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About the Book
"Sex, God & Marriage" by J.C. Arnold explores the Christian perspective on sexuality, marriage, and the role of God in relationships. The book addresses issues such as premarital sex, adultery, and the importance of maintaining a strong spiritual connection within marriage. Arnold emphasizes the need for open communication, trust, and mutual respect in order to build lasting and fulfilling relationships.
Hannah More
Beyond any doubt, Hannah More was the most influential female member of the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the African Slave Trade. She was educated at Bristol, an important slave-trading town, and began to publish her writing in the 1760s, while she was still a teenager. Her first play, The Inflexible Captive, was staged at Bath in 1775. Later in the 1770s, and for much of the 1780s, she spent time in London and made the acquaintance of many important political and society figures, including Samuel Johnson, Edmund Burke, and Elizabeth Montagu. Her play Percy was produced by David Garrick in 1777, and Fatal Falsehood was staged in 1779, but she came to regard the theatre as morally wrong, especially after the death of her mentors; Garrick and Johnson. She turned to religious writing, beginning with her Sacred Dramas in 1782. In 1784-5, she 'discovered' Ann Yearsley, the so-called 'poetical milkmaid of Bristol', whose poems More helped to publish, although the two later fell out.
In the 1780s, More widened her circle to include religious and philanthropic figures, including John Newton, Beilby Porteus and William Wilberforce. In the summer of 1786, she spent time with Sir Charles and Lady Margaret Middleton at the their home in Teston in Kent. Among their guests were the local vicar James Ramsay and a young Thomas Clarkson, both of whom were central to the early abolition campaign. More and Clarkson met again in Bristol in 1787, while he was on his fact-finding mission to the city, but they did not become close. However, in the same year More met Wilberforce, and their friendship was to become a deep and lasting one. More contributed much to the running of the newly-founded Abolition Society including, in February 1788, her publication of Slavery, a Poem which has been recognised as one of the more important slavery poems of the abolition period. Her relationship with members of the society, especially Wilberforce, was close. For example, she spent the summer of 1789 holidaying with Wilberforce in the Peak District - planning for the abolition campaign, at that time at its height, formed a great deal of their conversation.
By the mid-1790s, More had become closely involved with the 'Clapham Sect' of evangelical Christians, many of whom were involved in the abolition campaign. The group centred on Henry Thornton's home in Clapham and included Wilberforce, James Stephen, and Zachary Macaulay, among others. Throughout the 1790s, she wrote a number of religious tracts, known as the Cheap Repository Tracts, that eventually led to the formation of the Religious Tracts Society. Several of the Tracts oppose slavery and the slave trade, in particular, the poem The Sorrows of Yamba; or, The Negro Woman's Lamentation, which appeared in November 1795 and which was co-authored with Eaglesfield Smith. However, the tracts have also been noted for their encouragement of social quietism in an age of revolution. She continued to oppose slavery throughout her life, but at the time of the Abolition Bill of 1807, her health did not permit her to take as active a role in the movement as she had done in the late 1780s, although she maintained a correspondence with Wilberforce and others. In her later life, she dedicated much time to religious writing. Nevertheless, her most popular work was a novel, Coelebs in Search of a Wife, which appeared in two volumes in 1809 (and which ran to nine editions in 1809 alone). In the 1820s she grew gradually less well, and decreased - but did not entirely halt - the amount of writing she produced. On her death in 1833, she left more than Ă‚ÂŁ30,000 to charities and religious societies (equivalent to about Ă‚ÂŁ2,000,000 or $3,000,000 in 2004).
© Brycchan Carey 2004
why god’s will isn’t always clear
If God wants us to “walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him” (Colossians 1:10), why doesn’t he give us more specific guidance in our decisions? The Spontaneous 95% Consider all of the decisions you make during a typical day. Most are quick and spur-of-the-moment. John Piper estimates “that a good 95% of [our] behavior [we] do not premeditate. That is, most of [our] thoughts, attitudes, and actions are spontaneous.” That’s true. And it’s a bit unnerving when you think about it. The majority of the decisions that end up becoming the bricks in the building of our lives are just “spillover from what’s inside.” Even if we do stop and pray about such decisions, it is very rare that we discern God’s specific leading regarding what we should wear, what or where we should eat, if we should respond to this instance  of our child’s sin with correction or forbearance, if we should put off that time-consuming errand till tomorrow, or whether we should check our email again . The Massive 5% But what about the other 5% of our decisions? Some of these are massive and life-shaping. Should I marry this person? How much money should I give away and where? How much should we save for retirement? Should we adopt a child? Should I pursue a different vocation? Should we homeschool or not? Should I pursue chemo or an alternative cancer treatment? Should we buy this home? Which college should I attend? Is it time to put my elderly parent in a nursing home? Should I go to the mission field? Shouldn’t we expect God to direct us more explicitly in these? A Concealing Design “God doesn’t always make his will clear because he values our being transformed more than our being informed.” The answer is no, not necessarily. Why? Well, the short answer is because he is God, and we are not. “It is the glory of God to conceal things” (Proverbs 25:2). His wisdom and knowledge are unfathomably deep, his judgments are unsearchable, and his ways are inscrutable (Romans 11:33). Considering all the factors in play in the universe, it is likely no exaggeration that there are trillions of reasons for why God directs the course of our lives, and he prefers to carry out his purposes in ways that confound, surprise, and humble humans, angels, and demons. There is a tremendous glory that God displays when, without tipping his hand to us in advance, we suddenly recognize that he was working his will all along when we couldn’t see it. And he is also merciful to withhold information from us that he knows we aren’t ready to know, even if we think we really want to. A Revealing Design But one reason why God usually doesn’t give us specific guidance in our sometimes perplexing decisions is that he places a higher priority on our being transformed than our being informed in order that we will be conformed to the image of Jesus (Romans 8:29). That’s why Paul writes, Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12:2) What does this mean? It means that God has a design in the difficulty of our discerning. The motives and affections of our hearts, or “renewed minds,” are more clearly revealed in the testing of ambiguous decision-making. In Scripture, God reveals to us everything we need to know to live godly lives (2 Peter 1:3) and to “be complete [and] equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16–17). But the Father is not seeking workers, but worshipers (John 4:23). And he knows that if he made his will for our specific decisions more explicit more often, we would tend to focus more on what we do  rather than what we love . Like the Pharisees, we would tend to focus more on our actions, rather than our affections. But in decisions that require discernment, the wheat is distinguished from the tares. When we’re not quite sure, we end up making decisions based on what we really love. If deep down we love the world, this will become apparent in the pattern of decisions that we make over time — we will conform to this world. But if we really love Jesus, we will increasingly love what he loves — we will be transformed by renewed minds. And our love for him and his kingdom will be revealed in the pattern of small and large decisions that we make. The Pattern of Our Decisions I say “pattern of decisions” because all of us sin and make mistakes. But conformity to the world or to Jesus is most clearly seen in the pattern of decisions we make over time. “Conformity to the world or to Jesus is most clearly seen in the pattern of decisions we make over time.” That’s one reason why God makes us wrestle with uncertainty. He wants us to mature and have our “powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil” (Hebrews 5:14). The wonderful thing to remember in all of our decisions is that Jesus is our Good Shepherd. He laid down his life for us so that all of our sins are covered — including every sinful or defective decision. He will never leave us or forsake us. He has a staff long enough to pull us out of every hole and a rod to guide us back when we stray. And someday, if we truly seek to love him and trust him, we will see that he really was leading us through the confusing terrain of difficult decisions all along.
