How Far is Too Far? (Part 3)

Earlier this week, Gerald Hiestand expressed the need for pastors and ministry leaders to develop a more thought-out premarital sexual ethic. Research shows that only 20% of Christians remain abstinent prior to marriage. As evangelicals, we are often ready to take a necessary stand on homosexual ethics, yet the issue of heterosexual purity is compromised for nearly 80% of us. And so we want to begin a conversation that may feel offensive, overly conservative, or at a minimum, uncomfortable. Nonetheless, we think it’s an important one to have. We encourage you to begin by reading Gerald’s post and How Far is Too Far Part 1 and part 2 for an introduction to this series of posts.

How far is too far? Perhaps this is the wrong question, but it’s one that is asked nonetheless. Gerald Hiestand and Jay Thomas give a thought provoking answer in Sex, Dating, and Relationships. What does it mean to adhere to the New Testament’s vision of sexual purity? Here’s a short excerpt:

Don’t eat the cake.

Imagine that a man comes home from work one evening to find that his wife has baked a cake. As he walks into the kitchen, she sees him eying the cake and explicitly states, “Don’t eat that cake; it’s for our party this evening.” He nods in understanding, and she leaves the kitchen. As soon as she leaves, he cuts himself a large slice and places it on his plate. And then, bite by bite, he chews the cake and spits it back onto his plate. Having thus chewed the entire piece (but not swallowed, mind you), he scrapes the chewed piece back into the empty space on the cake tray. At this moment his wife walks back into the kitchen and looks at him in horror. “What are you doing?!” she exclaims. “I told you not to eat the cake!” He looks at her calmly and says with an assuring voice, “And indeed I have not. You see, dear, I define eating as ‘swallowing.’ And since I didn’t swallow the cake, I didn’t eat the cake. In sum, I did not have eating relations with that cake.”   Continue at Crossway