“What are we gonna do?” Teri asked Kenton soon after their daughter, Renee, was out of the room.
“What do you mean what are we gonna do?” Kenton responded. “The question is, what is our daughter going to do? Is she going to continue to go against what we have taught her and live an immoral life, or is she going to wake up and do what’s right?”
“No, Kenton,” Teri countered, “I’m not talking about Renee; I’m talking about us. If we hold the line too hard, we may push our own daughter right out of our lives.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Kenton retorted. “The issue here is Renee’s choices, not ours. We’re not pushing her out of our lives; she is the one moving away from our moral values. If she doesn’t want to honor our values and God’s Word on sexual morality, that’s her choice!”
“I guess you’re right,” Teri replied as she wiped a tear from her eye. “But I think we need to be more understanding and maybe not push our standards so hard on her. You know, she says she loves Tony.”
“I thought we were together on this.” There was a note of surprise in Kenton’s voice.
“We are together, Kenton. I’m just saying we’ve got to show more love and understanding toward her. If the two of them are really in love, who are we to say they shouldn’t at some point be together?”
“Are you saying it’s okay for them to sleep together because they think they’re in love?”
“Well, if they’re really in love and get married eventually, then yeah, I guess so.”
“Come on, Teri, let’s be together on this and take a stand,” Kenton pleaded.
“I’m taking a stand for our daughter,” Teri responded. “The important thing is to let Renee know that we love her.” With that Teri headed upstairs to console her daughter.
Teri and Kenton are not unlike a lot of parents whose children no longer share their values regarding sexual morality. For Renee, sleeping with her boyfriend is okay because they love each other. For Kenton, premarital sex is wrong because the Bible teaches it is wrong, period. While Teri agrees with Kenton to a point, she is concerned that the harshness of a rigid position will alienate her daughter from them.
This couple is reacting at opposite sides of the issues of truth and tolerance. Kenton wants to uphold the truth about sexual morality. What he tends to see is primarily the wrongness of his daughter’s behavior. Teri, on the other hand, is focusing more on the relationship. She feels the need to be understanding and more tolerant of her daughter’s position, even if that means backing off of not permitting Renee to sleep with her boyfriend while he is staying in their home. Maintaining her relationship with Renee is paramount, and she is willing to compromise a bit to keep from severing it.
On the surface, Teri’s response appears to be the more loving approach. She too has been influenced by a cultural tolerance that is portrayed as the most loving way to treat someone. It is largely associated in people’s minds with such things as kindness, peace, cooperation, understanding, acceptance, even love. To validate someone else’s behavior or beliefs is depicted as the loving thing to do.
In light of the message of cultural tolerance, Kenton’s position feels harsh and relationally cold. He fears that showing too much acceptance would compromise the truth he holds about what is morally right. Consequently, he does become relationally cold. But rules of morality (truth) were never meant to be expressed coldly—that is, outside the context of a loving and understanding relationship with another who differs with you (traditional tolerance). Rules and relationships, truth and traditional tolerance, love and boundaries were meant to be expressed in perfect harmony with each other.
Cultural tolerance, however, has distorted the idea of relationships and love. It advocates the equality of all moral truth and asserts that no one has the right to hold up a standard of morality for all. And in the process, cultural tolerance twists and distorts the true essence of what love is.
Real love isn’t an unlimited endorsement of just any behavior a person chooses to engage in. Many of those behaviors are inherently and inevitably harmful, and to endorse, approve, and encourage them is not loving; it is cold and uncaring. If we care about another person, we won’t approve behavior that is damaging and destructive to that person’s life. On the other hand, expressing real love doesn’t mean condemning people when we find their behavior objectionable and contrary to scripture. Real love—biblical, Godlike love—exposes cultural tolerance as the counterfeit of love because cultural tolerance fails to point people to a universal standard of morality designed to save them from serious harm. Cultural tolerance does not address what is in the best interest of a person—it possesses no moral standard that aligns to what is universally right and good. Real love, on the other hand, looks out for the best interest of others, and sometimes that kind of love will mean addressing destructive choices and behaviors in the people we love. As A. W. Tozer observed, “When we become so tolerant that we lead people into mental fog and spiritual darkness, we are not acting like Christians—we are acting like cowards.”1
God gives us clear moral commands and boundaries in his Word. While they may at first appear restrictive and negative, they are actually freeing and positive. God didn’t concoct a set of rules just to be a killjoy or to throw his weight around; he gave rules because he cares about us and wants us to be content and live fulfilled lives that bring glory and honor to him (John 10:10). He knew, for example, that sexual immorality is a path, not to lasting fulfillment, but to emptiness and frustration.
