Description

There has been much debate recently about the Bible and homosexuality. Most Christians rightly agree the Bible prohibits homosexual acts. But does the Bible prohibit homosexual desires? And does the Bible allow for Christians to use supposedly “good aspects of same-sex attractions” for righteous purposes? This book answers these questions by pinpointing exactly what the lusts of the flesh are. But this book is about more than just homosexual desires. At its core, this work answers if our attractions to evil are inherently sinful or just temptation. After examining several passages from the Bible, Jesus’s life and temptations, and church history, this book teaches that every desire for evil is sin and needs Jesus’s forgiveness. It’s time for Christians to focus on God, His Word, and Christ when discussing sin, rather than focusing on our “orientations,” memories, and choices. Introspection, misremembering, and rhetoric have never taken anyone’s sins away. Jesus alone cleanses us and makes us like Him for all eternity, so we must continually turn away from the lusts of the flesh and trust in Christ for both salvation and sanctification.

The New Studies in Theology (NST) series exists to enflesh sola Scriptura. In the monographs represented by this line, readers will explore various doctrines of Scripture from a hermeneutic that is both intellectually rigorous and intentionally doxological. This is not academic theology for its own sake. The NST aims to help pastors, theologians, and other students of the sacred Word know the deep things of God. The scholarship unveiled here is unapologetically extensive, but the overall goal of NST texts is to communicate a grand vision of God, his gospel, his kingdom, and his providential work in all creation.

From the Foreword

Some have argued that homosexual action is sin, but homosexual desire is neutral (or even praiseworthy in some form). Others have argued that homosexual sexual desire is sinful, but homosexual desire itself is not sinful. The technicalities abound; sadly, even otherwise sound believers have fallen prey to these distinctions, which in truth are distinctions without a difference...For this reason, I am thankful for the bold polemical theology of Jared Moore. In these crisp and readable pages, Jared shows with pastoral care and surgical precision why the aforementioned nuances do not obtain in biblical morality. To want something evil is itself sin: that is the essential message communicated here...But this book does not only say “No” to an unbiblical framework. This book says “Yes” to grace, powerful grace. Praise God, our sin is not the end of the story. Jared shows this toward the end of the book, and he offers real hope for us.

— Dr. Owen Strachan

Editor, New Studies in Theology
Provost, Grace Bible Theological Seminary
Coauthor, What Does the Bible Teach About Homosexuality?

Endorsements

When words like "sexual orientation" or "gay Christianity" enter the church, are they friends or foes? Do they create gospel bridges, as progressives declare, or do they build a bridge to hell? The Lust of the Flesh: Thinking Biblically About "Sexual Orientation," Attraction, and Temptation, answers these questions and restores gospel integrity and sanity to the church's confrontation of homosexual sin. Dr. Jared Moore in this clear, faithful, readable, and pastoral guide shows how a bridge to hell is built when we deny the sinful culpability of the lust of the flesh. Not semantics or missional opportunities as wolves and fools profess, these neologisms come with perversions of the true, saving, and victorious gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. This book is pure gospel gold.

—Dr. Rosaria Butterfield
Author, Five Lies of Our Anti-Christian Age
Author, The Gospel Comes with a House Key

Jared Moore has written an extremely timely and helpful book for the church. He engages with the key biblical texts on the matters at hand with precise exegesis, followed by extensive study of the historical Reformed position on these issues. Along the way he offers careful refutation of faulty views which stand in opposition to biblical fidelity. How we think about the nature of sinful desire impacts major doctrines in the Christian faith. To that end this book is a clear, clinical, and faithful guide.

—Gavin Peacock
Associate Pastor Calvary Grace Church
Coauthor of What Does the Bible Teach About Lust?
Director of International Outreach at CBMW

In Dr. Moore's work, The Lust of the Flesh, he highlights an issue that has not always been faithfully dealt with in the church in recent decades. He argues, rightfully, that we are morally culpable for our inward lusts. Drawing not only on the Scriptures, but also church history, Moore highlights the sin of the lust of the flesh and then offers ways in which the Christian can properly mortify their inward sinful inclinations. This book will offer a robust pushback against those who lessen the grievousness of same-sex attraction, but it also has a lot to say about basic Christian living and how we can be truly free in Christ, not just in our outward behavior but more especially in our inward desires. We need more good books tackling these difficult topics today and I am thankful for this one in particular.

—Dr. Mark Jones
Senior Minister at Faith Presbyterian Church in Vancouver, Canada
Author, Knowing Sin and Co-Author, A Puritan Theology

I’d been hearing, even from Evangelicals, that it was okay to be gay as long as you didn’t do gay. That notion seemed odd, indeed sub-Christian, for the logic implied that it was also okay to be pedophilic at heart as long as you didn’t act upon it. I was delighted to discover that Jared Moore was well down the way in sorting this out, and I was privileged to track with him as he wrote the dissertation from which this bold, biblically-meticulous book derives.

