Chastity

Earlier in 2024, many of us watched replays of the tragic collision and collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore. The accident led to the loss of several lives and caused enormous damage and disruption. As footage emerged, it was striking to see how immediately and totally the bridge seemed to come down. It looked like it happened all at once. The bridge had been constructed without any redundant support structures. The tragedy revealed that all of its supports were essential. Knock any one of these out and the whole thing will fall.

We might say something similar about Paul’s teaching in 1 Corinthians 6:9–11, one of the key biblical texts that addresses same-sex sexuality. This is not the sole focus of the text—Paul is talking about various sins—but it nevertheless provides essential foundations for how we should approach this whole issue as Christian believers.

In today’s climate, the church cannot afford to neglect Paul’s words. Paul provides vital teaching in 1 Corinthians 6 about same-sex sexuality. None of his words are wasted. Each facet of his teaching needs to be upheld alongside the others, like vital supports of a bridge. Neglecting any one will destabilize our approach.

Tim Keller used this story to illustrate the “conversion of the heart.”

Many years ago, when I was in college, I was part of a Christian fellowship, and there was a young man who joined up. And it shocked us all. This young man was famous on the campus for being incredibly sexually active, and he had the looks to go with it. He was handsome and charismatic. And then, to our surprise he came into the fellowship where he declared that “He’s a Christian now … and he foreswears his sexual past … and he going to live a chaste, pure life.”

He threw himself into the Christian activities. Everyone said, “Wow! This is a real change.” However, it wasn’t long before we came to realize that this young man, in every group, any committee, any Bible study, whether he was the leader or not, he had to be the leader. He always sought control. There was power struggle after power struggle, and after a while it became clear that when he was sexually active it really wasn’t about sex; it was about power. He would go after some girl until she fell for him, and then he lost all interest. It wasn’t about sex. It was about power.

When he came into the church, he suddenly adopted all the Christian beliefs, the Statements of Faith, and Christian practices. He stopped living in sexual promiscuity. But deep down inside, he still wanted power. Power in relationships.

Keller points out that we all have the need for deeper conversion in our heart. He says, “Deep down inside, every one of our hearts is saying, ‘If I have money, if I have approval, if I have power, if I have comfort, if I have control, if I have romance ….’ Every one of our hearts needs that deeper conversion from our idols to the Living God.”

You can read a free PDF copy of the book here.

Our casual hookup culture may promise greater independence and excitement. It's a means to sex without too many (or any) strings attached. But that lack of strings also comes with downsides: the divorce of love and sex means that we're more likely to have painful and awkward sexual experiences. Romance may be harder to come by.

In a 2002 study in which participants were asked their feelings after a casual hookup, 35 percent were "regretful or disappointed," while only 27 percent felt "good or happy." A 2012 Canadian study found that 78 percent of women and 72 percent of men who had "uncommitted sex" reported a history of feeling regret after the encounter. In addition, the American Psychological Association notes that "among a sample of 1,743 individuals who had experienced a one-night stand, Campbell (2008) … found that men had stronger feelings of being 'sorry because they felt they used another person,' whereas women had stronger feelings of 'regret because they felt used.'"

Our bodies are not mere shells: The deference or disregard with which they are treated have a deep impact on our souls and minds.

Kevin, a 24-year-old college graduate from Denver, wants to get married someday and is "almost 100% positive" that he will. But not soon, he says, "because I am not done being stupid yet. I still want to go out and have sex with a million girls." He believes that he's figured out how to do that:

Girls are easier to mislead than guys just by lying or just not really caring. If you know what girls want, then you know you should not give that to them until the proper time. If you do that strategically, then you can really have anything you want … whether it's a relationship, sex, or whatever. You have the control.

Kevin was one of 100 men and women, from a cross-section of American communities that researchers interviewed as they sought to understand how adults in their 20s and early 30s think about their relationships. He sounds like a jerk. But it's hard to convince him that his strategy won't work—because it has, for him and countless other men.

People like Kevin expect to make the transition from this selfish outlook to a committed relationship, but it isn't that easy. Psychologist Scott Stanley of the University of Denver sees visible daily sacrifices, such as accepting inconveniences in order to see a woman, as the way that men typically show their developing commitment. It signals the expectation of a future together. Such small instances of self-sacrificing love may sound simple, but they are less likely to develop when past and present relationships are founded on the expectation of cheap sex

In an interview popular blogger Jen Hatmaker was asked, "Do you think an LGBT relationship can be holy?" Hatmaker replied:

I do. And my views here are tender. This is a very nuanced conversation, and it's hard to nail down in one sitting. I've seen too much pain and rejection at the intersection of the gay community and the church. Every believer that witnesses that much overwhelming sorrow should be tender enough to do some hard work here.

