My Review of NT Wright's "Paul: A Biography"

Wright, N. T. Paul: A Biography. San Francisco: Harper One, 2018.

            Paul is one of the few individuals to have changed the course of human history. His missionary travels and writings impacted the first century AD in ways that are no less significant today. This Pharisees turned Apostle became the catalyst for a messianic movement that took control of Europe, the ancient near east, and north Africa. But how did Paul achieve such success? Why did his message change societies even after his death? And what was the message that Paul proclaimed? 

There is no better person to answer these questions than N.T. Wright. As a minister and academic, Wright has spent nearly fifty years studying the life and writings of the Apostle Paul. Few people in modern academia have developed the insight and ability to expound on the life of Paul like Wright. His book is not only academically thorough but personally inspiring. I’ve been challenged by Wright’s ideas before, but Paul: A Biography caused me to rethink Paul as a historical figure, his new testament writings, and my own ministry as a traveling missionary and church planter. After reading this book, I realized that my ideas of Paul and his ministry were simplistic at best. In my effort to apply a Pauline model to church planting in Africa, I reduced Paul’s ministry to a simple formula. By ignoring the nuances of Paul’s ministry, I arrived at a false understanding of Paul himself and his strategies as a missionary. With Wright as my guide, I followed Paul, trying to see him from a first-century Jewish perspective; while asking myself, what did Paul think he was trying to accomplish?   

Paul achieved success in the Roman world because of the message he preached. Paul proclaimed salvation through Jesus as messiah of the world. This contrasted with the Jewish ideas of messiah and the Greco-Roman ideas of salvation. Jews of the first century looked for a Messiah that would solve their primary perceived problem–political subjection. They looked for a messiah who would restore the favor of God upon their nation, resulting in political and economic independence. The Jewish religious leaders believed that if they could apply the Law of Moses properly, then their God would be free to promote them to the dominant position of power in the ancient near east. If their religion was done correctly, the Kingdom of God would finally be established, and Jerusalem would be its capital. 

The Greco-Roman world sought salvation in personal security and provision. Caesar promised salvation for the here-and-now. What comes after is too uncertain to worry about. The Roman Empire provided its subjects with safety and comforts unknown in previous generations. For the first time in history, large scale farming, international trade, social mobility, and secure travel were commonplace. Salvation to the Roman had come in the form of personal and carnal freedoms.

Paul, and the other Apostles, preached the message that Israel’s God had sent his son as Messiah of the whole world. Through Jesus, the fullness of eternal salvation is offered to all nations. Paul’s message was met with disbelief by the Jews, who wanted to maintain religious superiority over the Greeks; and by the Greeks, who refused to believe that eternal salvation existed and that it could come through a suffering savior. For me, Wright brings varying interpretations of Paul’s Jesus-message into focus and shows that Paul contextualized not only theology but philosophy as well. 

Wright firmly roots Paul in his Jewish traditions and training. The popular perception is that Paul was primarily a Hellenist moving throughout the Roman world-changing contexts with ease. Wright challenges this idea by showing that at his core Paul was a Jew. His worldview expanded but never changed: his alliances shift, but not his religion. Paul is a diaspora Jew who looks at the world through the lens he received from his mentor Gamaliel. Ironically, it’s because of his Jewish worldview that he recognizes Jesus as Messiah and follows Israel’s God in the tradition of Elijah and Phineas. Paul sees no conflict in being fully Jewish and fully following Jesus. Paul believes devotion to Jesus-Messiah is the truest course for every Jew. To be truly Jewish is to follow the Messiah foretold by prophets. 

Wright’s idea that Paul was never converted from one religion to another, challenged me deeply. I’d never considered Paul in light of his Jewish context. My lack of understanding fooled me into believing Paul to be too much like me. Seeing Paul as the Pharisee of Pharisees, never moving away from his devotion to Israel’s God, repositions Paul’s writings for me theologically and philosophically. 

Throughout Paul’s writings, he continually corrects people’s way of thinking (philosophy) about God, not simply what (theology) people think about God. This exposed a failure in my own missiology. Too often missionaries focus on making sure that people affirm right theology with little consideration to how right theology is developed. People can affirm right things for the wrong reason. Without knowing how to arrive at right theology people are at the mercy of whatever theology offers the greatest personal benefit. Paul does not take right thinking for granted. He deals with churches from diverse cultural contexts. He knows members come to the Body of Christ with their previous ways of thinking. This is most clearly seen in Acts 15. Paul sees the mistakes other leaders were making. The Law reflects good theology, but the Judaizes application of the Law reflects bad philosophy. Wright points out how Paul tells people this is what you should believe and this is how you should arrive at that belief. 

