Ch. 1: The Parable of the Ring

• 15 year old Johnny sees a beautiful wedding ring in a jewelry store, and, while looking at it, he sees a beautiful woman; the woman of his dreams (actually, even more than what he dreamed). Despite extreme reluctance on the part of the jewelry store owner, he makes an arrangement to pay $50 a week for this $10,000 ring. He works super hard all through high school and after he graduates, he finally pays it off, and gets the ring. That night he discovers that he is drafted into Vietnam. He takes the ring with him, hiding it in his helmet. During a fight he loses his helmet and goes back to get it, getting shot in the leg. Ever since he saw the ring, he has occasionally seen the woman of his dreams when he looks at the ring, in increasing detail as time progresses. At the hospital, the nurse who is assigned to him turns out to be the woman. After a rocky start, they eventually get married, and on the honeymoon night Johnny gives her the ring. She is from a wealthy family, and while she likes it, she does not perceive Johnny’s value of the ring. While playing on the beach the next day, she loses the ring because she did not value it enough to take it off. The point of the story is that the value of the ring is not in the materials, but the difficulty in bringing the ring to her.

Ch. 2: From the Battlefield to the Bedroom

• Once Johnny explains things to her, she understands and is grief-struck. Fortunately they find the ring in the sand.
• Purity is like the ring. Although purity in itself is valuable, the real value is the commitment to the unknown spouse that fueled the commitment to stay pure.
• We are surrounded by people who bought into our culture’s lie that lust is love. They are reminded of their failure when they see people who are saving themselves, so they their them down in an attempt to feel better about themselves.
• There was a girl at Kris’ high school who was known to be a virgin. She looked and acted regal. One day, a guy got her drunk at a party and slept with her. She spiraled down and ended up hanging out with the druggies. Kris actually cried when he heard about it: she had effectively been a symbol for all the people in the school who were secretly saving themselves.
• If this is you, get God’s forgiveness and return to being regal. Don’t let shame spiral you down into feeling like you are not worth anything.
• Some years later, this girl found Christ, who restored her identity, and how she is doing well.

Ch. 3: The Great Escape

• Kris started going out with this beautiful, popular girl sitting in front of him in Algebra. One day he walked her home and she essentially asked him if he wanted to sleep with her. He didn’t know what to do, and ended up taking off running, all four miles back home. He wasn’t sure what it was that made him do that, but is thankful that he has only ever had sex with one person—his wife.
• Prov 29:18 says that when there is no vision the people are unrestrained (or perish). The problem with our culture is that we have no vision for purity.
• We have no vision for who we are ourselves. If we don’t value ourselves, then our actions will communicate that to people. Why would someone else value you if you don’t value you?
• Decide what your virtues are, and live from them. Don’t let your surroundings define your character.
• Women:
• If it’s not for sale, don’t advertise it! When you dress in tight clothes, short skirts, revealing blouses, you are try to catch men with your body. So who are you trying to be? You are communicating that you are offering sex, and you are making it hard for men who are trying to keep themselves pure. It is great to look beautiful, but that is different from sexy.
• Men:
• A survey of women said they the top four things they valued in a man are valued integrity, honesty, confidence, self-sacrifice and love (in that order).
• When Kris’ mother met Kathy (now Kris’ wife), she was only 12, but she said “she is the marrying kind,” in contrast to all the other girls she had met of his friends. She saw that Kathy was unselfish, truly valued Kris, believed in him, was emotionally healthy, and respected herself. She wasn’t looking for a boyfriend to feel better. Kris’ mother was completely right; this is what the “marrying kind” looks like.
• Look at how the person treats their parent of the opposite sex; this is how they will treat you.

