Can Virginity Be a Non-Negotiable When Choosing a Spouse?

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Welcome to Bible Bash, where we aim to equip the saints for the works of ministry by answering the questions you're not allowed to ask.

We're your hosts, Harrison Kerrig and Pastor Tim Mullett, and today we'll be answering the age -old question, can virginity be a non -negotiable when choosing a spouse?

Now this is an episode that we were, if I pull back the curtain and expose the behind the scenes, we were originally planning on doing a different topic, but then

Tim, I think you ran a bunch of polls, I think yesterday, that were on this topic of virginity as a non -negotiable when choosing a spouse, and you got a little bit of pushback, right?

I mean, it seems like I got the internet a little bit mad at me. Just ever so slightly, huh?

I will confess that I got the internet a little bit mad at me. But I mean, originally the topic wasn't really intended to be, is virginity a non -negotiable?

One of the things I've noticed is that as I've seen people talk about this topic in general online, it seems that there's a lot of people who, when they talk about the topic of virginity, they are very hesitant to promote it today as a positive good anymore.

So this is something that really is a troubling phenomenon to watch because growing up,

I mean, virginity was something that was obviously praised and it was something that people should aspire to, and then the idea of saving yourself for marriage and then the idea of waiting for someone who also saves himself for marriage.

Growing up, that was something that was just conceived of as something that was honorable, something to aspire to, something that's praiseworthy, something that we should encourage.

But then I've noticed over the past few years, especially as you listen to Christians who talk about these things online, there seems to be a dramatic shift in the way that we understand that objective in general.

Almost as if there's something inherently prideful about that or there's something that is just ungracious, pharisaical, unforgiving about the idea of someone waiting for someone to come along who has saved himself for marriage.

I know that there's a variety of things that have led to that kind of phenomenon, but I started off the polls basically just trying to talk about virginity in general and try and just get a feel for where people are at on that topic.

Is this something that we should praise? Is this something that we should be seeking to work towards?

As a society, should we be striving to influence people to such a degree that that concept is something that we once again hold in honor and that we're aspiring towards and that we're praising?

Are people in agreement with that basic proposition? One of the things that I've noticed in doing the polls is that I think most people are on board with that project in general.

It's just that I don't think that there's widespread agreement on how we go about doing that. In fact, I think that anything that we do that would pursue that objective in general is going to be something that people are going to be hostile to.

As I'm looking out at this discussion in general and seeing the way that people are commenting on it and how they're reacting to the manosphere in general that is talking about this topic, it seems pretty obvious and pretty clear that there really isn't much we can do to actually try to work towards a society that once again values this concept.

It seems like any mechanism that we pursue in general is going to be viewed as suspicion. So part of the way the polls evolved as far as that's concerned is that as people are responding to me,

I'm trying to just get a feel for where they're at on this topic and what are the mechanisms that are allowed to try to pursue encouraging people to pursue virginity again.

And it doesn't seem like there's much of anything that we can do really that people would be on board with as it relates to that topic.

So I guess when it comes to... You mentioned that it seems like virginity is basically almost scorned in our society, right?

And it's viewed mainly as this sort of Pharisaical, you know, hey, get off your high horse and come down to the rest of us kind of thing to remain a virgin and save yourself for marriage.

So I guess why is it when I read through the Bible, especially the

Old Testament, one of the things that I see is that virginity is viewed or it's esteemed extremely highly.

Like it's a shameful thing to not be a virgin, especially as a woman until you're married, obviously.

And you can even incur fines and legal punishments for not being a virgin, right?

And so we're going from that kind of society... It was criminalized. It's criminalized, yeah.

I mean, could you imagine laws criminalizing that kind of thing nowadays?

Like the total and utter backlash that a government might face for trying to enforce something like that.

But so you have this sort of transition from it's extremely important to it's almost like a badge of shame in a lot of ways to remain a virgin going into marriage.

Like most people, and if we're being honest here, even a lot of Christian people would say, hey, you've got to get some experience first before you go and get married, right?

You need to know what you're doing, right? Yeah, I mean, you definitely have different reactions along those lines.

I mean, you have the progressive reaction, which is essentially progressive Christians are definitely going to be advocating just there's nothing wrong with fornication.

That's just normal, natural. Maybe get some experience and everything else. That isn't necessarily what the conservative

Christian world would be. So you do have to think through the different camps and how they're responding to the subject in general.

But definitely on the progressive side of things, that's definitely true. But where were you going with that? Yeah, so the question was basically just how did we get to a place...

How did we get from this is extremely important to this is almost like a badge of shame, essentially? Yeah, I think there's a lot of things that have happened that have led us to that place where now people really don't know what to do with this concept.

And so part of what's happening is that we're living in the wreckage of the sexual revolution, essentially.

So we're living on the other side of that. And there's been a lot of remarkable developments that we've experienced, even since I was growing up.

So I mean, when I was growing up, I was still growing up in a time where people would encourage virginity. I was growing up in a time where people would honor someone's decision to stay a virgin.

Christians would largely do that. And then they would warn people against promiscuous women. So I grew up in a time where my parents and my pastor, my church, they would warn young men against promiscuous women and against choosing them for marriage partners, even.

And so I grew up in that kind of world to where those things were still on the table. And part of what's happened is that the sexual revolution has really,

I mean, it's so dramatically changed the landscape of our world that now it's just a foregone conclusion that one, men are going to look at porn, and then two, women are going to sleep around.

So now when I say that, I mean, people have to understand what I'm trying to say because I don't want to be misunderstood at that point.

But I mean, for the most part, the vast majority of men today, the vast majority of young men are looking at porn.

And the vast majority of young women today are sleeping around with a few men. That's just kind of how it works.

And so a lot of young men aren't fornicating in the same percentages as young women, but that's just kind of how it works.