Lastly, Paul’s understanding of the Kingdom of God is remarkably different from my own interpretation. If asked the question, What is the ultimate goal of existence?, Paul would say the “establishment of the Kingdom of God”; I would say “going to heaven.” The direction of my salvation is escape from guilt and discomfort. The direction of Paul’s salvation is redemption of all creation. This flaw in my philosophy caused confusion in my missiology. While in South Sudan, I was confused why our heaven-based salvation was so unappealing to the Dinka of Bar al-Gizzal. My gospel message was, basically, believe in Jesus and you get to go to heaven when you die. For the Dinka, this made no sense. They were not concerned with an afterlife. Their culture provided a story of transference of one’s life essence through paternal procreation. The perseveration of individual identity beyond the grave seemed outlandish and unnecessary. I can’t help but ask myself what would’ve been the effect if I had proclaimed the direction of salvation as the coming of the Kingdom God who would repair all things to perfection. 

Thanks to Wright, I now proclaim salvation as the coming of the Kingdom of God in the life of the individual with the goal of all creation being brought under the rule of the creator God. To the Jews (and Paul) heaven was a temporary state where believers are absent from the body, but present with the Lord (I Corinthian 5:8), but this was not the end of salvation. Salvation leads to participation in establishing the new heaven and new earth. To many, this idea is far more appealing than my western projections of “resting in peace.” The value of Wright’s book is found in its accuracy in presenting Paul, the devout Jew, always zealous to love and obey Israel’s God. The usefulness of Paul: A Biography is found in its thorough analysis of each step of Paul’s ministry and theology. I recommend this book to any serious student of the New Testament and to every missionary trying to follow the Apostle’s footsteps, as he followed Christ.    

    

Free Gospel?

We love to talk about free salvation.
Walk the aisle, come to church, it’s fun.
Right?

Yeah, free. We like free stuff.
But maybe there’s more.
For freedom, you forfeit all.
Right?

You did, didn’t you?
Were you not told?
The Gospel is the message,
That makes you the messenger.
Right?

Oh, God! What aisle did you walk?
What lies did they tell you?
One Gospel, one Faith, one path.
Right?

Jesus’ path was not easy and He was God!
We are not above that Master.
If my God walked a difficult path,
Who am I to demand more?
Right?

Free salvation is only free to the one who receives it.
For the messenger, there has always been a price.
Right?

Book Review: One Gospel for All Nations - Jackson Wu

            With globalization and urbanization as our current reality we are tempted to think that the missionary task is becoming easier. Not so. Today, the world is more interconnected than ever; however, these connections are often used by secularizing and anti-Christian forces. Materialism, atheism, and extremism have all taken advantage of globalization. Still, Christianity maintains a firm presence in every hemisphere and Christian adherents are increasing in number, most notably, in the global-south. However, our successes do not excuse our failing. 

          The church’s assumption that the developed world will be a more Christianized world has only partially come to fruition. In many countries, traditionally Christian systems of education and community development have proven to be that nation's greatest secularizing influence. The responsibility of the church to take the gospel to every nation weighs heavy upon my generation.

            It is into this milieu that Jackson Wu’s prophetic voice is heard. One Gospel for All Nations challenges the church to give a contextualized answer to four important questions: Who is Christ?, What does Christ do?, Why is Christ important?, and How should people respond?.  How a community responds to these questions determines not only their theology but their behavior towards other humans and the environment as well. Wu’s thesis is stated in his introduction, “It is possible to proclaim the truth and yet still be wrong.” If contextualization were easy, One Gospel for All Nations would be a pamphlet and not a 350-page book. Christian missions have often spoken the truth wrongly and made the gospel out of reach for whole populations (loc. 228).  

            Dr. Jackson Wu is a missionary and missiologist who straddles several worlds. Wu was born in America to Chinese parentage and, as a bilingual, he teaches and trains in missions/theology in both the Chinese and English speaking worlds. He teaches primarily in Asia; however, through his writings I, and many others, have been challenged by his prophetic voice to step more deeply into the wounds of the world. Personally, Wu helped me to clarify my thinking regarding, church planting, training, and mobilization of the church for mission. 

