Liberating Our Teens from Sexual Lies

By: American Decency Staff

A BIBLICAL UNDERSTANDING OF SEX

Our teens need to have a biblical understanding of sex in order to navigate the challenges that await them in college. For starters, let’s define the term, not on an anatomical level but at a foundational level. Here’s how pastor and author Tim Keller puts it:

Sex is perhaps the most powerful God-created way to help you give your entire self to another human being. Sex is God’s appointed way for two people to reciprocally say to one another, “I belong completely, permanently, and exclusively to you.”¹

And that’s true. But Keller (and the Bible) would go a step further. Sex is a physical picture of a spiritual reality: God wants to dwell among and deeply know his people. God invented sex not just to propagate the human race and to give us enjoyment but to be a picture of the salvation story—Jesus Christ laying down his life for us (his bride) to bring us back to God (see Ephesians 5:25-27; 1 Peter 3:18). Gerald Hiestand and Jay Thomas say it well:

God created sex to serve as a living portrait of the life-changing spiritual union that believers have with God through Christ. . . . God created the physical oneness of sex to serve as a visible image, or type, of the spiritual union that exists between Christ and the church.²

At stake in our sexuality is nothing less than our representation of Jesus Christ’s relationship with those who follow him.

Maybe you’re saying, “This all sounds great for an adult Sunday school class, but is it really practical to explain this to our teens?” While I wouldn’t expect the same level of interest from a 12- or 13-year-old as from a 17- or 18-year-old, I do believe teens need a big-picture perspective on what sexual intimacy represents if they’re going to win the battle for purity in college and throughout their adult lives. And a biblical understanding of sex is the best antidote to the culture’s sexual lies. Our culture believes that sex is all about me. My desires. My satisfaction. It’s about using others, not serving them. But the Bible tells us that sex is all about God and his glorious work in bringing us into relationship with him. In the context of marriage, sex is about giving ourselves to serve our spouse (see 1 Corinthians 7:3-5).

A BIBLICAL MOTIVATION FOR PURITY

A biblical understanding of sex leads to a biblical motivation for abstaining until marriage…

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