In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. –Erasmus (sort of)
If I were making a Proverb for accountability groups involving young men, I would say something like this: “In the land of sex-crazed perverts, the guy with a bit of self-restraint is king”. I’ve been part of several of these accountability groups and inevitably the discussion will turn to how we did in the lust category that week. That’s not surprising, that’s one particular area where young men might be prone to struggle. I thank God for those accountability groups. But I also think they’re a tad off balance.
Consider this from John Owen:
One lust, or a lust in one man, may receive many accidental improvements, heightenings, and strengthenings, which may give it life, power, and vigour, exceedingly above what another lust has, or the same lust (that is, of the same kind and nature) in another man….And on this account some men may go in their own thoughts and in the eyes of the world for mortified men, who yet have in them no less predominancy of lust than those who cry out with astonishment upon the account of its perplexing tumultuatings, yea, than those who have by the power of it been hurried into scandalous sins; only their lusts are in and about things which raise not such a tumult in the soul, about which they are exercised with a calmer frame of spirit, the very fabric of nature being not so nearly concerned in them as in some other. (The Mortification of Sin, 37)
Let me translate that for you…
One guy who looked at porn twice last week might actually be engaged in conquering sin, whereas a guy who didn’t look at a single abominable thing might be actually losing in his battle against sin. There are some sins which we don’t tend to talk about in our accountability groups. Seldom do we have a discussion about being overcome by a sinful focus on the negative of things. We typically don’t have questions about being overcome by cynicism or not severing the root of bitterness. Instead we focus on mortifying scandalous sins.
Every sin aims to destroy you and dethrone God. This is true of cynicism as much as of sexuality. But our accountability groups are focused on the latter whilst neglecting the former. This allows the guy who may not particularly struggle with sexual sin to be seen as the most spiritual guy in the whole group. That’s not going to help his pride. And it allows the guy who is truly engaged in mortifying sin, and yet has stumbled, to be overcome with despair.
What I’m attempting to say is there needs to be a bit more personality in our accountability groups and the questions we ask. There needs to be a structure where we can celebrate the guy who only looked at porn twice (because usually he falls multiple times a day). And yet also where we confront not only the two failures but also the heart which is still apparently desiring this particular sin. And we also need to come up with questions and structures which will challenge the guy who doesn’t struggle with porn but who is incredibly entangled in pride.
This isn’t meant to be used as an encouragement for the guy struggling with porn that his sin isn’t a big deal. It’s not meant to clothe him in fig-leaves of made-up righteousness. He needs to be encouraged by the growth that Christ is accomplishing in his life, and also driven to the throne of grace for real legit blood-bought covering for the areas where he still hasn’t quite lived up to the glory of God.
Likewise, this is meant to help the guy with a bit of restraint in sexuality to see that he isn’t king of the land just because of this. He might be further along in his growth in grace. But perhaps he actually has far more insidious sin lurking deep in his heart. Better accountability groups which are tailored to the individuals walk with Christ will be helpful in exposing these particular areas.
What are your thoughts?
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Thank you for this discussion. I hope you don’t mind a woman chiming in here. I’m older and have been a Christian for almost 50 years. These kinds of accountability groups are relatively new to me and I’ve always had misgivings about them for a couple of reasons. One is because, as you suggested, the problem really stems from a much deeper heart issue. And that can only be remedied as we surrender to Christ on a daily basis, not in just certain areas of our lives. The same problem might be said of the alcoholic. Did he or she do well that day because they only drank one bottle of wine instead of two?
And secondly, I wonder about the wisdom of speaking about “the things which are done by them in secret.” Ep. 5:2 in a group setting. This would have been unheard of when we were new Christians. As for accountability, the greatest help my husband received as a young man preparing for the ministry, was when a pastor friend would regularly ask him how he was doing with his daily prayer and Bible reading. That kind of accountability factor cut to the heart of every sin issue.
Thank you so much for your comment. I appreciate your perspective. I think we’ve moved (at times in a healthy way) from not EVERY speaking about struggles with sexuality to perhaps oversharing and giving too much of a focus on this issue. Thanks for the interaction.