And so we're living in a time right now where it's just assumed that it's going to happen and we just need to deal with it.

And so as you listen to church voices on this, there really is—we've lost much of a sexual ethic.

I mean, when you have people like Jen Wilkins and J .D. Greer basically saying things like, the

Bible whispers about sexual sin, you know that you're living in a time that is filled with great confusion surrounding this kind of area.

Because, I mean, you have to understand something. I mean, when you read the Bible, one of the most serious things it has brought up as you read the pages of Scripture over and over and over again is the seriousness of sexual sin in all of its forms and all of its varieties.

I mean, you can think about 1 Corinthians 6, 18 at that point where Paul says, flee sexual immorality.

Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.

Or do you not know that the body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you've had from God, you are not your own, for you were bought with a price, therefore glorify

God in your own body. So when you think about that, like we're living in a time right now where promiscuity is rampant, and we're living in a time right now where it's just kind of expected that this is normal.

And a lot of what happens when those are the terms of the arrangement is that people really begin to, they don't know how much they've normalized this thing.

So when you listen to people talk about something like fornication, one of the things that happens is that people talk about it as if it's just any garden variety of sin.

Hey, you gossip, I fornicate, who are we to judge? It's no big deal, right? I mean.

That was a good one. Hey man, you know, like, hey, I tell a little white lies to my kids every once in a while.

You've slept with 70 people. I mean, basically the same thing, right? It's the same thing. I mean, but you know it's true.

I mean, that's essentially where J .D. Greer and Jen Wilkins were getting their impulse from as far as that's concerned.

So we're living in a time where just things have dramatically changed. I mean, growing up when I watched TV, like there wasn't, you know, the unmarried couple who were living together on TV.

I mean, they wouldn't even put that on TV, okay? And now you're watching shows right now and that's just the major premise.

You know, the young people, they live together, they sleep together. It's just kind of a foregone conclusion, it's assumed. And so when you think about that kind of world, the world that we're living in with those kind of things that are happening, you know, invariably

Christians' moral intuitions on these things have dramatically changed. Like we don't think about these things the way that we used to.

We don't think about like losing your virginity as something that's deeply shameful. And part of that is because that, you know, there's the sexual morals have loosened.

So part of it's that, but then part of it is that like we're living in a bit of a matriarchal society too at this point.

And like there used to be these societal mechanisms that would shame women for being promiscuous in particular.

And then, you know, what's happened is a lot of people would look at those societal mechanisms that would shame women in particular for being promiscuous.

I mean, we call them, you know, you call that slut shaming or whatever. And less people, you know, get bent out of shape about me repeating what it's called.

I mean, you have to understand the Bible does this kind of thing over and over again. I mean, you can just like look in the

Bible and just look up the word, you know, whore. And the word whore shows up in 34 verses in the

Bible. So the Bible, God would call, you know, promiscuous women whores without any kind of apology.

But then like we're living in a society right now where like there's this demand that you have to shelter women from all shame in general.

And so if you have a lot of women who are sleeping around and that's just what the stats bear out, then one of the things that happened is that like we resent like the fact that there might be any double standards along those lines with how we treat one gender and another gender.

And then what's happened is that like it's demanded that we basically shelter women from all shame in those ways.

And so part of what's going on in a discussion like this is that there's this demand that you can't, you know, a lot of this is really about like you can't slut shame essentially, right?

So you have to like be validating. You have to be encouraging. You can't present this in a bad way that's going to make women look bad.

And so a lot of that's like, a lot of those things are the kind of things that are coming out in this kind of conversation to where there's this duty that we have to protect people from, you know, all the shame that's associated with their bad actions.

And a lot of that really like, you know, unfortunately that is kind of a female impulse in general. It's kind of like a mama bear impulse to protect people from, you know, the consequences of a bad reputation along those lines.

Sure, yeah. So, I mean, you can imagine how it works with any sin that a man would commit. Like any sin that a man would commit is just open season, right?

So like anything, like you could ask these questions like in different lines. If you're talking about a man's sin, like it's just, you know, there's freedom to go after that kind of man and make certain kind of pronouncements along those lines.

If it's a woman's sin, then there's just different rules and that's part of the way the discussion has to go. So part of it is our sexual, to shorten what

I'm talking about, I mean, part of it is our sexual morals have relaxed so we don't view fornication with the shock and outrage and scandal that we did in a past generation.

And then part of it is that we're like, it's so rampant and so many people are engaging in it and there's this kind of demand that you can't keep additional shame on it, right?

So you have to kind of protect, particularly you have to protect women from the shame of bad actions along those lines too.

So there's more to it than that, but that's part of it. And so then, and then when you have the manosphere trying to regain like a lot of the impulses that we used to have as a society, basically saying, hey, there's consequences to fornication, and there's consequences to these kind of things that used to be considered dishonorable and maybe men shouldn't want to be married to women who sleep around a lot, like maybe they shouldn't.

So with the manosphere making those kind of pronouncements and along those lines, then

I think it kind of radicalizes certain Christian women too in a certain way to where they're just kind of reacting to the men go in their own way crowd, some of the manosphere kind of crowd.

And it just is not, I don't think we're being reasonable as we're talking about these things. So when it comes to the

Old Testament and the value that they placed on virginity, why was that value placed there?

What's so important about virginity that the Israelites were told to esteem it so much?

Well, I mean, part of it is what I read in 1 Corinthians in terms of just the nature of sexual sin. I mean, there's something uniquely destructive about sexual sin according to God's design.

And I mean, when you think about it, like it doesn't really, like if you take

God out of the equation, it's one of those things where if you just stand back, this is just some sort of biological function that human beings are engaging in.

Like if you just step fully into an evolutionary worldview, none of it makes any sense, right? I mean, like animals don't agonize over all these things, right?

