On a discussion forum I’m part of, someone, a parent of teenagers, I believe, posted a list of questions about sex education. I think it’s a great list, and bears discussing. I’ll give my answers below, but I’m going to just give you the questions first. I’d encourage you to take a crack at answering them for yourself before you read mine.
- Is there a genuine difference between “Christian sex ed” and secular information, or do we just add a few Bible verses to the same biological facts?
- What is God’s actual design for sex? (Looking for biblical evidence here, not just traditional “churchy” opinions.)
- Does the Bible even offer a blueprint for sexual education, or have we been winging it for centuries?
- How do we stop the cycle of “sex-negative” or “sex-neutral” parenting? Can we actually give what we never received?
- Is “taboo” ever healthy? Is there any topic that should remain strictly off-limits between parent and child?
- Is there a “too early,” or is our silence just giving the world a head start?
- Is it time to scrap the “mom talks to girls, dad talks to boys” rule? Who is truly responsible? Does the gender of the parent or child even matter in these conversations, or is that just a cultural tradition?
- Silence is not consent—if a child never asks, are we failing them by not forcing the issue? How do we handle the “shut down” and the averted eyes?
- If we aren’t the primary source, who is the safest “second-in-line” for our kids?
- Is the church (or small group) actually stepping up, or are they just outsourcing this uncomfortable job back to parents?
- How can we advocate for “waiting” today? (I’m looking for arguments that a teenager can relate to, even if they haven’t had a conversion experience yet!)
- Can we define “boundaries” before marriage without turning it into a legalistic checklist of “how far is too far”? What is your exact answer if your kid asks for it?
- How do we address the “puberty gap”? What should a young person do with being biologically mature when marriage is still far (5-10-15 years) away? When the Bible was written in the Middle East, women often married at 12-16, which almost coincided with puberty—this meant something entirely different back then!
- How do we dismantle the “test-drive” argument? Is compatibility something you find or something you build?
- Our own marriage as a “silent teacher” of intimacy. How/What kind of example can we set for our children in this area through our own marriage?
Give yourself some time to think those over. I’d love to hear your answers to these questions. I’d especially love to hear what you think is missing from the list here—what other questions that should be here? What other insights need to be part of a well-developed perspective? What do you think?
When you’re ready to continue, my answers are down below.
- Is there a genuine difference between “Christian sex ed” and secular information, or do we just add a few Bible verses to the same biological facts?
Yes. The materialists are wrong about everything, all the way down to the ground. The world is not what they think it is; humans are not what they think we are; heck, even matter is not what they think it is. And they don’t know what anything actually means. Secular information is not “right as far as it goes,” it’s fundamentally wrong about absolutely everything. That doesn’t mean we can’t draw information from pagan sources, but when we baptize it, we need to make sure we’ve done a thorough job. We’re going for “dead and resurrected,” not a light rinse, and that’s harder than most people think.
- What is God’s actual design for sex? (Looking for biblical evidence here, not just traditional “churchy” opinions.)
Natural law gets to weigh in here, too: designed things “want” to be used in particular ways. It doesn’t take you too long to figure out which end of the paring knife to hold. Fruitfulness is a major purpose of the design: sexuality is our reproductive mechanism, and we’re powerfully driven to exercise it. The hormonal effects of sexual union are also a big deal, and show that bonding and communion are also major purposes of sex. It’s enormously pleasurable, and that’s either an accident or it’s intended that way. Since it’s God we’re talking about, it’s intended. Say thank you.
Looking to Scripture, we find that fruitfulness is the very first recorded blessing and command to man and woman (Gen. 1:28). Zooming in on the creation of humanity in the next chapter, we find that sexual difference is specifically designed by God, and designed to motivate a man to leave his parents and take a wife. This moves the conversation in a different direction than the way I was raised. Instead of my constant young male horniness being sinful fleshly weakness, it’s the motivator God designed to create a new household. On this account, then, the fact that the desire is so powerful isn’t because you’re extra sinful, it’s because sexual desire is the mainspring of the household, which is in turn the building block of civilization. Of course it’s strong! We’re supposed to be exercising dominion over the whole world! Weak, take-it-or-leave-it desire wouldn’t do the job, would it?
- Does the Bible even offer a blueprint for sexual education, or have we been winging it for centuries?