Ch. 4: The Rules of War

• Acting on our physical impulses is generally unhealthy; sexuality is no different.
• This battle is won with in our mind; don’t dwell on things that go against your virtues.
• “Learning to control your thoughts, instead of allowing your thoughts to control you, is probably the single greatest secret to successful living.” (84)  Some people let their thoughts drag them through life like a young girl attempting to walk two huge dogs.
• Having a desire for sex is not wrong; it’s normal and healthy, because God put it there. It’s just that you need to rule it, not let it rule you.
• The Bible does not mention masturbation, although it is explicit about pretty much everything else. However, lusting is a sin, and it is hard to masturbate without lusting.
• Masturbation doesn’t just go away when you get married, because your habits of covering up pain with pleasure don’t magically disappear.
• Sexual desire is supposed to motivate a husband to connect with his wife emotionally, and desire for emotional connection is supposed to motivate wives to connect sexually. Masturbating (for men) and things like getting emotional needs met from soap operas, etc (for women) destroy that motivation, and make the marriage that much weaker.
• You really need help from God to make it.
• Accountability really helps—have someone that helps you draw up a plan for staying pure, and checks up on you.
• Make sure you are only dating people that have committed to saving sex for marriage. Also, make sure there is a plan for the date that doesn’t involve being in places conducive to sex. Women, make sure you can veto the plan. Guys, make sure you bring the princess back better than you found her.
• Your body wants to procreate, so don’t get it all excited by full-frontal hugging, or french kissing, etc.

Ch. 5: The Pursuit

• Be emotionally healthy first.
• Get to know prospective mates as friends first, so you can see what kind of person they are, and what kind of things you are attracted to in a person.
• When you decide to take the next step, be clear about your intentions. We like to use subtle signals because that lowers the risk of being rejected, but such signals are really easy to misinterpret by the other gender. “Trying to decode someone’s ‘love dance’ can be an incredibly complex way to initiate a relationship that is supposed to be built on trust.” (106)
• Go slowly. Your level of intimacy should match your level of trust.
• Four dating guidelines:
• Start apart and slowly move together: this builds trust, and also reduces the heartbreak if the relationship does not work out.
• Communicate before acting: communication is the basis of trust; lack of communication produces anxiety.
• Don’t make commitments while on an emotional high.
• Deal with any insecurity, anger, loneliness, rejection, self-pity, or frustration quickly, before you leave the house.
• We get our needs met through God’s love.
• If the relationship ends up in rejection, tell your feelings to God, grieve over the loss of the relationship, and let yourself heal so you can be vulnerable with the next person.

Ch. 6: Inciting a Sexual Revolution

• Many businesses use lust to sell their products, and the commercial media have turned virginity into something shameful.
• Prudery doesn’t help, though. It makes sex shameful and hides it, which then leaves people vulnerable to the world’s message, which correctly identifies that sex is good, natural, and fun.
• Sex is not just a bodily act, though. It is meant to intertwine our spirits, so that two become one. It is meant to create families: the woman’s hymen breaks during sex, spilling blood, which seals a covenant, so that children are born into a covenant, through an act of intimacy and delight.
• When the Bible says that Adam “knew” Eve it doesn’t mean that they had sex, but that the children were born out of a deep knowing, into-me-see, intimacy.
• The marriage covenant is like God’s covenant to us—He never stops loving us.
• Living together is not the same as marriage. Living together is using the fear that you might leave to get me to give you what you need. In contrast, marriage is coming together to give to each other, not to receive from each other.
• Our culture wants intimacy without covenant, and the result is broken marriages and a fatherless generation.

Ch. 7: Divine Romance

• “... Adam would relate to his wife in the same way he related to God—as partners in the work of God—because she completed him in the same way God did (compare Genesis 2:18 and Psalm 54:4). Man was manufactured with a God receptacle, so to speak, a place for his Creator to plug into his soul and complete the circuit of his life. God perfectly fits man because he was created for God’s pleasure and companionship. And when God literally took woman from man’s side, He created a similar void that could only be filled by her.” (137)
• Gen 2:18: “I will make [Adam] a helper suitable for him.”
• “helper” is used of women only twice in the Bible (in Genesis); of 13 of the 19 times it is used in the Bible it refers to God.
• “suitable” means “the opposite of”
• Men and women are equal in value, and equally intelligent, but not the same. “Women tend to think from the heart, intuitively understanding life through a kind of sixth sense. They more easily perceive circumstances and people from root issues and don’t get sidetracked with the facts and statistics that can often derail men. Men, on the other hand, tend to think from the head. They often place a higher value on facts, data, statistics, and logic.” (141)
• “Another major difference between the genders is the way that we approach sex. Men generally have intimacy so they can have sex. For a man, sex is the pinnacle, the ultimate goal of the marriage bond. Women, on the other hand, generally have sex so that they can have intimacy. They’re wired to want to feel close, cared about, and nurtured as the primary expression of their marriage bond.” (142-3)
• “What I observe is that men were created to be cultivators and women were created to be incubators—they are ‘womb-men.’ A husband cultivates the garden of his wife’s heart, and she incubates the seeds of life he plants in her soul. A husband gives his wife sperm. She incubates it and gives him a baby. He buys her a house and she makes it a home. He brings home the bacon and she makes it a meal. A husband speaks gracious words to his wife and she incubates those words and gives him a song!” (143)

