QC and small group accountability (17/6/16)
We talked about ideas and situations from the recently-concluded Church Camp. Noel (visiting for the first time) talked about how the Camp speaker for the Mandarin ministry mentioned a situation where it should not be thought of as appropriate for a guy and girl to cohabitate before marriage, or for a couple to spend the night in the same room. We asked then: where does the Bible say that this is wrong? So we said that the following Scriptural principles would apply: 1. What is lawful is not necessarily helpful (1 Co 10:23). And what is helpful is defined by what makes us and others around us more conformed to the image of Christ (Ro 8:29) and that gives glory to God (1 Co 10:31) 2. We are asked to flee temptation (2 Ti 2:22, 1 Co 6:18) - that is, to be put ourselves in situations where we would find it easy to sin. We are not asked to *fight* temptation. Underlying the idea of what is not helpful and what is sin is that the Bible teaches that the physical pleasures of sex are...