9944/100% Pure?
Sue Andraeas
“But among you there must not be even a hint
of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed,
because these are improper for God’s holy people.”
Ephesians 5:3
What a time to write an article about purity! Our American news, I’m sure, reaches beyond our borders to those of you who do not live in this country, and whether reporters are dis-cussing the two main presidential candidates or famous celebrities from sports or Hollywood—or even during the commercials between these stories—there are few places left in the Western culture that are not tainted by blatant sexual impropriety or innuendo. Here are three personal small ‘moments’ that suggest just how deeply entrenched impurity has become in our society.
#1. I was watching a show on PBS (and, for those of you not familiar with American television,…this is the channel that was originally known as the academic and cultural high ground in TV viewing) and the host of the show was visiting a bike shop where the artisan was welding original, hand crafted bicycles by using a special kind of weld that he had developed. The camera showed the weld being created, flipped back to watch the reaction of the host as he examined the artisan’s handiwork, and then zoomed in on his face as he exclaimed, “Man! That’s one sexy weld.” Sexy? We’re talking about molten metal joining two metal tubes together!
#2. It was one of my first days of teaching in this area and I found myself out on the playground. Two cute little girls, no older than six, were swinging together and singing their hearts
out. And what were they singing? It was a Top 10 pop song; the lyrics were about the ‘afterglow’ of a one-night stand. I’m sure these two little girls had no clue what they were singing about, but they were well on their way to developing both impure ideas and the vocabulary to express them.
#3. Different school. Another six-year-old girl arrived for the Christmas Concert (excuse me; Winter Concert) with red lipstick, mascara, a skin-tight top, miniskirt, nylons and heels. When I told her she looked pretty, she replied that her dad called her a ‘looker’ and that the boys would want to eat her up. She had already learned that this is what she needed.
If we, as Christians, rush through our prayers, forget to read our Bibles for a while, or have not developed any of the other disciplines, we can still appear to be Christian by our ‘Christianese’ behaviors and words. The world can still be fooled by our pre-tend-piety. But nothing will betray our lack of true holiness, in an exterior and visible way, faster than impurity. It sneaks out in our vocabulary and co-versations, our wardrobe, our choices for how we spend our free time, our perception of others’ worth, our intimate and platonic relationships, even our sense of humor. And much of the time, we are not even aware of just how impure our thoughts and actions have become be-cause the ‘purity gauge’ in our culture is set so low. What is the solution? How can we practice the discipline of purity in an impure land? To find that, we must first understand what God de-sires for his people. So, let’s go back to Old Testament times…
In the first few books of the Old Testament, the idea of impurity is portrayed as ‘unclean,’ meaning ‘defiled’ or ‘polluted,’ and was first used to describe food. God’s people were instructed (in what we know as the book of Leviticus) to never eat the carcasses of animals found dead, or gnats, or camels, etc.—those lists of meat that are divided into ‘clean and unclean.’ Later, it is used to describe water, cooking pots, women just after childbirth, skin lesions, household mold, and on and on the list goes. Later on, in the same book, God spends a great deal of time explaining the dress and conduct for Aaron and the line of priests who were to follow. They are to be set apart; holy. Clean. They were the living prophetic witness to the ‘holy cleanness’ of heaven.
So, if you found mold on your walls, or had questions about what kind of meat you can serve your Israeli family, you did not go to the ‘impurity police’ or to their equivalent of a home/kitchen expert like Martha Stewart. You went to the priest, the one who should be able to tell clean from unclean, purity from impurity in much the same way that a banker—an expert in real money—can more quickly spot a counterfeit. None of these laws concerning clean and unclean, pure and impure, health and disease were meant to limit God’s people except from what would keep them away from Him. And since there is nothing impure, unclean or unhealthy in God’s Heavenly Kingdom, our goal should be to remove them from our own lives in order to remain close to God. These first laws were about tangible, physical things, but God later developed this concept of purity into one that was more about spiritual purity than physical cleanness.