            Wu’s book takes as theological and anthropological approach in analyzing the church’s responsibility to reach the world for Jesus. He shows that correct contextualization is the key for making the gospel accessible to all nations. As a linguist, I appreciate his ideas on language and contextualization. 

          All minds do not think alike. The gospel is big enough to connect to different worldviews. Wu makes use of various theories from the social sciences and interrogates them into a missiology that any evangelical would agree with. The strength of the book is found in his integration of old and new ideas, while maintaining a firm foundation in Scripture.

            Where Wu stands out among other writers of missiology is in his instructive models. Wu’s models of missions and contextualization make the book easy to understand and applicable to any mission field. A book that could prove academically distant to some missionaries becomes relevant through Wu’s models. The practical context for much of the book is China. The anecdotes and personal stories keep the book from becoming dry or uninspiring. I could not put the book down. I found it the most readable book on contextualization that I have encountered to date.

the Text

The book is well organized and flows from one chapter to the next, while accumulating momentum throughout the text. The book is divided into four sections. 

Section I:

These first chapters lay the premise of the book, which centers on contextualization of the gospel message cross-culturally. Here, Wu connects to many ideas already understood by any young missionary or seminary student. Section I, connections the gospel to the lost world through the ministry of missions. Wu keeps these three entities (gospel, world, & missions) in correct relationship. While addressing the questions of how to contextualization the gospel, Wu gives guidance on how to keep contextualization from going wrong and veering into syncretistic beliefs and practices. 

Section II:

            Section II establishes our priorities for contextualization. Wu clarifies the nature of the gospel and shows how the Gospel answers the questions that the non-Christian world is asking. I found the idea of the “implicit gospel” particularly compelling. Wu challenges missionaries to look deeply into the inconsistencies of our stated missiology and actual practice. “It is possible that our ‘implicit gospel’ has a greater influence on our listener than does our ‘explicit gospel’” (loc. 358). I found this section convicting. As a missionary, I’ve had years of explicit missiological training. However, in reading Wu I saw that there are still ideas that I affirm to be true in my beliefs, but struggle to live out that truth in my daily ministry. 

            Chapter 6 asks the question: How do we move from biblical text to cultural context? (loc1894) Wu follows a line of thought most closely associated with Paul Hiebert. Exegeses must be done in both Scripture and culture in order to properly connect the two (loc 641). I hope that I’m not reading beyond Wu’s ideas, but I found this chapter to be a simple reproduction of some of Hiebert’s more complex ideas.  

      

Section III:

            Wu uses his own experiences in Asia to support his ideas. His evidence is convincing, although anecdotal. His approach in section III is less academic than in previous sections. Here, Wu focuses on his personal experience in his Chinese field of service. While not empirical, the evidence’s qualitative property supports his thesis that the gospel can be stated clearly in one culture, but when transmuted into another, may fail to convey the meaning of the gospel in a way that is understandable (loc. 384). 

          This section would be very helpful to anyone preparing for the Chinese context. Wu’s experience in China is obviously extensive; however, I think the specifically Asian focus of the book was a weak point in that it is practically, singularly focused on China. Because of this, some students may find the book misleading, if they don’t have the research skills to separate Wu’s theory from practical application. Potentially, one might walk away from reading the book with an overly applied Sinocentric view of contextualization. 

Section IV:

            This section was helpful and motivating to me as a seminary student and lifelong learner. I appreciate Wu’s perspective on biblical literacy and continuing education. For some readers, Wu’s high ideals of a missionary’s education could put them off from grasping the sense of the section.   When Wu states that Seminaries should consider making biblical languages part of missionary training, I was taken aback. Is this not a rather grand expectation to put upon a young missionary? I assume there’s good reason that seminaries don’t normally include biblical languages as core classes for Missions/Intercultural Degrees. Wu’s critique that many missionaries are under-educated as compared to lawyers and other professionals is well taken but possibly out of place (loc 3404). The time and intellectual talent required to accomplish Wu’s ideal missionary education is likely outside the capacity of many sending organizations and individuals, especially national missionaries from the developing world. One the other hand, I found Wu’s emphasis on teaming to be insightful and encouraging.        