Neither. The Bible is authoritative on everything it speaks to, and it speaks to everything – but not necessarily in the format we were wishing for. It’s not enough to let the Bible supply our answers; we also need to let it critique our questions. So no, the Bible doesn’t provide a blueprint for sex education; it provides an extensive set of blueprints for marriage. The Church has not been winging it for centuries; what we’ve been doing (in our better moments) is building our education on the Bible’s blueprints for marriage, so that when we teach about sex, it’s in its proper context.
- How do we stop the cycle of “sex-negative” or “sex-neutral” parenting? Can we actually give what we never received?
You can’t give what you ain’t got, but you can and do give your kids all kinds of things that you didn’t get while you were a kid. Unless you seriously think that we’ve gotten worse every single generation since Adam and Eve, then yes, you can give your kids something you didn’t have as a kid. That’s how generational advance works: our ceiling is their floor.
- Is “taboo” ever healthy? Is there any topic that should remain strictly off-limits between parent and child?
Strict taboo, absolutely not. Are there topics that we must not approach casually or flippantly? Of course, and I suspect that’s how the taboos come to exist to start with. Some topics are very high-stakes, and you can’t afford to do them badly. We then begin to fear making mistakes, and from that fear, we begin to think it’s safer not to approach those topics at all. We start saying stupid things like “You just have to be so careful…” no matter how someone is approaching the topic. That’s nonsense, and God has not given us a spirit of fear. It’s precisely in giving due weight to consequential topics that we render the taboos ridiculous.
- Is there a “too early,” or is our silence just giving the world a head start?
That’s a judgment call you have to make in your context. If you’ll pardon a horrible example, there are ages where it’s “too early” for a kid to learn about rape, but if it happens to them or one of their friends, you’re not (I hope!) going to tell them “It’s too early to talk about that.” It might be too early, but so what? If that’s what they’re dealing with, then we’re gonna talk about it. In a sane world, a lot of this stuff might wait until later…but we don’t live in a sexually sane world, and you can’t fight lies with silence.
- Is it time to scrap the “mom talks to girls, dad talks to boys” rule? Who is truly responsible? Does the gender of the parent or child even matter in these conversations, or is that just a cultural tradition?
This would be a good place (like #2, above) to ask for biblical support. Where did this “rule” even come from? It certainly doesn’t come from Scripture. Of course the gender matters in these conversations, and that’s precisely why God gives a kid a mom and a dad. Every kid should hear from both of them.
The first time we did a unit on this in youth group, we had a 6-week series on marriage and sexuality, and we had only a portion of one session that we split by gender. It’s important to have that opportunity, because kids sometimes raise questions that they wouldn’t raise in a mixed-gender group, but the kids also need to see adults interacting intelligently and calmly with members of the opposite sex on these topics. They take their cues from us: if we’re afraid or uncomfortable, they will be too. If we’re sober, reverent, and clear-headed, they’ll learn to be that way themselves.
- Silence is not consent—if a child never asks, are we failing them by not forcing the issue? How do we handle the “shut down” and the averted eyes?
You are failing them if you don’t deliver what they need to know, in exactly the same way you’d be failing them if you didn’t teach them division or reading or how to eat their vegetables. “Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child;” it’s not their job to dictate what they’ll learn. And also, if you manage to deliver the material in a way that’s forced and makes them hate it, you’re failing them, in the same way that you can make them hate math by approaching teaching division poorly, or make them hate broccoli by boiling it until it’s grey. As with food, so with education: nothing is so good you can’t bungle it. There’s no substitute for knowing your kids well and leading their hearts well, in any topic. This one too.
- If we aren’t the primary source, who is the safest “second-in-line” for our kids?
First of all, you should be the primary source. Unless you’re radically disqualified in some odd way, you have no business shirking your responsibility to speak to your children about sexuality. And also, as with anything else from driving to calculus to piano lessons, there’s nothing wrong with outsourcing a portion of the work to trusted members of the community. There’s no rule that says your kid has to learn only from you.
