 I'm ready to be tested by you, your family, and those who are responsible for you. I wouldn't phrase it like that, I wouldn't say that, um, I've been shooting this video for hours. Well guys, I said I'd give this book a fair shake, that I would tell you about the good, the bad, and the ugly, and in chapter 3 I came across the downright ugly. Let me just read it to you straight from the source. Y'all, no, y'all, no. This is the story of a Christian homeschooled 21 year old kid who wrote a book that ended up becoming one of the most hated books in modern Christian history. This book shot him to stardom, but also acted as a jumping off point for his own personal deconstruction about 20 years later. But how did this Christian kid end up writing a book that many claimed ruined their lives? Are the ideas in this book really that damaging, or is this outrage and outflowing of our culture's further departure from biblical sexual ethics? For many, this book marked an important point in what is known as purity culture, and today as we dig into its pages of this out of print book, we're gonna discover why it was such a lightning rod. For those in the late 90s when it was published, and why it still talked about today almost a quarter of a century later. As I was exploring this story further, I began to come across striking similarities with Joshua Harris' story and my story. We were both raised in a Christian household, both raised as homeschool kids in big families, and we also both wrote books early on in our late teens and early 20s. Now Joshua Harris' book was no doubt much more polarizing than mine, and because he already had those connections within the homeschool sphere, and actually I haven't told you this, but his dad is big in the homeschool community, because he already had those connections, this book took off very quickly. But I have to say the title is pretty great. I kiss dating goodbye, it's catchy, it's punchy, you know what the book's about. As I mentioned decades after this book's release, its book and readers have said that this book ruined their lives. Now those are pretty harsh accusations for Joshua Harris, and it's important to note that he has rejected everything that he wrote in this book. Years later he's recanted at all. He no longer claims to be a Christian at all, he doesn't hold to any of the core fundamentals of the faith. Joshua Harris now wants no part in this book at all and recants it unequivocally. So why venture into these pages? Why dig into this dark and twisted artifact of purity culture? A couple of reasons. Well, this book is out of print, I believe, so unless you get it used, you can't really find it, and it might be challenging. And look, I was going to do this exploration on my own. I found this book at my parents' house. This was kind of a generation before me that read this book, and I'm really interested to see what it has to say. If it really is as bad as people say it is, or if it's an over-exaggeration. I was going to do this kind of exploration on my own, but I figured, hey, bring you along for the ride. I'm not going to pull punches here. I'm going to tell you the good, the bad, and the ugly. Quick note, in terms of Joshua Harris, I don't believe that you can be a Christian for 20 years and all of a sudden decide, I don't want to be a Christian anymore and kick the Holy Spirit out of your body and become unsaved. I believe that people that leave the faith and say, I want nothing to do with it anymore after being a part of it for years and years. I don't think they were a Christian in the first place. When God seals you, when God transforms you and dwells you with his spirit, you can't do anything about that. He's going to keep you in that way. And so that's a conversation for another time. But all that to say is that I don't believe Josh Harris was a Christian when he wrote this book. Even though he had a lot of the terminology and some of the theology together, his heart had yet to be transformed. Reviewing this book sentence by sentence would not be beneficial to you or a good use of our time. So I'm going to take out the key points from each chapter. What kind of one key point for each chapter to bring to you and I think it's going to be a really, really fun video. I've been looking forward to doing this for a long time and I'm pumped that we're going to be on this journey together. This book is targeted towards Christians and so I'm going to target this video in the same way. So when I talk about dating and motivations and all sorts of different stuff, I'm already going on the presupposition that you are a Christian and you want to follow God. And what he has to say about relationships. That was a lot. But before I lose you, let us begin our journey into the pages of this disruptive piece of literature. I kiss dating goodbye. The book begins with perhaps its most controversial moment. And thus, people that didn't even make it through the rest of the book, they were startled by this initial story. It begins with a husband and a wife, they're getting married. And all of a sudden the husband comes up to the front and he is followed by a whole bunch of women. The bride is obviously disturbed, what is going on here? And the fellow, the groom, he says, hey, these are all girls that I've given a piece of my heart with. I'm sorry, I'll give you what's left. Obviously, this is extremely striking and disturbing in a lot of ways. So here we are, we start off chapter one with a real bang. The concept here is that you don't want to give your heart to a lot of different people because then when you do get married, you'll only have this little sliver to give