So like in the animal kingdom, like if one animal rapes another animal, no one really thinks much of it.

It's just like animals in heat doing what animals in heat do, right? So like you step fully into an evolutionary worldview, none of it makes sense.

But then like from the biblical standpoint, there's something that, you know, there's things that are very significant that are happening there.

Like meaning like so the New Testament would describe this as a sin against the body itself, right? So, you know, do not know that your bodies are members of Christ.

Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never, right? Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her for as it is written, the two will become one flesh.

So there's something like that happens when people have sex that, you know, explains why we still have outrage with things like rape and we still have outrage with things like pedophilia.

Like there's something happening there that God is communicating that's like significant. And so in the language of the

Bible, what's happening there is like two become one, two become one flesh. That's a big deal.

Like God's designed sex to be a good thing that is good within its context.

And so it's good within the context of marriage. But then it's one of those things that's a uniquely destructive kind of thing too.

So, you know, under the terms of the old covenant, if a woman was found on her wedding night to not be a virgin, there was no evidence of virginity to be found, she was to be stoned to death with stones.

Because one of the things that God wanted to do was he wanted to guard this sin, right?

He wanted to guard this act and put it in its appropriate context. And so if you imagine the way God made people, God made people to procreate.

He's filled like men and women with desires to procreate. He's filled them with biological urges to procreate, with biological urges to couple, right?

So he's filled them with all these things. And he said, hey, it's good for you to do this within the context of marriage. And then if you just take a step back and you think about, well, what happens when you don't?

Well, just look around the world that you live in right now and you'll see all the consequences of people trying to get this thing that they're made to do outside the context of marriage.

I mean, think about all the abortion that's happened as a result of, you know, people who are not having sex in the context of marriage.

Think about the problems of single motherhood that happen because kids are not, because, you know, people are not having sex within the context of marriage.

Think about like the fallout that happens when men and women divorce, right? So you think about the fallout that happens with divorce.

Like you think about the fallout that happens with, you know, affairs.

You know, the Bible says that if a man commits adultery, he is abhorred by the

Lord, right? He falls into a pit, a deep pit. He's abhorred by the Lord in that kind of way because it's just a destructive,

I guess a destructive sin for the society. But then part of the thing, one of the things that you can't really say is it's a really destructive sin for the individual.

I mean, I've done a lot of marriage counseling. And one of the things I've seen in the context of marriage counseling is that, you know, when people attach, you know, like to each other in the context of fornication, like there are entailments to that.

Like when you join yourself with another human being in that kind of way, I mean, the way

I often describe it and I've heard it described is, I mean, it's like, you know, gluing two things together and then trying to pull them apart.

When you do that, there's gonna be destruction when you pull them apart, right? Because when you join two things together, the

Bible says, let no one separate. Well, when you try to separate these things that have been joined together like that, I mean, you tear them apart in the process of doing that.

And so, you know, like the Bible says, like if someone commits adultery, wounds and dishonor he'll get, right? When you talk about like fornication, the same thing is happening there.

There's deep, deep emotional wounds. There's deep like psychological wounds.

I mean, often there's deep like physical wounds even that come from that. And often like these wounds, they really do affect women to a much greater degree than men because women are made to like attach to men.

They're made to connect with men. They're made to like conform themselves to men. They're made to follow men. And so what often happens like in the context of counseling is you have two people who have, you know, just a long history of sexual baggage that they bring into the relationship.

What often happens is like in particular, like the guy is just like, well, hey, let's move on, right?

Let's move on. It's in the past. Let's, you know, move on. Like I'm willing to, you know, quote unquote forgive the woman and like for whatever she's done in the past,

I want to be forgiven from that. Let's move on. But for women, I mean, often it's just a source of like temptation for them in a wide variety of ways.

I mean, it's just like they've given themselves to man after man after man after man.

And they've given part of themselves to all these men and they can't just take it back, you know?

Right. Like in a lot of ways, like it affects their ability to love their husband, like to respect their husband, to follow their husband, to want to give themselves to their husband.

Like this act, which was supposed to be good, is now tempted to be viewed as shameful and dirty. You know, the husband who wants this act from his wife, like the wife is tempted to view him with suspicion.

Like, why do you want this thing? Like all men, all they want from me is this one thing and you're just like all these other men who want this thing from me, right?

You just want to use me. You just want to take from me and I don't trust you. And, you know, I mean, there's a lot of entailments to that.

Like I know very few people who, if they could like change the nature of like their past, if they could redo it and not have the sexual sin in there.

Like I know very few people who would just like look in the mirror and say, hey, I'm glad I did that, right?

Now, I mean, there's a sense in which with God's sovereignty, we can look at it and say, hey, God works all things together for good. His plan is the best and he included that as part of his plan.

But then there is this sense in which it's so destructive. It's so destructive to your relationships. You feel the echoes of it in so many different ways that the vast majority of people would say, hey, you know, that didn't help my marriage, right?

Now, God, like in the sense of like that introduced problems into my marriage that would not have existed if we didn't go that route.

And so, I mean, it's not good for society. It's not good for marriage. I mean, the best thing you can do is just encourage people to flee that sin, just as the

Bible says, and look for people who, you know, haven't gone that route if possible, for sure. Okay, so turning our, you know, now that we've talked through a lot of that and gained sort of an understanding of, you know, like why virginity is so important, let's go back to the title question, can virginity be a non -negotiable when choosing a spouse?

So is that, you know, like should that be, instead of can virginity, should virginity be a non -negotiable when choosing a spouse?

Yeah, I mean, I think it's very hard to answer it as a should, you know. So a lot of the polls - I was trying to get you there.

A lot of the polls were designed to try to answer it, you know, can it be?