But former lesbian Rosaria Butterfield reproved Hatmaker for this "tenderness" that leaves people in sin. Butterfield wrote:

If this were 1999—the year that I was converted and walked away from the woman and lesbian community I loved—instead of 2016, Jen Hatmaker's words about the holiness of LGBT relationships would have flooded into my world like a balm of Gilead … [I would have thought], Yes, I can have Jesus and my girlfriend. Yes, I can flourish both in my tenured academic discipline (queer theory and English literature and culture) and in my church …

Maybe I wouldn't need to lose everything to have Jesus. Maybe the gospel wouldn't ruin me while I waited, waited, waited for the Lord to build me back up after he convicted me of my sin, and I suffered the consequences … Today, I hear Jen's words … and a thin trickle of sweat creeps down my back. If I were still in the thick of the battle over the indwelling sin of lesbian desire, Jen's words would have put a millstone around my neck.

To be clear, I was not converted out of homosexuality. I was converted out of unbelief. I didn't swap out a lifestyle. I died to a life I loved. Conversion to Christ made me face the question squarely: did my lesbianism reflect who I am (which is what I believed in 1999), or did my lesbianism distort who I am through the fall of Adam? I learned through conversion that when something feels right and good and real and necessary—but stands against God's Word—this reveals the particular way Adam's sin marks my life. Our sin natures deceive us. Sin's deception isn't just "out there"; it's also deep in the caverns of our hearts.

In Greek mythology, the Sirens were gorgeous but dangerous creatures who lived on rocky islands. They were part bird and part human. They've also seen them depicted in art as mermaids: from the waist down as fish, from the waist up as strikingly beautiful women. The Sirens sang mesmerizingly beautiful songs that would lure passing sailors to their deaths. As they sang, sailors couldn't help but fling themselves over the sides of the ship and swim toward the enchanting voices, but they would soon find themselves impaled, dying on the jagged rocks on the edges of the islands.

When the mythical hero Odysseus was preparing to sail past the islands of the Sirens, he decided he wanted to hear the Sirens sing, so he had his crew tie him to the mast of the ship, and he instructed them to fill their own ears with wax. When the Sirens sang, Odysseus went mad with desire, but as he was bound and his crew was deaf, they sailed passed safely.

When two another traveler named Jason planned to pass the home of the Sirens, Jason took along Orpheus, the supremely gifted musician. They say that when Orpheus played his harp, his music made the rocks dance. When they approached the Sirens, Orpheus played sublime, heavenly music on his harp, and the Sirens began to sing. Orpheus's music was even more beautiful than the Sirens' song, however, and Jason and his crew sailed past unscathed.

When we are still in the presence of God and hear the more beautiful music of Jesus Christ play in our souls, there's something inside us that lifts and straightens. We are made more whole and less likely to turn to darker addictive behaviors that may bring temporary pleasure, or even to seemingly more noble voices that call us to swim with all our might to achieve success at work: only to find ourselves one day spiritually impaled on the jagged rocks.

Christopher Yuan, a transformed believer whose past includes gay prostitution, says that celibacy is a choice, but singleness is each person's origin and destiny. "[Some] people are called to celibacy but everyone was single (at birth), is single (through their childhood and young adult years), and in the end will be single (in heaven) … . Celibacy is a commitment; singleness is a state of being." Some Christ-followers are called to celibacy as a vocation, but all single believers are called to chastity.

This vision for sexuality applies to every person, desire, and category. Gay, bisexual, straight, married, single, or other—everyone bears the same burden. For some, this may seem a heavier weight to carry, but, nonetheless, God's design for sexuality applies equally to each person.

While it is often stated that 90 percent of the world's pornography can be traced back to San Fernando, California, this material reaches around the globe. Pornography knows no geographical, ethnic, gender, or even religious boundaries. Japanese pornography is popular in Indonesia.

Two developing enterprises are found in Ghana and in Nairobi, Kenya. African and Uzbek leaders are upset over the development of pornography in their areas. And pornography is popular in Afghanistan as leaders attempt to prevent it from being accessible at Internet cafes.

And with piracy and the black markets of the world, videos are even influencing peoples living in remote areas. For example, one news reporter traveled to a village in Ghana where people lived in huts but still were able to watch pornographic movies. When the reporter asked how this was possible, he was told that the men and boys would gather in a hut and watch American-made videos while running a generator to produce the necessary power.

