I suppose it's probably overstated to say that many of the things they teach you in Youth Group or those teen seminars on sexual purity aren't exactly accurate.
I should hope that we know by now that a woman's worth is way more than an intact hymen or how many people she has loved before. I should hope that we have stopped measuring a man solely by his sex drive, or seeing all males as simply testosterone-driven animals.
But lately, in the process of attempting to navigate the turbulent waters of what the world thinks relationships ought to be, and all the unrealistic expectations of the Christian community, I've encountered yet more myths and false assumptions about relationships.
such as the following:
1. Kissing Before Marriage = Premarital Sex
The argument goes something like this: kissing leads to making out. making out leads to getting caught up in the power of your desire, which leads to clothes off and touching each other intimately, which in turn unavoidably leads to sex.
Um. Not true.
You can kiss without having sex. You can kiss without making out or having your hands all over the other person. Heck, you can kiss the person you love, alone in the backseat of a car and not have sex. You can kiss them completely alone in a car at night without having sex or taking off your clothes...and that doesn't mean that you love and desire them any less.
Kissing before your wedding day is neither Biblically mandated, nor Biblically prohibited. It's a grey area. An area of Christian liberty and Christ-like love. For some couples, kissing is merely a way of expressing affection, and for others it's far more of a temptation and turn on. Some people believe that kissing before marriage is inherently wrong. Others just don't do it from a desire to please those around them...or in order to earn spiritual brownie points by 'waiting till their wedding day to share their first kiss'.
However, kissing itself isn't inherently wrong. (1 Cor 6:12-18)
But see, the question isn't 'is kissing before marriage right or wrong for all couples ever across the board?'
The question is 'Is kissing something we have God's blessing and approval for at this particular time?'
Ask yourselves 'Are we both walking in His Spirit to the point where we can sense His leading, and are we following it? And is our decision to kiss (or not kiss) for the sake of showing off how spiritual we are, or is it rooted in a deep desire to honor Christ in our lives?'
Those are the questions we should be asking around this issue. Because... you and I, in our own power, can't keep ourselves from stumbling. But the power of God inside us can. Therefore, the question is... .are we living our lives in the power of Christ's indwelling Spirit? And are we following His guidance, living from His strength?
Secondly....
2. Emotional Purity Is A Thing...And You Can Lose It
This one makes me angry. The argument is that, the more 'pieces of your heart' you give away, the less you will be able to love your spouse.. the more you love, the less love you will have left for the one you end up with.
Therefore, if you are in a relationship, emotional purity ambassadors advocate remaining distant and unattached. After all, you don't know for sure that you will marry this person, therefore, be afraid of vulnerability. Be afraid of opening up. Be afraid of trusting and being open with the person you are in a relationship with.
But.. you cannot. You cannot live an entire relationship in fear of caring for the other person. Relationships mean care. Relationships entail a deep concern for the other person. They necessitate trust. And if the greatest commandment is to love as you have been loved, then how will cutting yourself off from love fulfill that command?
Additionally.. if your first relationship is expected to be your last...how are you supposed to know if you are truly in love, or merely infatuated? The difference is not always evident, especially to the one who is smitten. I thought I was going to marry the first man I thought I was in love with... turns out, I didn't even truly love him anyways. I was infatuated and under his spell, sure. But I wasn't truly in love with him. I believed myself to be, but now I know that marrying him would have been the biggest mistake of my life.
Sometimes you have to live and love and learn... and God will teach you through the circumstances of your life. Sometimes attempting to spare yourself pain will instead bring greater pain later.
Myth number 3...
3. Setting rules will keep you pure.
'How can a young man keep his way pure?' the Psalmist asks.
For most Christians, the answer is to try harder....to set rules....to throw up a detailed list of do's and don'ts and rules and regulations in order to muscle their way through this minefield of a temptation ground.
However, the Scripture's answer isn't more man-made rules.
'How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to Your word' (Ps. 119:9)
Man-made rules can be loopholed. They can be worked around and discarded and broken. And they are definitely not what is going to keep you in the will of God.
But a deep desire for more of Jesus...a hunger for His holiness in your life...the promises of His word running through your head and heart....the Spirit of God living inside you, stopping and keeping you from anything not in your best interest?
That is what will keep your way pure. Living out the love and life of Christ in all your interactions. Immersing your entire existence in the word of God.
And, lastly, for the fourth and final point...
4. You can make or break your own purity.
Okay... Sex is not evil.
Again, for the people in the back: Sex is not evil.
You are not inherently pure up until you have sex, at which point you are suddenly 'impure' and tainted. That is utterly and completely false.
We, as humans, are inherently impure. Christ cleanses us when we receive Him, and imputes His purity to us. We did not make ourselves pure. We can't lose what has been given to us by Him.
Now, this doesn't mean that there aren't things ordained in His order for certain times and seasons. We don't have snow in the middle of July. Its season is winter. Likewise, the place and the season for sex is within marriage.
But sex itself isn't evil. It isn't something dirty and defiling. It is a beautiful gift from God. Yet in the same way that snow is a beautiful gift from God, and the seasons are set in His timing, there would be something seriously wrong if the leaves were to fall in Springtime. Likewise, the wrongness in premarital sex is that it is outside of His ordained time and place.
Now, there's a whole other issue of motive, where lustful f---ing is not part of God's design for sex as the highest mutual expression of love and intimacy, and is sinful even within marriage.
But waiting for marriage to have sex doesn't make you inherently pure. Being raped or having sex before marriage doesn't make you inherently impure, damaged, destroyed, or dirty.
Your relationship with Christ makes you pure. His cleansing blood is what washes us whiter than snow, and imputes to us a purity not our own - a purity all His.
It's His power that then enables us to walk in the newness of life He has given us, to live worthy of His unmerited grace, to not grieve His Spirit by blatant disobedience.
This doesn't mean we now have carte blanche to go ahead and sin without remorse. But it does mean that we can't make ourselves pure. We can't, in our own power, strong-arm ourselves into purity. Only His power does that. Only through His Spirit's indwelling can we ever hope to lead pure and Godly lives.
We don't keep ourselves pure by setting more rules and making more man-made laws, and shaming and guilt-tripping people into not struggling outwardly.
We keep ourselves pure by keeping ourselves in Him. He is pure. He is our purity. And if we are in Him, and no sin can abide in Him, then the closer we grow to Him, the more sin will grow repulsive to us, and holiness will be what we crave.
If Christ lives in us, then He is pure in and for us. If it is no longer we who live, but Christ who lives in us, then it is not our job to grit our teeth and try harder to be pure.
It is our job to submit to the Spirit's leading....follow His direction...surrender wholly to His authority, and walk in the purity, strength, endurance, and freedom of His rule.
It is our job to run as hard and as fast as we can towards Jesus.. and everything else will fall into place.
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