—Dr. Mark Coppenger

Retired Professor of Christian Philosophy and Ethics at SBTS

Author, Apologetical Aesthetics

Revoice has presented new challenges to the church's understanding of desire, sin, and holiness. At a time that demands moral clarity, Jared Moore has taken the conversation back to the key passages of Scripture on which a Christian doctrine of desire must be built. His exegetical work, combined with his effort to retrieve the historic Protestant teaching on concupiscence and apply its wisdom to current challenges, helps move the conversation forward to greater clarity for God-honoring life and ministry in the church.

—Dr. Aaron O'Kelly

Director, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary’s Ext. Center, Jackson, TN
Pastor, Cornerstone Community Church, Jackson, TN

This is a shot across the bow. Carefully argued and copiously documented, it advances the provocative claim that many modern evangelicals have accepted significant distortions to basic doctrines of sin in order to make peace with modern conceptions of sexual orientation. It should cause widespread re-examination of the contemporary assumption that some sins are beyond the scope of God's sanctifying work in our lives.

—Joshua Abbotoy
Executive Director of American Reformer
Managing Director at New Founding

In this accessible volume, Dr. Moore has done a tremendous work for the church today. The issue of sinful desires and lust is a fierce battleground for Christians and many are harmed by bad teaching on these matters. Dr. Moore’s contribution to the church is certain to build her up to think clearly on such crucial topics. Christians and pastors will benefit greatly from the clear biblical and theological thinking found within.

—J. Chase Davis
Lead Pastor, The Well Church, Boulder, CO
Senior Fellow, Center for Cultural Leadership
PhD Candidate, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

We are living in a post-Christian world partly driven by the Sexual Revolution that has produced the current confusion about sex, gender, and marriage, and more importantly, the impulse to dismantle the influence of Biblical Christianity in Western culture. Unfortunately, the ubiquity of this perverted view of sexual ethics—especially the so-called LGBTQ movement—has infected the church and led many to abandon the Biblical and historically orthodox view of sin, temptation, and unholy desires (i.e., the lust of the flesh). Many want to soften this view and allow for so-called same-sex attraction which seeks to mitigate the depravity inherent in human desires. Jared Moore has provided a much-needed corrective to this trend in his important book The Lust of the Flesh. He carefully re-examines critical passages of Scripture on the nature of sin, temptation, and sinful desires and returns us to an exegetically faithful, historic, and orthodox view on these matters. He also draws from key writings of Church history, especially from the Protestant and Reformed tradition, to demonstrate support for the orthodox Biblical view. I highly commend his efforts.

—Scott Christensen
Associate Pastor, Kerrville Bible Church, Kerrville, TX
Author, Defeating Evil: How God Glorifies Himself in a Dark World
Author, What About Evil? A Defense of God's Sovereign Glory

At a time when biblical and theological ignorance and outright rebellion has produced shocking consequences not only in the world but in the church, many have undertaken to protect God’s people from the disastrous consequences that follow from the abuse of His precious gift of sexuality. In 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝐿𝑢𝑠𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐹𝑙𝑒𝑠ℎ, Jared Moore does not merely imitate what others have done but goes further by filling in gaps and offering gracious correction when needed to bring the issues into sharper focus. This is a much-needed resource for the care of Christ’s flock and reaching our lost world.

—Ron Henzel
Senior Researcher, Midwest Christian Outreach, Inc.
ACBC Counselor

There is not a single church in this country that will not have to grapple with significant issues of sexual immorality in the years to come. The rainbow flag coalition is grooming young people into their cult at an alarming rate, ripping families and churches apart, while pressuring churches to bend their knees to the golden calf of sexual sin. Jared Moore’s book correctly identifies the “lust of the flesh” as the central issue that Christians need to get right. Moore thoroughly and convincingly demonstrates this by exegeting the most relevant scriptures, engaging the most common viewpoints, answering objections, and surveying prominent theologians of church history. The book concludes with wonderful pastoral application that would edify any faithful pastor.

—Michael Clary
Pastor, Christ the King Church, Cincinnati, OH
Author, God's Good Design: A Biblical, Theological, and Practical Guide to Human Sexuality

The Christian Scriptures provide a coherent and consistent testimony to God's purposes in creation and in particular man's nature and duties. Jared Moore helps us to think through these biblical truths in the context of a world gone mad with confusing and damaging concepts drawn from worldly wisdom and thought. Much needed clarity!

—Dr. James White
Director, Alpha and Omega Ministries
Author, The King James Only Controversy

Author Bio

Jared Moore has served in pastoral ministry since 2000. He has a PhD in systematic theology from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and cohosts The Pop Culture Coram Deo Podcast. He is also a co-author of The Pop Culture Parent. Jared and his wife Amber have four children.