Raising Purity Review

Awhile back I was mailed a complementary copy of Gerald Hiestand's new book Raising Purity: Helping Parents Understand the Bible's Perspective on Sex, Dating, and Relationships. I was asked to write a brief review and post it to my blog. Below is my brief (probably too brief!) review of the book. I'd love to respond to this important book in greater detail, but for now this review will have to suffice. I hope it's helpful for you!

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As parents of 3 young children, the issue of training our children is ever before my wife and I, and our hope is that we are training them to love Christ, love His church, and love others. As our children have gotten older, we’ve found that the training “curriculum” has diversified. One issue that has come increasingly before us is how to train our children to glorify God in the area of sexual purity. To this end, Gerald Hiestand’s book Raising Purity is a welcome edition. This book is theologically meaty and practically helpful. I am better equipped to help my children honor God with their bodies after reading this book. As a case in point, chapters 3-6 are veritable gold mine of Biblical theology, pastoral wisdom, and practical help. The Biblical distinctions Hiestand draws between categories of relationships (our family, our neighbors, and our spouse) were helpful towards thinking about the place of sexual expression in a “dating” relationship. Sexual expression is Biblically forbidden with one's family and with one's neighbors, but it is commanded with our spouses. Why would be assume there is any place for sexual expression with our “neighbor?” We must be careful not to let “dating” become a relational category. Hiestand describes it this way: “Herein lies a potential for great danger, for when we invent our own categories of male/female relationships, we are focused to invent our own purity guidelines within those categories” (pg. 46). He’s right. To rightly understand the Biblical categories for relationships clarifies “pretty dramatically and gives an objective answer to the question ‘How far is too far?’” (pg. 48). This kind of helpful teaching runs rampant in this book, and it worth the time to read it. I do, though, have a few concerns over Hiestand’s theological underpinnings. He continually describes sex as a “picture of the gospel,” and I understand what he is getting at. Sexual intercourse between a husband and a wife is a picture of the intimate relationship Christ has with His church. Sex pictures our union with Christ that is absolutely essential to our justification. But our union with Christ is not the gospel; it is an implication of the gospel – an effect of the gospel. This may seem like theological semantics, but it is an important distinction. We want to proclaim the gospel (what Christ has accomplished - 1 Cor 15:3ff) to ourselves, our children, and to our neighbors. We want to then glory in the union we have with Christ as a result of the Spirit bringing us to repentance and faith in Christ upon hearing the gospel. It is this union that sex so gloriously pictures. The point is: sex doesn't picture the gospel because it doesn't cover the bases of God, man, sin, and Christ. BUT this does not change the teaching point Hiestand is making. We must elevate our view of sex as something sacred and gloriously significant.

The reader ought to be aware of these subtleties, and glean from this book the wealth of valuable teaching it puts forth. On the whole though (the above differences aside), I highly recommend this book, and we plan to use the Biblical principles Hiestand so clearly teaches as we seek to train our children to honor God with their bodies.