away, right? Here's the problem, and this relates to purity culture in general. We need to keep Christ redemption in view. Through Christ, we are made new creations, we are made whole. All those things we did, all that baggage from the past, whether sexual or otherwise, that is placed at the cross. Yes, when you're intimate with somebody physically or emotionally and that is broken, that can leave scars where healing is necessary. But once again, we need to remember that Jesus is the healer. Another problem with this scenario, and I could go on and on about this, but this video cannot be for hours, is that one person supposedly has baggage and the other person is supposedly pure, but this just isn't true. Whether you've sinned sexually physically with someone or mentally, like you've looked on someone with lust, Jesus equates that with adultery. That's how high his standards are. We have all sinned sexually. One of the problems with this book and purity culture, and I mean, we haven't even made it very far in this book at all, but it's this idea that as long as you don't sin sexually with someone like in a physical manner, then you're okay. Then you are pure. But let's take into account our poor and saturated culture or steamy romance novels, the thought life, like all this has an effect on a person and according to God's standard, it's all sinned. So does this mean we just all give in and none of this matters at all because we've all sinned? Well, no. It does mean that we need to stop seeing other people, especially our future spells as either pure or un-pure. Look, through Christ, through his redemption, we are made pure. What's interesting is that Josh does highlight Christ's redemption at the end of the chapter, but he never relates it to this analogy and who receives this grace and this redemption and this transformation. He never makes that connection. In this chapter, I'm gonna run through his seven arguments against dating, what he calls his seven habits of highly defective dating, catchy. I like the alliteration. That's his good Baptist in him. But it's important to know that we have different definitions of what dating is. When Josh uses the label dating, he's talking about something very flippant, uncommiddle, uncommunicative, unintentional. I kind of just this, oh, I'm gonna get with this person so I can be with them physically and emotionally and I, you know, because I like them and I'm attracted to them. But then when somebody more cool comes along or somebody more interesting, I'm gonna go with them. That's the kind of dating that he's talking about. But to me, the enemy he's facing here isn't necessarily dating. It's his definition of what dating is. I mean, I would certainly say that people do that and that's what they call dating and that's how they operate in their relationships. And a lot of this book is Josh trying to tell those people to stop. And if he experiences Christians acting like that, man, like, that's tough. He's growing up in a tough neighborhood where people are really going, you know, buck wild and I'm sorry he has to experience that. But for me, I mean, dating doesn't have to be that. Dating can be intentional and communicative and intentional and have boundaries. And that's what we're gonna talk about later. So it's not really that dating is the big baddie. It's kind of his definition of what dating has been and is and so I would just maybe argue with him that there's another way about it, but, you know, that's his take. Dating leads to intimacy, not necessarily marriage. I agree, especially if there's no boundaries in place or no intention or communication about the direction of this relationship or why you're in the relationship. If none of that is stated or verbalized, like, man, yeah, it's true. Number two, dating skips the friendship stage. Sometimes, but I think that's largely to do with the breakdown of our Christian communities in general. Like maybe in the past, you had all these young adults always gathering around and doing life together. And so you had those opportunities to just be friends with folks before you ever pursued anything further. And there was that kind of in between stage where it was just really casual and that's great. And a lot of people still have that in different communities, but some folks don't and they don't come across a lot of new people in their life. And so when they do, it's kind of like, hey, I need to be intentional and verbalize, hey, I wanna get to know you better and let's go out sometime because they don't have that place or that just easy kind of community space where everybody just kind of gathers and you can be friends with everybody and you get to know them over a long period of time and then you can finally figure it out and then make a move. Like that isn't available for a lot of people and that's not a reality that a lot of folks live in. Number three, dating often mistakes the physical relationship for love. Yeah, it absolutely can, especially if you don't have boundaries and if you get into that physical aspect of the relationship very quickly on and dating, then you can just totally forget about setting that foundation and it's not healthy. I mean, I think we can all agree with that. Number four, dating often isolates a couple from their most vital relationships. It most certainly can. I think we all have known couples that are like this. They get into a relationship and all of a sudden they seem to, don't talk to their friends anymore and they're not involved with their families anymore and it's just like hours and hours and hours spent together. Yeah, that's not healthy. Number five, dating distracts you from building