Chaste - Part II

I want to touch two other tangential issues. Hagnos can be defined as, "clean". I've already been talking about our hearts being clean. First off, you cannot be clean at all unless you have a personal relationship with Christ. I don't mean that you read your Bible or pray now and again. Romans 3:10-19 tells us,

As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: Their feet are swift to shed blood: Destruction and misery are in their ways: And the way of peace have they not known: There is no fear of God before their eyes. Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.

You may think yourself good or at least attempting to be good because no one's perfect, right? God says, that without Christ your "mouth is full of cursing and bitterness". If you are not speaking for God's glory your words are a cursing. "Destruction and misery are in [your] way." Things may seem good for awhile, but it will not last. Life without Christ comes to misery.

Romans 3:23 says, "For the wages of sin is death, but the Gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." You have sinned. You deserve death. In case you think I'm pointing a finger at you, realize I'm pointing three back at myself. I have sinner. I deserve death. While this body in which I currently reside will one day pass away, my spirit will not die. Some day I will be reunited with this body - just a perfect version. Why the difference? Because of the second half of the verse, "the gift of God is eternal life". I have not just accepted this gift, but begged God that He would bestow it upon me.

Romans 10:9-10 says, "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." Salvation starts in the heart by begging Christ to take off your filthy inner self and putting Him on instead. He doesn't just wash the outside, He remakes you from the inside out. It can't stop there, though. You must confess Him. You cannot keep silent about this faith which He has given. You must (because of the change - it makes it a desire to) and desire to tell those about the change He has worked in you. You want to tell others that you now belong to Him, that "you are not your own, you were bought with a price" and getting back to the original thought, "For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's." I Corinthians 6:20 "Chaste" is that outer working of that inner reality as stated by that verse.

The last thing I want to touch on tangentially is being chaste as a wife means being dependent on your husband. As a wife, we cannot be pure if we depend on some other person to be for us what our husband is to be. Let me give you several examples. We cannot be pure and chaste if there is another person to whom we confide thoughts, feelings, or problems instead of our husband when our husband is to dwell with us according to knowledge (I Peter 3:7). We cannot be pure in our heart if a person other than our husband is our emotional support because he is called to love us as Christ loved the church(Ephesians 5:25-31). We cannot be pure in heart if we do not trust our husband to provide for us as Christ has called him to (Ephesians 5:29). We cannot be pure in heart if we are not willing to submit ourselves to our own husbands(Ephesians 5:22) because Christ has made him our head (Ephesians 5:23).

The point I'm wanting you to see is that the inner reality of what we are works itself out in how we act. That is what "chaste" is all about.

Chaste - Part I

Chaste - a small word which conjures up pictures of women medieval women clad in white flowing garments sitting by the side of a flowing brook. Most of us would probably think of her as quiet, beautiful, pure and unspotted, and of course, a virgin.

That picture, while accurate in some ways is inaccurate in others. Chaste, according to Webster's 1812 dictionary, is defined as, "Pure from all unlawful commerce of sexes", "Free from obscenity", "In language, pure; genuine; uncorrupt; free from barbarous words and phrases, and from quaint, affected, extravagant expressions."

This gives us a little clearer picture. A chaste woman is sexually pure. Most often we want to apply this to unmarried women. I wanted to point out that because Paul includes "chaste" in a list for married woman, he is affirming that "the marriage bed" is a pure and chaste thing. This will play itself out more later in the article, but to suffice for now, a married woman can still be just as sexually pure and chaste as an unmarried woman.

A chaste woman is "free from obscenity". Oftentimes, we think of obscenity as merely the words which trickle or pour from our mouths. While that is included, that is not the whole of the word. Many obscene things have nothing to do with speech. Do you dress modestly or in such a way as to not make a man do a double-take and lust after you in his heart? Do you present yourself with politeness? Sometimes a person's manners can be obscene or offensive. Are you careful to act appropriately with people. Being overly friendly (even unintentionally) with a member of the opposite sex could fall under this category as well.

Turning to Strong's Exhaustive Concordance, the word for chaste is "hagnos". I love the first definition given by Strong's, "exciting reverence, venerable, sacred". I had never before thought of a person as exciting reverence in someone else. Do you inspire or excite reverence in your children and husband? When people are around you, do you help them want to be reverent and show respect properly as becomes the situation? For me, that is something I will have to continue to ponder over as it is a quite novel thought.

Strong's second definition is, "Pure" and that falls out in three sub-definitions which are, "pure from carnality, chaste, modest", "pure from every fault, immaculate", "clean".

Chaste seems to be speaking of an outer adornment as a result of an inward reality. We, as women, are modest because we believe we represent Christ. We keep ourselves free from carnality because our lives are a reflection of Him who died for us. We do not want to present ourselves as liars, or cheaters, or thieves because we do not put a blot on God's holiness or the glory due Him for which we are striving to show.

It's easy to look on this and say, well, I just have to wear a high enough neck-line and a low enough hem-line. I just have to make sure I don't use foul language or tell crude jokes. Though those things are all good and proper, they are not what this verse is speaking about. This verse is speaking about our hearts. Are our hearts so attuned to God that we would rather suffer shame for doing what's right than to let down the one person who gave Himself to us? Why are you kind to others? Is it because Christ was kind to you or because you expect them to reciprocate? Why do you give money to the church? Do you give because it's obligatory to give your 10% or do you give because you want to bless those who your Father loves?

Returning Home

We had been gone for a week, preparing for the trip for part of a week, and getting our lives back in order for part of a week. Two weeks very busy weeks have passed by. I'm going to get back to posting while knowing that we're going to have another two very busy weeks here starting next Friday.

If you'd like to read about our trip, you can go here to see what we were up to.