By Rev. Jason J. McGuire

During the month of August my wife and I celebrated our 13th wedding anniversary.  Admittedly we were married young by today’s cultural standards.  We were both twenty-one, and neither had finished college.

That is why a recent article from the Associated Press (AP) caught my eye.

The article highlighted the fact that many Evangelicals are encouraging marriage at younger ages in lieu of the premarital sexual relations that our culture seems to expect of couples.  The AP noted the tension that exists between an abstinent lifestyle choice, and a culture that inundates our senses with sexual temptation and societal norms that say marriage should wait until the late twenties or thirties.

It is difficult to remain sexually pure – especially in our hedonistic American culture, but it is not impossible.  If you are married at twenty, the temptation doesn’t end, nor is it any easier if marriage is delayed until the thirties or later.

1 Peter 2:11 says, “Dearly beloved, I beseech [you] as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul…”  Sexual temptation is a war, but one that is winnable.  For some, God brings marriage early in life, for others later in life or not at all, but all Christians are called to abstain from fleshly lusts.  Reject the culture’s siren call, serve the Lord. Settle for nothing less.