As far as who you trust, of course that’s a judgment call you make in your context. I think it’s safe to say that if you’re relying on government-funded schools to do the heavy lifting for you, you’re bound for trouble. You hand your 5-year-olds over to enemies of the faith to be catechized for years on end, and then be surprised when your 16-year-olds act like they’ve been catechized by the enemy. So stock their lives with people that you trust to talk with them about topics that matter. Too many Christian parents isolate their kids. Sometimes it’s out of fear, but often there’s an ego component. It starts with a (possibly well-intended) sense that “I should be the person my kid talks with about this,” but then proceeds to wondering, “What does it say about me as a parent if my kid talks with someone else?” Finding that option intolerable, the parents attempt to deny their children other options. Listen, I’ve been doing youth work for a really long time. I promise you, if you draw the circle too tight, they’ll find someone outside your circle, and it won’t be someone you’d have picked. It’s much smarter to give your kids easy access to interested and trustworthy adults, and then trust the adults to do the job. Paradoxically, if you’re not afraid, your kids will see that, and most of the time they’ll come to you.
- Is the church (or small group) actually stepping up, or are they just outsourcing this uncomfortable job back to parents?
Again, depends on your context. But first of all, whaddaya mean “uncomfortable job”? Who says? Kids are naturally curious about everything, and educating them is a natural part of preparing them for the world. Why do we just accept that we’re somehow obliged to be performatively uncomfortable telling them about sex? There’s nothing inevitable about that, and mostly the recipe for being comfortable with it is “decide you’re going to be comfortable with it.” Emotions are contagious; the kids will mostly take their cues from you. So govern yourself. If you dramatize it, they’ll treat it like forbidden fruit. If you hem and haw and look at the floor, they’ll be uncomfortable. If you’re at peace with it, they will be too—and then sex won’t have the wrong kind of mystery attached to it.
There’s a lot of weird evangelical folkways around this. Different families handle things differently, and some parents are really spiky about other people answering their kids’ questions, so people are understandably cautious. If you surround your kids with a community that can actually handle adult matters like adults and give straight answers to serious questions, then you’re gonna be fine. Just don’t be overly precious about it, and let your community do its job.
- How can we advocate for “waiting” today? (I’m looking for arguments that a teenager can relate to, even if they haven’t had a conversion experience yet!)
This would be another place to go back to Scripture first. Because God says to. If your 15-year-old isn’t prepared to remain chaste simply on that basis, then you have much, much bigger problems than who they’re gonna sleep with.
But it turns out that God has pretty good ideas, so if we dig into how all this works, we will discover that His instructions are also a wise way to live. You wait to ignite sexually until marriage for the same reason you wait until you’re out at the fire pit to start your fire, instead of starting it while you’re sitting on the couch: sex is unbelievably potent, and marriage is the container that will hold it safely. There’s a lot of potential starting points, but here are two of mine:
A. If you’re not ready to pay for the doctor bills, the diapers, the baby food, the whole shebang, then you’re not ready to do the things that lead to babies. And don’t tell me about birth control; it fails. Not a ton, these days, but if you’re the one it happens to, it won’t much matter that it is statistically rare. You made that kid; you owe your child the best launch into the world you can manage, and that means having adult money. Feeling really impatient and horny? Excellent—channel that energy into building the life you need; that’s the very first thing your sex drive is for.
B. Bad things happen when intimacy and commitment don’t match. If you get commitment too far ahead of intimacy, you’re a stalker. If you get intimacy too far ahead of commitment, you’re going to get really hurt. These two things are meant to go together, and intimacy within the shelter of that commitment is an entirely different experience than having sex in sales-and-marketing mode, trying to elicit commitment. (In a way, it’s analogous to the difference between doing good works because God graciously saved you versus trying to earn your salvation with your works.)
- Can we define “boundaries” before marriage without turning it into a legalistic checklist of “how far is too far”? What is your exact answer if your kid asks for it?
That’s a conversation to have, not a set of rules to give. I usually aim to elicit the boundaries from them rather than just give them an answer. (Depending on the kid. I’m not averse to just giving an instruction if they really need it, but it’s better if they think it through themselves.) If they understand what marriage is for, and what sex is for, and how sexual attraction is designed to work in the mating process, then it’s not that hard to reason out a set of guidelines that makes sense.
“How far is too far?” is fundamentally the wrong question. It’s the question you ask when you’re chasing pleasure for its own sake, playing stupid games trying to stand as close to the edge of the cliff as you can without falling over. We’re not trying to just-barely-not-miss the target; we’re trying to hit the bullseye! There’s a better question to ask.
