Saturday, December 29, 2007

J-Term Reading

As I have done some reading for my J-Term class, I have come across some very interesting thoughts and insights. I am taking a class on Human Sexuality, and lets just say the reading has been interesting. One of the things that I have come across in this class is far as the role of adictictions go. Some of my reading has covered sexual addictions, and I will leave out the details, but something that I have come across has left a profound impact on me. It is the idea that no matter the addiction, they all have the same root, which is an image and worship.

The idea is that we are all created in God's image and that we are all created to worship Him. I know this is nothing profound, but what caught my attention is that our image problem really comes in is that addiction ussually comes in when we either do not have a proper image of ourselves, or God. To keep it simple, it is the idea that we need something to fill our deepest longings and needs and the addictions come in when we either do not fill our needs with God, and or things that we are involved with take to hight of a priority and one goes overboard to where they can not come back.

The second idea is the idea of worship. We all worship something, it is either others, ourselves or God. Addictions is something we do to much and it has all of our focus, which is worship. The Old Testament has a word for this and it is called idolatry. If one takes a serious look at the Israelite history of the Old Testament, one can easily find that they often dealt with idol problems. So the question is, is what one is going towards helping or hindering their relationship with God. Or has it gotten to the point of being so out of control where it is what one all thinks about and truly worships. Eventually, every knee is going to bow before the throne, we can do it now willingly, or be forced to later.

1 comment:

Matt said...

Hey Tom, good stuff. Sounds like an interesting class. What you wrote resonates a lot with what I've thought about addictions I've dealt with and how they were a form of idolatry.