I am one of those unicorn Christians who is still unmarried at 29 – I didn’t meet someone in high school, Christian college, or at camp. I listened to BarlowGirl’s vow to prolong dating, read Harris’ I Kissed Dating Goodbye, and signed my purity pledge at a “True Love Waits” event.
I kept waiting for that magical moment when some young whippersnapper approached me and asked for my hand where I could I reply “No more dating, I’m just waiting” while waving my purity ring in his face, triumphantly.
Unfortunately, I never was faced with this situation, and my understanding of purity and sex was simply to comment “make sure to leave room for the Holy Spirit” on my cousin’s Facebook post.
I understood that sex was supposed to be for marriage, and that I shouldn’t do it until then. But after that, the messages got cloudy.
My youth group attended a weekend workshop where a fashion show showed me how to properly shield young boys from my dangerous body. I wore a t-shirt over my swimsuit, lest my awkward teenage body tempt the boys who were throwing their sandwiches at each other. I grew more and more fearful of sex, as it was the worst possible thing a girl could do, and somehow the only thing young and old Christian boys and men thought about.
I am now so thankful, though I wasn’t at the time, that I was never put into situations where I had to use my cloudy understanding in an actual human interaction.
Dating Life
So when I started dating at 25, I had no idea how to think, feel, or act. I fielded questions on dating apps about how far I’d go, and quickly blocked the accounts that suggested more. I went on first dates and mourned that the first guy I “dated” didn’t end up as my husband, like I had been told for so long.
I turned to friends, who mainly met their spouses in college, and their advice and wisdom applied up to a point. But I was older than most of them were when they had their first child, and I was trying to figure out how to act on a second date.
It’s easy to feel left behind, but honestly, I was quite relieved. Since I wasn’t plagued by hundreds of men trying to date me, I didn’t have to face the even more clouded understanding of what it means to date, and how to remain pure when that word was so vague and contained so much shame.
After some first dates, and a short dating relationship, I felt less prepared than before. Conflicting advice told me not to settle, but not to be too picky, to not go too far, but a little of this or that wasn’t a bad idea. It was exhausting. It led me into a full panic after my first kiss, thinking I would have to marry the man that kissed me unexpectedly after a first date, as I was now used, ruined, and impure.
I knew this wasn’t logical. This wasn’t what I taught my own middle and high school students, nor what I told friends or heard from friends. It wasn’t biblical. But somehow, in the middle of it all, my brain equated purity with worth, and the more pure I could stay, the better Christian I was. It filled the void that was left by watching others experience what I wanted so badly – a relationship, a family, children. At least I was…pure?
The funny thing about pride is that it never gives you what you are truly craving. It cheaply imitates the connection you crave. It doesn’t satisfy. My legalistic heart loved the idea that I was *not* sinning in some way that others were.
I still kept waiting for the magical moment where I would finally realize exactly how to act, feel, or live out this purity that was so deeply ingrained in me. Instead, I found peace in not knowing – that the answer is not figuring out how to live out purity perfectly while dating, but in how to change the conversation on purity altogether.
Who is purity about?
For so long, my purity was about me. It was about protecting myself from the gaze of men. It was about protecting those boys from my dangerous body. It was about saving myself as a gift to my husband. It was all about me. When we minimize purity to not having sex before marriage, or even making it all about us, we lose the heart of it.
This is the opposite of what Scripture teaches us. Purity is always connected to the Lord, not to one another. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 6:13 “You say, ‘Food for the stomach and the stomach for food, and God will destroy them both.’ The body, however, is not meant for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.”
Furthermore, Romans 13:14 states “Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh.”
Our purity is forever connected to the Lord. It is not something explicitly attached to specific relationships, nor is it something that can be ruined by sins of the flesh.
When we boil purity down to not having sex before marriage, we have become like the Pharisees – so connected to the letter of the law of the Lord, while ignoring the spirit of Christ Himself. Purity is a posture, a place where we are connected with our Father, our Creator, our Lord, and is interwoven into every thought, word, and action we think, speak, and do. Purity is having the same mind of Christ, and aiming to follow Jesus in every step we take.
We are called to present ourselves pure and blameless before Christ (Phil. 1:10), not just pure and sexless on our wedding night.
This version of purity can only leave us lost in shame and guilt, definitely not pure and blameless before Christ. The heart of God does not measure purity the same way I do. God views purity as a heart yearning for Him, a soul guided by the Holy Spirit, and actions that aim to mimic the hands and feet of Jesus Christ
We read in Philippians 1:9-11, “And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ – to the glory and praise of God.”
Now this freedom from legalism isn’t permission to “go on sinning so grace may abound” like Romans 6 explains, “by no means!” But this freedom gives us the space to actually live out the heart of the Gospel. We are motivated to follow God’s Word because of His love for us, not in order for Him to love us.
The backwards understanding of purity that I held for so long, and am still unlearning, is that by staying ‘pure,’ I would not only be convincing a man to marry me, but also proving to God how much I deserved His love, too. My heart breaks for this understanding I knew, felt, and lived.
Purity is not something we hold until the day we say “I do,” but it is within every moment of our lives, in the way we speak to our friends with truth and love, in the hand gestures we use in traffic, and in our workplace integrity.
Purity is a posture in which we follow Christ in word and action – and not something that can be lost or taken from us through the flesh.
We are pure because of Christ’s work on the cross of Calvary. We are pure because we have a Savior who took our sin to the cross and left it there. We are pure because of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
We live in that purity as a gift from our Savior and Lord.
And that is something that can not be lost.