Ch. 8: Holy Affection or Fatal Attraction

• Some girls are liked by lots of guys right off the bat, and some stay hidden for a while. The hidden years can be frustrating, and we need fathers who can say “you are beautiful.”
• We have confused love and sex. Unfortunately, people start to withhold love, to not seem like sexual predators, which creates a love-famine.
• “If [love were even remotely related to sex], whores and prostitutes would be the most loved people on the planet.” (150)
• When you have sex you become one, and then when the relationship disintegrates, it is like tearing apart two pieces of wood glued together—you get pieces of one on the other. If this is your experience, repent, ask God for forgiveness, and then ask Him to return all the parts from other people that you have, and to give you back all the parts of you that are stuck on other people.
• Unloved people can mistake love and/or attention as romantic love.
• We need to set boundaries with people, and maintain an open heart despite rejection and disappointment.

Ch. 9: On the Eve of Destruction

• Jews, Native Americans, and African Americans were able to be used and killed like cattle because the perpetrators (Nazis, the US, and the US, respectively) dehumanized the victims. The same thing is happening with babies: despite “fetus” being Latin for “offspring,” legally it means a blog of inhuman tissue that somehow magically becomes a human shortly before being born. Jews, Native Americans, and African Americans should be the staunchest defenders of babies at risk of abortion, but, ironically, these groups have the highest abortion rates. It’s almost as if someone is still trying to kill these groups.
• The court system has a double standard: if you kill a pregnant woman, you get charged with two murders (hence, a fetus is a human), but deciding to abort a baby has no charge (hence, a fetus is not a human).
• The religion of secular humanism has as much dogma and control of science today as the Catholic Church did in Galileo’s time, and treats dissenters in a similar way. “As far as secular humanists are concerned, you only have the right to their opinion!” (167)
• Abortion is a $90 billion industry. They fight for the right to continue selling death. And they aren’t going to tell prospective women about all the unhealthy post-abortion conditions.
• How did we get here?
• In the Agricultural Age, children were an asset (free labor). In the Industrial Age, children were a burden. As women pushed for equality in value with men, what they got was equivalence with men: if you want men’s rights, you have to be like a man. “When society’s maternal value eroded, women felt ‘trapped’ at home raising children while watching other women join men in the adventurous world of the workforce. It wasn’t long before children became the stumbling stones of the great adventure, and they were sacrificed on the altar of materialism.” (171)
• Darwinism says we are like the animals. Ironically, “now we protect animals and kill babies.” (172)
• Darwinism first became popular during the Sexual Revolution. “In my opinion, the Sexual Revolution created the perfect environment for Darwinism to emerge because because people violating their own moral values and were looking for a way to avoid answering to God for the guilt they were experiencing.” (172)
• Vallotton had a dream where he was at a computer in heaven, and could click on the picture of any aborted baby and he would see a movie of the life God had planned for them.
• God can restore purity and wholeness (includes a story of a woman who had poor boundaries, got pregnant three times over ten years, aborted the baby to try to keep the guy around, but never worked. She came to Christ and became healed of the woundedness that led to bad boundaries

Ch. 10: Grace

• Story about a couple dating, she had a checkered past but overcame it through Jesus love; he made a purity plan, modified it when necessary, and they arrived at the marriage having dated well and purely.