(Nora defines “fooling around” as beyond making out but short of intercourse—to her knowledge, Crist never engaged in intercourse so he could honestly say he was a virgin.)

-Taylor Berglund, “John Crist Cancels 2019 Tour Dates After Reports of Sexting, Harassment, Manipulation”

This sentence in the article about disgraced Christian Comedian John Crist caught my attention.

It reminds me of cheaters and their private definitions. These definitions are how they justify what they did as being “not so bad.”

They might say that the affair wasn’t “physical” meaning that they did not have traditional intercourse. However, they did everything else.

God has a higher standard, though.

Flee from sexual immorality.

-I Corinthians 6:18a, NIV

The word “virgin” looses its meaning when one is engaged in sexual immorality. Clearly, that is what is happening when one is engaged in sexting and other sexual behavior–whether or not it meets the classical intercourse definition.

Such sexual immorality is precisely what the Bible tells us to flee. It does not limit that command to “intercourse.”