Welcome to “Purity Week.” Our goal for this week is to share with you four posts that deal with sexuality and purity. The posts will come out today, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday (our monthly email newsletter will be released on Tuesday). To make sure you don’t miss a post, simply click here to subscribe for free.

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Often when speaking about purity, I have used an illustration from ads for Ivory Soap. For many years, that brand of soap was marketed as being “99 44/100% pure.”  In fact, one of their jingles used to include the lyrics:

I want my clean as real as Ivory;

It’s gotta be 99 point 44.

But, when I talk about purity, I like to ask the question: “What’s the other 56/100%?” In other words, how can you have something that is “pure,” but then admit that part of it is not pure!

The very first definition of “pure” is “free from anything of a different, inferior, or contaminating kind.” So, to claim that something is “almost” or “mostly” pure is really a contradiction in terms. It just doesn’t make logical sense.

But as we begin Purity Week, I want us to consider that this is how we often treat the subject of sexual purity. We seem to be comfortable with being 99 44/100% pure.

After all, there are very few areas of our life where you will hear Christians say that “As long as we don’t…, then we are okay.” But, for some reason, we will do that with sexuality. We know that the sexual relationship is not only designed by God for marriage, but that He has commanded that sex be only inside the bonds of marriage. So, for many people, we will see just how far we can go without crossing some line that we have set. We are “mostly pure” in our minds.

That just isn’t good enough!

God demands purity, and that does not mean that we can set some line of our own making and then think, if I don’t cross that self-made line, I am being pure. So long as we don’t “go all the way,” we are being pure. Where did we ever get that idea?

God, in the area of sexuality, has told us that we need to avoid making some attempt at seeing  how close to “crossing the line” we can get and still be acceptable.  The Bible clearly says, “Flee fornication” (1 Corinthians 6:18). Eugene Peterson begins the discussion that runs from verse 18 through verse 20 by paraphrasing Paul’s words as “There’s more to sex than mere skin on skin” (The Message). While an obvious paraphrase, Peterson could not be more correct in his interpretation of the Apostle’s thoughts! When we begin attempting to set our own “how far is too far” boundary, we are not really striving for purity.

Anyone who is biologically “of age” knows that the feelings of sexuality come upon us very quickly, and that it can be easy to become lost in the moment. However, just because the feelings are strong does not give us the right to give into those emotions or feelings and push God’s standard aside. Thinking “we didn’t go as far as so-and-so” or “well, we didn’t do such-and-such” has never been the standard of our Lord. His standard is is Himself, a perfectly pure Being.

It turns out that what is 99 44/100% pure isn’t really pure, after all.

Ivory Soap’s standard just isn’t good enough if we are going to be people of true purity.

QUESTION: Why do we think that “almost pure” is good enough?

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Photo credit: Tim on Creative Commons

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Today’s post is a bit different, but I hope you will read all the way to the end. I want to tell you about Ryan.

When we moved here, Ryan was one of the first ones in our house. Nearly from day one, he helped us get to know more about local news and places to shop and eat. Since we were not from Nashville, this was a huge help. He seemed to know everything about everything: local sports teams, restaurants, stores, churches…everything.

Sadly, from day one, Ryan also decided to drop a few bad words in his conversations, even when the kids were around. We tried to drop a few subtle hints not to do that, but Mr. Anderson just said, “That’s just me. Deal with it.” Since he was so helpful, we let it go, but it was quite embarrassing.

As the days rolled on, Ryan expanded his stories. He was, easily, the most knowledgeable and entertaining guest ever in our home. He was able to tell stories that were sometimes funny, sometimes dramatic, and sometimes tear-jerking. We listened to his stories almost every day, and Ryan’s ability to hold our attention was truly remarkable.

I must admit, as a preacher, I was jealous, because I try to hold people’s attention for just 25-30 minutes and seemed to fail more often than I succeeded. I tried to learn how to tell a story from Ryan, but he was just better at it.

Of course, with nearly every story he told, he dropped a few bad words. I’m embarrassed to say that we talked about confronting him, but we let him in day after day because we loved the stories and information. Thankfully, his language was tamer when the children around, but we noticed that they were starting to spout off a few choice words sometimes. As parents, we scolded and punished, but we knew where it was coming from, and we didn’t properly address the problem.

Finally, Ryan started bringing something to the house with him. When he came over, he started bringing a can of beer. He offered it to me. I refused, but didn’t have the guts to tell him not to bring it into my house. Also, he started staying later and telling longer stories. Mr. Anderson’s stories were amazing, but they were starting to effect other parts of our lives, due to their length, but also their language and attitude.

But they were so informative and entertaining!

We looked around one day, though, and realized that Ryan had basically taken over our lives. We had even rearranged our furniture to give him a chair we could all see so we could hear his stories night after night. Our sleep was less. We were putting out little fires with our kids’ language and attitudes.

So, one day, we finally stood up to Ryan.

But I will bet he still has a place in your house, and probably controls more of your life that you’d like to admit.

He is Ryan Christian Anderson.

R.C.A.

He was our television.

QUESTION: What is your reaction to this story? How can we improve?

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Photo credit: Heather Elias on Creative Commons

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