Never Send Nude Selfies: Seven Reasons

00:00:04.000 | Episode number 1000 today. It is incredible.

00:00:09.000 | It should be a little out of the norm, of course, and it is.

00:00:12.000 | Today we tackle a surprisingly common phenomenon made super convenient by the technology of the smartphone.

00:00:18.000 | Of course, we're talking about sending nude selfies.

00:00:22.000 | This is part of a growing conversation in our culture.

00:00:25.000 | I recently met with the assistant principal of a large public high school here in the suburbs of Minneapolis to talk about smartphones and teens.

00:00:33.000 | This is what she said to me. I wrote it down so I could share it here.

00:00:36.000 | Quote, "In the last year, I've been shocked at how many kids, kids that you would never suspect, have naked pictures on their phones,

00:00:44.000 | private pictures sent between them and a boyfriend or a girlfriend.

00:00:48.000 | In my job, I look through a lot of phones, and when I come across those pictures, I'm simply stunned.

00:00:52.000 | To me, when it comes to high school students and their smartphones, this is the most surprising trend I now see."

00:00:59.000 | End quote.

00:01:00.000 | But this is part of a much larger phenomenon happening among males specifically,

00:01:06.000 | who will send unsolicited nude pictures of themselves to girls out of the blue.

00:01:10.000 | It's a disturbing new practice now well-documented by journalist Nancy Jo Sales in her eye-opening book,

00:01:17.000 | American Girls, Social Media and the Secret Lives of Teenagers.

00:01:22.000 | It's a troubling book too, and a wake-up call for any parent with a daughter who has a smartphone.

00:01:27.000 | I say all of this to introduce today's question, which comes to us from a 20-something listener named Lily.

00:01:33.000 | Lily writes in to ask this, "Dear Pastor John, I'm currently in a long-distance dating relationship with a fellow Christian.

00:01:40.000 | Lately, he has requested that I send pictures of myself nude, which I obliged.

00:01:45.000 | I now regret this decision.

00:01:47.000 | What would you say to young, unmarried Christians who are tempted to make this same mistake?"

00:01:53.000 | I think I have good biblical authority in saying on behalf of God to every one of his children, male and female,

00:02:05.000 | don't ever ask to see anyone naked except your spouse, and don't ever offer to show yourself to someone naked

00:02:19.000 | for erotic or sexual reasons, not medical reasons, except to your spouse.

00:02:26.000 | And I mean don't do it in person and don't do it in pictures.

00:02:31.000 | And I'll give you seven reasons for why I think I have God's authority in saying that,

00:02:37.000 | and I hope none of you hearing me will ever do it or ever do it again.

00:02:42.000 | Number one, when God created man and woman, it says in Genesis 2.25,

00:02:48.000 | the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

00:02:53.000 | That guilt-free, shame-free existence came to an end when Adam and Eve sinned.

00:03:01.000 | And their first experience after that sin was guilt and blame and shame.

00:03:07.000 | And so in Genesis 3.7, it says, "Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked,

00:03:13.000 | and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.

00:03:17.000 | Then God had mercy on them."

00:03:19.000 | In Genesis 3.21, it says, "The Lord made for Adam and his wife garments of skin and clothed them."

00:03:27.000 | God's plan for the lifting of that shame is the sacred relationship of marriage,

00:03:36.000 | just like marriage is the reversal of numerous elements of the curse.

00:03:41.000 | The freedom that we are to discover is not on stage.

00:03:46.000 | Let's take our clothes off in movies and on stage.

00:03:50.000 | It's not in a striptease joint.

00:03:52.000 | It's not in front of boyfriends or girlfriends.

00:03:55.000 | It's not in front of our phone.

00:03:57.000 | It's the profound respect and love and security of a covenant relationship called marriage.

00:04:06.000 | That's where people of the most ordinary looks can be free from shame.

00:04:14.000 | That's what love does.

00:04:16.000 | Outside of that relationship, God treats nakedness as one of the most vivid forms of divine judgment.

00:04:26.000 | Isaiah 47.3, "Your nakedness shall be uncovered, and your disgrace shall be seen.

00:04:33.000 | I will take vengeance, and I will spare no one."

00:04:37.000 | Or Lamentations 1.8, "Jerusalem sinned grievously.

00:04:41.000 | Therefore, she became filthy.

00:04:44.000 | All who honored her despise her, and they have seen her nakedness.

00:04:50.000 | She herself grooms and turns her face away."

00:04:53.000 | Ezekiel 16.37, "Behold, I will gather all your lovers with whom you took pleasure,

00:05:01.000 | all those you loved and all those you hated.

00:05:04.000 | I will gather them against you from every side and will uncover your nakedness to them,

00:05:11.000 | that they may see all your nakedness."

00:05:15.000 | In other words, nakedness in the covenant bed of marriage is a beautiful and thrilling thing for God's children.

00:05:24.000 | But nakedness outside that relationship is a manifestation of divine judgment.

00:05:31.000 | Even though we have been taught as a nation by the media, by the movie industry,

00:05:38.000 | and by certain notorious stars to regard nudity as a form of power and distinction and fame,

00:05:44.000 | they glory in their shame, the Bible says.

