. You see why some men do not want to have anything to do with feminism? This point stated by our dear friend above goes a long way to justify to some extent the point that women are their own enemies (not all though). Prostitution should be treated as a human rights issue because there are pimps in the background eating off these poor girls. Do you even know the psychological trauma and physical pain their customers subject them to? The story is told of a prostitute who got so bruised from the rough beastly sex she had with her partners. She was advised – obviously by her colleagues – to put camphor in a bucket of hot steaming water. After this, she squatted over the bucket naked, for the steam to have direct contact with her nether regions. She stood up that day from the bucket with a numb organ: numb enough to insulate her from the pains of the trade. This is the kind of ordeal some women go through and some other women think it is cool to prostitute merely because society seems to have given men some level of sexual freedom? Wow! This is even deeper than I thought. You really think having freedom over your own body means sleeping around for money? See, the very moment you attain freedom and move on to engage yourself in barbaric activities, please know that you are a greater slave after freedom than before it.

Anyway, I am a Christian. In Christianity sexual immorality isn’t acceptable in one sex and unacceptable in another. The standards are high and the same for everybody. Jesus said by merely fantasizing about sleeping with a woman, I have already committed the sin. So if you want sexual freedom because society seems to have given it to men, dear feminist, you are lost. The fact that society turns a blind eye to the sexually immoral acts of men is the cause of many of society’s problems.  Let’s fight for what we deserve and not what somebody else seems to have. Be content with crayons, the math-set might be detrimental to you.

I recently discovered the importance of movies produced in the Kumawood movie industry in my life. Those films were created purely to make my journey from Accra to Kumasi seem shorter. Last week on my way to Kumasi, we watched a 3-part movie starring ‘Lil Win’. Goodness me, the supposed 4 and a half hour journey felt like a jolly ride through town on a holiday. One other outstanding feature of Kumawood movies that I like is the fact that  they are highly didactic: so pregnant with moral lessons. I remember watching one in which Agya Koo was a co-tenant with a lady in a compound house. He kept pestering the young lady with his ‘lust’ overtures. Clearly the lady had had enough and couldn’t take his lustful proposals anymore so she confronted him and made it clear that it was wrong to even fantasize about having sex with another person. In his defense, Agya Koo gladly confessed that then he had probably had a baby with the lady already. This was obviously because he must have visualized having sex with her on countless occasions.  I found his reply extremely funny but it carries so much information concerning male-sexuality. Men are visual beings. We are moved by sight. Nevertheless, what we see isn’t a good enough reason to be used to defend our actions. Usually when this issue comes up, we choose to lay the blame on external factors (eg. skimpy dresses worn by ladies). The external factors have an influence on you but what pushes the resultant action is within you. As I have already stated in  my blog post ‘Depraved Hearts Caged in Ribs 2‘ click here, those external factors are like billboards in front of a restaurant, displaying sumptuous meals. Therefore if anybody should break into a restaurant to steal food and blame it on the food on the billboard, he is giving a very silly excuse. The problem isn’t the billboard, the problem is your lack of self-control. When you see a very compelling advertisement and you happen to be very hungry, what you do is to control your hunger. Or if you can, you pay the price and wait patiently till the meal is ready for consumption.

My focus here isn’t what you saw, but rather what happens between the moment you spotted that lady and the resultant action: the time gap between those two events. That is the cause of sexual immorality in most men. I strongly believe that the eyesight of men is second to that of eagles in terms of sharpness. Eagles are able to see small rodents from beyond the clouds but the eyes of men are laser-sharp and can see through clothes. We can literally strip you naked with our eyes. It is all in the mind. Our imagination runs wild the very moment there is a cleft in your dressing that exposes the minutest detail of your naked body. That is all we need to have a full picture.

Jesus Christ said that anybody who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her. My dear brothers, how many babies have you made in your life and with how many women? Agya Koo was right bro. Some of us are probably well into parenting, if his analogy is applied here. I believe Jesus was making it clear to us how important our imagination is: the fact that imagining a thing is recorded as committing it. We need to win the battle in our minds. That is the birth place of all the sexual immorality we hear about. If we are able to dispel those episodes of unbelievable imaginative sex with whomever we deem appropriate at that moment, we would really make headway in keeping our head above water so far as sexual immorality is concerned. Undoubtedly, Solomon is one of the wisest men to walk the face of the earth. He said ‘… he who rules his spirit is mightier than he who takes a city’. This is amazing. It means self-control basically makes you more than a marvel superhero. It makes you mightier than a strongman who is able to take a whole city all by himself. We really need more men striving to be strong men per the deduction made from Solomon’s quote. To have full control over your sexuality as a man is one heck of a herculean task. The mighty have fallen. The irony here is that, Solomon himself, who even made such a profound statement couldn’t control his sexual hunger. He married 700 women (plus 300 concubines) from tribes God had warned him against. They introduced him to their gods and he turned away from God and worshiped their gods. Yes, the women were instrumental in his downfall but his hunger gave him the impetus to oblige.

