Pure Desire Summary

Book Review: Pure Desire In the United States alone, more than $13 billion per year in gross revenues is related to pornography; worldwide annual revenues exceed $97 billion. Every second - $3,075.64 is spent on pornography. Every second - 28,258 Internet users are viewing pornography. Every second - 372 Internet users are typing adult search terms into search engines. Every 39 minutes: a new pornographic video is created in the United States1. As Inrig says, “Sex sells”!2. Each day we are bombarded with immoral sexuality from a myriad of sources – the television, the radio, music, movies, commercial ads, dating sites, magazines, books, billboards, and the list goes on and on. It seems that there is nearly no place safe
God created man for woman and created sexual intimacy as a good thing. Through stories and great imagery, Inrig paints vivid mental pictures of the perfection God intended for sexuality within the bounds of marriage, but he paints images just as dynamic of paradise lost. Starting with Adam and Eve (Gen. 3) Inrig recounts the temptation of the first couple and strategies used against them in the original sin and points out that the same strategies have been working ever since. In Inrig’s comments about what was lost in the first sin, he introduced a view that I have never heard. Some people actually suggest that sexual intercourse was part of the original sin, but this is far from true, however their act of sin did change their sexuality. Of Adam and Eve and God’s original design, I think Inrig said one of the most beautiful things I have ever read, “The two move together in dignity, harmony, and holy physicality, marvelously completing and complementing one another”5. It makes you long for that kind of perfection in your own marital
Not amongst those things the married should flee are passion, commitment, fidelity, and (dare we say it) spirituality. Inrig lists quotes by the likes of Clement of Alexandria, Jerome, Augustine, Gregory the Great, and Thomas Aquinas all to the contrary. It surprised me that such great men and biblical scholars had such banausic views of marriage and the valve of sex therein. In their day it was easy to reject sexuality, today in a very contra manner, it is easy to reject God’s will. In our world, “cultural ideas trump biblical truth, we abuse and misuse God’s good