Definitions: Chastity

Chassity, Chassidy, Chassitee, Chessity, Chessidy, Chasadee.  These and a great many more are variants of a very popular English language female personal name.  They all are apparently attempts to represent the word “chastity.”

One wonders how much people understand about the word if they cannot even be bothered to spell it correctly.  The English language word is derived ultimately from the Latin word “castus,” meaning “pure”.

Aldous Huxley humorously (I think) called chastity “the most unnatural of all the sexual perversions.”

An internet Google search brings up numerous attempts at a definition, most centering on the avoidance of sex.  The Christian understanding of the word can include that meaning but it is much more meaningful than that.  Remember that God viewed the Israelite’s attraction to other cultures and other gods as adultery against Himself. (Hosea 4; Ezekiel 16:35-42; Jeremiah 3:1, 13-14, and, in the New Testament, James 4:4)

The Christian martyr, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, said of the virtue, “The essence of chastity is not the suppression of lust, but the total orientation of one’s life towards a goal.”

Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. Galatians 5:23

"By pureness, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned," 2 Corinthians 6:6

"One that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity;" 1 Timothy 3:4

"Let no man despise thy youth; but be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity." 1 Timothy 4:12

"For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ." 2 Corinthians 11:2

"That the aged men be sober, grave, temperate, sound in faith, in charity, in patience." Titus 2:2

"Likewise must the deacons be grave, not doubletongued, not given to much wine, not greedy of filthy lucre;" 1 Timothy 3:8

"Even so must their wives be grave, not slanderers, sober, faithful in all things." 1 Timothy 3:11

“Sex in the Body of Christ” http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2005/may/34.28.html