 Because of its addictive nature, in order to just feel some sense of normality, an individual usually needs an ever increasing dosage of porn. The material that they seek out also evolves. Overtime their appetite pushed them to more hardcore versions to achieve the same level of arousal.Have you ever wondered how pornographers that charge for their material stay in business when there’s so much porn available for free?
As Wendy Seltzer—an attorney and fellow at Yale Law School—explained, the answer is actually pretty simple: once porn users get hooked, they’ll want more and more. “Seeing [free porn] just whets their appetite for more,” Seltzer said. “Once they get through what’s available for free, they’ll move into the paid services.” Fortunately for pornographers, that pattern isn’t likely to change any time soon since the reason it happens is built into the brain. Pornography researchers have found that users acclimate to the porn they watch—they get used to it, and it stops being exciting or arousing. Why? Because their brain’s pleasure response has gotten numb. When a person is aroused by porn, their brain releases a chemical called dopamine that makes them feel pleasure. As the dopamine goes through their brain, it leaves behind a pathway created by a protein called iFosB (pronounced delta fos b) that connects feeling aroused to looking at porn. Basically dopamine is saying “this feels good; let’s remember how to get back here,” and iFosB goes to work building a brain pathway to make it easier for the person to do that again. When this happens with healthy behaviors it is a good thing, but when it happens with unhealthy ones it can lead to trouble. The problem is, when a person consistently looks at porn, their brain is constantly being flooded with a high level of dopamine. A healthy brain isn’t used to that, so the brain responds by getting rid of some of its dopamine receptors, which take in the dopamine that’s released so that the brain knows it’s there. With fewer receptors, the user can’t feel the dopamine’s effects as much—and suddenly the porn that used to excite starts seeming boring. Many leading brain researchers now believe that once a porn user’s brain starts cutting back on dopamine receptors, to get the same excitement and arousal they used to feel, many porn users need an even larger surge of dopamine; to get it, they have to look at more porn, look at porn more often, or look at more hardcore material. You see, it’s not just arousal that gets dopamine pumping. The brain also releases it when it sees something novel, shocking, or surprising. That’s why consistent porn users often find themselves looking for harder and harder images. On top of that, because they’ve built up such a high tolerance to arousing material, to feel excited many users have to combine sexual arousal with the feeling of aggressive release. That’s why so much of hardcore porn is full of images of women being physically harmed. It’s also the reason that many porn addicts quickly find themselves looking at things that used to disgust them or that they used to see as morally wrong. On top of needing harder material, many porn addicts find themselves craving porn more and more often. That’s because while they’re overloading their brain with dopamine, they’re also building up higher levels of iFosB. The more iFosB, the more the user’s brain drives them to look at porn, even if they don’t like the material they’re looking at. As the addiction deepens, users not only become more impulsive, making it more likely that they’ll give into their cravings, but also whenever they encounter a stressful situation, they’re more likely to feel like they don’t have any way to deal with the stress other than by turning to porn’s temporary distraction. And the more they turn back to their habit, the deeper the brain pathways that lead back to using become, making it harder and harder to break the cycle. This post is taken from the website, http://www.fightthenewdrug.org Citations to support the statements in this post are available upon request.  Many porn users find themselves getting aroused by things that used to disgust them or that go against what they think is morally right. And once they start watching extreme and dangerous sex acts, these porn users are being taught that those behaviors are more normal and common than they actually are.Have you ever heard the phrase “Monkey see, monkey do”? It sounds simple, but it’s actually an illustration of some pretty complex brain science.