And I think that that's a much easier question to ask. You know, now if you're going to ask, like should it be, then, you know,

I would want to add a lot more qualifications considering where we're at in history and everything else. And so, yeah,

I mean, let's say that you have a guy who's looked at porn his whole life and technically, you know, he's never fornicated with anyone because he's - but I mean, he is filled with lust.

So should that guy, you know, hold out for a virgin because he saved himself as a virgin?

I would think that, yeah, hey, there's something hypocritical about that, sure. And if he were to, you know, raise it to a level of ought, like, should he?

Like, is there a moral duty to do that? Well, I don't know that we're living in the kind of society right now to where, like, we have the mechanisms we need in place to go fully that.

I mean, for a lot of people, it may very well be that they're waiting a long period of time because there's just, like, math is against them in that way, right?

Right, yeah. And you can pray all day long, but, you know, God, He's not going to rewrite history in accordance with your prayer.

And if there's a lot of people who are in that same kind of boat and they're making that same kind of stance, I mean, sometimes you do have to deal with what is and not what you would want to be.

And so we are where we are and you have to - I mean, part of it, you just do have to deal with where we're at in that way. So now - so part of it's just, like, simple mathematical kind of discussion along those lines.

But, I mean, another aspect to trying to answer that, should, I mean,

I would say that not everyone - I don't know how to word this in a way that's not going to get me in trouble, but I'm going to try.

Like, not - People - Good luck. Good luck, man.

This is the internet. I try my best to be as careful as possible, you know, knowing that I'm going to probably be misunderstood.

But there isn't - A lot of people, what they heard when we're asking the question, can it be - like, is it permissible for it to be a non -negotiable, they're hearing the language of should.

And then when I'm warning about, hey, the consequences of fornication and things along those lines, what they're hearing is, well, so you're saying that someone who fornicated now intrinsically has made themselves to be an unsuitable marriage partner?

That's kind of what they heard, right? Right. And that's not what I said, but let me step into that and try to answer your question by stepping into that.

Like, we did do the poll on, you know, is it okay to not marry a porn star, essentially, right?

To make it a non -negotiable. Definitely. Nobody is asking those questions but us, man.

All right. Well, so God, like for the priest, right? So for the priest, God made it non -negotiable for the priest, okay?

And then you have to ask yourself, well, why did he require the priest to marry a virgin and not a widow even when they're supposed to take care of widows?

It's honorable to take care of widows and orphans in their distress. And in order to try to even give an answer to something like that,

I mean, I would ask you to imagine what John MacArthur's life would be like if he were to have married a former porn star or something along those lines.

And I mean, those are the kind of things that you, like, let's say that he just gets out of seminary, right?

He just gets out of seminary. He was wanting to give his life to a church. He just gets, you know, maybe he's just hired at a church.

And like, would that be a helpful, like, is he suited, like, as like with the way that God has made him, his background is, like, is he suited to take on the responsibility of helping to sanctify a former porn star who just got out of the business or something like that, right?

Like, would that be helpful for his life pattern to have, like, the pastor's wife have videos of her on the internet that everyone is looking at, right?

And every time he makes a statement about what the Bible says, they're, you know, let's say he's doing that on the internet, they're posting videos of his wife nonstop on the internet and everything else.

And so, I mean, I would say that I don't think that everyone makes a suitable, like, obviously the

Bible says marry whom you will marry in the Lord, but that doesn't mean that every single quote unquote believer is a suitable helper, right?

A helper suitable for every single man. Does that make sense? Yeah. Are you essentially saying that it's like a wisdom decision at that point?

Or are you putting it in a higher category than wisdom? Yeah, I mean, I think you need to marry wisely, right?

Like, at the very least, you need to marry wisely, and you have to think about who is going to be a suitable helper for you with the gifts and talents and abilities that God has given you.

And so, part of this is a discussion about suitability in general. Like, you do have to think through, like, what has

God given me to do, right? Like, in this life. Sure, yeah. And is the woman

I'm going to marry, like, you can just marry anyone, but it may be that if you make a wise marriage choice, they're going to help you in life and ministry.

And if you make a really poor marriage choice, it may be a thorn in your flesh that you have to deal with, right?

Yeah, yeah. It may be technically permissible, but then, like, it may just make things very hard on you, like, in that way.

So, you know, like, you can look at some of the ladies on Twitter who used to be former, like, OnlyFans people or whatever else, and you know the kind of people

I'm talking about who are constantly posting all the immodest selfies of themselves, you know, week in and week out.

I mean, can you imagine John MacArthur trying to take that on as a young pastor, trying to persuade his new, you know, newly converted wife to quit posting so many immodest selfies, you know, and she doesn't understand why that's wrong and what's even happening and, you know, everything else.

I mean, can you imagine, like, that man trying to do that ministry?

Like, you know, what he would have to do is he would just have to say, Hey, I'm going to step out of the ministry. I'm not going to pursue the ministry for a long period of time and devote myself to, like,

Get my household in order, essentially. Get it in order, and I'm going to have to, you know, whereas if he married, like, a wise woman, right, who doesn't have any scandal attached to her, any kind of history attached to her, they could be off to the racists immediately and very quickly, right?

They're not having to wade through all the baggage of this past, and so a lot of what's happening in this kind of discussion is,

I mean, if you imagine what kind of kids you're trying to raise, right? Like, I don't think we should be trying to raise the kind of kids who were like,

Okay, kids, let's go into the brothel and let's evangelize these ladies because we're looking for a wife for you, right?

Like, I mean, like, I mean, so, The most extreme form of dating evangelism

I've ever heard. Yeah, I mean, I don't think anyone, like, now, so, I mean, just be realistic about what you're saying and think about what you're saying, okay?

Like, I mean, is that your, like, wife -finding plan for your kids, or do you want your kids to be a lot further along than you were and not filled with all the baggage that you had to deal with, right?

