Abstinence is not Biblical; That’s Why Abstinence Doesn’t Work.
Overview: It’s not Biblical. It denies our humanity. It’s unrealistic. What’s a Christian to do?
The Details:
Pedro a friend of mine I call Peter (don’t ask why. I think it’s because I’m white.) said I should write a book today. I told him to just collect the things I send him and publish them together for me. I don’t think either is going to happen. So this is what we were talking about when he said I should write.
I’m a dad now. Even when I wasn’t a dad I wanted to be a dad. And before I wanted to be a dad I was a kid that needed a dad. You know what I mean? OK so the theme of this diatribe is marriage. You got that from what I just said right? Well hold on for a second and I’ll bring it full circle.
Premise. Christian children are taught not to have sex and not to get married until they are in there 30’s. They are failing at both. I think about this subject a lot because I’m a dad now. And even though my daughter is only three, I am praying for her husband now. That’s what he whole dad thing was about. Sorry if you think it’s poor style. It’s my blog. So deal.
The logical conclusion of my daughter leaving my house (with her law or medical degree) is to get married and have babies of her own. Isn’t that what is reasonable expected from our daughters? I mean she can also become president of the United States, Hillary made that possible. But she had better make me some grandkids too. That’s what women do. The sooner we stop denying our humanity out of sense of duty to women’s lib the better.
The problem is as a Christian culture we aren’t teaching our children how to be married. For the most part we are teaching them to be single. The argument is that they need to be good singles before they can be good partners. It isn’t even Biblical and it doesn’t work.
God made Eve not because Adam was an established single with a good career. God made Adam because he was not a complete person. He was incomplete. Was he fundamentally flawed? Flawed isn’t the right word because God made him this way deliberately and God doesn’t make flaws. He has plans. Those plans included the father of our race to be missing something. That missing something was Eve.
This sounds a lot like I am espousing codependence. If that’s God’s plan that I be codependent with my wife I guess I can live with that. Our rugged individualism and independence and self everything is quit simply counter to what God teaches.
Another example is Mary the mother of Jesus. It is widely believed that she was married to Joseph when she was 13. The mother of God was a teenager! Now I do not want my daughter getting married that young for a number of reasons. But I do hope that she get’s married in her early years of college.
The problem with the general Christian culture on this topic is we are setting our children up for failure. First we tell them they should be good individuals before they can make a good partner which is wrong. So we tell them and try to teach them to be good singles which they can’t really be because it is against God’s design! God didn’t plan on man leaving his parents and living the single life while he got his act together. God’s plan is for a man and a woman to leave their respective parents and cleave to each other as husband and wife not boyfriend and girlfriend.
We aren’t designed for the most part to be single. The Apostle Paul may be an exception as well as Jesus himself. But most other Biblical figures were married. When we tell our children they should be successful as a single person first we are requiring them to have the spiritual gift of celibacy that God may not have chosen to give them. If God did not give them the gift of celibacy it is inappropriate and in humane for us to require them to have it!
That is not to say that 18 year olds everywhere should have sex indiscriminately. God requires us to remain virgins until we are married thus he gives us the gifts required to do so. The lie and falsity is when we teach our children to remain virgin until their 30’s when it is then appropriate for them to get married.
So God’s plan is for young men and women to marry and not stay single. We set our children up for failure by telling them to follow the World’s plan that is to stay single for as long as you can then get married when you absolutely have to. Because we as a Christian culture have adopted the World’s plan for relationships we never teach our children explicitly how to be married! We are so busy teaching them to be single (the World’s plan) we never teach them to be married (God’s plan.) Because we never teach them to be married and we do teach them to be single when they do get married they react like single would react when some of their freedoms are taken away. They don’t see marriage as a liberating institution. They see it as a necessary evil. It’s what they are supposed to do if she get’s pregnant. It’s what they have to do to be right before God. Aka I can’t sleep with her forever and pretend I’m a Christian without marrying her.