In the very first part of his letter to the Romans, Paul quickly links impurity to idolatry and greed, and from there, the list of consequential sins grows rapidly. At its core, impurity makes an idol of the created. It is directly
related to lust, which puts personal desire above sacrificial love. That means that lust and impurity are directly related—and so are purity and agape love. Of course they are! Sacrificial (self-forgetting) love is the act which naturally flows from a pure heart. God goes so far as to identify impurity as adultery committed against Himself (see Jeremiah 3). Now we see that, at its very core, purity is very much a spiritual matter, which is why it is a spiritual discipline! Purity is as much a protection from lusting after creation as it is protection against idolatry, or worshipping anything other than God. Jesus teaches that pure of heart will see God (Matthew 5:8). “Heart,” in this case, refers to our thoughts and ideas.
Look over the Romans 1 list of characteristics that sneak in once impurity works its way into our being. That list includes, among other things, envy, murder (and remember, Christ says mental and verbal ‘murder’ are the same as physical murder), strife, deceit, malice, gossip, slander, arrogance and boasting. That’s only a partial list! St. Paul concludes his thoughts by writing how impurity leaves us with having “no understanding, no fidelity (loyalty to God), no love, no mercy.” I would suggest that, if you are having trouble focusing as you pray, if Scripture seems cryptic and dry, the Holy Spirit seems to be absent, or if you feel like God is far away and not paying any attention to you, begin looking at what inspires your thoughts and emotions. What are you watching on television? What kind of music (meaning the lyrics and intent of rhythm) provides the soundtrack for your day? Do you ‘measure’ those around you based on the expectations provided by advertisements and Hollywood, or do you see them as the image of Christ that they truly are? By which standard do you measure your own worth?
Once you find the ‘leak’ of impure stimuli, clog it up. Turn it off. Replace it with thoughts and stimuli that are pure. “Like what?,” you may ask. Paul gave a list of those things as well, documented for us in Philippians 4:8; “Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” And remember, it didn’t take 5 minutes for impurity to sneak into your interior life—your mind; it’ll take longer than 5 minutes to erase it. Be patient with yourself, and constantly remind yourself to choose cleanness, purity. Choose Christ.
Rejoice!
Sue
Sue Andraeas
“But among you there must not be even a hint
of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed,
because these are improper for God’s holy people.”
Ephesians 5:3
What a time to write an article about purity! Our American news, I’m sure, reaches beyond our borders to those of you who do not live in this country, and whether reporters are dis-cussing the two main presidential candidates or famous celebrities from sports or Hollywood—or even during the commercials between these stories—there are few places left in the Western culture that are not tainted by blatant sexual impropriety or innuendo. Here are three personal small ‘moments’ that suggest just how deeply entrenched impurity has become in our society.
#1. I was watching a show on PBS (and, for those of you not familiar with American television,…this is the channel that was originally known as the academic and cultural high ground in TV viewing) and the host of the show was visiting a bike shop where the artisan was welding original, hand crafted bicycles by using a special kind of weld that he had developed. The camera showed the weld being created, flipped back to watch the reaction of the host as he examined the artisan’s handiwork, and then zoomed in on his face as he exclaimed, “Man! That’s one sexy weld.” Sexy? We’re talking about molten metal joining two metal tubes together!
#2. It was one of my first days of teaching in this area and I found myself out on the playground. Two cute little girls, no older than six, were swinging together and singing their hearts
out. And what were they singing? It was a Top 10 pop song; the lyrics were about the ‘afterglow’ of a one-night stand. I’m sure these two little girls had no clue what they were singing about, but they were well on their way to developing both impure ideas and the vocabulary to express them.
#3. Different school. Another six-year-old girl arrived for the Christmas Concert (excuse me; Winter Concert) with red lipstick, mascara, a skin-tight top, miniskirt, nylons and heels. When I told her she looked pretty, she replied that her dad called her a ‘looker’ and that the boys would want to eat her up. She had already learned that this is what she needed.