You see, monkeys, humans, and other mammals all have something in their brain called a “reward pathway.” Part of the reward pathway’s job is to promote healthy living by rewarding you when you do something that either keeps you alive (e.g., eating) or creates a new life (e.g., sex), or enriches your life with satisfying experiences and relationships. The way it rewards you is by pumping chemicals, especially one called “dopamine,” through your brain. Dopamine makes you feel great, but its effects are not just temporary. While you’re enjoying that good feeling, it’s also building new pathways into your brain connecting together the different parts of the experience you had so you can remember to do that again. That’s why the types of behaviors we link our pleasure response to rend to become habits and stick around. When this chemical learning process happens with healthy behaviors it helps us live well, but when it happens with secretive and unhealthy behaviors it has the opposite effect. So when someone is looking at porn, while they think they’re just being entertained, their brain is busy at work building pathways between whatever’s happening on their screen and feelings of arousal. Here’s where it gets tricky: The kind of porn a user watches can—and usually does—change over time. So as their brain continually wires together what they’re seeing with feeling aroused, what turns them on can change too. A few years ago, a researcher named Jim Faust did an experiment with rats. As you’d probably guess, rats usually don’t like the smell of death. But Faust found a way to change that instinct. Faust put virgin male rats in cages with female rats that had been sprayed with a liquid that smelled like dead, rotting rat. As it turned out, the drive to mate was more powerful than the instinct to avoid the smell, and the rats hit it off. Once the male rats learned to associate sex with the smell of death, Faust put them in cages with dowels soaked in the same death smell. Consistently the male rats would play with the smelly dowels as though it were soaked in something they loved. If you’re wondering how rats could possibly be trained to go against such a powerful natural instinct, the answer is dopamine. Since dopamine is released during sex, the rats’ brains wired together the pleasure of dopamine’s release with the rotten smell. Sounds pretty gross, right? Well here’s the thing—remember how we said all mammals have the same reward pathway in their brain? Those rats’ preferences were rewired into their brains with the same process that many porn users’ brains go through when they look at porn. And more often than not, the images their brains are wiring sexual arousal to get more and more extreme. In a 2012 survey of 1,500 guys, 56% said their tastes in porn had become “increasingly extreme or deviant.” Because consistent porn users’ brains quickly become accustomed to the porn they’ve already seen, they typically have to constantly be moving on to more extreme forms of pornography to get aroused by it. As a result, just like the rats, many porn users find themselves getting aroused by things that used to disgust them or that go against what they think is morally right. And once they start watching extreme and dangerous sex acts, these types of porn users are being taught that those behaviors are more normal and common than they are. One study found that people exposed to significant amounts of porn thought things like sex with animals and violent sex were twice as common as what those not exposed to porn thought. And when people believe a behavior is normal, they’re more likely to try it. Research has also found that watching degrading porn increases users’ dominating and harassing behavior toward women, and leaves the user feeling less compassion for rape victims. Porn watchers are also more likely to express attitudes supporting violence against women—which is especially scary since those who support sexual violence are more likely to commit that kind of violence in real life. Obviously not everyone who looks at porn is going to turn into a rapist; but the reality is that studies have shown that even casual pornography use has the power to start changing ideas and attitudes, and changes to behavior often aren’t far behind. This post is taken from the website, http://www.fightthenewdrug.org Citations to support the statements in this post are available upon request.  "Pornographers promise healthy pleasure and relief from sexual tension, but what they often deliver is an addiction, tolerance, and an eventual decrease in pleasure." - Norman Doidge, MD, The Brain That Changes Itself
