..
Abstinence
Modern Controversies #5
In a world of ever changing fads and a culture that cannot find any solid anchor
points the Bible's viewpoint on sex is dramatically different. "Flee sexual
immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits
sexual immorality sins against his own body" (1 Corinthians 6:18). Sexual
immorality is defined by scripture as sexual relations between any two persons
who are not lawfully married. "Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed
undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge" (Hebrews 13:4). Thus,
the Bible stands as the preeminent advocate of abstinence. If you are not
married, the Lord expects you to abstain from sexual activity until you are
married.
Naturally, in our society today such a position is greeted with derision and
jeers. Many believe that expecting young people to abstain from sexual activity
is simply unrealistic. Others simply do not see the point in abstinence given
the precautions that they can take to protect themselves from the negative
effects of sexual activity. Since everyone is doing it, and if I can be
protected from disease or pregnancy, why should I do as the Bible instructs and
abstain? These are the questions many young people are asking today.
The answer is found in an often overlooked passage in Deuteronomy. There Moses
tells the children of Israel "And the Lord commanded us to do all these
statutes, to fear the Lord our God, for our good always. . . ." (Deuteronomy
6:24). The law of God is for our good. His commandments protect and help us.
Much like a mother who tells her child not to touch a hot stove because she
loves the child, so God loves us too much to let us ruin our lives with sexual
activity outside marriage. What is needed today is a better understanding of why
abstinence is the only choice if we would avoid the all the troubles and pains
of sex outside marriage. Abstinence works for the following four reasons:
Abstinence protects you from performance-based love. The scriptures show
marriage to be a wonderfully fulfilling relationship based on mutual love and
respect for each other (see Ephesians 5:22ff). In that context each person is
free to completely give him or herself to their mate without fear of rejection,
or exploitation. Such can hardly be said of fornication! Sexual relations
outside marriage are little more than the selfish gratification of one person's
desires at the expense of another person. The common line that many teen-age
girls hear is "If you really love me, you'll do this." Doesn't that perfectly
illustrate this point? In plain terms this line says "If you want this
relationship to go on you must perform for me and please me by doing what I
want." A song by a rock-and-roll band, speaking of an illicit relationship, says
"you made me feel so good, you did everything right." Isn't that
performance-based love? How can we properly construct a secure relationship in
such an atmosphere? When one partner does not do "everything right" the
relationship is ended. Teaching young people the power of saying "no" gives them
the right and ability to say "You must accept me for whom I am, and love me as a
person instead of a sex object." Abstinence loudly announces that we need not
perform to get love.
Abstinence protects you from misleading feelings. Many experts have found that
sex outside marriage gives the illusion that a relationship is much deeper and
more solid than it really is. "Studies show that a relationship based on
physical attraction may hold itself together for three to five years. During
that length of time two people are fooled into thinking, ‘Well, we've been going
together for so long, surely we can make it for a lifetime. This must be love.'"
A public school health textbook states "Because sex is so powerful, it creates
very strong emotional bonds between partners. These bonds can make us believe
the relationship is deeper than it really is, that we know our partners (and our
partners know us) much better than we actually do. Or, because we've had sex, we
may be tempted to hang onto the relationship, not out of love, but to save
face." The choice of whom to marry is one of the most critical decisions any
individual can ever make. It determines, to a large extent, whether we have any
kind of satisfying and happy family life. Yet sexual activity before marriage
can trick a person into marrying someone who is not really right for them. Such
a marriage is literally doomed from the start, and with its demise goes the joy
that only a strong marriage can bring. Few can term their lives successful who
have a litany of broken marriages and unhappy relationships trailing behind
them. Isn't it wonderful that God protects us from such misery and heartbreak
with abstinence?
Finally, abstinence protects us from having experiences that will taint and
destroy marriage. Sex is much too powerful an experience to be forgotten.
Unfortunately, we do not exorcize the memories of relations with others at the
marriage altar. Instead, they continue haunting the new relationship with
memories of the past. One young man wrote that he could not be sexually intimate
with his wife without comparing her with past relationships and thinking that
another woman was "better" than his new bride. It is easy to see how such mental
pictures rob a marriage of its strength and love. Remember the quotation from
Hebrews cited above? The marriage bed is to be "undefiled." That means marriage
should not be tainted by anything foreign, unclean, or filthy. Extramarital and
premarital sexual experiences defile marriage by introducing the foreign element
of past remembrances. Only abstinence can protect you from this!
