I've been hearing about a book making the rounds, <em>Fifty Shades of Grey</em> by E. L. James. Naturally, being a writer and voracious reader, I check out books that people are talking about.

I hit up Google and typed in a search and up pops this description: <em>Fifty Shades of Grey</em> is a New York Times bestselling erotic fiction paperback and e-book by E. L. James. Set largely in Seattle, the trilogy traces the deepening relationship between college graduate Anastasia Steel and a young business magnate, Christian Grey. It is notable for its explicitly erotic scenes featuring elements of BDSM.1

Well, that was definitely enough to make me decide NOT to read the book(s). Why not? Because I get the appeal that books with explicit sex scenes have. I went through a very long phase where all I read were romance novels. I am a firm believer that these types of books can be to women what pornography is to men. I was still reading these books early in my marriage. Whenever my husband and I got into a fight I would shut the door, pick up one of my books and stew about how my husband wasn't anything like the romantic male characters. I compared my husband constantly to what some writer was telling me was the ideal.

Sound familiar?

Women, what do you feel if you know your husband is looking at pornography? That you can't measure up to his idea of perfect? That you can't perform in bed to his satisfaction so he has to turn somewhere else?

These books aren't a whole lot different.

Dr. Oz recently did a show on "Books Women Read" and he mentioned <em>Fifty Shades of Grey</em>. He was quoted saying: "What it is about is people having an honest conversation about what sex should be like, what makes it better, what are the timing issues, how do we make it an important issue in our life rather than an afterthought."2

That quote gets me. We <em>should</em> be honest about our sex lives with our partners. We <em>should</em> be able to express what we want, how it feels, how to make it an important part of our lives. We should already be doing that with our spouse. A healthy, fulfilling sex life is important in a marriage and to God! There is a shade of truth to his statement. But that shade of truth can put the thought in your head that this book will help you. It can draw you to pick up this book and read it.

That's how we stumble, isn't it? Listening to a shade of truth. And the enemy has more than fifty shades of the truth; he has countless numbers of them.

So, how do we avoid the trap of falling for a shade of the truth? Be in the Word. Read your Bible. Use it as your measuring stick.

Matthew 5:27-28 says, "You have heard that it was said, 'Do not commit adultery.' But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart."

It's not the act of looking; it's the act of looking lustfully. It's the thought behind it. Whether the person is real or fictional, if what we are looking at <em>or reading</em> is causing us to think lustfully about anyone other than our spouse then we are sinning.

"God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in darkness, we live and do not live by the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin." 1 John 1:5-7

Let us be people that strive to live in the full light of the truth, not in the shadowy grey shades of it.