You know, like, do you want to kind of protect them from all the mess of the world and they don't have to deal with all that, and then, like, so then you're raising them and they're just much further along in the

Christian life, and then, you know, if they could technically find someone who's a lot further along in the Christian life, who's not weighed down by all the same kind of baggage,

I think in that kind of arrangement, like, you can imagine how that could go a lot better, right? It could just make,

I mean, maybe it would open up doors for them within the kingdom that wouldn't be opened up if it's just like, hey, all right, you know, go marry

Gomer, right? So, like, you understand, like, there's just, now, you can do it.

You can be faithful Hosea to Mary and Gomer. Like, that's the point. I mean, you can, but then, you know, like, there's just,

I mean, the reality is that sin is destructive, and there are people who

God has suited for particular callings and particular, you know, missions that he's given to them based on his gifts and talents and abilities, and so you do have to think about, like, when you're marrying, how suited are you, and will people help you in this, or will they be just a major holding you back kind of thing to where, yeah,

I mean, yeah, yeah. At the end of 10 years, at the end of 15 years, like, you can, you know, a godly man can take, like, if you just want to use it in the patronizing sense, you know, and people can just yell at me if they want, but whatever.

I mean, you could take on a project. You can take on a sanctification project as a man, right? And you can work on that, and you can work on that, and you can work on that, and 15 years later, it's unrecognizable.

It's like, look at what God did, but that is going to restrict some of the things you're able to do in the Christian life, too, okay?

And so you have to be honest about that. So I don't, so just to give you, I've been rambling too long, but to say, is there a should,

I would just say, I wouldn't want to say there's, like, an absolute should, but you do have to take stock of who you are, you know, what

God's gifted you to do. I mean, you probably don't want to be a politician. Like, if you've pursued a life, a career, a politician, like, there's certain marriage choices you may not want to make because you just have to think in different terms, you know, but things like that.

So a lot of that is more of a wisdom call based on who God's called you to be at certain levels, like, related to the should, should, you know, so there may be a soft should, a soft should, depending on.

A soft should, yeah. Yeah, not an absolute, but a soft, yep. Okay.

Now, one of the objections to what you're saying that I saw a lot from people interacting with the, you know, polls was this idea that, you know,

God obviously forgives sexual sin, right? So He forgives sin, and, you know, assuming the person is repentant and putting their faith and trust in Christ as their only hope for salvation and deliverance from God's wrath,

God is more than happy to forgive that sin. Now, what they were, what people were objecting to was they're essentially saying, well, hey,

God is, God's forgiving the sin, so if He is forgiving the sin, then we need to treat that person essentially as if those things are totally irrelevant.

So, like, whatever sexual past you might have that's totally irrelevant, assuming you've repented of those sins, because God is forgiving you, you know, all men need to treat all women who were sexually active before marriage or, you know, addicted to porn or whatever, you need to treat them as if they were, as if they never were, you know.

Jared Polin, Jr.: Never happened, yeah, like CERB Pro. Pete T. Lee, Jr.: Right, and, you know, and I think some people were, now,

I don't think as many people were saying that the man should, you know, treat the woman the same way as the woman treating the man, right?

But essentially, you know, the objection, the general objection was just to say, hey, since God has forgiven them, you need to treat it like it never happened.

Jared Polin, Jr.: Right. Pete T. Lee, Jr.: So what's your response to that sort of objection? Jared Polin, Jr.: Well, there's a yes,

I mean, yes, there's a yes to that, and there's, like, a no to that. And, I mean, everyone would understand exactly what we're talking about if you just try to conceive of how we treat pedophiles in the church.

Pete T. Lee, Jr.: Okay. Jared Polin, Jr.: You know, I mean, I know that that feels offensive, but, like, I'm not trying to be offensive. I'm trying to ask people to think logically about this and less with their emotions, okay?

So, like, meaning, like, if you just think about how, I mean, how many, like, scandals have there been with pastors who have married former pedophiles, right?

But not only, like, married former pedophiles, but let former pedophiles be members of their church.

So, I mean, we have a category for, like, destructive effects of sin. Now, I would want to be, like, you know, where I get myself in trouble is

I'm going to get those pastors back for marrying those guys. Pete T. Lee, Jr.: Uh -huh. Jared Polin, Jr.: I mean, if they think they've repented of their sins,

I don't know what, like, let me say something that's even more shocking than anything I've said so far, you know?

Like, I don't understand what authority a pastor has to say, no,

I will not marry you to this person who wants to marry you when, you know, she's convinced you're repentant and you're, you know, we have a track record of looking at it as you seem repentant to us.

I don't know what authority a pastor has to say, well, I'm just not going to marry you. Pete T.

Lee, Jr.: Mm -hmm. Jared Polin, Jr.: Because I believe the things that people are saying at this point even more strongly than they believe them.

Do you understand what I mean? Pete T. Lee, Jr.: Sure. Jared Polin, Jr.: Like, I'm willing to say, I believe them so much, I'm willing to say what

I just said, that, you know, honestly, I pray the day never comes where a repentant pedophile comes to my church and wants me to marry them to a woman who wants me to marry them.

I pray that that never happens because I will literally be drug across the internet for years, you know, by people screaming at me.

Pete T. Lee, Jr.: Right, right. Jared Polin, Jr.: And I don't have any choice but to marry them. I don't know what they want me to do. You get what I'm saying? Pete T.

Lee, Jr.: Right. Jared Polin, Jr.: And they will scream at me and try to ruin my life if I do that. So I pray that that actually doesn't happen to me, you know?

Pete T. Lee, Jr.: Yeah, even given the fact that they, like, from, you know, in every way possible that you could ever confirm it, they seem repentant and genuine in their faith, right?

So I would actually marry them and, like, you know, they may drag me on the internet for saying I would marry them.

