The Virtues of Virginity: The new Apologetics.com Radio Show (click for audio)
In our culture there is a war against virginity. It is viewed as a problem or even an aberration; something to be destroyed as soon as possible in order to be thought of as “normal” in the court of public opinion. The mounting pressures from educators, peers, and the media have become constant and brazen. Any sentiment toward a sensible purity is regarded with suspicion or out right animosity. Is it really such an offense to regard oneself as holy? To view our special createdness in the image of God as demanding that a tremendous value be placed upon one’s most intimate relations? There will always be those that refuse to think of intimacy as anything more than mere animal functionality. Some interpret every love as trivial or common. But the glory of God demands the same things that the educated conscience desires and our practice of purity, fidelity, charity, chastity, and continence while in the state of virginity is the means that God uses to prepare us for the graces of matrimony. The groundwork of who and what we are in Christ is to be laid in a state of virginal purity, apart from the cares of marriage, and certainly apart from the serial sexual relationships that have become the cultural prerequisite to marriage today. Virginity, Marriage, and Widowhood are particular stages in the developed life. Everyone begins their life in the virginal state and in that protected environment continues until ready for the creation of new life within the life long bond of marital fidelity. In Christian thought, there is a need to consider ourselves and our value within the gifts and tender care of God. He has held nothing back from us in His love and affection. And this means that we should see our holiness as something that is very important to what we are in Christ. We ought not to sell ourselves cheaply. There is, even today, a vital interest in the Christian retaining their purity and distinguishing themselves from the world as much by what we do as what we believe.
Neiswonger
Christian Theology 
it is a choice of a woman or a man to remain virgin
LikeLike
Virginity z a virtue
LikeLike
Is virginity really a “thing”? Is there a term for every case in which we haven’t done something for which our body was designed? Philosophically speaking how can there be a “war” against the state of having-not-done-a-particular-thing?
LikeLike
The purity, the proposal, the betrothal, the courting, the preparation, and the consummation are all wonderful details of life and theology. Thank you for raising this topic.
In preaching, I have found much disdain from God toward faithless Israel where she had not pursued any of the above in her covenant relationship with Jehovah. The Church of Christ ought to wholeheartedly embrace the correct view of fidelity in every regard.
LikeLike
Hey *****,
Sorry for the delay but I’ve been swamped at work for the last few days.
Your question was along the lines of, do I think that Widows should not remarry. I think the christian is certainly free to remarry after the death of one’s spouse. The Apostle Paul brings this up and talks about it from the perspective of young widows being much better off remarrying, but gives room for older widows to stay as they are.
It all makes sense really. Someone very young who becomes a widow may not have fulfilled all of the things that God has for them within the context of marriage. With that, there are things that are ready temptations for the young that are not quite an extenuated for those with a few more years on earth and one of the reasons for marriage is to avoid those kinds of problems. “let each man have his own wife” kinds of things.
Still, there may very well be people that while being “older” still desire the kinds of care an affection that marriage provides though additional children and the raising of a family late in life might not be a reasonable expectation. If so, there really isn’t any reason for them to not marry someone of like conditions and like expectations. Marriage is also for companionship and comfort in this earthly life after all.
The reason for bringing up “Widowhood” was more to make clear that this is, except for death, an inevitable part of life as God has orchestrated its form. It for some people, the most excruciating ordeal they will ever endure. We want to make sure, though the condition of Widowhood was not the focus of the piece, that such people did not feel that they did not have an “official” and biblical status simply because they were way past virginity and perhaps way past marriage.
We could certainly do an entire presentation of God’s design and the proper ways and means for the Widow (it is something the the Bible brings up many times). It is a rich and possibly neglected subject in a culture that tends to inordinately prize the first two-thirds of a life. Many of the most important things that anyone in the Bible accomplished were in the last semester of their earthly sojourn. Perhaps the greatest flaw of youth is the light weight given to the wisdom of age.
So I don’t want you to think that we were trying to say that being a Widow is something given to unreasonable perpetuation, but it is a “Christian status” if you get my meaning, and one due special respect and honor, especially for those have lived their lives as a testimony to the cross of Christ and now find themselves having a difficult time defining their role.
All the best,
Christopher
LikeLike
Kudos to you chris on this subject..As a parent to a 23, 18, and 16yr old . you do hope and pray that all you have taught them about this matter will stick, especially from the moral upbringing, but like you said their are no promises in this life. For instance my 23 yr old has totally gone against alot of things we have morally taught him which is a shame, and I still get dissappointed and my heart is always heavy fo r him in the the things he choses that are not of God. Especially in this area. There is a reason why God instructs us to wait until we are married, so many people get screwed up having sex outside of marriage. We as parents should be living are lives the way God wants us to live our lives, so we may be an example to our children and pray in the end that their hearts would have deep desire to serve and please him with all there heart, but reality is it is hard in this day and age that we live in and you can only protect them so much.
LikeLike
I won’t have to deal with that for a few more years Shannon, but I’m sure it is very difficult. Still, I think the Christian position is pretty obvious and I’m aghast that so many professing Christians respond with animosity or disregard when it comes to the value of virginity. This is communicating to me on a deeper level the problems inherent in the church in general. It’s not merely that the church either does not know or does not see the value in knowing right from wrong, it’s that they have begun to measure good and evil through the lens of their own experiences and failures. What is good is not advisable because it avoids diffculty.
LikeLike
Very well put. My kids are seeing all around them first hand in school how many of these values have gone by the wayside. We are the minority in alot of our parenting principles and it’s a neverending battle to help my kids see what is right amongst a sea of what is wrong.
LikeLike
A friend sent me this one…
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2009/august/16.22.html
The Case for Early Marriage | Christianity Today | A Magazine of Evangelical Conviction
LikeLike
To another friend… “It’s hard”, is another way of saying that you don’t want to. That you don’t want to live the way that God has ordained that you live is neither uncommon nor particularly interesting. I have every compassion for you in your struggle with sin, but still, if we choose to sin, let’s not call it anything else. Let your sins be obvious to you. It makes them easier to repent of. And remember that bringing the innocent into sin is the greater crime.
LikeLike
In Reponse to a friend…
If you want to know my opinion as to the number one reason for the compromised state of our children’s sexuality: That I have never heard, in any Church, Presbyterian, Baptist, Calvary Chapel, Evangelical, Methodist, Episcopal, Anglican or other, either a single sermon or any kind of a coherent theology presented in favor of Virginity, or an endorsement of such. And I’ve been around quite a while.
LikeLike