Abstinence doesn’t work because it’s missing marriage training. A boy who is taught abstinence from 13-15 is basically being taught that he has to wait for sex until he is double his current age. To start off with that’s basically unrealistic. You might get some delayed sexual activity but at some point God’s design is going to take over. There is almost no organized instruction for marriage at that age. You normally don’t get any marriage training until you hit the college and career age or your premarital counseling you rush through so your local pastor will marry you. So look at the position it put the teenage boy into. The world is telling him to have sex at every turn. Church is telling him not to but not providing any hope for when he will be able to. His hormones are raging because God made him that way. And there seems to be no release except for elicit sex, masturbation and pornography. No wonder he’s typically all screwed up in the head!
Instead, why don’t we teach them to be men of God saving themselves for the special moment that God has ordained for him and her to become one flesh, one person where singleness dies and oneness begins? Then show him how to become the type of man you and I would want our daughters marrying. Raise them up in the way they should go and when they are old they will not depart from it. Don’t bother raising them in any particular way and they will go which ever way the wind happens to be blowing that day.
Here’s my short list for my daughter’s future husband:
1.) Unwavering commitment to the God of the Bible
2.) An absolute belief in the sanctity and permanence of marriage
3.) A demonstratable commitment to self improvement as a father and husband
4.) Aggressively perusing a career that will be able to support a family financially
By the way I don’t believe our liberal anti Christian public school system is capable of teaching abstinence or marriage effectively. It must start in the home which is God’s first manifestation of church.
My call to Christian parents is this. Read the scripture and discover for yourself what God’s plan is for your children. Determine if God is saying they should be taught singlehood or if they should be taught about the oneness in marriage. And execute God’s plan instead of the World’s. And do it quickly before it’s too late.
Peace
-JH
Overview: It’s not Biblical. It denies our humanity. It’s unrealistic. What’s a Christian to do?
The Details:
Pedro a friend of mine I call Peter (don’t ask why. I think it’s because I’m white.) said I should write a book today. I told him to just collect the things I send him and publish them together for me. I don’t think either is going to happen. So this is what we were talking about when he said I should write.
I’m a dad now. Even when I wasn’t a dad I wanted to be a dad. And before I wanted to be a dad I was a kid that needed a dad. You know what I mean? OK so the theme of this diatribe is marriage. You got that from what I just said right? Well hold on for a second and I’ll bring it full circle.
Premise. Christian children are taught not to have sex and not to get married until they are in there 30’s. They are failing at both. I think about this subject a lot because I’m a dad now. And even though my daughter is only three, I am praying for her husband now. That’s what he whole dad thing was about. Sorry if you think it’s poor style. It’s my blog. So deal.
The logical conclusion of my daughter leaving my house (with her law or medical degree) is to get married and have babies of her own. Isn’t that what is reasonable expected from our daughters? I mean she can also become president of the United States, Hillary made that possible. But she had better make me some grandkids too. That’s what women do. The sooner we stop denying our humanity out of sense of duty to women’s lib the better.
The problem is as a Christian culture we aren’t teaching our children how to be married. For the most part we are teaching them to be single. The argument is that they need to be good singles before they can be good partners. It isn’t even Biblical and it doesn’t work.
God made Eve not because Adam was an established single with a good career. God made Adam because he was not a complete person. He was incomplete. Was he fundamentally flawed? Flawed isn’t the right word because God made him this way deliberately and God doesn’t make flaws. He has plans. Those plans included the father of our race to be missing something. That missing something was Eve.
This sounds a lot like I am espousing codependence. If that’s God’s plan that I be codependent with my wife I guess I can live with that. Our rugged individualism and independence and self everything is quit simply counter to what God teaches.
Another example is Mary the mother of Jesus. It is widely believed that she was married to Joseph when she was 13. The mother of God was a teenager! Now I do not want my daughter getting married that young for a number of reasons. But I do hope that she get’s married in her early years of college.