Conclusion:

            I would highly recommend One Gospel for All Nations to any missionary at any point in their career. The book is insightful and clarifying. Wu’s fidelity to scripture and the Great Commission is inspirational. He covers a lot of material and communicates missiological insights in a well-defined and well organized way. Wu’s academic rigor shows in his emphasis on modeling. Wu’s graphic models of contextualization support and clarify his main ideas. In using models, the content of the book is easier taught to others though the use of geometric representations of Wu’s ideas. I believe these modals would be especially useful in training non-readers.  

   Wu places himself in the evangelical tradition, which is evident in his underlying theology. His approach to missions and missionary training is not meant to be revolutionary, but firmly rooted in traditional evangelical missiology. 

            Where Wu adds to the literature, is in his integration of traditionally non-theological scholarship and traditional missions. This is most clearly seen in Wu’s apt handling of contextualization as a foundational element for all missionary efforts. Wu, as a younger missiologist, has the advantage of those (Kraft, Hiebert, Hesselgrave, etc.) who have gone before him and sought to establish the evangelical identify of international missions. Wu doesn’t tamper with this previously established identity but adds to this missiology a more robust interdisciplinary approach to doing missions in a cross-cultural context.     

            This book will be well received by others for three reasons. First, it is particularly well written. Wu’s work is free from both overly academic language and folksy prose. Second, Wu defines his work and its underlying premises in a way that is consistent with an evangelical framework. This makes his book easy to apply within any evangelical setting. Thirdly, Wu himself is multicultural and speaks with a unique voice. His multicultural background shows though his writing and gives him the ability to critique with authority from multiple positions. If the book is not well received, it will be due to Wu’s hard-line stance on contextualization and his historical critique of missions as a non-contextualized endeavor. Possibly, some may object to Wu’s focus on the Asian context to the exclusion of other peoples. I did see the Sinocentric element of the book as a weak point; however, this is only a minor criticism and should not discourage anyone from reading and applying the content of the book to their own contexts.   

Wu’s representation of contextualization as a foundational element of missions is motivating and shows that over the past two generations the church has grown tremendously in its understanding of human social and cognition systems. For this reason alone, the book is worth reading. Where previous works on contextualization and missiology struggle to maintain consistence in language and philosophy, Wu speaks from an established evangelical missiological position. While Wu is not rocking the boat missiologically, he most certainty challenges churches and missionaries to live out the gospel explicitly and implicitly in a biblical way. Wu forces readers to search themselves for any areas of spiritual disobedience or intellectual laziness and place everything aside that would hinder us form making the gospel contextually understood and accessible to all peoples. One Gospel for All Nations should be read by anyone involved in cross-cultural ministry.       

As my grandfather said, "Love must be cultivated"

Love is love when loved in return
Any other is an imposter, merely infatuation
To fall in love, is to fall into the love of another
As she fell into mine and I into hers
To fall requires gravity
And love provides its own gravitas
Love must be severe for it to work
And to work is love in the truest sense

As my grandfather said, "love must be cultivated"

     A field when abandoned will shortly be consumed by the forest.

Often, I have walked within the deep woods to find an old stone wall and realized the youth of the trees around me. That, which is now covered with vines, was once a cultivated field; and so is the love of many when abandoned. Love is forgotten and only the walls remain. Covered in vines and tarnished by years; love abandoned becomes a monster which seeks to consume the adjoining field. It becomes the source of the spores that blow into another’s field and pollutes it with blight.

     Men, keep your hedge rows clean and prune your fence lines.

Ladies, never neglect to pull up the weeds. A sapling is easily uprooted, but a tree will not be removed without great damage to the land. Neglect and abuse both destroy. Both are born of the same evil parentage. Their scars are often found upon the land: one in deep furrows the other in overgrowth. Seeds that are planted and left unattended render the same nothing as the seeds driven over or plowed too deeply. Husbands and wives do you not know that you eat from the same field? You will gather not only what you sow but that which is sown by the other. So, sow what and when you desire but sow together and in season as joint laborers. For it is hard to keep one’s rows straight when sowing in the dark and all plants grow from their own roots. 

Contextualization is not just for the "mission field."

Over the past 12 years, I have trained and been trained in contextualized approaches to evangelism and discipleship in my specific church planting context. However, my mind was expanded in these few pages to see the need of contextualization in all aspect of ministry. Contextualization is not just for the mission field. If we believe that contextualization is only a missionary’s tool, then we will miss our calling to reach the nations at our door and understand Scripture in its fullest context. Dean Flemming1 asks this provocative question, “How should the church inculturate its faith when increasingly its field of mission is not just a single target culture but a multi-faceted cultural mosaic?”