It wasn’t very long ago that doctors and researchers believed that in order for something to be addictive, it had to involve an outside substance that you physically put into your body, like cigarettes, alcohol, or drugs. Once we got a peek into the brain, however, our understanding of how addictions work changed. It turns out, cigarettes, alcohol, and drugs have more in common than you might think. Sure, on the outside, some are poured into a glass while others are lit on fire and smoked. But once they’re in the body, they all do the same thing to the brain: flood it with a chemical called dopamine. That’s what makes them addictive. And porn does the exact same thing. You see, your brain comes equipped with something called a “reward pathway.” Its job is to motivate you to do things that keep you and your genes alive—things like eating or having sex to produce babies. The way it rewards you is by releasing dopamine into your brain, because dopamine makes you feel good. However, just because your brain has adapted to motivate you to do something doesn’t mean it’s always good for you. For example, your brain produces higher levels of dopamine when you have chocolate cake than it does for whole-wheat bread. Why? Because 3,000 years ago, high-calorie foods were really hard to come by, so when our ancestors found them, it was important that they eat a whole bunch while the getting was good. These days, a bag of Oreos is only as far as the nearest supermarket. If we gorged on them every chance we got, chances are we’d get heart disease, gain weight, and develop a bunch of other health problems. Porn is basically sexual junk food. When a person is looking at porn, their brain thinks they’re seeing a potential mating opportunity, and pumps the brain full of dopamine. And unlike healthy sexual relationships that build up over time with an actual person, porn offers an endless stream of hyper-sexual images that flood the brain with high levels of dopamine every time the user clicks to a new image. Setting your brain up for an overload of feel-good chemicals might sound like a good idea at first, but just like with junk food, what feels like a good thing, in this case isn’t at all. Because porn use floods the brain with high chemical levels, the brain starts to fight back. Over time, the brain will actually cut down on its dopamine receptors—the tiny landing docs that take the dopamine in once it’s been released in your brain. As a result, porn that once excited a person often stops having the same effect, and the user has to look at more porn, look at porn more often, or find a more hardcore version—or all three—to get aroused. Eventually, as the brain acclimates to the overload of dopamine, users often find that they can’t feel normal without that dopamine high. Little things that used to make them happy, like seeing a friend or playing their favorite sport, can’t compete with the dopamine flood that comes with porn, so they’re left feeling anxious or down until they can get back to it. On top of that, dopamine doesn’t travel alone. When the brain is getting a hit of dopamine, it’s also getting new pathways built into it with a protein called “iFosB” (pronounced delta fos b). Essentially, iFosB’s job is to help you remember to do things that feel good or are important. While dopamine is motivating your brain to do things and rewarding it for doing them, iFosB is quietly leaving trail markers in your brain, creating a pathway to help you get back there. When this happens with healthy behaviors, it’s a very good thing. However, as little as one dose of many drugs will also cause iFosB to start building up in the brain’s neurons, and of course porn’s powerful dopamine surge causes iFosB to build up as well. The more a user looks at porn, the more iFosB accumulates, essentially beating down the brain pathways leading to using, making it easier and easier for the user to turn back to that behavior, whether they want to or not. Eventually, if enough iFosB accumulates, it can “flip a genetic switch,” causing irreversible changes in the brain that leave the user more susceptible to addiction. And for teens, the risks are especially high, since a teen brain’s reward pathway has a response two to four times more powerful than an adult brain—which means teen brains release even higher levels of dopamine. Teen brains also produce higher levels of iFosB, leaving them extra vulnerable to addiction. This post is taken from the website, http://www.fightthenewdrug.org Citations to support the statements in this post are available upon request.  Neurons that fire together, wire together. Just like other addictive substances, porn floods the brain with dopamine. That rush of brain chemicals happening over and over again rewires the brain’s reward pathway ultimately changing the make up of the viewer’s brain. This can result in an increased appetite for porn.Yep, you read that right. Porn physically changes your brain.
