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Mar 18, 2025 18:00pm

Letters to My Children: Teen Purity (Part 2)

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To My Children,

“Do not rebuke an older man but encourage him as you would a father, younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, younger women as sisters, in all purity” (1 Timothy 5:1–2).

As we talked about in my last letter, physical purity is so much more than saving yourself for marriage. Purity has to do with not stirring up or awakening desires in yourself or others that are only supposed to be fulfilled in marriage—and that doesn’t just mean sex. Purity has a lot to do with the intention of the heart. Here’s what I mean:

If you desire to love your neighbor, as the second greatest commandment requires, you will want to do them good and not harm; you will be looking out for their interests and not just your own. Here’s how that applies to purity: you will be watching out for your neighbor, desiring, so far as it depends on you, to not lead them down a dangerous path of temptation or sin. You will desire to protect their heart and emotions from getting entangled in things they are not ready for. Paul tells Timothy to treat younger women as sisters and older women as mothers, in all purity. Likewise, we can apply this principle in reverse: women can treat young men as brothers and older men as fathers, in all purity. Some of the definitions of pure include, “free from dirt, taint, or what pollutes; free from moral fault or guilt; marked by chastity; containing nothing that does not properly belong.” To treat people in all purity means that your relationships with others should not include anything that doesn’t properly belong to that kind of relationship.

Physical and emotional desires and intimacies that occur within marriage do not properly belong to any other kind of relationship. Loving your neighbor and treating others in all purity means you do not try to stir up those kinds of emotions or responses in them. This includes our in-person interactions as well as our phone conversations and messages. Do you like someone? Do you think you might like to marry them someday? Then look out for their best interests and do not awaken love until it pleases, or until the time is right for marriage (Song of Solomon 8:4).

Purity goes much farther than our outward, physical actions. It gets down to the intention of our heart. You may be physically restraining yourself from sexual impurity, but do you desire holiness in your heart? Or are you inwardly wishing you could do those things God forbids and cursing His good laws in your mind? Do you desire the good of your neighbor? Do you want what God says is best for them, and do you seek to protect their purity? Or do you just wish to have your desires fulfilled on your terms? Doing things God’s way and in God’s timing is always best for you and the people around you. It may look drastically different from how the rest of the world is doing things, especially in dating and romantic interests, but there is great blessing in following God in how we act in our relationships. Remember, God calls us to be holy because He is holy.

I love you. Grow in godliness and in your love for God.