teachers

suzi and i have passed some bit of time watching a new show called Community on Hulu. the show itself isn't that important, though it does go highly recommended by me. in the last episode we watched, one of the cast members, named Troy, is about to turn 21, so the cast of protagonists go to a club to celebrate, each of them getting either intoxicated or consumed with facades they've been trying to maintain. the episode essentially ends with Troy taking everyone home and realizing that, while he had looked up to some of the other, older cast members for the past two years, they really weren't any more mature than he was.

so while Troy had held the two other characters as teachers, he eventually realized that they weren't worthy of being looked up to as teachers at all.

i recently got a book from John Piper from amazon called Sex and the Supremacy of God. from reading in Proverbs 7, the Bible seemed to say that if we had understanding, then we wouldn't fall subject to sin so much, particularly in the area of sexual morality. i was introduced to sex from the Internet, which isn't the best place to learn about most things. so i got this book to hopefully raise my understanding of the divine implications of sex and why we are supposed to hold it so sacred or special.

Piper would go on to assert in the first chapter that sex reveals to us a slice of the greater character, promises, and intimacy that God has for us. one of the primary reasons that we are wired so sexually is because it is to point us towards an even greater longing and an even greater satisfaction that we are to experience in Christ. so it isn't simply knowing who God is on a mental level, but it is nearly a "sexual" intimacy - not sexual in a physical way, but in a way of understanding and commitment and pleasure.

with this idea of sexuality laid out, and my past and current struggles with pornography, i began to realize in class that people involved in pornography - like porn stars - don't really know the first thing about sex. they don't really know anything about sex at all. and yet i've realized that they've secretly been forming my ideas of how sex should work and what is pleasurable and what i should desire. and since i was looking up to these porn stars to teach me about sex, i was being fed lies regarding what sex is really about and why it's so enjoyable in the first place. at the same time, i think this was part of the reason i kept returning to pornography - i thought that these actors or actresses knew what they were doing and could teach me something or satisfy me somehow (as weird as that sounds).

whereas, if sex is really this sacred thing that has very much to do with the character of God and His love for us, and less to do with church culture and obedience to the law, then the people in pornography don't know anything about sex, and i need to be following someone else's example, and turning to someone else to tell me what to do with my sexuality and the very real desires i have.

and if this makes sense, then it may make sense to expand this to other things. if people in porn don't know the first thing about sex, then celebrities might not know anything about happiness and joy. college teachers might not know wisdom at all. people we secretly look up to might not be worth looking up to after all.