00:05:49.000 | That's number one.

00:05:50.000 | Number two, it follows from this, this understanding of nakedness and clothing,

00:05:57.000 | that the Apostle Paul would say, "Women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel,

00:06:05.000 | with modesty and self-control, with what is proper for women who profess godliness."

00:06:14.000 | Now, all three of those words, "cosmeo," respectable, "idus," modesty, "sophrasunes," self-control,

00:06:24.000 | all of those three words, interestingly, have the connotation of thoughtful, serious use of a woman's mind

00:06:33.000 | as to how to make her clothing speak about her godliness.

00:06:40.000 | Every woman should ask that question.

00:06:42.000 | How is what I wear and not wear speaking about my godliness?

00:06:48.000 | Her reverence for God and her own body as a gift of God, intended to be used to show his value to her.

00:06:56.000 | Clothing is not a matter of indifference in God's economy.

00:07:01.000 | It speaks about a woman's and a man's view of God and her own commitments to God and joy in God

00:07:09.000 | and her freedom from the manipulative maneuvers of men to get what they want.

00:07:15.000 | That's number two.

00:07:16.000 | Number three, Paul assumes in 1 Corinthians 12.23 that we take special care in covering the most intimate parts of our body.

00:07:27.000 | He says, "On those parts of the body that we think less honorable, we bestow greater honor,

00:07:34.000 | and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require."

00:07:43.000 | That's part of the way God has helped us live with the consequences of the fall in this sinful world.

00:07:51.000 | Number four, Paul tells Timothy, and by implication other young men,

00:07:57.000 | "Do not rebuke an older man, but encourage him as you would a father.

00:08:02.000 | Younger men as brothers. Treat younger men as brothers. Older women as mothers."

00:08:06.000 | And here's the key one, "Treat younger women as sisters in all purity."

00:08:13.000 | Now, what does that mean, "Treat younger women as sisters in all purity"?

00:08:20.000 | It means until a man is married, he should let his proper treatment of his sister, his real sister,

00:08:29.000 | dictate the purity of his behavior with his girlfriend.

00:08:34.000 | Another way to put it would be this, "View the temptation to ask for nude pictures

00:08:40.000 | the same way you would view the temptation of incest."

00:08:45.000 | Number five, if a man asks an unmarried woman to show him her body,

00:08:51.000 | by definition, he is unworthy of her, unworthy of her trust, her affection, and her covenant.

00:09:00.000 | That request that he's making in itself should be enough for the woman to say, "Goodbye."

00:09:08.000 | I really mean this, come on, women.

00:09:11.000 | If any woman thinks that is normal male Christian behavior, it's not. It's sick.

00:09:21.000 | It means he's clueless as to godliness.

00:09:25.000 | It means that when he gets tired of you before or after marriage,

00:09:30.000 | he will feel free to ask someone else to take off her clothes.

00:09:34.000 | And if he can't get it in person, he'll get it from the internet,

00:09:39.000 | and you will have told him it's okay because you cooperated before marriage, not just in marriage.

00:09:45.000 | So just settle it. If he asks, he's unworthy, period. It's over.

00:09:51.000 | Number six, in the Song of Solomon, which exalts in nudity between a married man and woman,

00:09:58.000 | it says more than once, "I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles or the does of the field,

00:10:07.000 | that you not stir up or awaken love until it pleases."

00:10:15.000 | That's exactly what sexually erotic pictures do that we're not supposed to do.

00:10:22.000 | They stir up desire that cannot be lawfully satisfied,

00:10:27.000 | which means they will lead to masturbation or to fornication.

00:10:32.000 | I don't know what goes on inside a woman's head,

00:10:35.000 | but I can only think that it is a deformed sense of sexuality

00:10:41.000 | if a woman gets pleasure out of helping a man act like a 13-year-old boy with his masturbation.

00:10:48.000 | Is that really the kind of man she wants?

00:10:52.000 | And finally, number seven, the least important reason,

00:10:56.000 | it's the least important reason and maybe the most compelling.

00:11:01.000 | To take such pictures is virtually certain that they will go public sooner or later,

00:11:10.000 | and you will discover what God meant by bringing judgment on yourself.

00:11:17.000 | So with God's authority, I think I can say to both men and women,

00:11:24.000 | don't ask and don't give such pictures.

00:11:29.000 | Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you, Lily, for being willing to share this with us

00:11:34.000 | to spark a conversation on a topic that we need to have.

00:11:37.000 | 1,000 episodes. We've made it to 1,000 episodes, and that's because of your support.

00:11:44.000 | So thank you for your prayers.

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00:12:01.000 | you can go to DesiringGod.org/donate.

00:12:06.000 | 1,000 episodes means we also have 1,000 questions now in our archive.

00:12:12.000 | You can make use of them, and you'll find them all at our online home at DesiringGod.org/askpastorjohn.

00:12:19.000 | Well, on Friday we're going to return to talk about pets.

00:12:22.000 | Are pets a distraction from the Christian life? It's a good question.

00:12:26.000 | Episode number 1001, coming up on Friday on pets.

00:12:30.000 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke. Thanks for listening.

00:12:32.000 | [ End ]

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