pure

I’m proud of my military contribution, but one outcome of 25 years with soldiers is some of my humor is kind of black. Soldiers and cops and nurses, among others, tend to do that to cope with some of the things they have to see and do. But one thing I never got used to, and still am repulsed by, are the coarse jokes about sex. To me, most of them are gross or sad, not funny. Sex is at the core of marriage, which is one of the ways we understand how Jesus relates to the church. It isn’t a joking matter.

When I wonder how some people can think those things are funny, I remember what Paul taught in Titus 1:15: “To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure.”

Now, I’m not as pure as I should be, but in this matter I can see what Paul is referring to. Without God as an absolute reference of truth and goodness, we don’t have to respect anything as good. And then everything is fair game.

Sex is good and pure only if you accept God as its creator and his standards for sex as absolute. If you don’t acknowledge that Jesus’ kingship extends to include our bedroom behavior, then sex is just scratching an itch. Nothing pure about it.

That’s true for everything God made good, and all the things he declared holy. And it’s why our coarse jokes say much about what we really believe.