“What is my sexuality for?” is the right question. The goal is to deploy sexuality as a tool and enjoy it as God’s good gift without damaging each other in the process. We’re on a mission to take the world here, and sexuality is the mainspring of the whole enterprise. Once we’ve accepted that, we’re no longer preoccupied with how close to the line we can get without falling over. We’re pursuing the goal, and that’s a whole different conversation.
Once you’ve got the right question in front of you, it’s pretty obvious that if you don’t have a life and a marriage, but your hands are down somebody’s underpants, you took a wrong turn somewhere. If I need to get more directive at this point, I can, because now the “rules” aren’t a system to game, they’re just trail markers to let you know you need a course correction. If I need to: keep your clothes on. Keep your hands out of each other’s clothes and off each other’s genitals. Clothes notwithstanding, keep your genitals off each other too; until you’ve built a life and a marriage, you have better things to do than dry hump. This very minimal rule set is not in the Bible and I make no promises that if you keep them, you’re in the clear. NOT A CHANCE. No list of rules can do that; “if there had been a law that could have given life, truly righteousness would be through the Law.” That’s just not how it works. You have to reckon with God, and He knows your heart. Keep your heart in the right place, and you’ll be fine. Get sidetracked into pursuing momentary pleasure for its own sake, and I can’t help you no matter how many rules I give you. No amount of rules can save a wrongly directed heart.
- How do we address the “puberty gap”? What should a young person do with being biologically mature when marriage is still far (5-10-15 years) away? When the Bible was written in the Middle East, women often married at 12-16, which almost coincided with puberty—this meant something entirely different back then!
As much as you can, minimize the gap. In my community, we’re raising them to be ready to step into adulthood at 18, and marry soon after. The ridiculously protracted childhoods we visit on our children do them a lot of damage. When teenagers make big drama out of something stupid, it’s frequently because they’re emotionally capable of caring about big things, but we won’t let them have anything big and consequential to care about. A 14-year-old can have a business they run themselves with a little oversight (that’s late, actually). A 10-year-old can cook a meal for people that won’t eat tonight if he doesn’t get it done. Expect and empower them to do consequential things, and they will. Nice side benefit: having perspective cuts down on stupid drama.
In God’s good providence, we may have kids that marry older, and they’ll have to learn how to live a chaste single life long-term. They’re not alone; Isaac didn’t marry Rebekah until he was 40 (Gen. 25:20). We can’t control everything. But there’s no reason why a 25-year-old should be struggling with long-term chastity because the kid is just not marriageable. We can get them ready early, and we should.
- How do we dismantle the “test-drive” argument? Is compatibility something you find or something you build?
No two sinful human beings are compatible, period. You build compatibility with patience, self-control, and care for each other. Your brains aren’t fully developed until you’re 25, so that’s another good reason to marry young—God designed us to grow together in our latter years of development. It’s easier to become compatible if you get married while the concrete is still wet.
The stats on “test driving” are actually not that encouraging, so that’s worth looking into as well.
- Our own marriage as a “silent teacher” of intimacy: how/what kind of example can we set for our children in this area through our own marriage?
Embody the distinction between private and secret. Your sexuality is private, shared between the two of you, but it is not secret. You have sex. You enjoy it. You are attracted to each other. We all know, and that’s ok. These things are not secrets, and you should not treat them like secrets. Struggling with what private-but-not-secret looks like? You poop. You do it in private. But it’s not a secret, and you’re not overly disturbed if someone happens to realize that you’re pooping right now, behind that door over there. In fact, for someone to be preoccupied with you pooping would be a sign of fairly serious immaturity. You poop discreetly, and intelligent, mature people discreetly leave you to your business. We all appreciate the same consideration from you; not everything needs to be a topic of preoccupation or conversation. Some things were made to be private.
You need not sneak about like adulterers in your own house. You’re living righteously in front of your kids; why would you model sneaking around? It’s ok for your kids to learn that if the bedroom door’s locked, they shouldn’t knock except in a real emergency. When they ask why, it’s ok to tell them “Mom and Dad need private time” and leave it at that (or however you choose to handle it). It’s ok for them to figure out what’s happening behind that door. It’s ok to teach them not to be preoccupied with it; don’t they have math homework to do or something? And those baseboards are starting to look pretty dirty…there’s an old toothbrush and a spray bottle under the kitchen sink….
What about you? How would you answer differently? What questions would you add to the list?
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