One of the most exciting developments in our understanding of the brain in the last two decades is the discovery of something called neuroplasticity, “neuro” meaning brain and “plasticity” meaning changeability. In other words, scientists have discovered that your brain is a lot like a never-ending game of Tetris, constantly laying down new pathways based on your experiences. To explain how it works, brain scientists have a saying: Neurons that fire together, wire together. If you’re wondering what a neuron is and why it’s on fire, here’s what that means. A neuron is a brain cell, and when brain cells get activated at the same time by something you see or hear or smell or whatever, they release chemicals that help strengthen the connection between those neurons. For example, when you eat something delicious, your brain releases dopamine, a chemical that makes you feel good. Or if you hold hands with someone you care about, your brain releases a chemical called oxytocin, which helps you bond with people. So if every time you went to visit your Uncle Carl he gave you a big hug and then took you out for ice cream, you’d probably start feeling pretty great about Uncle Carl, since your brain would build pathways connecting Uncle Carl with feeling happy and loved. You have these kinds of brain pathways for all sorts of things: riding a bike, eating a sandwich, and walking the dog. And when a person looks at porn, their brain creates new pathways for that, too. Just like other addictive substances, porn floods the brain with dopamine. But since the brain gets overwhelmed by the constant overload of chemicals that comes with consistent porn use, it fights back by taking away some of its dopamine receptors — which are like tiny ears on the end of a neuron that hear dopamine’s message. With fewer receptors, even if the brain is putting off the same levels of dopamine in response to porn, the user can’t feel dopamine’s effect as much. As a result, the porn they were looking at doesn’t seem as arousing or exciting, and many porn users go hunting for more porn or more hardcore porn to get the effect the old porn used to offer. As a frequent porn user’s brain acclimates to the new levels of dopamine flooding through it, regular activities that would normally set off a burst of dopamine and make the person feel happy aren’t strong enough to register much anymore, leaving the user feeling down or uneasy whenever they go for a while without looking at porn. That’s one reason why pornography can be so addictive. Once addiction sets in, the user has a whole new set of problems, because addiction damages the part of the brain that helps you think things through to make good choices—the brain’s limit setting system. For more than 10 years, studies have shown that drug addictions can cause the brain’s frontal lobes to start shrinking. While “frontal lobe” sounds really technical, basically it’s the part of the brain that controls logical problem solving and decision making. But recent studies have found that it’s not just drugs that cause that kind of damage—the same problems show up with other kinds of addictions, such as overeating, Internet addictions, and sexual compulsion. And here’s the really scary part: the more porn a person looks at, the more severe the damage to their brain becomes and the more difficult it is to break free. But there’s good news too: neuroplasticity works both ways. That means that the damage to the brain can be undone when someone gets away from unhealthy behaviors. This post is taken from the website, http://www.fightthenewdrug.org Citations to support the statements in this post are available upon request.  On the surface, cocaine and porn don’t seem to have a lot in common. One is purchased in seedy alleyways; the other is free to download. One habit can get expensive pretty fast, while the other is about the price of a high-speed Internet connection. Besides, Hugh Heffner doesn’t exactly conjure up images of a cartel drug lord.
So where’s the similarity? Inside the brain. In case you’re not a neurosurgeon, here’s a crash course in how the brain works. Deep inside your brain, there’s something called a “reward pathway.” You’ve got one. Your cat’s got one. For mammals, it comes standard. The reward pathway’s job is to help keep you alive by doing exactly what its name promises: rewards you, or more specifically, rewards you when you do something that promotes life, such as eating food or achieving something you’ve worked hard for. And the way it rewards you is by releasing chemicals in your brain— mainly one called dopamine, but also others like oxytocin. Normally, these chemicals are really handy. They help us feel pleasure and to bond with other people, and they motivate us to come back to important activities that make us happy. The problem is, the reward pathway can be hijacked. The way substances like cocaine and opioids make users feel high is by triggering the reward pathway