A Chaste Life

Webster’s 1828 dictionary defines the word chaste as: “1. Pure from all unlawful commerce of sexes. Applied to persons before marriage, it signifies pure from all sexual commerce, undefiled; applied to married persons, true to the marriage bed. 2. Free from obscenity. While they behold your chaste conversation. 1 Peter 3:2. 3. In language, pure, uncorrupt, free from barbarous words and phrases, and quaint, affected, extravagant expressions.“

The primary use of the term in English indicates purity in sexual matters. Paul wrote to the Corinthians and used the sexual purity concept in an analogy concerning the congregation as a body of Christ.

Oh, that you would bear with me in a little folly — and indeed you do bear with me. For I am jealous for you with godly jealousy. For I have betrothed you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. But I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. (1 Corinthians 11:1-3)

As the bride of Christ, the church is to be pure and chaste, but it can only be such if its members who make up that body are chaste. The analogy in this passage speaks of the Corinthian’s assembly as a betrothed (engaged) woman. She has been promised to her spouse and is awaiting that marriage date. How, then, can she be seeking after other men? Also notice the description of her as a virgin. She has not been promiscuous or in a prior relationship with another man, and so, why is she now (as a betrothed woman) going after someone other than her husband-to-be?

In sexual matters, the standard for young people is visible here. The picture God uses of the church is the representation of what God wants for us as individuals. God expects virginity from young people, not safe sex. God expects virginity from non-married Christians, not free from disease. The world and our culture plan, anticipate and promote premarital sexual relations. God hates it. It is sinful, wrong, a blight on our society, and destructive to the home and to the persons involved.

“Virgin” is not the only word in 2 Corinthians 11:2, but “chaste virgin.” God expects His betrothed to (1) be a virgin, but also (2) to be a chaste (pure, clear, clean) individual. Christian actions should be without opportunity for accusation. We are not to be sexually impure; nor are we to live a provocative or sensual lifestyle either. Like the church that was drifting toward spiritual sin, so is the Christian living a life filled with sensuality, flirtation, immodesty, dancing and other lascivious actions. These have no place in the life of a chaste Christian – either male or female.

It is time for Christians to wake up and stop living, dressing and talking like the world. Christians need to raise their standards out of the gutter, off of the street and up into purity.

Author