Chastity as Ordered Worship

For the single, unmarried Christian, what is the motivation for chastity and abstinence? Secular culture, including so-called moralistic conservatives, have nothing meaningful to say. And, if I’m being frank, Popular Church Culture isn’t much better. On one hand, we’ve got Big Squishy Evanjelly drowning us in cliched platitudes; and, on the other, the neo-ascetic shame and guilt of Purity Culture we’ve come to know and hate. Is this the best we can do? Hard pass.

Look, I’ll admit, there’s nothing sexy about writing about not having sex. That’s kind of the point. But there is something ordinarily good about it. So much so that, it is really weird Christian culture treats the idea of a man writing about virginity as a cultural taboo. Every article I ever see on the topic is by a man after his wedding night. Are we really that ashamed of “glorifying God with our bodies” and writing about it?

I know I’m not the only guy here who hasn’t been married for a significant portion of his adult life. I know, I’m friends with some of you on Facebook. Also, I’ve seen the research. We’re a minority, but we’re not a statistical anomaly.

So let’s break the mold, ruffle the feathers of the manosphere, and talk about not having sex. (Honestly, it’s kind of hilarious how edgy it comes across when you just say it.) Shock factor aside, the nuts and bolts is pursuit of holiness, worship, and obedience to God born out of love. What is a biblical sexual ethic, and how does it look when practiced? To that end, I offer myself as tribute.

Purity Culture

Since I’ve already taken my first jabs at it, I should define what “Purity Culture” is. For us who grew up in Evangelical circles in the 1990s and 2000s, Purity Culture was a popular conservative Christian dating movement focused on individual sexual purity. Purity Culture sloppily blended biblical concepts with various historical ascetic traditions.

Purity Culture is a Frankenstein-system that seems close enough to Scripture to pass initial inspection, maybe even slip into sermons, but its foundation is ultimately rotten. The product is generations of Christians who think they have a biblical view of sexual ethics, but instead have an amalgamation of corrosive ideologies which have no spiritual power to restrain temptation, and every capability to impose shame, guilt, doubt, and pervert a gift meant to draw men and women towards covenantal marriage.

Loving to Obey God

The life of a Christian is obedience to God rooted in love for Him. While the means God uses to bring about our salvation may include a fear of punishment, our perseverance is by God’s grace and the outpouring of God’s love — it is not fear of judgment which perfects our obedience. True obedience to God comes from love for God and a love for God’s commands (cf. Psalm 119). Among the highest joys of the Christian is the freedom to obey God without fear (Rom. 8:1, 8:15; cf. 6:22).

There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear, because fear includes punishment, and the one who is afraid has not been perfected in love.

1 John 4:18 LEB

Therefore, abstinence outside of marriage is obedience to God. Refraining from sex before you are married is a pure expression of love toward a person you love, but more importantly, God.

Abstinence Only?

Purity culture and secular abstinence-only (devoid of biblical ethics) may produce short-term fruit in scaring teens and adults into not having sex, but fear alone cannot sustain faithfulness over time. More often than not both the spiritual and natural temptations of sex will override it. God made human beings as sexual beings (cf. Gen. 1:28) and he called this “very good” (Gen 1:31). But our sexual nature is ordered to the covenant of marriage (cf. Heb. 13:4). 

Abstinence divorced from love for God is legalism, and legalism is insufficient to restrain temptation. This is the failure of the purity movement and other neo-ascetic, secular conservative, moralistic attempts to restrain natural desires (it’s okay, that’s a mouthful, take your time to process it). Desire left unordered becomes lust. One cannot order sexual desire apart from the proper ordering of obedience to God. If you do not love God, you will not obey God (cf. Jn. 14:15, Rom. 8:5-9).

Paul teaches in Romans, the law by itself provokes our sinful nature to do the things it forbids (Rom. 7). This is not a failure of God’s law, but a failure of our flesh to obey God’s law. It is not enough to tell someone “Do not have sex before marriage.” It may, by God’s grace, produce fruit, but the command itself is insufficient to restrain. We must die to sin and we can only do so in Christ. This is why “Abstinence Only” divorced from biblical ethics and the gospel fail disastrously. It’s tantamount to throwing a fish on dry land and telling it to not rot.

To have the fruit of the Spirit — self-control — one must first have the Holy Spirit!

The Biblical Sexual Ethic

God gives us a clear standard for sexual ethics. It is not one we feel out or make up as we go. The Holy Spirit enables us the joy of obedience to God. As Christians, it is an act of lived worship to obey God’s commands (cf. Psalm 119…yeah all of it). 

Man and woman were both made in God’s image. This has profound implications for a sexual ethic. How we use our bodies reflects how we view God’s image in us.