to release unnaturally high levels of dopamine without making the user do any of the work to earn it. Want to guess what else does that? Porn. And that surge of dopamine is causing more than just feelings. As it goes pulsing through the brain, dopamine helps to create new brain pathways that essentially lead the user back to the behavior that triggered the chemical release. The more a drug user hits up or a porn user looks at porn, the more those pathways get wired into the brain, making it easier and easier for the person to turn back to using, whether they want to or not. Over time, the constant overload of chemicals causes other brain changes as well. Just like a junkie will eventually require more and more of a drug to get a buzz or even just feel normal, porn users can quickly build up a tolerance as their brains adapt to the high levels of dopamine that porn releases. In other words, even though porn is still releasing dopamine into the brain, the user can’t feel its effects as much. That’s because the brain is trying to protect itself from the overload of dopamine by getting rid of some of its chemical receptors, which act like tiny catcher’s mitts that receive the dopamine released. With fewer receptors, the brain thinks less dopamine is there and the user doesn’t feel as strong a reaction. As a result, they have to find more porn, find it more often, or find a more extreme version—or all three— to generate even more dopamine to feel excited. And once a porn user becomes accustomed to a brain pulsing with these chemicals, trying to cut back on the habit can lead to withdrawal symptoms, just like with drugs. While people often think of porn as something that’s been around forever, today’s version of porn is a whole new ball game. Thanks to the Internet, porn now mixes the most powerful natural dopamine release the body can produce with a cocktail of other elements—endless novelty, shock, and surprise—all of which increase the dopamine surge. And because Internet porn offers an endless stream of variety, users can flip to a new image every time their high starts to fade, keeping dopamine levels elevated for hours. Describing porn’s effect to a U.S. Senate committee, Dr. Jeffrey Satinover of Princeton University said, “It is as though we have devised a form of heroin 100 times more powerful than before, usable in the privacy of one’s own home and injected directly to the brain through the eyes.” This post is taken from the website, http://www.fightthenewdrug.org Citations to support the statements in this blog are available upon request.  The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned. Isaiah 9:2
We know what it is like to walk in darkness. We know what it is like to live in the shadow of death. But we also are beginning to experience what it is like to see. The darkness of denial is giving way to the light of honesty in our lives. Of course, when you have lived in darkness as long as we have, the light can be painfully bright. We see the truth about ourselves and our self destructive behavior. We see the truth about our refusal of love. We see the truth of our brokenness. We see old pain. We see current behaviors that damage ourselves and others. The light dawns. It is not a pretty sight. But God does not send light into our darkness to shame us. The exposure may trigger our deep shame, but this is not God's purpose. God's light is like the light of dawn. It is a light that signals that something new is happening. A new beginning is possible. The light that God brings into our dark world is a light of hope. Recovery is God's light coming into our darkness. The light exposes. We begin to see clearly the ways we have sinned and the ways other people have sinned against us. And the light provides hope. In the light we see the possibility for new beginnings. Lord, your light hurts my eyes. It is too bright. I see too clearly now. It is too painful for me. Help me to believe that your light is not to bring shame but to bring hope into my dark world. Light of Heaven, embrace me with your warmth. Heal me with your bright rays. Give me life. And hope. Amen. Copyright Dale and Juanita Ryan National Association for Christian Recovery  Often amid the duties and distractions of the day, it is impossible for us to visit our usual place of retirement. It is important, therefore, if we would realize the benefits of closet worship when our closets are necessarily closed to us, that we should form the habit of interior retirement and of recollection in God. Can it be doubted, that it is our privilege by means of suitable religious training, accompanied with divine assistance, to remove in a moment every troublesome thought; and retiring inward, to hold communion with God in the secret chamber of the soul? Thus in everyplace, however disturbed by noise and perplexed by business, we may find a place of inward seclusion, a spiritual closet, where God will meet us with his heavenly visitations.