The problem with the general Christian culture on this topic is we are setting our children up for failure. First we tell them they should be good individuals before they can make a good partner which is wrong. So we tell them and try to teach them to be good singles which they can’t really be because it is against God’s design! God didn’t plan on man leaving his parents and living the single life while he got his act together. God’s plan is for a man and a woman to leave their respective parents and cleave to each other as husband and wife not boyfriend and girlfriend.
We aren’t designed for the most part to be single. The Apostle Paul may be an exception as well as Jesus himself. But most other Biblical figures were married. When we tell our children they should be successful as a single person first we are requiring them to have the spiritual gift of celibacy that God may not have chosen to give them. If God did not give them the gift of celibacy it is inappropriate and in humane for us to require them to have it!
That is not to say that 18 year olds everywhere should have sex indiscriminately. God requires us to remain virgins until we are married thus he gives us the gifts required to do so. The lie and falsity is when we teach our children to remain virgin until their 30’s when it is then appropriate for them to get married.
So God’s plan is for young men and women to marry and not stay single. We set our children up for failure by telling them to follow the World’s plan that is to stay single for as long as you can then get married when you absolutely have to. Because we as a Christian culture have adopted the World’s plan for relationships we never teach our children explicitly how to be married! We are so busy teaching them to be single (the World’s plan) we never teach them to be married (God’s plan.) Because we never teach them to be married and we do teach them to be single when they do get married they react like single would react when some of their freedoms are taken away. They don’t see marriage as a liberating institution. They see it as a necessary evil. It’s what they are supposed to do if she get’s pregnant. It’s what they have to do to be right before God. Aka I can’t sleep with her forever and pretend I’m a Christian without marrying her.
Abstinence doesn’t work because it’s missing marriage training. A boy who is taught abstinence from 13-15 is basically being taught that he has to wait for sex until he is double his current age. To start off with that’s basically unrealistic. You might get some delayed sexual activity but at some point God’s design is going to take over. There is almost no organized instruction for marriage at that age. You normally don’t get any marriage training until you hit the college and career age or your premarital counseling you rush through so your local pastor will marry you. So look at the position it put the teenage boy into. The world is telling him to have sex at every turn. Church is telling him not to but not providing any hope for when he will be able to. His hormones are raging because God made him that way. And there seems to be no release except for elicit sex, masturbation and pornography. No wonder he’s typically all screwed up in the head!
Instead, why don’t we teach them to be men of God saving themselves for the special moment that God has ordained for him and her to become one flesh, one person where singleness dies and oneness begins? Then show him how to become the type of man you and I would want our daughters marrying. Raise them up in the way they should go and when they are old they will not depart from it. Don’t bother raising them in any particular way and they will go which ever way the wind happens to be blowing that day.
Here’s my short list for my daughter’s future husband:
1.) Unwavering commitment to the God of the Bible
2.) An absolute belief in the sanctity and permanence of marriage
3.) A demonstratable commitment to self improvement as a father and husband
4.) Aggressively perusing a career that will be able to support a family financially
By the way I don’t believe our liberal anti Christian public school system is capable of teaching abstinence or marriage effectively. It must start in the home which is God’s first manifestation of church.
My call to Christian parents is this. Read the scripture and discover for yourself what God’s plan is for your children. Determine if God is saying they should be taught singlehood or if they should be taught about the oneness in marriage. And execute God’s plan instead of the World’s. And do it quickly before it’s too late.
Peace
-JH
Labels: abstinence, bible, children, Family, kids, parenting, sex, youth
posted by John Husband at 11:39 PM
1 Comments:
I totally agree that we need to question the current norm of marrying at such a late age, especially given the biblical purposes of marriage, and the likelihood of that path for so many. It sounds more like you're saying that abstinence is biblical, but for a shorter term--until teen-ish age instead of the now typical (western) marrying age.
I think it's important though that it wasn't just Paul that came to the conclusion that singleness was "better" in some senses than marriage--the 12 seemed to have the same thought from Jesus' teachings, and Jesus didn't disagree, though Jesus and Paul both acknowledge that it's not for everyone. I actually wish that more Christians accepted singleness and earlier marriage as valid, biblical and wise options in many cases.
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