The struggle for sexual purity is real yet it is not impossible to attain. God has appointed different means (such as believing in the gospel, applying the Word and having the Word applied rightly by a healthy community, and marriage) that ought to be pursued and practiced in order to be holy. Yet, we must not forget that the goal is not purity for the sake of purity. Rather, the God-established end of godliness is to become more like Christ Jesus.

In the previous article, I wrote about two of the three principles that aid young men (and women) in pursuing and practicing sexual purity: Getting the gospel right, and applying the Word to your life by yourself and by others. In this second part, we will look at the third principle.
“Be a Man!”: Marriage as a Means to Christlikeness
The final principle that I want to suggest is probably the most overlooked and under-discussed solution on purity: get married. Now, I would readily grant and defend the fact that marriage will not solve or rectify your sexual struggles or loneliness. Without resting your identity and treasuring Christ as your end-all, your heart’s craving for intimacy and companionship will not be satisfied either with sex or with marriage.1
Yet, even with such a qualification, it cannot be denied that one of the means that the Lord uses to meet our need for intimacy and companionship is marriage (cf. 1 Cor 7:9b). After all, was it not God himself who, after making and declaring all things ‘good’, says “it is not good for a man to be alone” (Gen 2:18)? However, the question remains: how does this relate to sexual purity? May I gently suggest that one of the many, but important reasons for the radical increase in sexual struggles among young men and women is their inexplicable delaying of marriage.
The glamour of the extended ‘carefree single life’ is a cover for immaturity, self-centeredness, worldly ambition, and a lack of disregard for the biblical teaching on marriage. And, therefore, when young men and women seek to extend their “carefree, single life” they are actually modelling what homosexuals have popularized. So, what happens when young men and women disregard the God-given desire and drive for intimacy and companionship in pursuit of worldly goals? The desire and drive do not go away. Rather, they would seek ungodly avenues to fulfil God-given needs.R. R. Reno makes this startling but astute observation namely that, “Homosexuals, especially gay men, are…associated with scrupulous self-care and glamorous consumption. They pioneered the now upper-middle-class norm of extended adolescence, the carefree single life that extends for decades. Gay life also realizes the dreams of many feminists—professional success and self-realization without the burdens of fertility.”2 (emphasis mine)
Young Christian men and women, unless called by the Lord to a life of singleness in serving Him, whatever else they may pursue in life, they ought to get married, raise children and be godly parents. Marriage and parenting have the potential to enable men and women to sober down and mature. How much more so when done within the context of a church community! It truly enables one to grow in godliness.
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When we walk as Jesus walked, when we walk in the light; when we flee the darkness, then we are shining the true light and are pointing the world forward to the Day when light will reign supreme. As church we are not called to merely huddle together and safeguard the light until the day arrives, but rather to step out boldly into the dark world and hold the light overhead as evidence to the world that the True light is approaching and the darkness is passing away.

The world is a dark place. It is darkened by an abundance of famine, injustice, war, abuse, destruction, addiction. The list goes on. At the root of it all is the persistent and pervasive presence of sin. Sin darkens every corner of the earth, including the pews of the church and the depths of the human heart.
But God speaks light into the darkness and renews us with the hope that one day the darkness will be snuffed out for good and the light will be here to stay. The light is of course Jesus Christ himself and, more broadly, the kingdom of God of which Jesus is Lord and king.
Hope directs our eyes to the future. We look forward to that day when the light will shine in all its fullness and the darkness will be no more. But as we lift up our gaze to our future hope, we must not forget that the promised eternal light has already made its way into our present darkness. The kingdom of God is not only a future hope, but a reality for the here-and-now.
In his first letter the Apostle John makes this abundantly clear when we writes:
Yet I am writing you a new command, which is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining.
1 JOHN 2:8
The true light is not waiting for a decisive day when it will suddenly and brilliantly pierce the black night.
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Written by R. Fowler White |
Thursday, May 18, 2023
The sum of Paul’s regulations for public worship here in 1 Cor 14:26-40 is that during the ministry of God’s word, the churches were to prefer the greater gifts without prohibiting the lesser ones and to do so by following the regulations laid down by the Apostle to ensure that the ministry of God’s word was done in that fitting and orderly way that instructed and exhorted His people (14:39-40). 

As we come to 1 Cor 14:26-40, we arrive at the close of our brief series on 1 Corinthians 12-14. Paul has covered certain fundamental truths regarding the Spirit and His gifts. It is the Spirit, he declares, who brings unity to the church’s confession of Christ, its gifts for ministry, and its members (12:1-31). Moreover, he maintains, it is not any one gift of the Spirit that is indispensable to seeing our ministries thrive; rather, it is the Spirit’s fruit of love (13:1-13). If we wonder how indispensable love is to ministry, the Apostle would have us compare the greater gift of prophetic speech to the lesser gift of untranslated tongue-speech. In light of that comparison, we’re to see that the former benefits others; the latter does not and cannot benefit others unless it is translated (14:1-25). With those fundamentals as background, Paul will now sum up the regulations that will result in the edification of others during the ministry of God’s word in congregational worship. In the content of his summary, we see what amounts to evidence of an early apostolic directory for congregational worship.
Paul begins his directives with a regulation in 14:26b that applies to all ministries of God’s word in public worship: let all things be done for edification—or as the preceding context puts it: edify others, not oneself alone (14:4-5, 12). No one who delivers God’s word should hinder the instruction and exhortation of God’s people through the public ministry of that word (cf. 14:31).
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