What Is Honor?, 5

Continued from "What is Honor?, 4"

When I speak of honor as a virtue of Christian Martialists, I don't mean their pride or their reputation. I use the term in the sense of Merriam-Webster's 7th and 8th definition of the word:

7 : chastity, purity
8 a : a keen sense of ethical conduct : integrity "wouldn't do it as a matter of honor" b : one's word given as a guarantee of performance

As you consider these definitions, be careful not to deceive yourself into thinking that chastity and purity are the sole domain of the fairer sex (Prov. 11:15; I Tim. 4:12). While husbands and fathers should protect their wives and daughters from threats to their chastity and purity, they must protect themselves, as well.

I'm reminded of a summer job I had while I was in college, where I worked alongside another college student for several weeks sorting lumber for a pallet factory. My work-mate liked repeating off-color jokes and making perverse remarks.

One day he asked me, "Do you know why I talk the way I do around you?"

"Tell me," I replied.

"It's like walking by a yard where someone has hung their clean laundry. You see all those nice clean sheets and you just have to throw mud on them. That's how I see your mind -- like those nice clean sheets."

You protect yourself and your loved ones by minimizing exposure to twisted people like that college student. But you also have to train yourself and your family to mentally judge every incoming thought and word by Scripture and to pronounce God's judgment on that which defiles.

I'm not saying you should try to "filter out" or ignore those things. That approach hasn't worked for me, and it probably won't for you either.

Instead, I propose that you actively condemn the foul things you hear. Not necessarily out loud, but in a very deliberate and definite manner reject and denounce those words and the ideas they represent as evil and worthy of God's condemnation.

In other words, you must take God's side within your own heart and say the same thing He says about unclean words and ideas (John 7:24; I Cor. 6:3; 11:31).

In addition, you protect your chastity (and that of your loved ones) by learning (and teaching) how to recognize and resist those who would seduce us. (See Prov. 6:24)

In a very real sense, protecting your own chastity and purity is just one facet of maintaining your integrity (see definition 8a). More on this in another post.