What the Bible says about STD
(From Forerunner Commentary)
As far as we know, the crisis of AIDS has been with us since 1981, although blood samples from as early as 1959 show evidence of the HIV virus. Already, tens of thousands have died from it in the United States alone. Although the disease can be spread by other means, the primary vehicle for the contagion is sexual contact.
Before AIDS, sexually transmissible diseases (STDs) like gonorrhea, syphilis, herpes, and chlamydia—politely called "social" or venereal diseases—raged around the world for centuries. Like AIDS, these are primarily spread by sexual contact, usually of an illicit nature. Today, the Centers for Disease Control reports, 87 percent of all reportable disease is sexually transmitted!
This means, of course, that 87 percent of all disease is preventable—by keeping the seventh commandment, "You shall not commit adultery" (Exodus 20:14), which includes all forms of sexual immorality. Mankind could eliminate nearly nine-tenths of all disease by changing sexual behavior to conform to the standard of God's law! Imagine the health, joy, and peace this would cause!
What a breakthrough, right? Wrong! The medical establishment worldwide—except for a few "radical" countries, most of which are Muslim—utterly rejects behavioral changes in favor of the politically correct "safe sex" procedures. Dr. Ed Payne, a faculty member at the Medical College of Georgia, calls the medical community's attitude of rejection of moral values "deliberate naiveté" (World, November 1, 1997, p. 5). Like children, they believe that if they just shut their eyes to the underlying cause of the problem, it really does not exist.
Dr. Payne writes:
The crisis of American medicine is not tobacco, AIDS, silicone, the Gulf War Syndrome, breast or any other form of cancer. . . . The crisis of American medicine is far greater than any one of these problems; indeed, it is far greater than all of them combined, because the answers to these problems do not come from within them, but from medical ethics. It is the same crisis that faces our culture in every other area: How do we decide ethics? That is, how do we decide what is right and what is wrong? (ibid.)
What is the result? In the case of STDs, the medical establishment actually promotes promiscuity and immorality. Rather than "weigh in" on pre-marital sex, it provides sex education, condoms, and birth-control pills to adolescents. To the majority of "health professionals," homosexuality is not wrong, but unsafe homosexual sex is "at-risk behavior." They do not see the risk that God will punish for this sin (see I Corinthians 6:9-11; Leviticus 18:22; 20:13; Romans 1:24-32; I Timothy 1:8-10; Deuteronomy 23:17; Revelation 21:8), but that a person might get a fatal disease.
Wrong becomes right, and if it is so right, their actions say, we should do more of it!
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Right? Wrong?Related Topics: Adultery | AIDS | Fornication | HIV Virus | Homosexuality | Pre-Marital Sex | Sexual Immorality | Sexual Perversion | Sexual Sins | STD | The Seventh Commandment
A number of years ago, PBS Frontline produced a disturbing report on "The Lost Children of Rockdale County." It chronicled a story just outside of Atlanta, Georgia, in which high school and even junior high children—some as young as 13—were involved in a web of multiple sexual partners over the spring and summer of 1996.
By the time it was over, 17 young people tested positive for syphilis, while more than 200 others were exposed and treated. A registered nurse with the Rockdale County Public Health Department commented, "You don't expect to see a 14-year-old with 20, 30, 40, 50, or 100 partners. You expect that of someone who is more into the line of being a prostitute or something. And these girls were not homeless. They were not abused in any way. These were just normal, everyday, regular kids"—from middle- and upper-middle-class homes.
These were not poor kids. They had their own TVs, VCRs, cell phones, and many even had their own cars—including a number with BMWs. The report points out that these activities mostly took place in homes while the parents were at work or away on trips. Therein lies a major source of the problem: The parents were more involved in providing material possessions for their children than they were providing what really matters, a stable, secure home with nurturing and instruction. The teens had the gadgets—what they needed were families.
The PBS Frontline report repeatedly came back to the role of the parents in the lives of these teenagers, and the fact that many of the parents felt powerless against the culture. "What can you do about it? You know, you can't lock a kid in a closet, 13, 14, 15 years old," one parent said with resignation. Another lamented, "I think what it is is we've lost control over our children. You can't spank them now, or they'll turn you in to the police . . .." But underlying all of the identified "causes"—television, external groups, peer pressure—was the fact that the parents were more interested in their own lives than the lives of their children. The children were "lost" because the parents let them wander away.
Homosexuality is another perceived threat to American culture, and rightfully so: When perverse relationships and lifestyles are portrayed as normal and even to be sought after, the foundation of the society—the family—is in grave danger of disintegrating. However, can we honestly say that homosexuality is a more common threat to the average family than dysfunction and/or parental apathy? Would homosexuality even be a threat to the culture if the family unit were truly intact? Rising rates of homosexuality are better seen as a symptom of a damaged family than a cause.