For these reasons, young people need to be taught abstinence. They need this
vital information because if they choose to become sexually active they place
themselves at risk for far more consequences than just pregnancy or AIDS. Sexual
activity before marriage has dangers no contraceptive method can even begin to
protect a person from. What teens risk is their whole person-hood, and their
entire future. Thus we see that the way of the Lord is not outdated or
old-fashioned. It works perfectly to protect us from the terrors and traumas of
sexual immorality, while giving us the perfect place to enjoy the God-given gift
of sexuality: marriage.
Regrettably, at a time when young people are under intense pressure to start
sexual activity, several forces in our society are actively working against
abstinence education in our schools. The liberal and left-wing forces in our
country continue to push for ever more "comprehensive sex education" while
deriding abstinence-based programs as "fear and shame based." They urge us to be
more realistic and honest about teen sexual activity. In that vein, let us have
some realism and honesty about sexual education in our country today.
If we are honest, we must admit there is no proof that sexual education has ever
worked to reduce teen sexual activity. A recent article by noted columnist
Deborah Mathis ridiculed teaching children to say "no" to sexual activity.
Referring to teaching abstinence she says it is "pretty careless and shallow
mothering" and that it "just won't cut it." Her answer to such a ridiculously
old-fashioned approach (right for June Cleave and Donna Reed, but not today, she
assures us) is school-based health clinics ready to supply children with
contraceptives. She ties her article up by wishing that the idealists who
believe in abstinence would good a get dose of the real world. I am well ready
for a dose of the real world, but believe that Ms. Mathis' views will suffer
from such strong medicine. The facts show that there is no evidence that
comprehensive sexual education works. Since sexual education was added to the
curriculums of our public schools in the early 1970's, every measure of teen
sexual activity is up, up, up. In 1970, 5 percent of fifteen-year-old girls and
32 percent of seventeen-year-old girls reported having had sex. By 1988 the
figures had increased to 26 percent of fifteen-year-olds and 51 percent of
seventeen-year-olds. The percentage of births to unwed mothers continues to
rise, from 30 percent among teenagers in 1970 to nearly 70 percent in 1990.
Despite spending more than $2 billion on Federal Title X family planning
services since 1971 teenage births and abortions have continued a steady and
alarming rise. The GOP dissent to a 1992 report on "Teens and AIDS in America"
by the House Select Committee on Children, Youth, and Families states, "In fact,
those states with the highest expenditures on family planning . . . demonstrated
the largest increase in abortions and out-of-wedlock births." When are the
advocates of comprehensive sexual education going to deal with the real world
fact that it simply doesn't work? The verdict on comprehensive sexual education
is in: Ms. Mathis and Company have failed America's youth. It is time to
honestly admit that and find something else that will actually work.
Teaching abstinence stands ready as a realistic option that can and does reduce
teen sexual activity. The idea that teens will inevitably have sex is not only
defeatist, it is incorrect. Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia has
recently developed a "just say no" program that has caught the eye of even the
White House. This program does not teach the Bible or mention God. However, it
teaches truths that are in line with the Bible's teaching, and so the program
works because it is based on truth. For example, it helps children see that the
proper place for sex is in marriage, and that they are not ready or responsible
enough to cope with sexual activity. While Ms. Mathis and others would like to
believe such programs cannot work this approach is working (something that
cannot be said of comprehensive sexual education). Eighth grade students are
enrolled in the program with the result that by the end of ninth grade only 24
percent in the program group had sexual intercourse, as compared with 39 percent
in the non-program groups. A study of high-risk youths funded by the Ford
Foundation also found that the program significantly delayed the onset of sexual
activity in teens. In light of these clear findings it is simply impossible for
people to dismiss the Bible's viewpoint as unrealistic or useless for our day.
Teaching abstinence not only can work, it has been proven that it does work.
One young woman wrote "My school taught us what our sexual anatomy did. But when
the time came, what I really needed to know was all the dimensions of having a
sexual relationship with my boyfriend. My school only provided condoms. . . . "
How well this young woman illustrates the Bible's teaching on sex and sex
education. Parents are charged with raising children (Ephesians 6:4) and can do
what Planned Parenthood, schools and school-based clinics seem unwilling to do:
tell children to abstain from sexual activity until married. This is God's plan
for our health and happiness. In the end, we will all eventually realize how
right the Lord is.
By Mark Roberts
From Expository Files 3.5; May 1996