If we, as Christians, rush through our prayers, forget to read our Bibles for a while, or have not developed any of the other disciplines, we can still appear to be Christian by our ‘Christianese’ behaviors and words. The world can still be fooled by our pre-tend-piety. But nothing will betray our lack of true holiness, in an exterior and visible way, faster than impurity. It sneaks out in our vocabulary and co-versations, our wardrobe, our choices for how we spend our free time, our perception of others’ worth, our intimate and platonic relationships, even our sense of humor. And much of the time, we are not even aware of just how impure our thoughts and actions have become be-cause the ‘purity gauge’ in our culture is set so low. What is the solution? How can we practice the discipline of purity in an impure land? To find that, we must first understand what God de-sires for his people. So, let’s go back to Old Testament times…
In the first few books of the Old Testament, the idea of impurity is portrayed as ‘unclean,’ meaning ‘defiled’ or ‘polluted,’ and was first used to describe food. God’s people were instructed (in what we know as the book of Leviticus) to never eat the carcasses of animals found dead, or gnats, or camels, etc.—those lists of meat that are divided into ‘clean and unclean.’ Later, it is used to describe water, cooking pots, women just after childbirth, skin lesions, household mold, and on and on the list goes. Later on, in the same book, God spends a great deal of time explaining the dress and conduct for Aaron and the line of priests who were to follow. They are to be set apart; holy. Clean. They were the living prophetic witness to the ‘holy cleanness’ of heaven.
So, if you found mold on your walls, or had questions about what kind of meat you can serve your Israeli family, you did not go to the ‘impurity police’ or to their equivalent of a home/kitchen expert like Martha Stewart. You went to the priest, the one who should be able to tell clean from unclean, purity from impurity in much the same way that a banker—an expert in real money—can more quickly spot a counterfeit. None of these laws concerning clean and unclean, pure and impure, health and disease were meant to limit God’s people except from what would keep them away from Him. And since there is nothing impure, unclean or unhealthy in God’s Heavenly Kingdom, our goal should be to remove them from our own lives in order to remain close to God. These first laws were about tangible, physical things, but God later developed this concept of purity into one that was more about spiritual purity than physical cleanness.
In the very first part of his letter to the Romans, Paul quickly links impurity to idolatry and greed, and from there, the list of consequential sins grows rapidly. At its core, impurity makes an idol of the created. It is directly
related to lust, which puts personal desire above sacrificial love. That means that lust and impurity are directly related—and so are purity and agape love. Of course they are! Sacrificial (self-forgetting) love is the act which naturally flows from a pure heart. God goes so far as to identify impurity as adultery committed against Himself (see Jeremiah 3). Now we see that, at its very core, purity is very much a spiritual matter, which is why it is a spiritual discipline! Purity is as much a protection from lusting after creation as it is protection against idolatry, or worshipping anything other than God. Jesus teaches that pure of heart will see God (Matthew 5:8). “Heart,” in this case, refers to our thoughts and ideas.
Look over the Romans 1 list of characteristics that sneak in once impurity works its way into our being. That list includes, among other things, envy, murder (and remember, Christ says mental and verbal ‘murder’ are the same as physical murder), strife, deceit, malice, gossip, slander, arrogance and boasting. That’s only a partial list! St. Paul concludes his thoughts by writing how impurity leaves us with having “no understanding, no fidelity (loyalty to God), no love, no mercy.” I would suggest that, if you are having trouble focusing as you pray, if Scripture seems cryptic and dry, the Holy Spirit seems to be absent, or if you feel like God is far away and not paying any attention to you, begin looking at what inspires your thoughts and emotions. What are you watching on television? What kind of music (meaning the lyrics and intent of rhythm) provides the soundtrack for your day? Do you ‘measure’ those around you based on the expectations provided by advertisements and Hollywood, or do you see them as the image of Christ that they truly are? By which standard do you measure your own worth?
Once you find the ‘leak’ of impure stimuli, clog it up. Turn it off. Replace it with thoughts and stimuli that are pure. “Like what?,” you may ask. Paul gave a list of those things as well, documented for us in Philippians 4:8; “Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” And remember, it didn’t take 5 minutes for impurity to sneak into your interior life—your mind; it’ll take longer than 5 minutes to erase it. Be patient with yourself, and constantly remind yourself to choose cleanness, purity. Choose Christ.
Rejoice!
Sue