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NASB | 1 Timothy 4:12 Let no one look down on your youthfulness, but rather in speech, conduct, love, faith and purity, show yourself an example of those who believe. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | 1 Timothy 4:12 Let no one look down on [you because of] your youth, but be an example and set a pattern for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, and in [moral] purity. |
Bible Question: I also have recently dedicated my life to purity until marriage. I have a ton of questions though. Where is a good place to study on purity before marriage? (ie: Which book/s in the bible are best to study?) Kristi4252725 nothing but love and prayers to you. God Bless. Thanks all for encouragement and support! ;-) |
Bible Answer: SEXUAL PURITY: THE DIGNITY OF MARRIAGE Today’s culture is obsessed with sex more than ever. Even though there is the distinct possibility of contracting AIDS and other diseases through promiscuous sexual activity, more and more people tolerate and even promote sex outside of marriage. Some of the obvious, disheartening results of that trend are alarming increases in illegitimate pregnancies and births (and as a result the steady reliance on abortion to eliminate these “problems”), rapes and child molestation, and a variety of venereal diseases. Even the amount of pornographic and erotic content in movies and television, especially the various forms of sexual innuendo, has increased startlingly during recent years. I believe God’s judgment is already on our society because of such wicked attitudes and practices. Consider the number of divorces, cases of domestic violence, dysfunctional families, and murders and other violent crimes when sensual urges go uncontrolled. People cannot continue to violate God’s standards of morality and integrity without eventually suffering some terrible consequences. When believers or professing believers are immoral, the immediate consequences are especially bad, because the testimony of the Gospel and all true Christians is damaged. You may recall the negative impact of the evangelical scandals of the late 1980s or the cynicism caused by news stories of priests’ immorality with Catholic youth. Men and women engage in all sorts of illicit sex and perverse behavior and are fully accepted by the world. But based on God’s standard, sexual impurity is always a sin and will always be judged. The apostle Paul warned the Ephesian Christians: Do not let immorality or any impurity or greed even be named among you, as is proper among saints.… For this you know with certainty, that no immoral or impure person or covetous man, who is an idolater, has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. —Eph. 5:3, 5–6 In 1 Corinthians 6:18 the apostle tells all believers to “flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body.” The same basic Greek term is used for “immorality” in both those passages. The writer of Hebrews uses the same root word (pornos, from which we get pornography) for “fornicators” in Hebrews 13:4 as he admonishes, “Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled; for fornicators and adulterers God will judge.” The same sexual sin is condemned (implicitly or explicitly) in all three passages. But God has provided the means for us to avoid such sexual sin through the institution of marriage. Paul says, “Because of immoralities, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband” (1 Cor. 7:2). However, the Lord did not establish marriage as a mere preventative against immorality. He views marriage as honorable and wants us to have the same high regard for it. We can do that in several ways. First, we honor marriage when the husband fulfills his duties as the head: “Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of a woman” (1 Cor. 11:3). Second, we honor marriage when wives submit to their husbands, as Sarah did to Abraham (1 Pet. 3:1, 6). Third, we honor marriage when we make sure it is regulated by mutual love and respect, as the apostle Peter instructs us: “You husbands likewise, live with your wives in an understanding way, as with a weaker vessel, since she is a woman; and grant her honor as a fellow-heir of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered” (1 Pet. 3:7). With the utmost sense of graciousness, love, and integrity, both husband and wife should have a selfless concern for the welfare of the other. Both should be focusing on what they can give rather than on what they can obtain. God is serious about sexual purity. Sex is wonderful and fulfilling within marriage but harmful and destructive outside marriage. “For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor” (1 Thess. 4:3–4). Part of our responsibility to morality and integrity of character is that we be sexually pure. MacArthur, John, F., Jr. The Power of Integrity : Building a Life Without Compromise. Includes Indexes. Electronic ed. Logos Library Systems, Pages 126-128. Wheaton, Il: Goodnews/Crossway Books, 1997. |