Charles (Chuck) Kensinger

https://youtube.com/watch?v=hIlmOk6TUfc

As the Sunday School teacher for 7^th and 8th-grade boys, what they wanted to talk about on any given Sunday and what was in the curriculum supplied by the church was not the same thing.  Do you discuss the topics of concern to these young men or follow a schedule set out by middle-aged men and women six to twelve months ago?  That was always easy for me.

Often the topic of S-E-X would come up.  They were curious.  These were church boys.  Their parents seldom talked to them about the subject unless they were forced to and then they got over it quickly.  As a married father of first one, then two, and finally three children, in their eyes, I was an expert.

Let me pause here and explain what an expert is.  My high school word study teacher was explaining to us students how to determine the meaning of an unfamiliar word.  You break it into smaller portions and determine the meaning of it by combining the meaning of the parts. He said that ex means has been and that a spurt is a big drip under pressure. Therefore, an expert is a big drip under pressure.

I do not claim to be an expert on anything. I would listen to these young men and discuss what was of interest to them. When S.E.X. came up, I would tell them a story about when I was in junior high school and I stole a candy bar. The following day, I returned to the store and bought another snickers. When I gave the clerk enough to pay for two, she told me I gave her too much. That was when I informed her that I had taken one the day before and did not pay for it. She thanked me for correcting my mistake.

What does candy have to do with S.E.X.? I explained that there are correct and incorrect ways to do the same thing. It is not wrong to desire something like chocolate or sex. There is an appropriate method to go about each.

My stealing the candy was wrong. There is no excuse for what I did. God has commanded us to restrict sexual intercourse to one person to whom we are to be married. We may want to bypass that process. We need to accept that Jesus does not approve of this action. Our culture has changed during my lifetime. As a kid, TV shows never showed people who were not married having sex. Today it is accepted.

Movies and TV are promoting an illicit lifestyle by showing unmarried couples living together and having children. I don’t need to get into the reasons why children need a stable home life with two married parents. Everyone knows the tragedy of broken homes.

Back to chocolate. I told my students that they should say to their parents that we discussed chocolate if they asked what we talked about on those Sundays. One father asked me why his son said that we studied chocolate that week. I explained what it meant, and he thanked me for covering that subject with the guys.

In eighteen years, he was the only parent to even ask the question. Young people will only know what is acceptable by their parents or the Church telling them. Many have decided that we are old-fashioned in our position on this. I believe God’s commandments should be obeyed no matter what our culture accepts. I hope you agree with Him.

©Copyright 2023 by Charles Kensinger