King David and his own son King Solomon understood the value of God’s commands when they wrote the following passages:
Joyful are people of integrity, who follow the instructions of the LORD. Joyful are those who obey his laws and search for him with all their hearts. (Psalm 119:1–2)
Make me walk along the path of your commands, for that is where my happiness is found. (Psalm 119:35)
This is how I spend my life: obeying your commandments. (Psalm 119:56)
My child, listen to what I say, and treasure my commands. Tune your ears to wisdom, and concentrate on understanding…. Then you will understand what is right, just, and fair, and you will find the right way to go. For wisdom will enter your heart, and knowledge will fill you with joy. Wise choices will watch over you. Understanding will keep you safe. (Proverbs 2:1–2, 9–11)
Moses acknowledged that truth was our best friend when he challenged the nation of Israel with these words:
Now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require from you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all His ways and love Him, and to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the LORD’S commandments and His statutes which I am commanding you today for your good? (Deuteronomy 10:12–13 NASB, emphasis added)
Every truth, every rule, and every guideline coming from God’s Word is issued from the loving heart and character of God for our own good. “I know the plans I have for you,” God told the nation of Israel. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope” (Jeremiah 29:11). He went on to express his desire for his children to have “one heart and one purpose: to worship me forever, for their own good and for the good of all their descendents” (Jeremiah 32:39). These two passages in Jeremiah were spoken to the nation of Israel, but the truth they express remains today—God seeks the good of his people, and his laws are part of that protection and provision. The late apologist and author Ron Carlson used to speak of the Ten Commandments as the “Ten Great Freedoms.” A nation that embraces and follows God’s laws would find that instead of its freedom being limited, it would have true freedom and great liberty. For example, if a nation of people follow the eighth commandment—“You shall not steal”—they would have no reason to lock doors or worry about robbers.
Truth is our best friend, and it is an inseparable part of what real love is. While cultural tolerance may disguise itself as caring, understanding, and loving, it lacks the moral authority of an authentic love that looks out for the best interest of others. That is another quality of authentic, real love—it is always other-focused.
Being other-focused does not come naturally. You don’t have to be very observant to recognize that from infancy we all inherited a self-centered nature. The quality of loving others unselfishly comes from God. When scripture says, “God is love” (1 John 4:16), it means more than “God loves us.” He is the very meaning and essence of what a loving relationship is all about. He is both our model and source of real love. And this is true because God is triune—meaning there is one God who eternally exists as three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Thus, God is inherently a relational being who created us to be in relationship with him and with others (Mark 12:28–31).
Created in God’s image, we were meant to love both him and others as he loves. He loves perfectly, and he wants to teach us how to love in a healthy way. Jesus said, “Just as I have loved you, you should love each other” (John 13:34).
God’s kind of love is unique. The apostle Paul gives a good description of what love does and does not do. “Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out” (1 Corinthians 13:4–6).
Paul also wrote that “love does no wrong to others” (Romans 13:10). Instead, we are to treat all people as we would like to be treated. Remember the Golden Rule? “Do to others whatever you would like them to do to you” (Matthew 7:12). Paul put it this way: “In humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others” (Philippians 2:3–4 NIV).
When Jesus was asked to identify the most important commandment, he said it was to (1) love God, and (2) “love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:39). Paul gave us a specific application of this principle when he told husbands “to love their wives as they love their own bodies…. No one hates his own body but feeds and cares for it” (Ephesians 5:28–29).
The predominant quality of this Godlike love is that it is other-focused. “This is real love,” scripture states, “not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins” (1 John 4:10). Jesus wasn’t looking out for his personal interest when he entered our world to die for us. He was focused on us and what we needed. That is what true love does.
As we can see by these abundant scriptures, true love is other-focused. But the question remains, how do we exercise true love while at the same time disagreeing with a person’s wrong choices about morality and truth? How do we blend real love with traditional tolerance that looks beyond the faults and failures of others and still loves them for who they are? How do we define that kind of love?
Drawing from the scriptures quoted earlier and others that are similar, we can derive a concise definition of God’s kind of love—real love:
Love is making the security, happiness, and welfare of another person as important as your own.
