Suppose a man marries a woman, but after sleeping with her, he turns against her and publicly accuses her of shameful conduct, saying, “When I married this woman, I discovered she was not a virgin.” Then the woman’s father and mother must bring the proof of her virginity to the elders as they hold court at the town gate. Her father must say to them, “I gave my daughter to this man to be his wife, and now he has turned against her. He has accused her of shameful conduct, saying, ‘I discovered that your daughter was not a virgin.’ But here is the proof of my daughter’s virginity.” Then they must spread her bed sheet before the elders. The elders must then take the man and punish him. They must also fine him 100 pieces of silver, which he must pay to the woman’s father because he publicly accused a virgin of Israel of shameful conduct. The woman will then remain the man’s wife, and he may never divorce her. But suppose the man’s accusations are true, and he can show that she was not a virgin. The woman must be taken to the door of her father’s home, and there the men of the town must stone her to death, for she has committed a disgraceful crime in Israel by being promiscuous while living in her parents’ home. In this way, you will purge this evil from among you. (Deuteronomy 22:13-21, New Living Translation)
According to its website, the National Center for Health Statistics (NSFG) “gathers information on pregnancy and births, marriage and cohabitation, infertility, use of contraception, family life, and general and reproductive health.” Its latest completed round of interviewing, with published results, covers the years 2017-2019. During those years the NSFG interviewed 6,141 women and 5,206 men. All those interviewed were between the ages of 15-49 and were either currently married or had been married at least once. (I should probably point out that Kansas and Hawaii actually do allow 15-year-olds to legally marry.)
In regards to premarital sex, 89.3% of those surveyed women and 93.4% of those surveyed men said they had engaged in premarital sex. Both of those percentages were increases from the 2015-2017 interview period, which reported that 85.9% of similar women and 90.3% of similar men had engaged in premarital sex. If these numbers paint an even remotely correct picture of premarital sex in America, it is indeed a very troubling one.
Standing in stark contrast to America’s current mocking of virginity, we have our text passage, which was a part of God’s Old Testament law. How highly was virginity valued in a newlywed Jewish girl in ancient Israel? If her husband’s initial sex with her led him to conclude that she wasn’t a virgin when she married him, he could take her to court before the elders of his town and formally charge her with shameful conduct. At that point, the burden of proof for the girl’s premarital virginity would fall to her parents. In order to clear her of the charge, they had to produce proof of her virginity. This proof would have been in the form of a blood-stained bedsheet or a blood-stained garment from the wedding night.
If the girl’s parents were able to produce this proof, the husband who had made the false accusation was to be punished, fined 100 pieces of silver, and never allowed to divorce the girl. Presumably, the word “punished” refers to the man being whipped. As for the 100 pieces of silver, they were to be paid to the girl’s father because the good name of his family had been soiled by the false accusation. Not only had the accusation cast his daughter in a bad light, it had cast him and his wife in one for not being able to raise a sexually pure daughter.
But on the other hand, if the girl’s parents were not able to produce the required proof that the girl truly was a virgin when she got married, the required sentence for her was death by stoning. She was to be taken to the door of her father’s home and stoned there by the men of the town. By doing the stoning at the door of the home in which the girl was raised, a stigma would be associated with that home. Also, the girl’s parents would recall the memory of her stoning every time they entered the home. That memory would serve to remind them that they had somehow failed her in her upbringing.
Okay, so am I advocating that we implement God’s Old Testament law here in America? No, I’m not. I’m simply pointing out that law’s standard in regards to virginity and using that standard as evidence of just how highly God values virginity. In other words, if you want to know what God thinks about premarital sex in America becoming about as common as dirt, Deuteronomy 22:13-21 will give you your answer.
As a closing reminder, Hebrews 13:4 still says: “Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge” (N.K.J.V.). The teaching of this verse is simple: Any sexual activity that is done anywhere besides the confines of marriage is sin and is therefore worthy of God’s judgment. That’s not hypothetical Old Testament law, either. It’s New Testament fact.
If we can believe the statistics from the National Center for Health Statistics, 89% of American women and 93% of American men either don’t know that teaching or don’t fear it enough to bring their lives in line with it. Obviously, no Americans are getting stoned to death with rocks these days, but God does have other forms of judgment, and I have no doubt that America is experiencing them in one way or another right now. This is just one more way in which the American train has derailed, and I find it simply impossible to believe that any real changes will ever occur apart from Christ’s Second Coming.
The Disciple's Road 