Ep.61 - When you are Deconstructing Purity Culture

If you have been around Christians who are "deconstructing" their faith then you definitely have become familiar with the phrase "purity culture."  For deconstructionists "purity culture" is the source of significant pain that has motivated them to rethink Jesus and how He is portrayed in American evangelicism.   In this episode, we take a deep dive into what "purity culture" is believed to be, what its dangers are, and what dangers can come from deconstructing it.  Purity is definitely a delicate topic for fallen creatures who are saved by a lot of grace so take a listen and explore if your approach has brought you closer to Christ or has pushed you further away.  Enjoy!
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right, everyone, and welcome back to the Christianing Podcast, the place where we take the theology of Sunday to the reality of Monday. Where we learn how to Christian well in the everyday, the regular, the routine, the mundane. Where 95% of our lives actually exist, if you're a regular Jane or Joe like myself. But, if you have the Holy Spirit in you, you have a desire to represent Christ as best you possibly can in all those ways. all those regular everyday situations conversations relationships and so thank you for tuning in uh this is this is the place for you this is the podcast for you um yeah some uh some good feedback on our first episode back from a little bit of a summer break a little bit of summer hiatus when we Talked through a little bit of the transgender stuff as our Vice President Kamala Harris made headlines by announcing her pronouns and all that good stuff. Had her viral moments that we talked about, but shout out to my dad. Gave me some good feedbacks. Good stuff for me to be thinking through. It was that concept of human flourishing that really, really helped him as a compassionate Christian man who desperately wants to see just the goodness of Christ available to all people regardless of their background and things of that nature and that concept of just what we're after as Christians is human flourishing for everybody. And I didn't realize that's been a driving force of mine for many years. I think that just kind of comes with the territory when you're in education as long as I am because that's really just the business. We're trying to set up our kids for the most flourishing future as possible. So we always think through things on that lens. So if that helps you, especially when you're thinking through these controversial topics that it's just as Christians, you feel like you're so misunderstood because at the end of the day, if you're a follower of Christ, like an authentic follower of Christ, man, you, you really deep down, you don't, you want to see everybody in the family. You want to see, you know that the grace of God is available to everybody. And, but there's just these cultural barriers that have been formed, um, around the church. Some of it's our fault. Some of it isn't our fault. Like I shared last episode, some of it's just a matter of we have a worldview that, yeah, you really have to buy into the whole shebang in order to really grab onto it. So we're not going to catch everybody. There's just going to be at the end of the day, I just don't buy into it. I just don't believe in it. you know and and that's fine but um but i know so many of us struggle with the fact that we're kind of labeled as transphobic or homophobic or anti this anti whatever it's like no that's that that's not it at all like we we follow a savior who loves who who embraces who shows grace and builds bridges and relationships with every single type of person. And, you know, it's just the devil's literally in the details of what this all means. But I know for Pops, just being able to frame, you know, frame our perspective in just the same way. This is what we believe brings the most flourishing to humanity you know and so there's some stuff yeah that we all have to get over and it's not just it's just not um uh people that are are in situations of you know homosexuality or you know transgenderism things like that like like we like me as a heterosexual male like there is a lot that i had to like get over repent of um improve upon because just sexuality period has just been really uh demented by sin is and all of us every single one of us homo hetero trans you name it our sexuality has been impacted by the fall of mankind and our sin and so every single one of us has When we come to Christ and Christ shines a light on things, we all have stuff that we have to work through, that we have to get over, and we have to submit ourselves to. We're submitting to a greater definition, a greater version of sexuality and things of that nature. And I know that for so many of you guys, I know that just gets lost in the cultural conversation. Saw that to say that if that helped you spread that, really being able to form a biblical worldview that the whole goal is to show every single human being what their most flourishing version of themselves is. And yes, there is going to be submission. There is going to have to be humility involved in that. And that's not just for the homosexual, the transgender, whatever. That's for all of us. Heterosexual, everybody, we all have to, the light of Christ is going to shine on all of us when he reveals himself. And we're all going to see, like, I'm telling you, my eyes were open to a lot of garbage in my heterosexual desires. And I've been, the Lord's been working on me for a long time. So just, I don't know, that's the way I see all this stuff. Like, I don't see myself differently. than anybody else who's, who's, who's working through a different sexual perspective. I'm like, I just, I see us as all the same. And, but the goal for all of us is still the same. It's, it's Christ likeness. It's submitting to God's design so that, so that I can have the most flourishing version of my life and future. So anyways, just was encouraged to share that with you. And if that's helped, we'll keep building on that and we'll keep applying that in our different discussions on different topics just to kind of show that, yes, the end goal for us as believers, as we represent Christ, is to show the world how Christ has shown us the best version of Christ. human experience and all that good stuff so so anyways today um we're gonna we're gonna go kind of back to some some previous conversations that we had that got some some good feedback had some some good friends of mine just kind of you know share how they were ministered to through you know we had a couple episode edition on deconstruction and And just kind of that's this Christian cultural phenomenon going on right now. And I kind of just broke it down over, you know, big picture. And so just real quick, really what Christians that are deconstructing, it's not a bad concept. I know there's a lot of fundamentalists out there that are kind of stressed out about it, but Just when you understand the gospel and you understand that everything that humans touch has a very good potential to and a very high probability that we're going to stain it with our humanity and our sin. So as we build our faith structures from the time we're saved to wherever you're at today, there's going to be holes and there's going to be some material holes Jesus kind of used the analogy of hay and straw and wood versus stone. So what the gospel is, what Jesus is, is stone. So we want to grab, he is the cornerstone, and we want to build our faith structure on him as the cornerstone. And we want to get all the stones, like really just... permanent, solid, indestructible material to build our faith structures on. But what we're all going to find out is that depending on when you were saved and what kind of tradition you were saved in, you're going to find that there's some wood, hay, and straw kind of weaved in with those indestructible stones. And so really what the deconstruction process, what it should be, according to Christ is identifying the wood, hay, and straw, letting it get burnt up or taking it out yourself and replacing those concepts, those beliefs, whatever those are, those traditions with stone so that we're constantly, as we deconstruct, we're constantly pulling out the material that won't stand the test of time. It won't stand the trials of life. It won't stand the fires of life. It ultimately will be burnt up. And so by God's grace, he will illuminate himself to us so that we can, as we move forward as part of sanctification, we'll just be replacing the perishable with the imperishable. And as we mature and get older, like our faith structure just gets stronger, stronger, more indestructible. I can just say that's I've been serious about Christianity since I was 19 years old, and all I can say is my faith structure that I've built my life around, it's completely different than it was when I was 19. I had the cornerstone of Christ in place when I was 19, but that was just about it. And the rest was just grabbing wood, hay and straw and trying to move forward. And then God's been just gracious to show me, hey, there's some straw there attached to that belief that you have. Here's some stone from the word that you can replace that with. And so now, you know, I don't know where I'm at, but I know that there's a lot more stone there. in my faith structure than there was. So yeah, we're not necessarily afraid of deconstruction. I think there's a culture that comes with it that we'll kind of get into specifically today that's something to just be mindful of. That's kind of what I'm picking up on. The concept of deconstruction, like we talked about in previous episodes, you can scroll back on the podcast feed and find those episodes when you're deconstructing part one and part two, if you didn't, and share those out. If you know some people that are deep into this or you think this is helpful for anybody in your life, please share away. But today... get very specifically into a concept, into a phrase that comes up a lot in deconstructing culture. So really what I hope this podcast is, as the Christianing podcast is, filling what I see as just kind of a big void in the Christian culture. You have some strong deconstructionist voices and please pay attention to them. I I do. I learn a lot, get a lot of understanding. Again, some places I would recommend like Voxology, my friend Mike Erie, they've built over the years. He's one of the first Christian podcasters and he's built quite a large following, does a great job. He's just got a tremendous personality, tremendous voice. He's just a great dude and he's been at it for a long time and And then he's got Phil Vischer, who's one of the original creators of Veggie Tales. He's got the Holy Post podcast. I'd say they would be kind of respected voices in the kind of deconstructing cultural vibe. Other names that I think I've shared before, Shane Claiborne, his buddy, he'll pop up on the Voxology podcast of his book. Why am I... I shared it before. Oh, my goodness. Why am I drawing a blank on it? Anyways, Shane Claiborne's first big bestseller. I read it, and it just destroyed my life for a time, and I mean that in a somewhat positive way. But anyway, so you've got that kind of section that's getting some good airtime. It's building some audiences, and then you kind of have your– you're kind of fundamentalist traditional voices that see things very black and white. They have a tough time with nuance. They have a tough time with just, this is either good or it's bad or it's sin or it's not sin. If it's sin, then we just, we have a really tough time understanding it, build relationship with it. And, you