This kind of love, authentic love, protects the loved one from harm and provides for his or her good. Biblical love is not merely focused on another but on the good of another, even if the other does not recognize or accept the reality of the good. Love recognizes that there is an order to the goods it affirms and denies that the order is outside the experience or judgment of the other. When two people exercise this kind of love in a relationship, each looks to provide for the other’s best and protect the other from the worst, regardless of how they feel. Because its priority is seeking the best interest of the loved one, real love will not do things that are harmful to the security, happiness, and welfare of another person. Even though Renee may feel that sleeping with her boyfriend is loving, doing so does not provide for his security, happiness, and welfare and thus does not qualify as an act of love.2
Why is Kenton upset that his daughter is sleeping with her boyfriend? Is it merely because it violates the moral values he tried to teach his daughter? Is it because it may somehow embarrass him or reflect badly on his standing with his Christian friends or the church? That should not be Kenton’s primary concern. His primary concern should be his daughter’s best interest. When he makes his daughter’s security, happiness, and welfare as important to him as his own, it focuses his attention on how Renee’s improper behavior can negatively affect her physically, spiritually, emotionally, and relationally.
Teri is concerned about alienating her daughter if she and Kenton come across as too harsh. That is a valid concern. But her tolerant attitude toward immorality that essentially says, “Do what you think is best, dear,” isn’t looking out for Renee’s best interest either. Endorsing an attitude or action that is harmful to another person does, in the long run, not truly love. Real love—God’s kind of love—seeks to protect a loved one from harm and provide for her best interest.
I (Sean) have three children. Like any good parent, I have said things like, “Shane, don’t touch the stove”; “Shauna, look both ways before you cross the street”; and “Come on, Scottie, eat those vegetables.” I don’t issue those directives merely because they are the rules of the Stephanie and Sean household. My wife and I have not placed restrictions or boundaries on our children to spoil their fun or make them miserable. Loving parents impose rules to protect their children and to provide for them.
God has issued his commands to us out of these same two very powerful positive motivations—to provide for us and to protect us. He has given clear instructions related to our sexual behavior—“Flee from sexual immorality” (1 Corinthians 6:18 NIV); “Husbands, love your wives” (Colossians 3:19); “You shall not commit adultery” (Exodus 20:14 NIV)—and a variety of others. He didn’t give these instructions to limit or restrict us, but to protect us from harm and provide for our best interest. That is what other-focused love does.
Scripture directs husbands to apply this other-focused, provide-and-protect kind of love when the apostle Paul tells them “to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church” (Ephesians 5:28–29 NASB).
The apostle’s use of the words nourish and cherish here is not by mere happenstance. It clearly helps us to see how we are to make the security, happiness, and welfare of another as important to us as our own. Just as we are careful to nourish and cherish our own bodies, we are to nourish and cherish others in love.
To nourish means to provide for and bring to maturity. It means to care for and contribute to the whole person—relationally, physically, spiritually, and socially. Love is a provider. It requires that we provide for the security, happiness, and welfare of others—just as we provide for our own—in order to bring them to maturity.
To cherish means to protect from the elements. Imagine a nest of newborn eaglets high on a mountain crag, exposed to the sky. An angry thunderstorm is rolling in. The mother eagle swoops down to the nest and spreads her wings over the eaglets to protect them from the pounding rain and swirling wind. That’s a picture of what it means to cherish.
Ephesians 5:29 tells us that it is natural for us to cherish ourselves—that is, to protect ourselves from anything that may endanger our mental, physical, spiritual, or social well-being. We buckle up and drive safely to prevent physical injury or death on the highway. We monitor our sugar and calorie intake to keep our bodies healthy. In other words, we love ourselves enough to protect ourselves from harm. Love is a protector as well as a provider.
For a husband to love his wife as he loves himself means he does whatever he can to provide for (nourish) the security, happiness, and welfare of his wife relationally, physically, spiritually, and socially, just as he would provide for himself. And he is to protect (cherish) his wife from anything that might hinder her from achieving maturity, just as he would protect himself.
By understanding that real love provides and protects another person, we gain insight as to why love makes a sexual relationship right.
Renee’s justification for sleeping with her boyfriend was that it was right for them because they “loved each other.” In other words, “love makes it right.” It seems that Teri, her mother, may have been influenced by that kind of thinking as well.
