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Let all that I am praise the Lord;
may I never forget the good things he does for me.
–Psalm 103:2

It’s New Years Day here in the States–a great day to ponder everything God did last year.  I’m overwhelmed with a sense of awe and gratitude as I think about this past year.  Here are a few highlights of 2008:

*Basta LoveLife: Without question, the highlight of 2008 was the release of my book.  I signed the publishing contract right before last year’s Christmas vacation.  It was in stores within a few months.  It has now sold over 1,000 copies—not a big deal for big name authors, but it’s a huge deal for me.  I hope it continues to bless those who read it.

*Radio Interviews: The Lord blessed me with some awesome radio interviews last year.  LJ invited to join them for their Valentine’s Day special over at DZAS.  Jordan and I had fun over at Against the Flow, and I was on air with the awesome folks at The Edge Radio. Thanks to all who invited me for interviews!  I hope to do more interviews this year–maybe even some “secular” shows/stations.

*True Love Waits: I’m not sure how many students attended one of our TLW seminars in ’08 (I usually keep statistics by school year).   It’s always a great honor to spread the message of purity.

*People: I met some fascinating new people in 2008–the Blackabys and the President to name a few.

*Preaching: I’ve probably preached more this past year than any previous year of ministry. Blessings to those who managed to stay awake during my sermons.  One of these days I’ll finish with 1st Timothy—promise.

*Radio Show: Erwin and I signed a six month contract for our own radio show.  We pray more stations will broadcast it this year.

*I tried different methods for advertising this blog.  Some worked better than others.  It definitely made a difference in terms of traffic, and I should pass the 300,000 hit mark some time this year.

 

A response to the Rosenbaum study.

“Many Teens Don’t Keep Virginity Pledges”

This is one of the latest articles I’ve seen on Yahoo.  It comes from a recent study by Janet Elise Rosenbaum, published in Pediactrics (the study is entitled Patient Teenagers? A Comparison of the Sexual Behavior of Virginity Pledgers and Matched Nonpledgers).

But Yahoo’s interpretation of the study is very misleading.  Here’s the first paragraph of the yahoo article:

“Teens who take virginity pledges are just as likely to have sex as teens who don’t make such promises. . .”

Wrong!  This is not an accurate interpretation of Rosenbaum’s study.   I’ve taken the time to read the abstract and analyze her study.

Previous studies compared those who took virginity pledges with the general population.  Such studies showed those who take pledges were less likely to have premarital sex and more likely to delay sex.

But Rosenbaum’s study was different: it compared “virginity pledgers” with “matched nonpledgers.”

If I understand this correctly, the “matched nonpledgers” were virgin teens that 1) anticipated feeling guilty about premarital sex, and 2) attended a church/religious youth group meeting once a week.  This is the group she compared with those who made formal virginity pledges.

Allow me to summarize: a group of teens with religious convictions against premarital sex were compared with a group of teens that made some type of formal virginity pledge.  Their behavior was similar.  Is this supposed to be a surprise?

Here are some of my thoughts:

Teens that embrace the message of purity behave differently than those who don’t.  This doesn’t mean all of them remain chaste until marriage (which is the Biblical standard).  But they are more likely to delay sex (some until marriage) and have fewer sexual partners.  Let’s not forget the positive impact of committing to biblical principles.

 A virginity pledge is simply a formal way for a teenager to express his/her commitment to purity—it is not a “magic bullet.”  None of us would argue that a formal pledge guarantees chaste behavior.  Many of the pledgers in Rosenbaum’s studied actually denied ever making a pledge.  If such was the case, they lacked some much-needed foundation for living a pure life.

Teen sexuality is not just a medical/biological issue.  STD’s, pregnancy rates, and the incidence of sexual behaviors are easily measured and quantified.  But there are other dimensions to human sexuality that cannot be measured: the spiritual and emotional consequences of premarital sex.

Regardless of statistics and studies, God’s mind hasn’t changed on this issue.  His plan for sexuality is clearly stated in the Scriptures: One man and one woman in a covenant of marriage.