know, they have all kinds of word, Bible to support and And so it just oftentimes, like both voices, I would say they have a lot of Bible that supports their perspectives. But I would say this is what I found just as I've been in both camps and I've kind of swam in both pools quite a bit in different times of my life. Like you kind of have to overlook everything. You have to favor some passages over other passages. That's kind of what I found. I really wanted, really dedicated my life to finding something comprehensive, something that I didn't have to disregard or discard certain passages of Scripture in order to really make my points and hold to my convictions. And so that's what I hope. we can fill the void as far as like understanding the deconstructionist culture, understanding the fundamentalist kind of traditional culture of American evangelicalism, you know, understanding, you know, really important to understand like their convictions, where they see things are, where they need to be, and then, but really understanding I hate to say I'm somewhere in the middle because I just don't think middle is ever where we're after as Christians. But just a place where both perspectives can be honored at the same time. That you don't really have to feel like one has to win over the other because when you take those two perspectives together and you bind it by gospel truth, I think you get kind of more where Jesus is sitting. Um, and that's kind of, I don't know, that's kind of, I don't know if that sounds very prideful, you know, um, apologize if it is, but, uh, but yeah, I don't, I don't, I don't see the need to ascribe to or disregard either voice. I really don't, I really pay attention. Um, to it all and learn and grow and understand it from it all. And it helps me to really go deeper into the word and my understanding and to become more comprehensive. So that's what this is all about. So the phrase that we're going to dive deep into today, that when you're in deconstructing circles, you're going to hear it a lot. You're going to hear a ton about purity culture. And I just... once I started really paying attention to deconstruction and listening to these voices and I can't, there's not like a podcast episode where the term purity culture doesn't, doesn't show up. And at first you're just like, huh, you know, that's, that's interesting. Um, you know, I never really, really thought about that. Um, and, and, uh, kind of the basis of purity is, uh, of purity culture is, Well, I think we'll get into this in a sec. I guess we'll dive straight into it and kind of get into, I don't know, everything that we need to think through when it comes to sexual purity. And it plays a significant role in the American church culture. It always has. And as you read the Bible, it plays a very significant role in just historical Christianity. It is routinely, as you're seeing the formation of the early church in the New Testament, is routinely instructed about, and there's very clear instructions given. And human sexuality has been a driving force of culture since Adam first laid eyes on Eve. And so, yeah, I mean, the Bible doesn't ignore it. As a matter of fact... takes it straight on. That's to our advantage. That's to our good. A couple words of the day we'll have today. We'll have one quick one just to kind of get us started, kind of overarching. what is purity culture, what's all involved, what we need to be careful of, things of that nature. And then a second word of the day, we'll get into some very specific, pull some very specific tangible applications out of. And then hopefully at the end of it, when you come across the term purity culture, or you have a friend or whatever, that's just like, yeah, I've been really hurt by purity culture. That's kind of what will, what, how it'll be packaged to you um you can maybe have a better understanding number one of what they're talking about and number two like how you can lovingly come alongside and help them with some of the good intentions in there and steer them away from from some of the unintended harm that that can come from from it all so let's let's dive into um what do you do when you're deconstructing purity culture. So first let's look at Titus 1, 15 and 16. I think there's just a great overarching kind of place to start because I think we can see both sides to the issue here. So Titus 1, 15 says,"...to the pure, all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure." but both their minds and consciences are defiled. So verse 15 is doing what the Bible often does, talking in clear generalities, where the Bible does this a lot, especially in the epistles of the New Testament. And we've got to be mindful of it, that these very binary categories are presented here. And then from it, there's realities and consequences that are attached to each category. But obviously, there's a ton in just the everyday, minute-by-minute workings of a sinful, redeemed Christian's life. There's a ton of nuance. And by God's grace, he speaks to all that as well. But... So this is where we have two categories. You have pure and then you have defiled. Pure, obviously, is being associated with the people of God, the children of God, the true disciples, the people that have been redeemed and bought by the blood of Jesus Christ. And then the other category is the defiled. It says the unbelieving. So these are categories of... spiritual spiritual truths okay you have pure defiled so on one picture you're you're either one or the other in the grand scheme of spirituality there is people that are bought by the blood of Jesus Christ and therefore his blood has purified us has made us pure so on the 30,000 foot level You're pure. And then there's those that have rejected Christ, have not come to faith in Christ, are unbelieving, whatever. And because they haven't