I (Josh) shock parents and church leaders when I say that I agree, in a way, with today’s young people—I believe that true love does make it right. You may have already come to that conclusion yourself, because when true love is founded on the biblical standard for sex, it waits to have sex within the context it was meant to be expressed in—marriage. If Tony truly loved Renee and Renee truly loved Tony, they would wait to engage in sex until they committed to each other in marriage. The truth is, the physical, spiritual, and relational security, happiness, and welfare of both of them is best achieved by waiting.
True love commits wholeheartedly. As we noted above, it commits to cherishing, protecting, and providing—all of which are self-sacrificing activities that place the other’s welfare above one’s own. When two lovers marry, they are making a public vow committing to provide for and protect each other through thick or thin. That kind of committed love compels a couple to wait to engage in sex until after marriage—which is the context in which love makes it right.
When it comes to the matter of our sexual morality, God, in his love, wants to provide for us and protect us. It’s this simple: when we and our children honor God’s boundaries and prohibitions for sexual behavior, we benefit. Obedience to his negative commands to avoid sexual immorality offers a very positive result.
In biblical terms, sexual immorality is all sex that occurs outside of a marriage between one man and one woman (extramarital and premarital sex). Scripture gives the following guidelines:
• You must abstain from…sexual immorality. (Acts 15:29)
• Run from sexual sin! (1 Corinthians 6:18)
• We must not engage in sexual immorality. (1 Corinthians 10:8)
• Among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality…because these are improper for God’s holy people. (Ephesians 5:3, NIV)
• God’s will is for you to be holy, so stay away from all sexual sin. (1 Thessalonians 4:3)
Respecting the boundaries of sexual morality and prohibitions for extramarital and premarital sex does bring protection and provision.
Here are just a few ways it does this:
| Protection from | Provision for |
| guilt | freedom |
| unplanned pregnancy | optimum atmosphere for child raising |
| sexually transmitted diseases | peace of mind |
| sexual insecurity | trust |
| emotional distress | true intimacy |
Experiencing these benefits can definitely maximize a person’s sex life in marriage. For example, I (Sean) made a clear choice to wait until I made the loving commitment of marriage before experiencing sexual relations. That commitment meant I would remain sexually celibate until I met and married my high school sweetheart (Stephanie) and then remain faithful to her. Stephanie made that same commitment. And because we both were obedient to God’s commands regarding sex, we have been protected from feelings of guilt and have enjoyed a consistent relationship with each other.
We never had to go through the heartache of a pregnancy before marriage. Consequently, we have not experienced the heart-wrenching ordeal of planning an adoption or struggling with getting married before we were ready.
We have been protected from the fear that any sexually transmitted disease might come into our marriage bed.
We have been protected from the sexual insecurity that can come from being compared to past sexual lovers one’s spouse may have had. And consequently, we have experienced the provision of trust in our relationship.
We have been protected from the emotional distress that premarital sex can bring and the feelings of betrayal that an extramarital affair can cause. As a result, we have enjoyed relational intimacy together unobstructed by breaches of trust or ghosts from the past. And even more than avoidance of these negative consequences, obedience has helped bring an atmosphere of joy, freedom, life, and happiness that God desires each of us to experience. I don’t want to portray our relationship in a Pollyannaish manner as if we don’t have any struggles. Like every other couple, of course we do. But this is an area where following God’s commandments has benefited us immensely—more than we ever could have imagined when we were younger.
Sex as God designed it is meant to be lived within the context of healthy boundaries—prohibitions before marriage and fidelity after marriage. Following God’s design allows a couple to experience the beauty of sex as it was meant to be experienced. But it is vitally important that we know—and that our children understand—what these boundaries are and be able to identify them by name. Because it is these boundaries and limits that make “no” such a positive answer—and when we live within them, they are the very means by which sex is maximized. Take time to instill the boundaries God has given us to maximize the joy he wants us to experience in our sex lives. Let your children know how purity and faithfulness are their best friends when it comes to finding the most joy in sexuality.
The Boundary of Purity
The Bible says, “Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure” (Hebrews 13:4 NIV). “God’s will is for you to be holy, so stay away from all sexual sin. Then each of you will control his own body and live in holiness and honor—not in lustful passion…. God has called us to live holy lives, not impure lives” (1 Thessalonians 4:3–5, 7). Purity is God’s boundary that provides for a maximum sex life and protects us from the negative consequences of sexual immorality.
