Training Teens in Biblical Sexuality

Image by Polina Sergeeva

By Jennifer Matlock, Contributing Writer

Part One: The What and The Why

Let me be the first to say that I am not, by any means, an expert on the subject of training teens in Biblical sexuality.  My oldest child is only 14, and there are at least three more behind him.  We’ll see in about 15 years whether the seeds I’m trying to plant end up bearing the kind of fruit I’m hoping for.  But I’d like to share with you some of my thoughts and plans for helping my kids navigate the rough road of adolescence, particularly the sex part.

When it comes to teaching our kids about sexuality, we would be hard-pressed to find a topic more difficult or embarrassing to discuss.  Parents are led to believe that talking to kids about sex is difficult, awkward and unrewarding.  We get conflicting messages about when to do it, what to say, how to say it and why.  Then, we’re told that even if we do talk to them about it, the choices they make are not going to be based on what we’ve said, but what they see on TV and hear from peers.  And ultimately, all those choices are beyond our control anyway, so why even bother?

The What – Sexual Purity

I want more for my children than just being able to claim that they’re a virgin when they marry.  That in itself is a higher standard than a huge majority of parents hold their kids to.  It also tends to be the general standard of the church.  The typical stand on sexuality from the church is “don’t have sex until you’re married…oh, and don’t date non-Christians.”  The great majority of churches never go beyond those vague rules.

Image by Tim Green aka atoach

In today’s sex-saturated culture, getting to your wedding day as a virgin is not only difficult, it’s exceptionally rare.  The reality of our morally ambiguous world doesn’t allow for JUST a “Don’t-have-sex- before- marriage” worldview.   If this is the only standard we ask kids to aim for, they’ll end up teetering on the edge of a cliff, one slip away from the thin line that separates actual sexual intercourse and all other sexual activity.  Many teens (and even pre-teens) today are even turning to activities like oral sex, anal sex and mutual masturbation to avoid ‘losing their virginity’.

I want more for my children than that.  GOD wants more for them than that.  As Christians, we’re called to live a set-apart life – not just sexually, but in every aspect of our lives.  When it comes to relationships and sexuality, a set-apart life includes sexual purity. 

God knows our hearts.  When He said that “among you, there should not be a hint of sexual immorality” He didn’t mean to make sure that on your wedding day you need to be able to pass the ‘by the book’ virginity test.  He is asking us to remain sexually pure and save our whole sexual self for marriage, only marriage and nothing but marriage.

Image by monstrue

There is a huge difference between ‘technically a virgin’ on and ‘sexually pure’.  My hope is that I can teach this to my children in a way that they not only learn it, but they internalize it and claim it for themselves.

It’s going to be a battle.  Today, kids are growing up in an era where hookups, sexting, booty calls and ‘friends with benefits’ are all seen as normal among teenagers.  Those who admit they want to be a virgin when they get married are considered to be freaks.  Someone who aims for more than that – for sexual purity – is laughed at and mocked. 

The Why (train children for sexual purity)?

What’s the big deal?  Isn’t that whole ‘purity’ thing outdated and archaic?  No, it’s Biblical.

People try to push that aside saying, that stuff in the Bible only really applied to Bible times.  No, God’s word is living, breathing and ALWAYS relevant.  We live in an utterly perverted, completely corrupted culture. It’s a culture of hook-up, shack-up, break-up.  It’s a culture of self-worship.  In fact, we justify not quite following God’s commands by doing the exact thing that got humankind into sin in the first place.  We look at His laws and say “Did God really say…” just as the serpent said to Eve.

The problem is that all too often, we look at the boundaries that God gives us and see them as obstacles instead of protection.  Many people say “God just wants me to be miserable” or “He doesn’t want us to have any fun.”  The truth is, when God says “Don’t…” what He’s really telling us is, “Don’t hurt yourself.”  Biblical principles are in place to guide us to a life of fulfillment and joy.

