Can Virginity Be a Non Negotiable When Choosing a Spouse?

And so now 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 deeply resentful and is projecting all of her shame from the past onto him in order to rob him, right?

Yeah.

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

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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 Kerrigg 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 like a non-negotiable when choosing a spouse, and you got a little bit of pushback, right?

Tim Mullett. I mean, it seems like I got the internet a little bit mad at me, so 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 saved themselves 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, and so I know that there's a variety of things that have led to that kind of phenomenon, but then 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? And then 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. So as I'm looking out at this discussion in general, and seeing the way 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 the things that are allowed.

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 opposed to that topic.

Petey. Yeah, so I guess when it comes to, you mentioned that it seems like virginity is basically like almost scorned in our society, right? And it's viewed mainly as a, yeah, like 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, um, or it's esteemed extremely highly. Like, it's a shameful thing to not be a virgin, especially as a woman until, you know, until you're married, obviously.

And it even, you can even incur, you know, fines and legal punishments for not being a virgin, right? And so, we're going from, you know, that kind of society.

Jared. It was criminalized.

It's criminalized. Yeah. I mean, like, 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 uh, going into marriage. Like, a lot, most people, and honest, 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?

Jared Yeah. I mean, you definitely have different reactions along those lines. I mean, you have the progressive reaction, which is essentially, you know, progressive Christians are definitely going to be advocating.

Just, you know, there's nothing wrong with fornication. Like, 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 know, 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?

Pete 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? Jared.

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, you know, 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, you know, there's been a lot of, you know, remarkable developments that we've experienced, even since I was, you know, 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, you know, stay a virgin, like Christians would largely do that. And then they would warn people against, like, promiscuous women, you know?

So, I grew up in a time where, you know, my parents and my pastor, my church, you know, they would warn young men against, you know, promiscuous women, and against choosing them for marriage partners, even.

And so, you know, I grew up in that kind of world to where, like, those things were still on the table. And part of what's happened is that the sexual revolution is really, I mean, it's just such a, 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, you know?

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, like, you know, 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, you know, a few men, okay? That's just kind of how it works. And so, so a lot of, a lot of young men aren't fornicating, like, in the same percentages as young women, but that's just kind of how it works.

And so, like, 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, right? And so, you know, 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, there's, I mean, you have to understand something. I mean, like when you read the Bible, one of the most serious things that is brought up as you read the pages of scripture over and over and over again is the seriousness of sexual sin and all of its forms and all of its varieties.

I mean, you know, 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 like 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, you know, garden variety of sin.

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

Petey. That was a good one. Hey, man, you know, like, hey, you know, 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?

Jared. It's the same thing. I mean, but you know, it's true. I mean, that's, 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, 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 kinds 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, and like, there used to be the 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 happen 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 the 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.

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, it's 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 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, 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, you know, bad actions along those lines too.

So there's more to it than that, but that's part of it. And so then, yep. And 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, you know, there's consequences to these kinds 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, you know, so with the manosphere making those kinds 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, you know, the men go in their own way crowd, some of the manosphere kind of crowd.

And it just, it's not, I don't think we're being reasonable, you know, as we're talking about these things.

Pete 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, you know, to esteem it so much? Jared. 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.

You know, like if you just step like 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 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.

So the New Testament would describe this as a sin against the body itself, right? So, you know, do you 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, you know, 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 happened because kids are not, because 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 affairs. 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.

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 going to 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 then 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's just like, well, hey, let's move on, right? Let's move on. It's in the past. Let's 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?

Like it just, 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. 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 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, 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.

Petey. Okay. So, turning our, you know, now that we've talked through a lot of that and, you know, 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?

Jared Yeah, I mean, I think it's very hard to answer it as a should, you know. So, a lot of the polls….

Petey I was trying to get you there.

Jared. 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, 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?

Well, 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?

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 you just, you do have to deal with where we're at in that way. So, part of it's just, like, simple mathematical kind of discussion along those lines.

But, I mean, another aspect to try and 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.

Jared. Yeah. 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, 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 themself to be an unsuitable marriage partner.

That's kind of what they heard, right? Jared. And that's not what I said, but let me step into that and try to answer your question by stepping into that. Like, like we did, we did do the poll on, you know, is it okay to not marry a porn star essentially, right?

To make it non-negotiable down there. Pete.

Definitely, nobody is asking those questions but us, man.

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

Pete Okay.

Jared. And then, and you have to ask yourself, why did he require the priest not to, like, 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 stress.

And, you know, 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 would, 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, it 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?

Petey Yeah. Like, 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? Jared. 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. 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? Petey. Yeah, yeah. Jared. That 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 of modest selfies, you know, and she doesn't understand why that's wrong and what's even happening and, you know, everything else.

Like, 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 get my household in order, essentially 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 racist 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, I mean, the most extreme form of dating evangelism I've ever heard. Yeah. I mean, I don't think anyone like now, so I mean, I'm just just be realistic about what you're saying and think about what you're saying.

Okay. Like, I mean, is that, is that your like wife finding plan for your kids or do you, 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, so then, and 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, maybe it would open up doors for them within the kingdom that wouldn't be opened up if it's just like, Hey, um, all right, you know, go, go marry Gomer. Right. So like, there's just now you can do it.

You can be faithful, Hosea to marry and Gomer like that's, that's the point. I mean, you can, uh, but then, you know, like there's just, I mean, the reality is that sin is destructive and, um, there, there are people who God have, has, uh, suited for particular callings in particular, you know, missions that he's given to them based on his gifts and talents and abilities.

And so you, 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.