You get what I'm saying? Pete T. Lee, Jr.: Yeah, yeah. Jared Polin, Jr.: So I believe these things is more than,

I believe them more than anyone else believes them. Like, that's the thing. Like, I really believe that everyone who's in Christ is a new creation and I believe we need to think the best about people and I believe that we need to, like, you can't just treat them like, like, if they're repentant, they're repentant and you have to, like, now,

I mean, I also agree that you shouldn't put them to serve in the nursery. You understand what

I mean? Pete T. Lee, Jr.: Right, yeah. Yeah, there's certain limitations where you're like, yeah, you can probably just never do this.

Jared Polin, Jr.: I definitely believe that there are safeguards to these kind of things and, like, and, yeah,

I wouldn't have them serve in the nursery and I think that there's cautions that you need to have related to that kind of topic.

But the only reason I bring this up is because I really do have a category for saying, hey, yeah, there are some sins that are pretty grievous, right?

Grievous kind of sins that have long -lasting effects and, you know, you have to exercise great caution in how you handle these kind of sins.

So you think about something like a pedophile, I would say, hey, yeah, my daughter wants to marry a repentant pedophile.

Yeah, I'm going to warn her against, like, do you know what you're getting yourself into? Do you know what you're signing up for?

Right? Do you know what you're, what you're considering here? Right? How clear are we that this is repentance that we're looking at?

How long have, of a period of time have we had to look at this and know what we're looking at?

Do you see what I'm saying? Sure, yeah. Like, do we know what we're looking at? Is this repentance?

Is this fake repentance? Right? Is this Judas repentance? Is this real repentance? Because, like, you're making a decision that's going to dramatically affect your life, and you better know what you're looking at.

Do you understand what I'm saying? And you better know that they're past it and that, like,

Yeah. this is going to be a new situation. So, like, I have, basically, I just, I have a category for warning.

Like, I have a category for saying, hey, it's over with. But then, yeah, you know what?

Like, honey, you know, sweetheart, precious, you know, he just got out of jail for killing someone.

You know, maybe we should give him some time. Let's pump the brakes a little bit here. Let's give him a little time here.

You know, like, do we, yeah, I hope he's repentant too, but we don't know him very well and can we be, like, there's a lot that you're asking us to overlook here and we just, we need to know what we know here.

And so, But dad, I love him. Jesus, you know, when he forgives us, he casts it into the depths of the sea and remembers it so more.

So, we don't want to be Pharisees, you know, and all that. And it's like, no, I understand. I've already forgotten. So, the issue though is, so, the only thing this is about then, so, we have, like, the issue is we have categories already for this kind of thing.

We know what they are. The only thing this is about is, well, how serious is fornication? Right. And that's the only question that matters.

So, like, if you take the emotion out of it, like, the issue is, like, post -sexual revolution, fornication is as common as water now, right?

I mean, it's just, like, it's the air we breathe. Every sitcom we watch is telling us it's not a big deal.

There's no consequences to it. It's just, like, shaking someone's hand, you know, or something like that. And it's like, that's just not what it is in the

Bible. And so then, what's happening is, like, we've totally lost the horror of fornication, but we still have that horror that's associated with pedophilia.

But then the, you know, the issue is, when you read the Bible, what you're going to see is they had that horror associated with fornication.

And I'm not persuaded that J .D. Greer and Jen Wilkins have the right kind of emotional reaction to this sin, right?

Yeah. Oh, like, pretty much the total opposite of what the reaction should be. Right, right. So I think the reaction should be more like the pedophilia kind of reaction.

And I don't know, and I get why we're not there, because it's so common. But, you know, to the extent to which we can say, hey, this is actually a really big deal.

Can you wake up for a second, please? You know, I think that'll actually help us as a society just to put a little bit of brakes on that.

Now, the problem is the moment you do that, the moment you say, hey, this is really serious and I don't think you know what you're, like, we don't want to trivialize this.

God does not trivialize it. He treats it like really, like a really, really big deal. The moment you do that, though, people, like, the concerns are, like, you don't want to shame people who, like, have that in their past and they've repented of it.

And then, you know, you're trying to treat them as a second -class citizen. And all I would do is

I would just look at you and say, hey, we're not that concerned about it with pedophilia, so maybe we have a category for it. Maybe we should just, like, maybe it's good for a society for us, like, when we do shameful things for people to respond as if we did something shameful, maybe that's okay, you know?

And maybe that's not going to kill everyone. And, like, maybe we can just try to make it, relearn how to think about it in a serious way, and I think we've lost a little bit.

You know, what was really sort of the final nail in the coffin for me when it came to people on the opposite side of this issue was

I was getting ready for tonight and I was looking through some of the posts you had made on Twitter just to kind of,

I just wanted to see, hey, what was some of the pushback we were getting so that I knew to bring it up when we were talking about this?

And one of the tweets that I saw was, you actually retweeted it on the podcast profile on Twitter, and it was someone who was disagreeing with you, and they said, you know,

I want to read the tweet because I think this will be helpful for people. It's pulled out of a larger conversation, which

I'm not going to read the whole conversation right now. I don't have it pulled up. I just have the one tweet, but it says, that is how it works.

If God doesn't remember our past sins, what makes you think that he wants us to remember others' pasts?

Only, this is the real good part right here, only in the case of child molestation should the past sin be a factor.

And I read that and I just kind of started, if I'm being honest, I just busted out laughing because, you know, the inconsistency of that tweet should be obvious right away.

You know, like, alright, point one, if God forgives sin, you know, point one,

God forgives sin. Point two, if God forgives sin, we should forget it as well.

Right? And not let it factor into our decision -making process at all.

Right. It should not be a factor in any way whatsoever. Point three, it should be a factor if they molested a child.

You know, it's like, well, hang on, why? You know, like, why, I mean, seriously, if that's your stance, then why?