been benefactors of the redeeming work of Jesus, they are still in the sinful, defiled state. So that's kind of gospel, as Matt Chandler would say, kind of gospel in the air. kind of thing categories so at the same time you're one of these two things while you're also a while you are in the pure category you have you're impure you're defiled because of your your unsanctified flesh that still is wreaking havoc so you're both categorized pure and impure now gospel on the ground like ground level like you had a lustful thought that's that's in the impure category so that's where it gets very you know complicated and confusing for for us christians on the ground because where we actually feel the gospel is here on the ground at the bottom floor level. So understand that, you know, we have to, as we think through the Bible, apply the Bible, we have to understand these realities. There's these grand 30,000 foot categories, and then there's these ground level. They're both at play at the same time. So this is one of those kind of, big picture verses. So 16, continuing with the defiled, they profess to know God, but they define him by their works. They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work. So within the defiled category, Titus and A lot of the Pauline, a lot of the epistles address this kind of what Jesus would call wolf in sheep's clothing. There is this reality where we can profess righteousness. We can profess with our mouths that I am part of the pure category, but the Bible says you will know them by their fruit. But they deny him by their works. So That's what we want to be careful of always, always. I think that's especially in American Christianity, that verse 16, that they profess to know God, but they deny him by their works. That's something we always need to kind of have sitting in the back of our mind. We don't want to throw that judgment or accusation out, but we want to kind of have it sit in the back of our minds and always be understanding that when I step into a church building, there more likely than not is going to be the pure, the defiled, and the defiled who profess to know God. There's kind of going to be three categories. And it's that last category, that defiled who profess to know God. That's the ones we've got to be careful of. We just got to be, we have to be discerning. And really, so, just walking in the door, especially in modern America. And the reason I say especially in modern America, and I've shared this I'm sure in the past, is... we don't have the benefits that the first century church had. And I say that very humbly because there are benefits that I love and I enjoy and I really can't imagine living another way. We have freedom in this country to pursue Christ without loss of life or property or loss of loved ones. That wasn't... the truth of the first century church. So when we read the New Testament, we have to understand that that was a very real backdrop. The church had a natural purification process because you would have been kind of crazy to just profess Christ in a lot of first century realities just to get into a club, because that profession of Christ oftentimes also came with loss of privileges, freedoms, property, through persecution and things of that nature. So it's been said that persecution always makes the true church stand up, because if you think about it, it makes sense. In a persecuted situation, you're only going to subscribe to it unless you really, really, really believe it's true. But even in the first century setting, we see, because it's taught about a lot, that there was still that third category, that's wolf in sheep's clothing category. So it wasn't foolproof, but we don't have, in a modern America, we don't have any of that. I tell people all the time, There's a hundred reasons in America why somebody would profess Christianity. There's only one good one. There's only one good reason. But there's a hundred other reasons why someone might say, Hey, no, I'm a Christian. The list is really long and endless from like, Hey, like me, I run a Christian school. Hey, I grew up in a Christian school. Everybody here says they're Christian. I want to fit in. So I'm going to say I'm a Christian. And they haven't been truly like born again, you know, transformation, you know, things of that nature. You know, that's one example. Or, you know, there's prosperity gospel reason, like people are down on their luck, have bankruptcy, lose a lot of money, whatever, you know. hit rock bottom, so to speak, so they go to God for the sole motivation that if I profess you and include you in my life, my money will start coming back in. You don't see that in the Bible anywhere as the only one reason why you would... would really truly follow Jesus. So anyways, we in modern America, we've got to be careful of that verse 16. We always got to be mindful of it. So when it comes to purity culture, there's the danger of purity culture. So that's the first thing. Why was such a phrase even created? So And this is the way I see it. The danger of purity culture is sexual purity can make you right with God. That's what I see when people are deconstructing this and they say, I've been harmed by this. What they're really saying is because of the culture that surrounded me, I was led to believe that if I did the correct things sexually, I would be clean before God. That would be like a top three thing that I could do to get my life right before God and they found out over time that I was a straight, heterosexual person that didn't have premarital sex and I still am as far away from God as I was when I started. That's real. That's a very, in your deconstruction process, if that's some straw that's been built into your faith structure, that's a good thing to get out of there. I can understand it. I was serious about Christ when I was 19. I