‘Purposeful Sexuality’ Review
If God means for us to save sex for marriage, why doesn’t he zap us with sexuality on our wedding night?
Why do most of us experience sexual feelings throughout our adult lives, not just in the safe confines of marriage? Is limiting marriage to the union of a man and a woman anything but outdated prejudice? What is our sexuality actually for?
Perhaps you’ve tried to answer some of these questions, or maybe you’re currently working through them. In Purposeful Sexuality, Ed Shaw seeks to answer these very questions. It’s not an exhaustive answer, but a primer that engages at the heart of the issue, prompting us to continue thinking about sexuality from a biblical perspective.
Shaw helps the reader to understand why talking about sexuality is difficult – because nobody’s sexual experience is the same! But we all have experience of our own sexuality, so it’s something we need to talk about. In this book, Ed Shaw reminds us that, because of sin, we are all broken sexually, and this damages both ourselves and others.
As we come to this book with the questions above, Shaw helpfully asks, “What is sexuality for?” And after giving several answers, he reflects that they seem unsatisfactory. Perhaps you too have heard these answers – marital union, having children, for pleasure.
These answers are true, but they don’t give the full picture, so Shaw asks, What is sexuality REALLY for? It’s from this question that we begin to see the epicentre of why we are created as sexual beings and the purpose this has in pointing us to know better God and the full power of his passionate love for his church.
The bible is full of sexual language, because the language and the imagery are trailing heaven. Like a great movie trailer points you towards an even greater film. Nobody regrets having seen the trailer when they watch the greatest movie ever made.
Ed Shaw writes as someone who is same-sex attracted, but because of his love for Jesus, chooses not to act on his sexual desires. But this isn’t just a book for those who are same-sex attracted; this book isn’t even primarily about the outworking of our sexual preferences. Instead, it brings us back to the source and reason of our sexuality and why this is surprisingly good news for all our joys and struggles with sexuality.
If you want to be better informed on what the bible has to say about sexuality, then this is a book worth reading.