Why is it, why is that the thing? And, you know, all that exposes is that there should be, there should be a lot of weight put on all of these sexual sins, but then, like you said earlier, our society only, only, you know, weighs a small portion of them.

Right? You know, so, so that, for me, that was like the thing that's like, oh, come on. I mean, any grace

I was trying to give to your, your position, like you throw it away when you say something like that.

I mean, and I was, I was shocked and scandal. I mean, I would, I'm not shocked, like in the sense of, like I understand how that reaction can come about.

It's just like, yes, it, there's nothing, like we've just kicked logical consistency out the door when you make that kind of thing.

right. Now, I saw one of our followers make a comment to that and basically explaining the backstory.

And I mean, apparently in the backstory for that lady is that she was, I don't know, maybe she was, she was raped as a child or something like that.

And that's why that, that inconsistency on her part is particularly pronounced.

But then, so that, the issue is that, that gives you some context for why an individual would respond so inconsistency, inconsistently in that way.

Right. Sure. Yeah. That if that's true, and I don't, I don't know anything about that kind of situation. I'm just taking followers word from that.

And that's just what I saw just a few minutes ago. like, so part of it is that, like, hey, yeah,

I think, like being a human being, you can look at something like that and your heart can go out to an individual who's been in that kind of situation.

But then one of the things that tells you is that, like that individual is by no means qualified to sort these issues out.

Do you see what I'm saying? Sure. Yeah. Like, and, and part of, part of what's happening in these kinds of discussions is like being a counselor.

I've been, I mean, I've counseled like man after man after man who married the girl who used to be promiscuous and now she's cold and she's frigid and she's, you know, projecting all the faults of all these guys onto her husband.

And now she's like rejecting him, like depriving him of his conjugal rights because she was harmed by these men, right?

Like in the process of all this. And so now like he has to be understanding of the fact that he married a woman who is not giving to him and not there for him and not kind and sweet and a wife to him but views him as like deeply resentful and is projecting all of her shame from the past onto him in order to rob him, right?

Yeah. And so like in that kind of scenario it's like, well, yeah, those men are victims too.

You know what I'm saying? And so those men are victims too of the decisions of that woman that she voluntarily made before she was married.

They're victims of those things. And so what's happening though is it's like you're not allowed to say, hey, they're a victim too.

And like these choices in the past had consequences that now these men are living through that if they would if they would have been wiser in their marriage choice they wouldn't have had to deal with.

Do you see what I'm saying? So if they would have treated that woman with, you know, the 20 sexual partners like you want to treat the ex -pedophile, right?

Because of what you went through then they wouldn't be going through what they're going through either.

Do you see what I'm saying? And so then if you're going to say that like their concerns are not relevant and the only people who need to be protected are women then you're just you're living in a like a like a very one -sided kind of world.

And so my interest my interest here is not to take the guy's side. My interest is just to be a neutral umpire who's looking at this situation saying, hey, all sexual sin is really damaging.

Okay? Like it all has a lot of consequences and like people don't factor in all the consequences that they may experience from sexual sin.

They don't factor it all in, right? When they're making these kind of marriage choices and so like if there's a person who wants to say, hey,

I'm going to take this so seriously that I'm going to save myself for marriage and I want to hold out for someone who does too, you know, my impulse is just to say, hey, yeah,

I want to encourage you in that because that would save you a lot of headache, you know? Um, and that's a that's a noble thing and that's a good thing and that treats virginity as honorable and it treats it as good and I'm not going to be your accusers who are accusing you and, you know, calling you self -righteous and a

Pharisee and everything else. I'm just going to say, okay, you know, I, you know what? It would be better for society if everyone would think that way and everyone would be so so afraid of this that they wouldn't even want to go there at all, right?

Right. And there's obviously like, you know, people are going to mess up, you know, but then, um, and, and, you know, there's, there's all this, you know, grace and mercy and compassion and everything else.

There's all that stuff and there's examples of God just remarkably delivering people from all the chains of their, you know, bondage of their past very quickly, you know, but I just think having some prudence and having some wisdom and thinking through what you're trying to say in your position is important along these lines and so, but yeah, that, that comment, you know, in short, a comment is definitely, um, a comment that is just, in terms of logic, right?

If you take all the emotion out of it, it's just like, it exposes that there's a lot of people who are unable to think about these topics with their brains, right?

Okay. They're all, they're only thinking about them with their emotions, uh, really. Right. And, and we, and we don't, we don't need that, right?

Like, we don't need that. what we need is - that's not a helpful way. Yeah. We have to be able to use our brains on these, like, these kind of questions and answer them, uh, with logic and reason and scripture.

Yeah. For sure. Okay. So, I've got, um, I've got about two, maybe three more questions.

So, let's see if we can get through these pretty quickly. the first one would be,

I, you know, there were some people who were bringing up, and, and you mentioned this a little bit, but I just want to hit it a little more directly.

Some people were bringing up, you know, some specific people in the Bible as, uh, as, you know, proof that you're, you know, the stance that we're taking here is not the most biblical one, right?

So, they would bring up, um, like Rahab, who's mentioned, uh, in the

Hall of Faith in Hebrews 11, right? And then, I saw a lot of other people also mentioning, uh,

Hosea and Gomer, uh, you know, and as like, positive examples of someone who is, you know, sexually promiscuous being, being, you know, um, either married to or praised in the

Bible. Uh, so, so what, what's your response quickly to both of those? Yeah.

Well, let, let me just clarify. The stance that we're taking in the poll is, uh, in the polls, like in the responses and the official formal stance that I'm taking is that I think, yes, it, like, virginity is, it's okay for virginity to be a non -negotiable for a person.