prayed a prayer when I was five with my mom and went to church from age five all the way through. So I can feel that, especially in youth ministry, children's church, things of that nature. As adults, we want what's best for the children, and we know that's obeying God. We know that's obeying His precepts. But especially as youth, in our immaturity of mind, we interpret those moralistic teachings as... salvific realities meaning that if i do these things these keep me with god and that's so anti-gospel because we know jesus i am the way the truth the light no one comes to the father but through me my sexuality can't make me right with god only jesus can and then when jesus bible is very clear you'll know them by their fruits When Jesus is alive in me, my sexuality gets transformed as well. Like I said earlier, whether you're heterosexual, homosexual, transgender, whatever it is, like your sexual desires and your convictions and your beliefs about it change. Every single person, every single person, every single sexual being. And he molds us more and more and more into the design that we went over last episode the design of sexuality that Jesus clearly laid out in his teaching and ministry that we went over last week. So if you haven't caught that episode, go back to that. It connects. So that's one of the big dangers of purity culture. And due to our immaturity, especially as we're being raised in the church, We don't automatically get this discerning ability to be able to receive teaching about sexual purity and not accidentally making it into a way to be right with God. So that's something that definitely needs to be analyzed. And I know a lot of places it is taught as kind of a salvation teaching. prerequisite, you know, and it's not implicit. It can be explicit, you know, so if you've been impacted by that, that's where the validity of a term purity culture makes sense. You know, so that's really the danger of purity culture. So then there's a danger of deconstructing purity culture, right? And that's what we see here in Titus 1.15. This is what can get lost when you kind of identify like, oh my goodness, I believed I was right before God because I did the traditional acceptable sexual things and then I found out that I'm just as bad off as anybody else. But there's a danger... There's an unintended consequence that you have to be mindful of. Because we see in Titus 1.15, to the pure, all things are pure. So that's where that 30,000 foot category that you're in starts to seep into our day to day. According to the Bible, when Jesus redeems us, he purifies us. We begin this process of purification. of desiring and loving purity more and more and more and more. And you'll grow in that. You'll grow in that. I was a mess in that earlier. And by God's grace, man, he's done a lot of purity work in my heart and mind to where I don't have to try. It's miraculously in me now. So what you have to understand, pure people love purity. That's a great... kind of target to realize that people that have been purified by Christ will grow in their purity now the gospel does that growth so your growth could be stunted because of some of the harm done to you by quote unquote purity culture but we can't lose that that target and we need to understand that impure people love to defile pure things so that's the danger we need to be that we need to be mindful of that that pure people love purity but impure people love to defile pure things so we want to be mindful in our own hearts and in the culture around me that i'm surrounding myself with you know really are these people after like replacing the straw and hay with stone? Or do they just want to burn the whole thing down? That's what you've always got to be mindful of in deconstructing circles because, again, according to this word, there are people in that movement that will profess to know God and they'll use this kind of open-mindedness And this hurt of other peoples to bring in, to defile what God is doing. So here's the thing. As you're deconstructing purity culture, you've got to ask yourself, what's the end goal? What's the end goal? Is it, one, to remove anti-gospel obstacles in the pursuit of purity? If that's your goal, keep going. Keep going. The Lord, the Holy Spirit will lead you well through that. If it's... Sorry, let me grab a sip here. Just working through a little cold. So if your end goal is to remove anti-gospel obstacles, that straw and hay in pursuit of stone, pure stone, then I think you're going to navigate this well. Or is the goal of yourself or maybe those around you to make the church comfortable with impurity? I've been around deconstructing kind of cultures enough to know that that vibe's definitely there. It can be there. I'm not saying always all the time. I'm not saying these... Like these voices that I kind of told you, Voxology, you know, Holy Post, places like that. I'm not saying that that's where they're at. That's not my point. I'm not trying to put the whole movement in there. But there's a big side door that's open to that if you're not careful, if you're not careful. And that needs to be analyzed and challenged when it's found. What you don't want, this is not the end goal, you don't want to be like, okay, there's this terrible thing called purity culture that's done a lot of damage. True. So, what we want is just the church to be more comfortable with impurity. That's what immature flesh will desire. That's what we'll instinctually desire first and foremost. So we got to be careful for that because that'll be the fleshly side of us. That'll be our first knee jerk. It's like, oh man, yeah. Yeah. My kind of fundamentalist traditional background really, really jacked me up on some stuff here when it came to sexual purity. So yeah, I'm just going to, I'm going to kind of push the other direction and talk about