God's Design For SexSýnishorn

PURITY

Chastity isn’t a concept you hear much about these days, but it’s been an important Christian virtue for more than twenty centuries. Chastity is usually defined as sexual abstinence before marriage and sexual fidelity within marriage.

It reflects the biblical worldview that we have no inherent right to sex. The privilege of sexual union with another person is conferred upon us only by the wedding ceremony.

But chastity takes the idea of purity beyond the sexual sphere alone. It’s a crucially important piece of Christian faithfulness and discipleship. Its implications reach across the entire spectrum of Christian experience and touch every area of our lives.

That’s why the apostle Peter was able to tell women that it would be through their chaste conduct that unbelieving husbands would be won to faith in Christ. Peter wasn’t simply exhorting Christian wives to avoid extramarital affairs. He was suggesting that a life of single-minded discipline, focus, and devotion makes a deep impression on those who are not yet personally acquainted with the Lord.

We often talk in the church about the devastating consequences of having extramarital sex – life-altering troubles such as the possibility of STDs, unwanted pregnancy, and the cheapening of something that God intended us to share with just one other person.

But the most essential truth about chastity and purity is that turning away from unhealthy expressions of sexuality and romanticism better enables us to focus on God in a way that otherwise isn’t possible. “Blessed are the pure in heart,” said Jesus. And why? Because “they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8). Sexual immorality inhibits us from focusing on our truest Lover, the Lord.

Chastity, then, is first and foremost a spiritual discipline. Like prayer, fasting, study, silence, charity, and giving, it’s something God asks us to practice, not because it will get us into heaven, but because it will help transform us into new creatures. This kind of purity is not the mere absence of illicit sex, but an active conforming of one’s body, soul, and mind to the image of Christ.