What does it mean to be pure? Have you ever had a candy bar that identified itself on the wrapper as “pure milk chocolate”? What about a jar of honey? Some labels read: “Pure honey—no artificial sweeteners.” Pure describing chocolate or honey means there is no foreign substance to contaminate it or to keep it from being and tasting like authentic chocolate or real honey.
To be pure sexually is to “live according to God’s original design,” without allowing anything to come in to ruin his ideal plan for sex. While God desires that some be single (1 Corinthians 7), sex was designed to be experienced between one man (husband) and one woman (wife) in a lifelong committed marital relationship. To actually have more than one sexual partner, or to look at pornography and even think about another sex partner, would be to bring a foreign substance into the relationship, and thus introduce a kind of impurity. If you were to drop a dirty pebble into a glass of pure water, it would become adulterated—impure. A glass of water without any impurities in it is an unadulterated glass of water. God wants us to have sex lives—in both body and mind—that are unadulterated.
Our young people need to know that God designed sex to be experienced within an unbroken circle, a pure union between two virgins entering into an exclusive relationship. That pure union can be broken even before marriage if one or both of the partners has not kept the marriage bed pure by waiting to have sex until it can be done in the purity of a husband-wife relationship.
Where did sexual purity come from? From the very character of God himself. God says, “Be holy, for I am holy” (1 Peter 1:16 NASB). “All who have this hope [of being like Christ when he returns] in him purify themselves, just as he [Christ] is pure” (1 John 3:3 NIV). God by nature is holy and pure. “There is no evil in him” (Psalm 92:15). What Kenton and Teri want to help Renee understand is that if she remains sexually pure before and after marriage—in both body and heart—she and her boyfriend, Tony, will enjoy the protection and provision of sex and experience it as God meant it to be experienced. That is what all our young people need to understand.
And if young people have made mistakes already, they need to understand that God forgives them. The reason Jesus came is to forgive fallen people and to remove their sin. If marriage illustrates Christ’s relationship to the church, sexual impurity represents unfaithfulness to God, and we have all been unfaithful and impure to varying degrees. Ultimately, our need for purity (in all areas of life) is satisfied in Christ because he is the only one who lived a perfectly holy life (John 8:46). According to 1 John 1:9, “If we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.”
The Boundary of Faithfulness
The seventh commandment is, “You must not commit adultery” (Exodus 20:14). Jesus made the point that once a man and woman are united as one in marriage, they are not to commit adultery but remain faithful to one another. He said, “Let no one split apart what God has joined together” (Mark 10:9). God told Israel, “I hate divorce!…So guard your heart; do not be unfaithful to your wife” (Malachi 2:16).
What couples do at their wedding is commit to be faithful to one another—“to have and to hold from this day forward: for better, for worse; for richer, for poorer; in sickness and in health; to love and to cherish till death do us part. And hereto I pledge you my faithfulness.” Perhaps nothing is more rewarding than to sense that someone loves you more than any other and will devote himself or herself to you for life.
I (Josh) have traveled away from home for most of my married life. I have had more than one opportunity to be unfaithful to Dottie. But in over forty years of marriage, by God’s grace I have resisted temptation and demonstrated loyalty, faithfulness, and devoted commitment to only one love-and-sex relationship in my life. And that, of course, is my relationship with Dottie. That commitment means the world to her. It deepens her sense of worth, and it gives her security and tells her she is loved. Of all the billions of women on this planet, she is the one and only lover for me.
God created us with the desire and longing to be that “one and only” to someone else. That desire came directly from the very nature of God himself. “Understand…that the LORD your God is indeed God,” Moses told the Israelites. “He is the faithful God who keeps his covenant for a thousand generations” (Deuteronomy 7:9).
Countering the influence that cultural tolerance has had on our young people’s understanding of sexual morality isn’t necessarily easy. We need to take time to intentionally instill God’s design for sex. Correcting the distorted view our young people may have about love and sex involves imparting a clear understanding of who God is, who we are in relationship to him, and how he has given us a way of relating to one another and a model for doing it. This biblical narrative about God and his truth is about a way of living and thinking that must be incrementally and consistently imparted to our children. God’s instructions for instilling the truth of scripture into young people are as fitting for us today as they were when he first gave them to Israelite parents: “Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up” (Deuteronomy 6:7).
Here are a few examples of situations that you can use as times to convey God’s boundaries for a maximum sex life.