Written by Thomas Cogswell Upham in Religious Maxims (1846) This post can be found at the Hidden Life: http://thomascupham.blogspot.com/2015/01/learning-to-pray-anywhere.html  Dear Red Shirt Guy in Front of Me at the Deli,
How are you, sir? I hope your meal was enjoyable this afternoon. Mine was great. I couldn’t help but notice you had an . . . interesting . . . interaction with the woman behind the counter. After placing your order, your voice suddenly became audible, and you announced that you all were about to pray, and asked if there was anything you could pray for the clerk about. I was aware of this part of your conversation because suddenly you were speaking in a non-inside voice, maybe a bit like a public-speaking voice. I know this was not your normal tone or volume because I have no idea what you ordered, but I sure knew you were about to pray. The girl behind the counter replied with, “I think I’m good. Thanks,” which I found to be generous and kind. See, I, too, am in the food service industry, and I, too, have been approached by religious people asking if they could pray for me. It’s an awkward thing, and not because I don’t want you to pray for me. It’s awkward because you don’t know me. Like, at all. You don’t know my religious preference, or if I would even want you to pray for me. You also don’t recognize that, when you ask your food service worker that, they’re in a tight spot – they’re supposed to make you happy. It’s their job. If they embarrass you, they could be fired. So, even if they would welcome the prayer, and even if you knew each other, it would still be awkward because there are a lot of other guests around that might be put-off about this suddenly-religious conversation that’s keeping them from ordering a sandwich or a salad. Your follow-up, a reaching-over-the-counter handshake, which, again, she could not refuse, and the also-loud invitation to join you at your congregation furthered the awkwardness of the encounter. You quite obviously made the poor girl uncomfortable, and while your exchange lasted less than a minute, there was a rather lengthy line behind you. It wasn’t the time or the place, brother. I know you mean well. Well, I hope you mean well. I hope your intention was just to do something nice for that woman. I hope it wasn’t to get other people to think you’re spiritual or anything. If you really wanted to do something nice for that woman, I think just asking her how she is and if she’s having a good day would do the job just as well. Nay, better. All of this is just to say that, if you want to be spiritual, living it out is better than talking about it loudly. Kindness toward your food service worker would be an answer to a prayer, rather than an advertisement for one. Praying for your cashier in private would be, I don’t know, actually what you are supposed to do, rather than just making a spectacle. I know I probably won’t change your mind, but I just want you to know that there are a lot of us who have heard a lot of people talk about being religious, and we’re ready to see a little less talk and a lot more action. Sincerely, Yellow Shirt Guy Behind You in the Deli This post is taken from https://mundanespirituality.wordpress.com/2014/11/24/spiritual-but-not-obnoxious/ BE HOLY. BE A MAN.  I often hear Christians say that we should be more like the early church. And I must admit, I’ve been one of those Christians. But if we linger on how this would look, I wonder how many of us would rather stay put in our 21st century churches. After all, first century Christians clung to a set of values that differs quite radically from most Christians today.
How We View Other Christians - One uncomfortable value trumpeted by the early Christians was their view of the church as a family. The first Christians saw themselves as brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers to everyone who was part of the Christian community. This is, of course, well known to anyone who reads the New Testament. But we shouldn’t read the church-as-family metaphor through the lens of our modern-day Western family values, where our high-maintenance grandparents are shuffled off to retirement homes and annoying siblings are treated as outcasts. In the first century, the family unit extended far beyond the nuclear family and was held together by an unconditional bond of commitment and service. You didn’t have to like your relatives, but you were expected to love them. It’s within this context that Jesus and Paul blew open the doors of the home and welcomed in all believers as brothers and sisters. They created a new focus on the family that extended far beyond one’s nuclear relatives and included people of every race and social strata who gave their allegiance to the risen Christ. How We Spend Our Money - Many churches today spend most of their revenue on salaries, building mortgages and other material supplements to ministry. Look at any church budget and you’ll probably find 1 or 2 percent of church funds allocated to benevolence—helping poor people in need. Maybe another 5 percent, or 10 percent at best, is given to needs outside the church that on some level help the poor. But such distribution of funds runs counter opposite to how the early church spent its money. The New Testament talks a lot about giving money, but rarely—if ever—talks about giving toward salaries, and it never mentions giving money toward a building. (For what it’s worth, it also never mentions giving 10 percent, which is still a staple value