In 1 Corinthians 6, Paul writes:

18 Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a person commits is outside his body, but the one who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. 19 Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? 20 For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God with your body.

I Corinthians 6:18-20 (LEB)

Not only do we bear God’s image, but God’s Spirit lives within us. Sexual immorality is of a particularly destructive nature to the Christian.

Paul tells us that we should “therefore” (or because of this) “glorify God with your body.” In the Greek, “glorify” is doxazó, meaning “to honor, do honor to, hold in honor: to worship.” (Thayer’s Greek Lexicon)

A few simple conclusions arise from the text:

1. Abstaining from sex outside of marriage is an act of worship
2. Sex outside of marriage is an act of profanity towards God
3. Sex inside of marriage is an ordered act of worship (cf. Gen. 1:28, 31; Heb. 13:4)
4. Disordered abstinence within marriage is profanity towards God (cf. 1 Cor 7:4-5)

Put To Practice

If you remove God from abstinence education and turn obedience into one of fear and shame (Purity Culture), you rob teenagers and adults of the joy of the knowledge their obedience and resistance to temptation is not merely the denial of the flesh, but an act of glorifying and worshiping God.

By God’s grace, my parents and my church raised me with this understanding, because when my self-control and obedience were put to the test, it was love for God and love for the person I was with that gave me the strength I needed to say “No.”

After Prom, In The Parking Lot

We were parked in the back of my motel’s parking lot. She turned off the wipers. The rain continued to pelt the windshield. I was disoriented — 14 hours driving down, sleep, wake up at 6am, dragged around like a puppy to classes in a strange school in a strange place with strange people. Could we just have a moment alone? To relax? Sigh

The windows were already fogging up. We had just got back from the prom. The reason I had drove all this way. To take her to the prom. And I hated it. I was the first in my family to attend prom. Never been to one? You didn’t miss anything.

Everything felt… compressed. Rush to dress. Rush to pick her up. Rush to friend’s house. Rush to limousine. Eight people packed into a limousine. Loud. Vulgar. Great. Just what I wanted — More time in a car. Did I mention you weren’t missing anything?

The prom was boring. I didn’t know anyone. She knew everyone.

“Hi, this is my boyfriend, Matthew.”

“Hi, nice to meet you.”

The music was loud. The food was okay. Everyone and their cousin monopolized her time. I was a wallflower — in a pot. Did I mention you weren’t missing anything?

By the time she had turned the wipers off, we were both biting each other’s heads off. It was rainy. It was late. We were alone. A young man, a beautiful girl in a beautiful dress — Maybe we were missing something.

The fight ended in the back of her jeep. We weren’t fighting anymore. She offered herself to me. Time stopped. Time has stopped. A moment in time forever seared into my memory. I side stepped. I said, “No.” We had definitely missed something.

Later, she’d confronted me about that night and asked me, “Matthew, why didn’t you? You know, I’d have let you do anything.”

“Because I love God and I love you. Love always protects. Because I love you, I could not sleep with you.”

Love

“Love is patient, love is kind, is not jealous, does not brag, is not puffed up; it does not act unbecomingly, does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered; it does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; it bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”
(1 Corinthians 13:4–7, LSB)

Love doesn’t exploit vulnerabilities, rob innocence, or leave wreckage behind. It protects. It honors. It bears burdens. This is how God defines love.

As a single man, abstinence has been about glorifying God with my body.

With the hindsight of age, I recognize I should have never allowed myself to be in that situation to begin with. If just the temptation could sear such a vivid memory, and leave such hurt when the relationship ended, I shudder to think of what would have happened had I said “Yes.” God, by His grace, gave me the self-control I needed in that moment. That time of self-control is not born out of a strict obedience to rules, but from obedience born from love for God.

Protect Each Other

I don’t remember where I read this advice, but I repeat it here as one of the most profound: Couples courting should take equal responsibility to protect the honor and purity of each other. If you love someone you will protect them. Do not exploit their moment of weakness. Say “No” because you love them.

Don’t flirt with temptation, don’t offer yourself up. Avoid situations where temptation may arise. Treat sexual temptation as an ever-present danger looking for the opportunity to devour you both. Only a fool invites in a hungry lion, a greater fool sexual temptation. If you do not actively protect yourself from temptation, temptation will find you. Too much temptation? Get married. That’s what the Bible literally says. It doesn’t say “wait for you to finish college and get a better job.” Paul says, “Get married so you don’t burn with desire.”

Coram Deo

Before the Face of God

Love expressed in sacrifice is real love. Even if the other person never comes to understand that, God does. You are not honoring God in vain. Nor is your love for God unrequited.

May my testimony encourage you.

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This essay is written as a theological reflection and personal testimony, offered to encourage Christians wrestling with questions of sexual obedience and worship.

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