So, I would just say that that's okay and I'm not gonna throw stones at that kind of person. And, but then neither am

I gonna command, so I'm gonna say, yeah, I think it's okay for, you know, a person to say, hey,

I saved myself for marriage and I want to find someone who did that. I, I don't, I'm not gonna throw stones at them and I'm not gonna call them a

Pharisee. I think that's a perfectly fine thing to say and that's treating virginity as a valuable thing and it's treating fornication as a destructive thing.

Uh, now, you may not be able to pull it off considering where we're at, right? Right, right.

But, the pool might be pretty limited there. Yeah. You may want to think it through, right?

Like, if you're 35 and you're still holding on to that, you may want to think, uh, but, sure,

I'm not gonna, I think it, I think, I don't have anything in me that says that that's wrong. And then, at the same time,

I don't have anything in me that's saying, um, people must have that stance. I would say that, you know, people have to think carefully about that depending on the kind of gifts, talents, and abilities, callings that God has given to them.

Sure. And you need to think about these things more seriously than, you know, others, you know, so that, but then, yeah,

I think something like, I mean, you know, if you start with the easiest one first, I mean, like, um, the easiest one is the

Hosea example with Gomer. And I would say, well that, I don't know that anyone wants to, that would be like an argument in favor of taking it more seriously.

Um, so, yeah. So, I mean, when, you know, Hosea 1 -2, when the

Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, go take yourself a wife of Horeb and have children of Horeb, for the land commits great

Horeb by forsaking the Lord. So he went in and took Gomer, the daughter of Dablam, and she conceived and bore him a son.

And so, I mean, this is like an object lesson for Israel. God frequently causes the prophets to do things that are deeply shameful.

And it was deeply shameful for Hosea to take, like, an active, you know, prostitute as a wife.

And she abandons him, you know, in the story, and he has to go and redeem her and buy her back and everything else.

But, I mean, she's, um, this was an object lesson. Just like God made, um, I can't remember which prophet it was, but he made him cook his food over dung.

God frequently causes, like, the prophets to do things that are shameful. This is an example of him doing something that is deeply shameful as an object lesson to say, hey, um, the children of Israelites are committing spiritual whoredom against God.

And, and so, here's an example of, I'm going to make the prophet do this as an active judgment on you to see the consequences of what happens.

And the consequences were not good for Hosea. And because I'm, like, I'm not charismatic, I don't believe that God is going to tell any

Christian personally in a still small voice that they need to go and marry an active prostitute in order to be an object lesson to our country or something along those lines.

So I think most people are safe, you know, I think most people are safe on that one. The likelihood is probably pretty low, right?

Pretty low, right. I'm not expecting, like, God has finished his revelation to man. You're good. You don't have to wonder, is

God calling me to go? That's not your cross to bear, man. Be free of that, you know, be free of that, you know.

So, um, so no, I wouldn't go that route. But then, I think Rahab is just a good example of someone who obviously was, like, very repentant.

you know, she was so repentant, you know, that she took her life in her own hands and sheltered the spies along those lines.

And, you know, I don't know how it, I don't really know how it, uh, went down with, uh,

Rahab as far as that goes. I mean, she's mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus. And so, Salmon the father of Boaz, um, let's see, um, so, and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab and Boaz, uh,

Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth and Obed the father of Jesse. So, I mean, she's listed there in the genealogy of Christ along those lines.

So, I think she obviously had just a reputation of being a transformed woman. And those kind of things can happen.

And so, I think that, you know, the idea, like, if anyone hears from anything we've said in the polls or anything else, like, the idea that God can't clean someone up and God can't, um, remove the shame of their past and God can't transform them and make them a fundamentally new person and to make them fundamentally a new person so much so that to everyone around them they're witnessing the power of God and a transformed life.

Like, God can obviously do that. And I don't think there's anyone based on their past sin who's just, like, categorically unmarriable, um, by the, you know, general

Christian population or anything else. And so, like, that's, I mean, I think that's just obviously an example of a miracle about what

God can do in the life of individuals. And I mean, I'm, you know, quite frankly, I know plenty of stories of people who, like, that is their testimony and you can see something just, like, dramatically different.

And I would say that, like, there's very little that's more encouraging to me personally than to see examples of, like, people who's, like, there's something almost more encouraging about the fact that, like, your life was such a mess and God fixed it, you know?

So, like, the one who's been forgiven much loves much. I mean, I think that that's always, like, that's great, you know?

And, like, I want to, like, I'm frequently, like, very encouraged by that kind of thing and I think that that's a testimony to God.

Now, at the same time, you know, I think you can say that and you can also say at the same time that when you're talking about, like, serious, life -dominating sins, that it's good to have some patience and to be calm and to know what you're looking at and to know that you're well past these things, right?

And to know that, not only are you well past them, but you've dealt with, like, the root causes of these things.

You know, it's not just that you turn from the behavior, but you've dealt with, like, the heart issues that are underneath these kind of things.

And I think that godly people in your life can help you to see those things that, hey, yeah, they're, like, there's some things that are real hard to fake.

And when you see, like, a person who just looks like Jesus and smells like Jesus and talks like Jesus and acts like Jesus, like, you're just in a different kind of situation.

You know, and there may be that many people who basically says, hey, that's, like, virginity's a non -negotiable to me.

And when they meet someone who's truly changed and transformed by the power of God, like, they could look at them and say,

I don't even, like, I can't see it anymore, you know? And I truly can't. And so, I think that's also, like, if god wants someone to change their stance on that, he can make them change their stance on that, too, based on showing him an example of something.

But, I mean, I just think a good, I mean, a good dose of caution is always helpful in those kind of situations.

Just based on the way life works in general, how his providence generally works for people.

Okay. Okay, well, I think that's a good place for us to wrap up the main episode portion of this.

And so, we're going to move on to a Q &A section now. But before we get to that, I just want to say for, you know, anyone who's listening to this in the future, whether on YouTube or, you know, on the podcast, on Spotify, iTunes,

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