Much of the reading holds up Paul as a model of contextualization. Paul is equally shown to contextualize his message for the Jew as for the Greeks. Previously, I viewed missionaries as the only ones that needed to contextualize; the local pastor, ministering within his home community doesn’t need to contextualize. This error follows from 2 incorrect premises: first, that a culture is 100% homogeneous and second, the Scriptures do not have their own local context.

First, no culture is entirely homogeneous. All cultures are divided at least by generations and genders. Any minister working within his home culture has the responsibility to contextualize biblical teaching. Granted, some situation may be more challenging than others. Some communities may contain distinct languages, cultures, and stories. Other communities might be less diverse but never entirely devoid of diversity. The more common situation is a homogeneous church surrounded by a diverse community. Here, many churches are blind to their need of contextualization the gospel. They pay the bills just fine without it. Many churches find themselves in situations like this. Some are in denial or unwilling to change, while others are willing to change but lack the training to contextualize for other worldviews. Have missionaries also been blind to the need of the American church and see “stateside” time as their time to rest and raise funds for their ministry? Have we (missionaries) become too focused on the “ends of the earth” and forfeited our witness to our “Jerusalem”?

Second, the Scriptures shouldn’t be read as if directed at any culture today. How have I not seen this before? We all must seek to contextualize Christ’s teaching in our lives and for the lives of others. There’s no good ministry without good contextualization. Interestingly, I live and work among Arabic speaking Muslims, which linguistically and culturally have more similarities to cultures found in Scripture, than anywhere in the West. We work hard to contextualize the gospel for our “missionary” context; however, the gospel might be better understood by a Chadian-Arab in its raw form than an American-postmodern.

The need to contextualize is ever-present. Paul is a great example of this. He presents the same gospel to different worldviews in different ways. He adjusts his starting point based on the culture and education of his hearers, but he still arrives at the gospel of Jesus with all he evangelizes. The gospel is big. It is impossible to delineate our culture’s version of the gospel as the “real gospel”; God created every culture to praise him. The guilty come to God seeking forgiveness, the helpless come to God seeking power. The gospel is both. 

1: Flemming, Dean. Contextualization in the New Testament: Patterns for Theology and

Mission. Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP, 2005.

The Power of Stories

 

The New Testament Scholar N. T. Wright said that stories provide a vital framework for experiencing the world. They also provide a means by which views of the world may be changed. “Stories are, actually, peculiarly good at modifying or subverting other stories and their worldviews.” -Vision of the Possible, p.275

 

            Myth and experience have a fascinating relationship. A culture’s experiences affect their mythology and their myths affect a culture’s experiences. This cyclical process is always in flux. The dynamic nature of experience is a topic that is not often discussed in conversations. N.T. Wright tells us that experience is scaffolded by stories (myths). The effect of this is that the same reality experienced by people with different mythologies can code distinctively different memories. Perception is highly impacted by the stories we tell ourselves. In fact, it takes intellectual effort and faith to hold to a singular understanding of reality.

            Why are memories so different within a group of common participants? This question is not easily answered. It is a complex problem where theologians, philosophers, linguists, psychologist, and neurologist rarely gain precious ground. The mysteries of human cognition do not give up their secrets easily.

            Where cognition intersects our work as church planters and missionaries is at the point of worldview. Conversion to Christ is a reorientation of one’s core worldview. Salvation requires a marked change in worldview or there is no rebirth of the soul.

            How is it possible for me to affect the unseen worldview of an individual? I cannot sway their soul or save them by my human will, but I can impact their story. Much of our world is mediated by language and humans are good at influencing the minds of others with the use of language. Language provides a powerful opportunity to present new stories, which are, then, either affirmed or negated by future experiences. However, new stories are not often completely rejected but refined through experience. New stories are not only affected by experience but by other stories already residing in a persons worldview. The deeper the story in a person’s worldview the more pressure it applies to new stories to get in line with the values and beliefs of more established stories.

            This process of story integration is most active in evangelism and discipleship not in salivation, which is true revelation. Story integration is a slow process, whereby truth is organized and false truths are exposed. This can remove barriers to salvation and accelerate spiritual growth but is insufficient to save. Salvation is not a cognitive process it is a work of the Holy Spirit.

