June 15

Not In Sexual Immorality And Debauchery

And do this, understanding the present time. The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.

Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature.

Romans 13:11-14

It was Romans 13:13 that brought a young philosophy student to his knees and sparked his conversion to Christianity. He had turned away from the pious teachings of his mother and, as a teenager, spent much of his time with his friends enjoying the night life of the city. By the age of eighteen, he had a mistress and an illegitimate son, but he was not happy. For a time he joined a cult—the Manicheans—but still he found no satisfaction. He continued to be plagued by internal struggles and physical lust.

Confused and uncertain about his life and his future, he moved to Rome where he joined a group of skeptics. Still he had no peace. They freed him from the clutches of Manicheanism, but offered nothing to fill the vacuum. It was then that he heard about the preacher Bishop Ambrose, who had a reputation as a great orator. But more important than his style was his message.

It was through listening to Ambrose that this young man was reintroduced to the Bible. Still, he struggled with lust. He took another mistress, convinced that he was doomed to live a life of debauchery. But then one summer day while outside in a garden, as he later recalled, his life was changed.

“I heard from a neighboring house a voice, as of boy or girl, I know not, chanting and oft repeating, ‘Take up and read; Take up and read.’ . . . I arose; interpreting it to be no other than a command from God, to open the book, and read the first chapter I should find . . .Eagerly then I returned to the place where . . . I laid the volume of the Apostle . . . I seized, opened and in silence read that section on which my eyes first fell: not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying: but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh.”

There in the garden in the year 386, this man was converted. His life was gloriously transformed, and he would go on to become a bishop and one of the greatest writers and, theologians the church has ever known. He is known today as Augustine of Hippo, or simply St. Augustine. ¹⁵