• Celebrate anniversaries. Wedding anniversaries are ideal times to let your children and their friends know how faithfulness and purity are God’s plan to protect and provide for us in our relationships. This can include people who have suffered divorce but are now pursuing a faithful relationship and oneness in their marriage. Make your own anniversary a family celebration. Let your children know how much marital fidelity means to you. Explain what the marriage commitment has done for your relationship. The more that members of your own family see how faithfulness and purity have benefited your lives, the greater the impact it will have on them.
Don’t underestimate the ability of younger children (six, five, or four years old, for example) to understand the principles of sexual purity and marital fidelity. You have an excellent opportunity to build a foundation for their sexual chastity by helping them understand the principles of faithfulness and purity. You can explain to them your faithfulness to your spouse by putting it in the form of promise keeping. “I promised I would love your mother always, and that’s what I am going to do because I love your mother more than anyone, and God would be disappointed in me if I broke my promise to her.” You can explain marital fidelity to young children by saying, “I live only with your father and with no one else because I love him so much and because God created a wife to love only one man in that way.” Teach them early of your commitment to each other and how you are exclusively devoted to each other.
Pastors and youth workers, you can take advantage of your anniversary or that of a mature couple in your church. Have your spouse come into the youth group or adult small group for a faithfulness and purity celebration. Explain how those principles have brought provision and protection into the marriage.
• Take full advantage of weddings. Whether you are a youth worker, pastor, or parent, you can use a wedding to celebrate God’s principle of faithfulness and purity. Make sure your children understand its significance. Take time prior to and following the ceremony to emphasize the commitment the couple is making and their promise to be faithful for a lifetime. Get a copy of the marriage vows and read them together with your younger children. Some teenagers find it a bit stuffy or unconventional to read the vows together, but you can at least make it meaningful to a child or preteen. Weddings are an ideal time to reinforce God’s way of love and sex within the marriage commitment—and how that reflects the relational character of God.
• Use opportunities presented by TV, news, and current affairs. Take advantage of some of the many opportunities to correct the warped portrayals of love and sex in the “entertainment” media and news or to highlight those that are positive. When you and your children, for example, see something on television or in the movies that contradicts God’s standard for sex, discuss the benefits of obeying God’s commands and the consequences of violating them. You may be surprised how insightful young people are in detecting the benefits and consequences of people’s actions once they begin to see life through the biblical narrative about truth concerning love and sex.3
An expression of authentic love honors the boundaries of purity and faithfulness. That kind of loving prompts us to provide for another’s best and protect him or her from harm. Kenton aims to portray that kind of love for his daughter, although he may express it imperfectly. His wife, Teri, needs to understand that loving her daughter isn’t about agreeing with her in an attempt to prevent alienation. She needs to point her daughter to the truth about love and sex, knowing that obedience to God’s negative commands gives us the best chance to experience God’s design for relationships. Endorsing immoral behavior is not equivalent to loving a person, nor is correcting that behavior equivalent to rejecting a person.
Proponents of cultural tolerance, however, will point out that when you fail to endorse a person’s beliefs and behavior, you are, in effect, rejecting the person. Many claim that homosexuality is not merely a sexual act or a natural orientation; it is a state of being—an identity. Many assert that people are born gay, and when you condemn homosexuality, it’s an affront to their personhood and a direct condemnation and discrimination against them as human beings.
What so offended Chad was that his dad, Todd, was in effect (in his opinion) condemning his friend’s brother. When Todd said, “Homosexuality is wrong, and we shouldn’t be celebrating it,” that, in Chad’s mind, was an outright rejection of a person. And if being gay is an identity, how can Todd or any of us lovingly accept the person without approving of choices he or she may make?
Granted, that is a tough question, and because many Christians have failed to address it adequately, the culture has answered it for us. That answer hasn’t been a pretty one. When the Christian community declares homosexuality to be wrong, sinful, or unnatural, they are labeled intolerant, bigoted, hateful, and unloving. Claiming, “We love the sinner; we just hate the sin” doesn’t cut it with this culture. In fact, that phrase is offensive to a generation steeped in cultural tolerance. And the statement is far too simplistic. Our own churched young people, for the most part, defend their gay friends and say we as Christians should accept them for who they are—which often means endorsing certain behaviors we find objectionable.
We are here to humbly offer a solution to this dilemma. There is a way to love people for who they are while at the same time not endorsing their behavior. Jesus teaches us how authentic love does just that. Real love means loving people where they are regardless of what they do. That is what true love does. We will unpack the real meaning and application of true love in the next chapter.