sex a lot. And, you know, really like, God's grace is just that I should be able to just experience how I experience and kind of experience how I want. And God's so loving and gracious, He'll be cool with it. He'll be cool with it. If that's the end result of your deconstruction, then you're going to end up in a far worse place than where you began because you're going to be adding wood, hay, and straw and removing, maybe accidentally removing some stone. So that's the deal there. So that's kind of the big picture, the danger of purity culture and the dangers of deconstructing purity culture. That's what you need to be mindful of. So a couple things. We'll go real quick. I don't want to go too long here, but... So we want to avoid a road to Titus 1.16, that they profess to know God but deny him by their works. We acknowledge that as Christians that road exists. We just don't ever want to go down it. We don't want to put ourselves on that road, walking that road with anybody who's on that road. So... Flip to Ephesians 5, 3 to 14, and I want to go through these things hopefully really, really fast. So I'm going to read the text first because I think this passage shows us what that road to Titus 1.16 is. So hopefully within nine minutes we can knock this out. Ephesians 5, 3-14 But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among the saints. Let there be no filthiness, nor foolish talk, nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving. For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous, that is an idolater, has no 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. Therefore do not become partakers with them, for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light, for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true. And try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord." take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them, for it is shameful even to speak in the things that they do in secret. But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, for anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you. Okay. A lot going on, like, spent a couple hours kind of breaking that down. Big picture, I hope you noticed that This passage starts very 30,000 foot, binary spiritual categories. You got impure, defiled. You have... sons you know obedient disobedience you have those two binary categories constantly there and then then you see it it tries it starts to transition it more to to ground level therefore do not become partners with them that there's just this there's this reality that's uh there's there's two dynamics at play at the same time so so wisdom is that If you're part of the pure category, you do everything you can to avoid the impure and don't be partakers with them. Five quick things from a practical nature that will help you understand if you're on the road to Titus 1.16. in your deconstruction efforts okay that's so this is going to kind of help you show like these are five markers for you to walk through to be like am I on the the healthy deconstruction path or am I on the unhealthy deconstruction path? So first thing you see in verse four, let there be no filthiness, nor foolish talk, nor crude joking. So for us in modern times, as Christians, we're very good at kind of minding our tongue in spiritual circles. But really where this will come to bear for you as a modern technological person, the question is, what media do you desire when you're flipping through Netflix, HBO Max, whatever your thing is, Amazon Prime Video, whatever. That crude filthiness, foolish talk, crude joking, that's really going to be evidenced by what you get the most entertainment enjoyment from. So if you find yourself like... Really, you look at the stuff that you desire and that you desire to consume. It would be in that category, filthy, foolish talk, crude joking. That's where you want to be mindful. You could be on the road to Titus 1.16. You could be on the road to professing to know God but denying Him with your works because it's those private desires that when it's just me and my iPad, And I just want to chill and just enjoy life for two hours. What's your go-to? And is it just filthy and gross, but anything more positive would just be boring and dumb? You see this in junior high and high school big time because they're still maturing. So they still have that natural instinct to really... crude nasty stuff and like good positive stuff it's like oh Mr. Scott that's lame that's dumb like I don't like like hammer them on it because I know that that's that's that's a big sign of their maturity and I'm here to help or their immaturity I'm here to help mature them in that way but as once you get into like college beyond like you you should be in a place where you where that Just that love for purity really shows up in your media consumption. I'm not saying we watch cheesy Christian stuff all the time, but there's a spectrum of media out there. There's just stuff that's just gross and nasty. You can't entertain yourself without just... horrendous stuff. So anyways, verse 4, first marker is what media do you desire? That will give you an indication of where you're at. Also verse 4, it says, but instead let there be thanksgiving. Ask yourself this question, are you truly grateful for the purity influences in your life? It's one thing to to have purity influences in your life that you think, oh, what a nag, what a drag. But truly, what this is saying, let there be no filthiness or foolish talk or joking, but instead, thanksgiving. So what that means is, instead, everything that God has put in my life to help encourage purity, like, thank God for that. I'm so grateful for that. that helps me stay off the road to Titus 1.16. So thank you, God, for that. And yeah, it can be annoying in the moment. I'm not saying it feels