Wounded at the Theatre

John Chrysostom (349-407 A.D.)
01/01/17 - General

If you see a shameless woman in the theater, who treads the stage with uncovered head and bold attitudes dressed in garments adorned with gold, flaunting her soft sensuality, singing immoral songs, throwing her limbs about in the dance, and making shameless speeches … do you still dare to say nothing human happens to you then? Long after the theater is closed and everyone is gone away, those images still float before your soul — their words, their conduct, their glances, their walk, their positions, their excitation, their unchaste limbs — and as for you, you go home covered with a thousand wounds! But not alone — the shameless woman goes with you — although not openly and visibly but in your heart, and in your conscience, and there within you she kindles the Babylonian furnace in which the peace of your home, the purity of your heart, and the happiness of your marriage will be burnt up!

"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God" (Matthew 5:8)

"No man ever achieved any great good to mankind who did not fight for it with courage and perseverance, and who did not, in the conflict, sacrifice either his good name or his life. John lost his head. The apostles were slaughtered. The Savior was crucified. The ancient confessors were slain. The reformers were excommunicated. If I am not slandered and misrepresented, I shall be a most unworthy advocate of the cause which has always provoked the resentment of those who, fattened upon the ignorance and stupidity of the mass, will not try to think or learn."

— Alexander Campbell

"People seldom change towards being more conservative or stricter in adherence to the Scripture. It seems they are ten times more afraid of being narrow than they are of being unscriptural. They are more afraid of being out of step with the crowds than out of step with Christ."

— Gardner S. Hall

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