In his book, A Fellowship of Differents, Dr. Scot McKnight describes an eye-opening walk he once took down the Roman roads of ancient Pompeii. The volcano that erupted there in 79 A.D. preserved a vivid snapshot of Roman culture in the century when the church was born. "It is not an exaggeration to say the city was swamped with erotic images," writes McKnight. Explicit pornography was everywhere. "The sexual reality across the Empire, of which Pompeii was a typical example, was a total lack of sexual inhibition."

The normal order of things in the first century was for most men (and some women) to have procreational sex with their spouses and recreational sex with others. Those others often included young boys and slave girls. Pederasty (or the practice of sex with children) was widespread and accepted. Lesbianism was well known, but nowhere near as common as recreational same-sex liaisons between men, many of whom were still married to women. And relations with paid sex-workers formed such a major and enduring industry that Rome's most famous orator, Cicero, asked: "When was such a thing not done?"

Las Vegas or Bangkok has nothing on first century Roman society. This was the world in which the church was born and into which it introduced a more constrained sexual ethic.

Possible Preaching Angles: Dan Meyer adds, "Whatever your personal sexual ethics are or your view of the issues of our times, it's helpful to be reminded of the belief-system out of which people like the Apostle Paul were functioning. It may also help to explain why it might be unfair to criticize anyone who raises questions about sexual mores today. Things didn't end well for Rome and there are legitimate questions about whether we in America maybe be heading for a similar fate too."

An article in Vanity Fair contains some shocking quotes and vignettes about a website that connects people for the sole purpose of having sex. Marty, an investment banker from Manhattan, claims that he's been "racking up girls." He says he's slept with 30 to 40 women in the last year: "I sort of play that I could be a boyfriend kind of guy," in order to win them over, "but then they start wanting me to care more … and I just don't."

"It's like ordering Seamless," says Dan, another investment banker, referring to the online food-delivery service. "But you're ordering a person."

"There is no dating. There's no relationships," says Amanda, a senior at Boston College. "They're rare. You can have a fling that could last like seven, eight months and you could never actually call someone your 'boyfriend.' [Hooking up] is a lot easier. No one gets hurt—well, not on the surface."… It's a contest to see who cares less, and guys win a lot at caring less."

One of Amanda's friends chimes in, "Sex should stem from emotional intimacy, and it's the opposite with us right now, and I think it really is kind of destroying females' self-images."

The reporter says that none of the guys she spoke to want to be in a relationship. "I don't want one," says Nick. "I don't want to have to deal with all that—stuff." "You can't be selfish in a relationship," Brian says. "It feels good just to do what I want."

She asks them if it ever feels like they lack a deeper connection with someone. There's a small silence. After a moment, John says, "I think at some points it does." "But that's assuming that that's something that I want, which I don't," Nick says, a trifle annoyed. "Does that mean that my life is lacking something? I'm perfectly happy. I have a good time. I go to work—I'm busy. And when I'm not, I go out with my friends."

Covenant Eyes, a Christian company that sells internet accountability software, receives thousands of emails from people struggling with viewing online pornography. Here are some examples of heartfelt cries for deliverance and help:

A teenager wrote: "I really need help breaking my porn addiction and I don't want to waste my teen years and the rest of my life with the gigantic secret. Please keep me in your prayers."

"Eddy88" wrote: "Please pray for me … My porn addiction is killing me. I just can't give up. I try to stop but then I keep failing all the time. I wish I would just die because I hate myself so much. Only Jesus can save me but I feel so alone and depressed."

Phillip wrote: "Please pray for me. I've been struggling for too long with this addiction to porn. I want it out of my life for good!"

Aaron wrote: "I have been battling with porn addiction for years now … I feel so incredibly distant from God. Often I sit and I try to focus on him when I'm tempted but it's almost like I can actually hear my inner heart saying reject him. I hate this; it's the most horrible feeling ever and it's effecting my whole life with God. I lead an evangelism ministry at university and I fear it's affecting that, too."

Sean says, "I don't want to live with this dirty secret anymore. It is ruining my relationships with people and life. I just want to break free."

