Something Flaming, Like Joan of Arc
Exhortation from Lord’s Day Worship - February 16, 2025
Our exhortation this morning comes from G.K. Chesterton's essay called "A Piece of Chalk." Chesterton writes:
"Chastity does NOT mean abstention from sexual wrong; it means something flaming, like Joan of Arc."1
Chastity is the old word for purity, usually sexual. Abstention means to STOP or AVOIDING doing something. Chesterton is saying, chastity is NOT just NOT doing impure things. For sure, it includes stopping the impure thing. Chesterton also says elsewhere that the way to deal with pornography is NOT through reasoning with your mind, but by stamping it out with the heel of your boot. Or, as our Lord put it, you cut it off or pluck it out. Chastity is not not that, but it's not JUST that.
Chastity requires something flaming, like Joan of Arc, the teenage woman who lived a life of chastity for the sake of her mission - to free France from English invasion in the Hundred Years' War.
Chastity is MORE than stopping doing the impure thing. It requires being set aflame by a new, greater mission.
This agrees with Scripture entirely. As Paul described the new life in Christ in Ephesians 4, he said this:
28 Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.
Put that verse as a question: when is a thief no longer a thief? It's NOT when he's STOPPED stealing. It's more than that - something FLAMING, like George Muller, the generous, faith-filled man who created orphanages in England. The thief is still a thief UNTIL he is set afire by the mission of having something to share with ANYONE in need.
How is this mission kindled?
First, it is lit by God's grace. Christ's forgiveness enlarges our hearts to run in God's way.
Secondly, we are fed by it in marriage. The very thing that God commands husband or wives to give to the other is precisely the thing that we are designed to be fed by for the mission. Men are fed by reverential respect and women by sacrificial love.
Thirdly, it is nurtured in a church where we people are equipped and encouraged . . . to just do stuff.
Chastity does not mean abstention from sexual wrongdoing; it means something flaming, like Jesus, who for the joy set before Him, walked in holiness, for us.
It speaks of Chesterton’s genius that he might start with literally a piece of chalk and end with profound thoughts about chastity, God or Christian political theory, which he does regularly.