in modern churches.) When the New Testament talks about giving, it refers to redistributing money to the poor—usually, poor believers outside church walls (Romans 15:22-29; 1 Corinthians 16:1-4; 2 Corinthians 8-9). When Paul declares “God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Corinthians 9:7) for instance, it was in the context of Gentile churches giving money to poor Jewish believers living in Jerusalem. In fact, Paul spilled more ink talking about giving to poor people than he did on the doctrine of justification by faith. Jesus Himself said that giving to the poor is one of the main criteria of genuine faith (Luke 12:33, 14:33, Matt 19:16-30) and the primary means by which He’ll sort out the wicked from righteous on Judgment day (Matt 25:31-46). If we take Jesus’s words seriously—and our church budgets suggest that we don’t—our suburban churches might look a little different. How We Think About Power - Another modern value that was unknown to the early church is militarism. Militarism refers to the “belief or desire that a country should maintain a strong military capability and be prepared to use it aggressively to defend or promote national interests.” There’s no doubt about it—militarism profoundly shapes American values. But it also shapes American Christian values. Military historian Andrew Bacevich has unearthed the roots of American militarism and has discovered that the man behind the curtain has been none other than the evangelical church. After much research, Bacevich concludes: “Were it not for the support offered by several tens of millions of evangelicals, militarism in this deeply and genuinely religious country becomes inconceivable.” But the early church was unmistakably not militaristic. Early Christians were never fascinated with the power of the Roman military; rather, they clung to the rhythm of the cross, where evil is conquered not by swords and spears but by suffering and love. In fact, the most quoted verse among early Christians was Jesus’s command that we should love our enemies (Matthew 5:44); it was the John 3:16 of the first few centuries. Today, it’s buried under a pile of caveats and footnotes—we can’t really love all our enemies. When it comes to people perceived as threats, most people today—ironically, even Christians—prefer justice to grace. Maybe Christians should serve in the military or use violence as a last resort to defend the innocent. These are tough questions to answer. But when the Church has become the turbo engine behind the military machine—to aggressively defend or promote national interests—we flee from our early church roots, whose allegiance to God’s Kingdom demoted their allegiance to Rome’s kingdom. How We Study the Bible - The early church also valued the corporate study of the Bible. You may think the modern church has this one down. Most Christians own several Bibles, and church programs often contain a wide array of Bible studies and spiritual classes. Be that as it may, Christians today exhibit an unprecedented biblical illiteracy despite owning dozens of Bibles. According to one statistic, 60 percent of confessing born-again Christians can’t name five of the 10 commandments, 81 percent don’t believe (or aren’t aware of) the basic tenets of the Christian faith, and 12 percent think that Joan of Arc was Noah’s wife. Early Christians eagerly soaked up the word of God like a sponge. The New Testament letters, for instance, not only contain direct quotations from the Old Testament but also many subtle allusions (brief phrases) that were expected to be understood by the reader. For instance, the book of Revelation alone does not contain a single direct quotation from the Old Testament, and yet has more than 500 allusions to words or phrases from the Old Testament. These allusions could only be picked up on by readers who were intimately familiar with the Old Testament Scriptures. The early church took seriously Jesus’s statement that people can’t live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the Lord’s mouth (Matthew 4:4). And when Jesus told His disciples to teach others “all that I command you,” they did it (Matthew 28:20). This is why Christian leaders in the first centuries of the faith mandated a rigorous, communal study of the Bible for everyone who became a believer. Every new convert to Christianity spent their first three years of the faith studying through the entire Bible so that it seeped down into their bones. This wasn’t an option. To become a Christian meant becoming reconfigured through the Word of God. And here’s the thing: Prior to the printing press (A.D. 1450), most people couldn’t read. The whole idea of doing private devotions was unthinkable until 500 years ago. And yet—despite being illiterate—Early Christians became fluent in Scripture by listening to the communal reading and teaching of God’s word. The first Christians actually lived as if the same God who breathed stars into existence also breathed out His Word for us to cherish, memorize, and read ten thousand times over. They would have been mystified by our modern ability to own, read and yet neglect the priceless written word. I fear that our desire to get back to the early church would require a rather extensive overhaul of the shape of contemporary gatherings. This post was written by Preston Sprinkle. Read more at http://www.relevantmagazine.com/god/church/4-ways-modern-church-looks-nothing-early-church#8oR01TvpwV1Q6Z7j.99 |
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