great. I'm not saying you love every second of it. But yeah, I'll tell you, because I met my wife kind of when I was first getting serious about Jesus, is she... She has been one of the greatest purity influencers in my life. And I can't imagine what my life would look like if she wasn't in it. I can't imagine. I'd be probably such a mess. Because God has used her so graciously and incredibly to really keep me on a road to just flourishing through just better sexual... just thoughts and and habits and things of that nature she's been she's been amazing i'm truly grateful to god for that and so if you disdain the influences in your life that are like hey go for you should really think about purity here then then the problem might be you it may not they might not just be a Purity culture, purity culture, they may be actually a grace of God in your life. So be mindful of that. Okay, so that's the second thing. Verse 5. For you may be sure that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, who is covetous, that is an idolater, has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ. So really what that gets to me is... Is Christ your comfort and your source of hope? So many times you read that verse and you think about the negative. Oh, it means you're damned to hell if you don't do everything right. You've got to add some gospel to really interpret that correctly. But really what that gets after to me is, is Jesus ultimately the place where I'm like, that's... That's my comfort. That's when I'm at my most peaceful and my most comforting, my most hopeful are those times when I'm just intimately connected to Christ. Then I think you're honoring what this verse is trying to get across. Because what I found with people that struggle with purity is A lot of times what happens is Christ is what they're avoiding to get what they want. So Christ isn't the comfort and the source of hope. Christ is the obstacle to what they believe is true joy. So if that's really your heart is where you see it like, you know what? Christ ain't my comfort. He ain't my source of hope. He's my nag. He's my killjoy. He's the one I've been spending the last few years trying to distance myself from because every time I think about him, I just feel dragged down. I don't get to be free the way I want to be free. So think through that. Let that be kind of the third marker that I see this passage laying out for us. And then, you know, we talked about this, but verse 11, we're just kind of skipping through quickly. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. And earlier in there, it says, verse 7, therefore do not become partners with them. So another marker to ask yourself, am I growing in purity? Not perfection. That's not perfection. the standard we're applying to this current version of ourselves. But incremental growth is what we are after. Like, am I growing in my desire for purity and my love of purity? Or do I seem to be going the opposite way to where I'm increasing in this area? My addictions, my vices, my issues are... growing growing growing and again it's we're not don't hold yourself to the standard of like this has been completely eradicated from my life that would be made to be a negative message from purity culture that i get i understand uh but just like if i were to look at the last two years of my life like man i see i see growth in this area man i'm not God, keep doing your work in me. I'm not there. I'm not where I just know I want to be, to be flourishing the way I want to flourish. But I just, I see it. I see it. It's coming. It's coming. That's so important because you see hope. Hope comes from that. Deeper faith comes from that. So that's really the question I get from kind of verses 7 to 11. And then... last marker and this is very specific for kind of purity culture deconstruction look at verse 12 for it is shameful even to speak of things that they do in secret so question as you're evaluating church and church culture and you're doing that thing when we're in deconstruction where you're like this is a good church that's a bad church you know you gotta be very careful with that stuff but is the question I would ask that I get from that verse. It's shameful even to speak of things that they do in secret. Is church sex talk a sign of authenticity for you? Because there's been this big push in kind of modern church circles that's like, church needs to be real. It needs to talk about sex and be real about it. It's a real thing. So, If you take that as a badge of, man, the more church sex talk, the better, the more real, the more... Be careful. You could be on that road to Titus 1.16. What I mean by that is, yes, should the church be leading the disciples of Christ into deep, deep understanding of human sexuality? Yes. there's a time and a place for that to be done in a healthy, good way. Let me give you an example of something I came across recently that I was like, ooh, man, that ain't it. Because I understand the intention, but the reality on the tens of thousands of listeners, I try not to name names. I only do it in situations where I feel like it's absolutely necessary, but kind of a well-known pastor, I was doing a video like Instagram Live or something with his wife. They do this kind of ministry over social media, which is great, wonderful. They have these talks. So they were talking about their sexual lives. But they were broadcasting it to the general public of tens of thousands of people. And they were... they were sharing very intimate, detailed convictions and beliefs about things that I was just putting myself in the foot of a 17-year-old just catching this. And all they heard was, oh, this is okay. This is okay. They just heard kind of this very intimate sexual concept since it was that the pastor that they look up to online includes it in their sexual activity