This is my first blog post in a while. I am recovering from surgery. But there are a few things on my mind.
In the past few days, Christianity has been equated to virginal, tattoo-free and debt free women pursuing godly men…
ugh.
There has been a lot said, but here are a few thoughts of mine in no particular order:
- The purpose of life is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. This means women as well. Your purpose is not to please or to “get a man” but to serve the Lord Jesus, whether single, married or divorced.
- If you are a single young woman (or man, for that matter) do not make it your goal to attract a member of the opposite sex. Make it your goal to be a faithful servant of Jesus. Seek ye first the kingdom of God. Everything else flows from there. Let love be without hypocrisy.
- If you are a man or a woman, your only comfort in life and in death is that you belong to your savior, Jesus Christ, who holds you in his hands and will never let you go. Your comfort will be found only there, whether it is God’s will that you marry or that you remain single.
- There is a profound and crucial difference between “virginity” and “purity”. They are not the same. We are to flee sexual immorality, but your purity has nothing to do with your “virginity”. A woman who has gotten married is no longer a virgin, but she is still pure in Christ. A woman who is raped or molested has not lost her purity, and anyone who says otherwise is a fool and we should have nothing to do with them.
- Virginity is a statement of physicality, a scientific fact as to the sexual history of a man or woman. It has nothing to do with purity. Purity is also called “holiness” in the scripture, and is found only in Christ. If you are in Christ, the perfect Lamb of God who was without blemish or spot, then you are pure. If you are not, you are polluted in sin and alienated from the promise, whether you are a virgin or not. We should never, ever confuse virginity and purity.
- Romans 13:8 has nothing to do with taking out a student loan, or a car loan, or any other kind of loan. The point Paul is making is not an economic one, it is one of love. A loving person is a person who pays all of their obligations, especially obligations of honor, love and taxes (in the context). You can pay off your loan, but you will never be free of the obligation to love. That’s the point. Not whether you should carry student loan debt. Sheesh.
- If you do take out a loan, pay it off according to the terms. That’s another application of Romans 13:8, but it is not the primary point.
- What glorifies God above all else is when we all, men and women and children, use our gifts to the best of our ability for the advantage and welfare of our neighbors, wherever we may be. Since men and women have different gifts, they way that they serve will look differently. This is honoring to God, as 1 Corinthians 12 teaches us.
- Being made in the image of God means to reflect God’s attributes to a watching world.
- There is a cycle of bondage taught to us in the book of Galatians. If we sow to the flesh, we will reap the corruption of the flesh. To apply this today, if we think that remaining a virgin, not getting a tattoo and not going to college will make us pure, we are sowing to the flesh. If this is what purity involves, then Christ is not necessary. If we sow to the flesh, we will reap corruption. It is not surprising, then, that these teachers who teach these types of things are also filled with immorality of every kind, cruelty, abuse, pornography, incest, pedophilia. Paul said that this is exactly what the flesh produces. We should not be shocked when another exposure takes place. When we see churches sowing to the flesh, by teaching holiness by works, we should expect immorality of every kind.
- So look at this cycle: a man preaches that women must never get tattoos, never go to college, never wear a skirt above the knee or expose her collarbone or she will not be pure and won’t get a man. Then, because he is an abuser and knows nothing of Christ, he molests her. And then he tells her that she isn’t pure because she is no longer a virgin.
- Does this sound like Christianity to you? It is a horrible caricature, a twisted imitation, and a cruel and heartless lie of the devil. Cast them out, and be holy in Christ.
- Whatever we do in word or deed, do all to the glory of God, and quit seeking to please the abusers of this world, the evil Pharisees who seek to keep us in bondage. Cast them out.
- Our trust is in Christ alone. Trusting in “purity systems” of any kind are a denial of the gospel, and ministers of death. Only the gospel will give us the life that we seek.
Thanks for putting up with my scattered thoughts. I hope you find them edifying.
My Only Comfort 
Bless you Sam!
Good words 🙂
Your body may be in recovery but your mind, and heart are sharp! Great post! That lady is leading the sheep to the slaughter. More words of truth need to be spoken to counter her false words!!
Lifting you up in prayer in Sam, and telling the Lord how grateful I am for your words. Speedy healing!
I’m out of the loop. Who is preaching this? What happened this past week?
And I’m glad your surgery went well. I hope your recovery goes well, too.
It’s from “the transformed wife”, a blog post that has gone viral. It is written by Lori Alexander
Oh my gosh! Who is this woman?! Who writes this stuff?!
“The husband will need to take years teaching his wife the correct way to act, think, and live since college taught them every possible way that is wrong.”
[Choking on air over here.] There are no words. I am stunned. Women are actual adults and all. Just in case anyone forgot. They are not children to be ruled, instructed, controlled, and even spanked by their ‘husbands’. College is the devil now??
“They lost a handful of years of experience learning to cook large meals and learning how to work in the garden.”
There are gardening books, same with cookbooks. So long as they can read, they’ll do just fine. Libraries contain these books and there is the Internet.
“They will start having babies later in life. That is if they can still conceive naturally.” (Is college worth having less children? I will never understand how women prefer careers over having precious babies.)
As if being a baby-making factory is the end-all function for a woman. What is that to say of someone who is infertile, cannot have babies? Did God not make her, too?! Ever heard of adoption? Being foster care parents? Do you know how many children’s lives a godly couple could touch as foster parents who expose the foster kids to Christianity, the Bible, etc.?!
“Most girls have not read the Bible with their father (Ephesians 6:4) or husband to explain it to them (1 Corinthians 14:35). ”
Neither Bible verse she quotes says what she makes it into being. Correct me if I am wrong here, Pastor Powell, but 1 Corinthians 14:35 mostly dealt with the reality that at that time most women and girls had very, very little education, and perhaps could not even read or write.
Whatever happened to Proverbs 31 — the godly wife who went and conducted business, perhaps literally buying land and planting vineyards, ruled her household, was super industrious? What about Deborah? A woman judge! Surely Deborah was a godly woman and yet she wasn’t at home birthing out 20 kids, laboring barefoot and perpetually pregnant in the kitchen.
Yeah. It’s pretty horrible.
I thought I read the Bible pretty well. I don’t remember all this stuff about a woman being but a child in comparison to a husband, birthing children until menopause, etc.
And the debt-free is to apply equally to both man and woman, but given that women’s wages are a fraction of men’s incomes, women often do have debt as many jobs don’t pay a living wage.
And sometimes things happen in life where debt is acquired. Many people live paycheck to paycheck because of stagnant wages. Most people in the U.S. are one disaster away from bankruptcy. One near fatal car accident. One heart surgery. One house fire which the insurance won’t cover because of some loophole. One accident at work which leaves them disabled, where the company finds a way to not pay the worker for the sustained injuries because maybe it was their first day on the job. Who knows?!
And for tattoos, kids are kids. Many kids do regrettable things. Suppose the boy/man has tattoos? Is he forever ‘damaged goods’?
Or have I been corrupted by college???
Well thought out and excellent response. I hope I’m always found responding with Jesus’ relational love and logic over religion’s legalism.
It’s sad when Christianity is represented by someone with a personality disorder.
I’m so thankful that you took the time to write this. Thank you for being a voice of reason, humility and an ambassador of Christ on social media when so many voices reek of discord.
And of course Lori has a post today highlighting what men think of her viral post. It only features the comments and men that agree with her. She has deleted any man who has stated what you do and then tries to paint the picture that all men agree with her.