Rich Mullins, a Christian musician and songwriter who died in 1997 at the age of 41, once confessed in a concert that he struggled with watching pornography while traveling alone. One of his spiritual mentors told him, "It's not that you're so bad, it's just that you're not supposed to go out by yourself." So Mullins took a friend along with him on a trip to Amsterdam near its famous red-light district. Mullins said he was hoping his friend would fall fast asleep and start snoring so, as Mullins put it, "I thought, 'Maybe it would be fun to just take a walk and be tempted.'" He waited until 5:00 in the morning for his friend to start snoring, but he never did. Meanwhile, in the midst of his temptation, Mullins picked up a notebook and wrote the words to one of his more popular songs, 'Hold Me, Jesus'":

And I wake up in the night and feel the dark
It's so hot inside my soul
I swear there must be blisters on my heart
So hold me Jesus, 'cause I'm shaking like a leaf
You have been King of my glory
Won't You be my Prince of Peace"

With this back story, some people call this Mullins' "Prayer for Porn Addicts" song, but it could also be a called a "Prayer for Anyone Who Is Tempted" Song.

In the interview with Jonathan Merritt, N.T. Wright said:

We need to remind ourselves that the entire biblical sexual ethic is deeply counter-intuitive. All human beings some of the time, and some human beings most of the time, have deep heartfelt longings for kinds of sexual intimacy or gratification (multiple partners, pornography, whatever) which do not reflect the creator's best intentions for his human creatures, intentions through which new wisdom and flourishing will come to birth. Sexual restraint is mandatory for all, difficult for most, extremely challenging for some. God is gracious and merciful but this never means that his creational standards don't really matter after all.

Pastor Andy Stanley gathered with about 250 singles to answer questions on the topic of love, sex, and dating Attendees were asked to write their questions on cards and turn them into the moderator ahead of time. The most pointed question of the night came from a middle-aged gentleman. His card read, "I'm divorced. Why save sex for marriage?" Here's Stanley's reply:

Good question. Your direct question deserves a direct answer. If all there is to life is this life, if you are merely a predator and women are prey, if sex is just physical and disconnected from the concept of permanency, exclusivity, and relationship, then I can't think of a reason not to have sex with as many women as you can convince to hop into bed with you."

Stanley commented: "That's not exactly the answer they were expecting from their pastor. My answer was particularly disturbing to women in the audience. Heck, it was particularly disturbing to me." Stanley continued:

But if there's more to this life than what meets the eye … if there is a God in whose image you've been made and in whose image every woman you've met has been made, if sex is a creation that was created with a purpose and if part of that purpose is to enhance the expression of intimacy between two people … and if that fragile, wonderful, delicate experience we term intimacy can be damaged or broken through abuse, then your sexual conduct matters a great deal. So you have to decide what you believe. Not just about sex. About everything. Once you decide, the answer to your important question will be clear. Perhaps uncomfortably clear.

Damon Linker, a writer for The Week, claims that our culture is waging a battle over "two competing, largely incompatible visions of the proper place of sex in a good human life." Linker rejects traditional views of sexuality and marriage, but he argues that those traditional (and biblical) views have a lot of merit. Linker writes: "Western civilization upheld the old sexual standards for the better part of two millennia. We broke from them in the blink of an eye, figuratively speaking. The gains are pretty clear—It's fun! It feels good!"

But Linker also admits that there's a price for our sexual "progress":

[We've] witnessed the rapid-fire mainstreaming of homosexuality and the transformation of the institution of marriage to accommodate it … Thanks to the internet, pornography has never been so freely available and easily accessible. Websites … facilitate extramarital affairs … Smart-phone apps put people in touch with each other for no-strings-attached hook-ups. Then there's the push to normalize polyamorous ("open") relationships and marriages, a movement that seeks to remove the stigma from adultery and even positively affirm the goodness of infidelity.

Linker concludes with some probing questions:

Is the ethic of individual consent sufficient to keep people (mostly men) from acting violently on their sexual desires? What will become of childhood if our culture continues down the road of pervasive sexualization? … [Will children be raised by] three, four, five, or more people in a constantly evolving polyamorous arrangement? Can the institution of marriage survive without the ideals of fidelity and monogamy? What kind of sexual temptations and experiences will technology present us [in the future]? Will people be able to think of reasons or conjure up the will to resist those temptations? Will they even try? Does it even matter?

I have no idea how to answer these questions. What I do know is that the questions are important, and that I respect those who are troubled by them. And maybe you should, too.

Sam Allberry, an Anglican minister from Great Britain, recently shared about his struggle with same-sex attraction. Allberry wrote:

Homosexuality is an issue I have grappled with my entire Christian life …. There have been all sorts of ups and downs. But this battle is not devoid of blessings, as Paul discovered with his own unyielding thorn in the flesh. Struggling with sexuality has been an opportunity to experience more of God's grace, rather than less.