In God's preparatory instructions to Israel before entering the Promised Land—and to us, before entering His Kingdom—He makes our parental responsibilities plain (Deuteronomy 6:6-9; see also Deuteronomy 11:19). Teaching at all times requires continual, active involvement, not passive observance. It demands that a higher priority be placed on instruction than on a higher salary or more possessions. It calls for the willing sacrifice of that most precious of all commodities: time. As adults, the pace of our lives may indeed be frenetic, but if our children are not properly instructed and cared for even in the midst of chaos, they, too, may become "lost."
The above stories do not represent all teenagers. While they may not be isolated incidences, they also are not the norm—so far. There are encouraging signs that a part of the culture is coming to its senses and is determining to provide security and nurturing to the next generation.
Homeschooling is increasing at a tremendous rate across this country. More women are recognizing that the cost of "having it all" in terms of careers and generous salaries is too high—that it does not reward with families and children but loneliness. Mothers with children under three are leaving the workplace.
But what is most needed is for the fathers to shake off the shackles of materialism, narcissism, and feminism and to provide for their families what is truly needed: leadership, security, attention, involvement, and instruction. We cannot afford any more "lost" children.
David C. Grabbe
Are We Losing Our Children?Related Topics: Child Rearing | Feminism, Radical | Homeschooling | Homosexuality | Instruction | Leadership | Materialism | Narcissism | Parent-Child Relationship | Parental Responsibility | Pre-Marital Sex | Responsibility, Parental | Sexually Transmitted Diseases | STD | Syphilis
What are the results of rejecting God?
1. Uncleanness, meaning moral impurity;
2. Longing or desiring, especially what is forbidden;
3. Disgracing each other by mutual consent, meaning unlawful and impure connections with one another. Verse 24 contemplates not just a perversion of sex—homosexuality—but any use of it outside of God's law, such as fornication.
Paul describes more of what rejecting God leads to:
For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due. (verses 26-27)
Should we be shocked at the explosion of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) in today's world? God tells those that reject Him that such diseases are fitting penalties for the wrong use of sex. Mankind has tried to "advance beyond consequences" in this area by advocating "safe-sex" through the use of contraceptives. However, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recently admitted that condoms do not prevent the transmission of most STDs. Mankind cannot outsmart God!
David C. Grabbe
What Evolution Really MeansRelated Topics: Fornication | Homosexuality | Immorality | Impurity | Moral Decay | Moral Impurity | Rejecting God | Rejecting God's Authority | Rejection of God | Sexual Immorality | Sexual Perversion | Sexual Sins | Sexually Transmitted Diseases | STD | Uncleanness
In the United States, marriage has been under assault for many years, at least for the last five or six decades. We could perhaps pinpoint the publication of the Kinsey Report in the early 1950s as a starting point of the major offensive against marriage. Very quickly after that, the sexual revolution lurched into full swing, launching the era of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. While we tend to confine this to the 1960s, that era has never really ended but only transformed over the years. Millions are using their "sexual freedom" to dally with multiple partners before marriage—and continuing the practice even after saying, "I do."
On January 1, 1970, California's no-fault divorce law went into effect, and before long many other states followed suit, easing divorce. In the same decade, feminism reared its head in two major efforts: the legalization of abortion and the push for an equal rights amendment to the Constitution. Abortion—of which there are about a million performed each year—made the consequences of illicit sexual activity easier to avoid.
The next decade saw the onset of AIDS, early on traced to perverse sexual activity among homosexuals, and the rise of the homosexual movement, which has pursued such goals as homosexual rights, hate-crimes legislation, and most recently, homosexual "marriage" and transsexualism. Along with AIDS, gonorrhea, and syphilis, at least 25 new sexually transmitted diseases (STDs)—some of which are viral like AIDS—have ravaged many who have participated in the "sexual revolution." Modern medicine cannot really "cure" any of these, only make the symptoms more bearable (although antibiotics can kill Chlamydia and gonorrhea, scars and sometimes infertility may result). These diseases have reached pandemic proportions, as 15.3 million new STD infections happen each year, including over three million in teens.
All this so-called progress has its effect on marriage. In addition, we cannot forget that potentially huge problems are inherent simply in two different people trying to create a life together. One that should not be minimized is each mate's unique set of sins and weaknesses that must be overcome. Everyone has "baggage," and when a man and a woman try to make a marriage work, they must be prepared to deal with such potential "skeletons in the closet" and their aftermaths.
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Marriage—A God-Plane Relationship (Part One)Related Topics: AIDS | Fornication | Fornication Weakens a Future Marriage | Homosexual "Marriage" | Homosexuality | Sexual Revolution | STD