About Me

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I am married to my lovely wife (Shasta), and we serve in the ministry together. We both love the Lord, play sports, love to travel, and we love the outdoors. I serve as the Campus Pastor at Liberty Fort Oglethorpe in Fort Oglethorpe, GA.

Friday, November 14, 2014

Kim Kardashian, the Worth of Women, and Ephesians 5

Confession: No I have not seen the pictures of Kim Kardashian in Paper Magazine, but the headlines on my Facebook News Feed and the posts from my friends about the pictures leaves me not wanting to imagine anything to do with these pictures.

Culture says, "A woman has the right to do with her body as she pleases." Yes, we hear this statement in the context of abortion debates, women being supported for their roles in pornographic material, and other sexual contexts. Is there anything inherently wrong with this statement? Yes, Contemporary western culture promulgates this statement that does not build up women, but rather, this statement objectifies women to the place where women are only viewed as a discardable object. Every time women are objectified, they are shackled to the sexual desires and worthlessness of a man seeking his pleasure at her expense. This shackles women to the sexual desires of a man, while relegating a man's relationships to seeking a man's desires at the expense of another's humanity.

For men who do not have the best interest of the woman at heart, these men only desire to make a woman into an object for their own selfish desires.

At the core of this idea are abuses to women. Instead of respecting a woman's body, culture says to  show-off her body so as to desecrate her body to the selfish-abusive desires of a man. In doing so, culture also says that a woman should do as she pleases by being able to decide when she carries and does not carry a child in her womb; and at the core of the idea that women can be made into a sex object, there stands a coward of a man who decides not to love and cherish a woman, but to rather use up her beauty, purity, and fantastic qualities to only throw her away when he has so discredited her that she is worthless to him, even as a sexual object.

Let me ask you, "What happens to Kim when the next sex object catches the eye of the public? What will happen to every woman who is objectified into a sex object when another sex object catches the eye of her pursuer? These men will discard Kim and every other woman like a piece of trash to trade for a new "figure" and a new "physique" that satisfies these men all the more Are you really comfortable that men desire to use up a woman and throw her away so that he can move on to his next conquest?" Should we accept people as disposable?

Any man who views women as only meeting his needs will move on and leave women broken, looking for love that she will likely never find, looking for wholeness in an environment broken by false hope and false assurance, and she will be left to live with the mindset that her worth is only in what she can do and not in who she is.


You say that Kim is beautiful and she should share her natural beauty with the whole world, but you too have bought into the lie that selling a woman's body for sex is not objectifying them and lowering the value of a woman. Do we see the emotional baggage Kim lies down in bed with every night (yes, that baggage can be Kanye)? Do we see the inner struggle she has for worth? Do we see the impact she has on women who suffer from not being loved and validated? No, we are too busy seeing her as an object and not a person; thereby, making her out to be an emotionless object that only gratifies our desires.

What do we expect though from a culture that does not value creation? At the heart of the pervasive atheistic worldview of many people in the world, people are only an accident and people have no purpose. Does this worldview account for the worth that we place in those we love? No. Does this worldview account for the need to love and cherish one another? No. How could this worldview account for these things if we are all accidents?

The Biblical Christian worldview accounts for men and women being created for a purpose and having worth: to glorify God through living a life that He gives to them. The relationship of man to woman is seen in few Scriptures better than Ephesians 5.

Ephesians 5:22–33 (ESV)

22Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. 24Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. 25Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. 28In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, 30because we are members of his body. 31“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. 33However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

Many of us read this passage and only see that a man has authority over a woman, but is that the point of the Scripture? No. Here, Paul tells the Ephesian church that the relationship of husband to wife is the same structure as the relationship of Christ to the Church. Did you see that? 


As the leader of the Church, Christ does not push Himself onto the Church and He does not authoritatively tell the Church what to do, but rather, He serves the Church in order to lead the Church. Christ sacrificed Himself for the Church because the Church mattered to Him. Christ desires to sanctify, nourish, and cherish the Church because He loves the Church as the Church is in Him. Christ does not objectify the Church because Christ has the best interest of the Church at His heart, in the same way that men should not objectify women based on man's desires.

Look at how Paul talks about the relationship between men and women: this relationship is based on Christ and His Church. Before the Church was even the Church, Christ gave Himself up for her. Christ did not objectify the Church, plan to abuse it, plan to discard it, or even plan to move on to something different. No, by dedicating His life to the Church, Christ showed His love and commitment to the Church. Why wouldn't the Church want to follow His lead? In the same way, when a man gives up himself for his wife to better her, what woman would not trust and admire this man enough to follow his leadership? What man who would give up himself for his wife would look down on her instead of seeing her as his equal? A man who values Christ will see and tree women as Christ values and treats the church. This man will one day nurture, love, lead, and serve his wife because she is worth it to him.

Which way raises up women and prizes them more? Are women more prized individualistically as sex object like our culture promulgates or through the eyes of a Christian man who desires to better his wife to be more like Christ? Isn't it interesting that every woman desires to be loved, led and served? Shouldn't we say that these feelings are given to women by God so that they may fulfill their role as representing the Church in the marital context as the husband fulfills his role in the marital context? Shouldn't we spend more time teaching men how to love and prize women instead of objectifying women to only meet their needs? I think we should teach men to love and prize women as God's beautiful Creation.


Men should so prize women that men do not have to fulfill their sexual desires immediately in women, but rather, men should see their future wife as the only prize that they wish to be emotionally, physically, sexually, and psychologically bound to for the rest of their life. It is a shame that a whole generation of men only see women as objects and not prizes, worth of giving our lives for.

This is not just about porn, this is about the worth of women.

Ladies, do not let a guy talk you into "giving up" yourself to them unless it is your wedding night. Ladies, do not let a guy talk you into sending THAT picture to him. Only a husband who cherishes you as Christ cherishes the Church should be deserving of all of you. A boy who only wants to gratify his raging desires does not deserve the precious gift of your body because he does not truly care for you, but instead, he cares only for himself. Only someone who cares for you says something like, "Sweetheart, put the clothes back on and rest from trying so hard to be like the world. You are beautiful, prized, blessed, and God's perfect creation. I don't need your body to make me love you or even be happy. How can I serve you and lead you in a way to grow, nourish, and meet your needs?"





For those of you who are reading this and you still believe that Kim and other women should share their bodies with the world, sleep around, and give themselves as objects to others; are you willing to act like the magazine and crumple up every precious woman and throw her into the trash like a wadded up piece of paper? Are you willing to continue to objectify women as only flesh that sexually pleases others? 

Men, man up and cherish women, not for your own desires, but because every woman is worthy of being loved as Christ loves the Church. When men cherish women and women fall under the leadership of a man who loves, serves, and gives himself up for her, then the world will see how much Jesus loves His Church. 

Women, see that you are valuable as more than an object. See that your purpose is not to meet the desires of a man, but to worship and live for God.

We all have the opportunity to love and cherish each other in the relationship of Christ to the Church; don't crumple it up and throw it away like Paper Magazine did.