But over the last couple of years I have felt increasingly concerned that, when it comes to our gay friends and family members, many of us Bible-believing Christians are losing confidence in the gospel. We are not always convinced it really is good news for gay people. We are not always sure we can really expect them to live by what the Bible says. It is simply not possible to argue for gay relationships from the Bible …. God's Word is, in fact, clear. The Bible consistently prohibits any sexual activity outside of marriage.

As someone who experiences homosexual feelings this is not always an easy word to hear …. There have been times of acute temptation and longing—times when I have been "in love" …. [But I have learned that] what we give up for Jesus does not compare to what he gives back …. For me these include a wonderful depth of friendship God has given me with many brothers and sisters; the opportunities of singleness; the privilege of a wide-ranging ministry; and the community of a wonderful church family. But greater than any of these things is the opportunity … to learn the all-sufficiency of Christ.

My main point is this: the moment you think following Jesus will be a poor deal for someone, you call Jesus a liar. Discipleship is not always easy. Leaving anything cherished behind is profoundly hard. But Jesus is always worth it.

Possible Preaching Ideas: Obviously, this quote applies to those who struggle with same-sex attraction, but it also illustrates the need for everyone Christian to exalt Christ as the One who is worth more than every human possession and relationship.

Tim Keller was once asked to identify a few obstacles to revival in the contemporary church. Drawing on his experience in Manhattan, Keller started with one issue—the fact that almost all singles outside the Church and a majority inside the Church are sleeping with each other.

Keller illustrated the point by talking about a tactic, one that he admitted was almost too unkind to use, that an old college pastor associate of his used when catching up with college students who were home from school. He'd ask them to grab coffee with him to catch up on life. When he'd ask about their spiritual lives, they'd often hem and haw, talking about the difficulties and doubts now that they'd taken a little philosophy, or maybe a science class or two, and how it all started to shake the foundations. At that point, he'd look at them and ask one question, "So who have you been sleeping with?" Shocked, their faces would inevitably fall and say something like "How did you know?" Keller pointed out that it's a pretty easy bet that when you have a kid coming home with questions about evolution or philosophy, or some such issue, the prior issue is a troubled conscience.

Keller concludes that if the Church is going to see serious spiritual renewal, especially among the younger generations, we need to present an alternative view of sex that is beautiful, but different than the one offered in the dominant cultural narratives; a view of sexuality that affirms its goodness while placing it within God's intended framework.

For most of his career as a British journalist, Malcolm Muggeridge was a quarrelsome writer known for heavy drinking and smoking, womanizing, and espousing his agnostic viewpoint. But towards the end of his life he came to faith in Christ. But as a younger man who wrote a letter to his father and described an incident that revealed the sinful bent of his heart and the power of the flesh.

Just after graduating from Cambridge, Muggeridge moved to India to teach English. One day as he was strolling by a nearby river in the early evening, he spotted the silhouette of a woman bathing on the other side. Muggeridge later wrote that his heart began to race with what he called the "wild unreasonableness which is called passion." Overcome by lust, he plunged into the water and started crossing the river. As he approached the woman, he suddenly realized that she was a toothless, wrinkled, and deformed leper. He quickly threw himself back into the river and started swimming in the other direction.

Years later, Muggeridge admitted that the real shock that morning was not the leper, as mind-bending as that would be. Rather, it was the condition of his own heart, dark, with appetites overpowering his weak will. He wrote, "If only I could paint, I'd make a wonderful picture of a passionate boy running after that and call it: 'The lusts of the flesh.'"

The former atheist A.N. Wilson, a famous British essayist, biographer, and journalist, has written a sobering assessment about the damage of the sexual revolution. Wilson confesses his own role in the damage:

I imbibed all the liberationist sexual mores of the Sixties as far as sexual morality was concerned. I made myself and dozens of people extremely unhappy—including, of course, my children and other people's children …. How easy it was to dismiss old-fashioned sexual morality as 'suburban', as a prison for the human soul …. Yet, as the opinion poll shows, most of us feel at a very deep level that what will make us very happy is not romping with a succession of lovers. In fact, it is having a long-lasting, stable relationship, having children, and maintaining, if possible, lifelong marriage. We ignored the obvious fact that moral conventions develop in human societies for a reason.

If you're sleeping with the person you're dating, you're telling each other two things. First, you're telling each other that your relationship with God is not your primary commitment. Second, you're telling each other that you are the kind of person that will sleep with someone you're not married to. Do you think that repeating vows to each other will somehow change that? It doesn't. You will enter into a marriage, if you end up marrying the person that you're sleeping with, already telling each other that you will sleep with someone you're not married to. What happens when he goes on business trips, or when she goes on business trips, and things come up? You already know that each of you is not first and foremost committed to God.