Our response comes down to a very direct challenge: “Do we believe?”  Do we believe that the God who created us really knows what’s best for us?  Does He understand the desires we have?  Can we trust that He knows us better than we know ourselves, and – more importantly – is better at providing for us that we are?

Surprisingly, training teens for sexual purity is a lot more about answering those questions than having the ‘awkward conversation’ or running through the unbelievably short and vague list of dating rules for the Christian teen.  We have to train our children to understand God’s character and their relationship to Him if we want them to take sexual purity seriously.

I want to explain what I mean by training by sharing with you the research of a man named William McGuire.   McGuire was a psychologist and researcher who came up with Inoculation Theory.  Many of his studies were done using college students, and I’d like to share one of those with you (with thanks to Dr. Jeff Myers for sharing it with me).

Image by Offut Air Force Base

McGuire studied persuasion, so he had the students listen to a lecture and afterwards fill out a survey to see how they fared.  Before the lecture he divided them into six groups:

1. Group one was told “Go in, sit down, listen to the speech.”
2. Group two was stopped and asked “Do you, or do you not, believe it is a good idea to brush your teeth?”  They all agreed that brushing teeth was a good thing. 
3. Group three was stopped and told “Before you go in there, I want you to know that the speaker is going to try to persuade you that brushing your teeth is a bad idea.”
4. Group four was stopped, warned about what the speaker was going to talk about and then told one specific detail that the speaker would use to convince them. 
5. Group five was stopped, given the same information as group four and then told how to refute that detail. 
6. Group six was given all the information group five was given.  Then they were warned that they would hear other arguments against tooth brushing and that they would need to be prepared to respond with an intelligent defense against those arguments.

Now, it’s probably pretty obvious that the group of students that would be least likely to agree with the speaker (or stop brushing their teeth) would be group six.  What’s surprising, though, is that the group that was most persuaded to stop tooth brushing was not the group that was sent in unprepared (group 1).  The group that was most persuaded that brushing your teeth is a bad idea was the group that had reviewed what they believed to be true before going in (group 2).

It is not enough to give our kids the Christian dating rules.  We can’t send them out into the world knowing that they need to date Christians and not have sex until they’re married.  By doing that, we’re actually preparing them to be easily persuaded by the morally bankrupt sexual philosophies of the world.

As parents, we must inoculate our teens against this culture of sexual recklessness. 

• ·         To train them, we must start by warning them that they are going to encounter a lot of beliefs counter to their own. 
• ·         We need to use the Bible to show them why God does not want them to be persuaded by those things. 
• ·         We need to encourage them to take ownership of a personal relationship with God so that they are able to Biblically, intelligently respond to other persuasions as they encounter them. 
• ·         Most of all, we need to model for them that the best way to do this is by putting God in authority of our own lives and pursuing a life that is set-apart for Him in every aspect.

That’s the ‘What’ and the ‘Why’.  Part two is going to focus on the practical application – the ‘When’ and the ‘How’.  I’ll also include a link to a whole list of resources, so stay tuned for part two, coming later in July!

PS – In working on this series, I posted a very informal – completely anonymous – poll on my Facebook page and several e-mail groups.  I’d love it if you would participate.  It’s only 5 questions and takes less than a minute to complete.  It’s by no means scientific, but I’ll be sharing the results in the next article.

When you’re done with the poll, come back and share your thoughts, or your questions, about teens and Biblical sexuality.  I’d love to know what you’re thinking.

Jennifer Matlock started writing before she actually knew how, pestering friends and family members to write down the stories she wanted to tell and ideas she wanted to document.  She’s been doing it on her own for over 30 years now, and currently writes about life, marriage, parenting, Christianity, homeschooling, Real Food, politics, having a temper tantrum in Target and more at Love Will Be Our Home.  Jennifer married Andrew in 1995, and is a full-time stay-at-home(schooling)-mom to Ryan (14), Aaron (11), Kaitlyn (7) and Megan (5).