            I have, too often, seen evangelism as a formula. Teach good stories to expel the bad stories and God must save the person based on my evangelistic expertise. This is far from reality. Early in my career as a missionary, I erred on the opposite side and presented an incomplete Gospel and expected that through prayer and the person’s desire to better their life, salvation was inevitable. A person cannot believe in what they have not been told (see Romans 10:14). Herein we see the interplay of our effort as ministers, man’s free will, and the action of the Holy Spirit.       

Organic Farming and My Sex Life (3 of 3)

       

       The National Gardening Association reports that the average home garden in the United States yields $600 worth of produce per gardening family, with an investment of only $70. This converts into $21 billion not spent in U.S. supermarkets. This $21 billion pays little tax, no executive salaries, no transport or fuel cost, and no money leaves your home.1          
          What do you think a consumer based economy thinks of people choosing to produce that which they consume? Eating from your own garden is a threat to our present economy. Why? They need our money to keep the machine running. As a result of post WWII industrialism, family farms, which were at least in part subsistence communities, were forced to specialize. We were told to sell what we produce for paper money then go to town and buy from great big stores. Thus, American consumerism was born.
          Consumerism is aggressively targeting every aspect of your life. This is what we call advertising. The goal of advertising in our generation is to manufacturer discontent–to leave us wanting more. Producers want us to be dissatisfied with what we already have or could produce ourselves in order to entice us to buy their products. And spend we do. We buy clothes to portray an unauthentic image and eat food for entertainment alone, but they didn't stop there.
          Now my generation is being attacked by a wholly destructive industry–Pornography. 
          Each year the porn industry makes no less than 10 billion dollars off of Americans alone.2 There's big money to be made in the sale and consumption of porn and porn-related products, as well as, huge advertising profits in generating traffic to "free" porn sites.
          Can you imagine the threat healthy marriages are to this multi-billion dollar industry? The pleasure you produce and enjoy does not directly participate in a consumer based economy. It is produced locally and tax-free. No wonder my email receives a constant trickle of trash trying to seduce me into paying for my pleasure. 
     Porn is the bottled water of sex. I have a tap in my kitchen, which produces the water I drink, but I have to fill the glass; or not, for a small fee, bottled water comes pre-filled and ready for consumption. As consumers we prefer to exchange revenue for the goods we need. Growing a garden takes a lot of work, as a gardener I know. But our vegetables are sweeter and less contaminated than the supermarket's; and so is our bedroom.     
     The effect of our love moves beyond us. The love or lack of love we produce becomes the garden we raise our children in. It is the back drop of every other relationship in our lives. The love of a husband  only produces fulfillment when expressed to the wife it was designated for. 
     Poets, artist, and theologians have described the nature of love from every angle. Literature and music are filled with the reverberations of humans trying to cope with the love bursting within us all. But love is not homogeneous. The love inside my heart is made up of a spectrum of loves. The challenge of existence is knowing our loves to the point of knowing which direction they each point and then releasing our love in that direction. 
     Consumerism is not concerned with helping you understand your loves. They'd rather tell you which of their products you should love. So much heartache has been experienced by people tying to love the right object with the wrong love. My children-directed-love doesn't work on my wife and my God-directed-love doesn't work on anyone but God. Love comes with labels. Our loves are like Christmas gifts under a tree. We must take the time to read the name tags.
     Sadly, many people have given out the wrong gifts. The wrong gift to the right person creates frustration. My friends are not my wife and my wife is not my God. 
     If you don't declare your loves, consumerism will declare them for you. You will be tossed by fads and trends, not only in what you wear, but in the friends you pick and the values you affirm. Never has a culture touted itself as a comprehensive worldview with only empty promises and products due to be obsolete by next Christmas.  
     Pornography does not fulfill it entices. It is designed to always leave you wanting and wanting more. Love fulfills. It fills us up. That is what it's designed to do. Every true love draws us in a God-ward direction because every true love is loving God. Pornography thrives on our lust, not only for sex, but for what is next. It is a prison and misery makes the bars. Love is freedom. In marriage, we are given the canvas upon which we create our own masterpiece. In marriage, we are given the pages upon which we write our own love story. We are the artists. We, above all, value our art. It is ours, unique to us. May we never plagiarize.  
     Live in the garden of your love and love the garden you live in. It is yours. Your gift from God.                                                     

1 http://www.gardenresearch.com/files/2009-Impact-of-Gardening-in-America-White-Paper.pdf
2 http://www.covenanteyes.com/2012/06/01/how-big-is-the-pornography-industry-in-the-united-states/