When I say ‘Zip it’ I am not referring to the fly in front of your trousers. That is way too easy. I am referring to your mental fly. I want you to realize that just as it is embarrassing for your fly to be open in public, so it is for you to have an untamed sexual appetite. Zip it! Take full control of yourself mentally and sexually. For greater is he that rules his spirit than he who takes a city.

References: Proverbs 16: 32 , 1Kings 11.

I am just using this borrowed-knowledge to address the issue at hand. I feel like the problem isn’t the fact that we have hearts, but that we have exposed our hearts to certain impurities that have made them depraved. There is a hunger for sex in all of us, both men and women, but it seems when it comes to men, it is cool to have an out-of-control sexual appetite. *pardon me, I can only speak for men* It seems when it comes to sex, men are allowed to behave like beasts and beastly. There is no justification for rape. No matter who the woman is, her age or what she wore. The problem isn’t external it is internal – it is inside us. Hungers need to be tamed. Even our hunger for food is tamed. Let’s just look at  how unhealthy obesity is – obesity, which is birthed out of untamed hunger for foods of all kinds, kills many people each year. If there is a resultant effect, untamed hunger for food has on the individual, then there should be a corresponding effect that untamed hunger for sex has on an individual too. When it comes to dealing with the issue of discipline in dieting, we think about 1. The time an individual eats 2. How much food he should have 3. How the food should be eaten 4. What the individual eats etc. It isn’t advisable to eat at certain times, especially immediately before bedding. The quantity of food one eats should also be taken into consideration, as too much food may cause  discomfort and result in excessive weight gain.The way and manner in which an individual eats is also very important. In most cases we are advised by dietitians not to drink and eat concurrently. Eating a lot of fatty foods is one sure way to build up a very unhealthy and almost inactive body. My question then is, if there are dietitians who are responsible for helping us regulate our eating habits, shouldn’t there be a system of regulation for human sexuality? When it comes to sex, everybody wants to have the final say in his/her life. Nobody wants to obey a bunch of rules. So far as the mode of sex is backed by law, then it is okay. It is a shame people don’t realize that all the foods we eat are pretty much legal, yet dietitians advise adamantly against the consumption of some of those foods. Not everything that is legal is good for consumption. Just recently in Kenya, a law was passed allowing men to legally go in for additional wives even without the consent of the first. It is even more sad and pathetic when society  and the law backs men in pursuing their wild sexual dreams.

It’s already hard for us as men. Temptation literally stalks us every step of the way. Pressure to succumb is heavy and very compelling, hence the reason most men fail when it comes to fidelity in relationships. It is a jungle out there, not only out on the streets but every where else – the internet, in our conversations with friends even in the quietness of our deepest thoughts. The sort of lascivious images and episodes that jump at the average brother, is as fierce as a rain storm. More often than not, the worst evil isn’t that which the eyes have seen but that which is conceived in the heart. Mostly it is too sophisticated to be carried out in the physical world so it remains in the storeroom of the heart. It is however imperative that we keep our thoughts pure. Look, that is almost impossible – but highly attainable. The problem is within us, so if we win the battle from the inside-out, we are assured of less corruption in this world. if the statement, ‘out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks‘ is true, then we can conclude that most of our actions originated from the meditations of our hearts. Men like Job, lifted the bar up by a notch. He said, ‘I have made a covenant with my eyes NOT TO THINK UPON A LADY‘ (king James bible). Note: the covenant was made with his eyes, but the resultant action is that he won’t THINK upon a lady. Ha! Job is just like me. He is just like you, he is like the average man. I am sure he had a problem with ‘lustful thoughts‘ like most men do. Thank God he decided to kill the problem at the roots – at the thought-level before it materialized in the physical. That is indeed the solution – clean thoughts conceived in our hearts.

You know, the heart is neutral but very fickle. It easily sways in the direction you swing it. So over-exposure to sexually immoral material produces a sexually immoral individual. We have hearts, our hearts are originally depraved; what we expose them to worsens the situation.