this kind of more immature not married like oh well then this this is okay because that that's what happens that's what happens when in public ministry we have to keep our we do have to keep our public ministry kind of more broad. Yes, the Bible tackles sexuality, sexual immorality, but it doesn't go into super detail. It doesn't talk about specific acts. It's shameful even to speak of things that they do in secret. When your church talk is getting into specific acts of sexuality, that's where that's where purity culture can become dangerous or the deconstruction of purity culture can become dangerous because what people, what their human flesh is receiving is validation and permission to do things that the Bible forbids in majority of contexts. So we go deep with sex, but it's one-on-one. male-to-male, female-to-female, or mentoring couple to premarital couple. That's the time where the church can be most useful and healthy as now you can hear specifics. Even there, we don't need details, like deep details, but enough detail to understand what the person's talking about. And then you can respond a very tailored wisdom, message of wisdom from principles within the word to help those people individually work through the specifics of what they're actually talking about and the motivations of their heart and everything. Because sex is such a delicate... It's real and it's prevalent, but it's delicate. It is so delicate. A misuse of sex can take a Christian from joy to shame in five minutes, 30 seconds. That's how delicate and powerful sex is for the Christian. So because we can go from joy to shame almost immediately, We combat it usually by permission and acceptance of the shameful act. That's what we're after. But the gospel gives us a better way. So this whole kind of recent thing like, man, church... My church talks about sex. They're not afraid to get real. I would follow up and be like, okay, so what was the venue? What's the venue for these conversations? Public... pastor leading person to to whole group um stick with stick with scripture stick with the language of scripture now when you're individual counseling intimate that's when you can get You can drill down deep because now you have the context needed to know what's really going on to address things that are very delicate appropriately. So just keep that in mind. So the five markers in Ephesians 5 here that will help you as you're deconstructing purity culture know that... Am I heading down the road to Titus? Number one, what media do you desire? That will kind of show where you're at with filthiness, foolish talk. Two, are you grateful for the purity influences that God has placed in your life or are they nags? Are they people that you're trying to avoid? Three, is Christ your comfort and your source of hope when it comes to Um, all things of life, especially, uh, things, things of sexuality, or is he the, the source that, that, that you're avoiding? Like, are you avoiding your Bible like the plague? Because that's the word, the word is, is Christ, you know? So that's three, four. Are you growing in purity? We should all as, as, as the pure who loves things that are pure, uh, We'll be on a growth spectrum. It won't be like a perfect direct lineup. You know, there'll be peaks and valleys, but if you take a chunk of your life, you should see growth. Five, you know, kind of church culture, sex talk. Is that something that you're just, man, that's awesome. You know, that's the sign of a true, real church, an authentic church. You know, be careful with that kind of stuff because that... that can be evidence that your end goal may not be where it should be on this, okay? The solution, guys, to all five of those markers, if you answered in the negative on all those five markers where you're like, whoa, I might be on the road to Titus 116, Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you. The solution is always Christ. The solution is not more of you. The solution is not your willpower. The solution is not your righteousness. The solution is Christ. Run to Christ right now with what the Word just revealed to you, and just throw yourself through prayer. Jesus, wow. This was something I didn't realize was in my life. And just whatever it is that he just revealed to you through this discussion, go to Christ. Go to Jesus. He is the solution. He is the solution. Any other solution will keep you on the road to Titus 1.16. Jesus is the only one that he'll come in. The gospel's promise to you is you throw yourself at the foot of... of Christ, He will enter you and He will start miraculously reshaping you and He will change desires for impurity and He will replace them with desires for purity. It's crazy. It's happened in my life and I was as demented and perverted as any person there is and He has miraculously changed that. But I didn't change that. It wasn't my willpower. It was the power of Christ. Don't get it twisted. Run to Christ, run to Christ, run to Christ. All right. We have gone over an hour again, man. I hope these longer episodes still, hopefully you guys are able to like maybe break them up over a couple of drives or something like that and stay with it. Yeah. If this is helpful, please rate, review, subscribe, all that good stuff. You know, I will just say, taking the time to do this stuff, it's way more encouraging when people are connecting with it and downloading it than when you're getting crickets out there. So yeah, whatever you feel led to do on your end, go for it. We love you. And as always, until next time, Christian Well, my friend, have a great, great week.

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he taught me how to live my life as it should be he taught me how to turn my cheek when people laugh at me i've had friends before and i can tell you that he's one who will never leave you flat