for the future. And I understand this. If you were talking about the context of somebody that's kind of frivolously and flippantly dating people in high school and going from one person to the next and they're not really focusing on what their future looks like or how their life is shaping up and they're just kind of using this as a hobby or even kind of their main hustle and they're just trying to get with as many people as they can like, yeah, obviously not good. Don't do that because yeah, that does distract you from the future among a lot of other negative things. But if you are ready for marriage and you see an opportunity to be intentional, like, hey, that can just be a good step in trying to build a relationship with somebody or get to know somebody. I mean, this stuff takes work and time because it's important, but only take that step, obviously, if you're ready. If you're not, then yeah, it is a waste of time. Six, dating can cause discontentment in God's gift of singleness and it could maybe, I don't know, like any kind of relationship could cause discontentment and singleness and that's a really challenging thing to figure out because there's a certain level of saying, hey, like I don't wanna be single anymore so I'm going to make intentional steps about getting to know somebody better. Is that discontentment? Well, you gotta look at your own heart. Like God said, it's not good for man to be alone. Like he says, he wants relationships to happen so that's good, but at the same time, yeah, we shouldn't be in this space where we're kind of like, oh man, I wish I was in a relationship and just totally sad and mopey and not getting anything done. Obviously, that's not good. Like at the end of the day, you gotta evaluate your own heart. Number seven, dating creates an artificial environment for evaluating somebody's character. Yes, this is totally true and this is one of those drawbacks of our communities breaking down. Well guys, I said I'd give this book a fair shake that I would tell you about the good, the bad and the ugly and in chapter three, I came across the downright ugly. Let me just read it to you straight from the source. Many of us walk through life plagued by the question, has God given me his best? But the question that we must first answer is, am I giving God my best? You and I will never experience God's best in singleness or marriage until we give God our all. Y'all, no, y'all, no. This is a deadly error in modern Christianity. The idea that as long as I'm good, as I'm pure, as I do what is right, that God will give me what I want and if that's marriage, if that's a fulfilling relationship, then you know what, God will come through. If I give God my best, then God will deliver me his best. We're using God, we're holding onto a contract or agreement that God never signed. In these few sentences on the end of chapter three, this could lead somebody's heart into a very harmful direction. This turns our relationship with God into this transaction where as long as I do my part, God will deliver me his part and I'll get what I want. I think of the stories of some people that have been heartbroken by this book, a good Christian girl who waits until marriage and then finds out later that her husband is addicted to pornography. She did her part. Why didn't God come through with his part? Or what about a guy who saves himself for marriage, thinking that one day, God will provide him with this fulfilling marriage and he'll get all of his needs met at all time and then he encounters the reality of what married life actually is. So what am I saying? Am I saying that it was hopeless, that they should have just given in and to temptation before they are married because it was hopeless after all? No, pursuing God's ways is wonderful, but here's the real truth. We should pursue godliness in our relationships and before we're in a relationship, not because we think that, oh, because of it, now we're owed all this good stuff in our future relationships and we'll just have this fulfilling happy ponies and rainbows type deal. No, it's because we love God, because we had fallen short of his narrative that we were not able to be pure, but God in his mercy saved us. So now out of that love for him that we have, we wanna obey him. There is a monumental difference between those two mentalities. You know what? The type of dating that Josh talks about, this kind of flippant, short-term connection because you want the physical and emotional needs met in your life. Yeah, that is prep for divorce. I agree. And when you hear people getting divorced, often what they say is, well, we just weren't happy anymore. It was their happiness that was the highest goal and when you approach any kind of relationship that way, you're gonna be led into trouble. And if you get in that habit of approaching relationships that way, then yeah, it can definitely be prep for future divorce. Josh enters what I would consider pretty tricky territory in this next chapter. He relates children that have been given marshmallows and he compares them with young people and dating. He recounts this study where children were given marshmallows and the researcher laughed and then they came back about 15 minutes later. The children that ate the marshmallow, they turned out to be just your average little kids and not too much to expect from them. But the ones that didn't eat the marshmallow until the researcher got back, they turned out to be the most well-adjusted, curious, adventurous, charismatic kids of the whole bunch. A story of the beauty of delayed gratification and look, hey, I'm a sucker for delayed gratification but that's not where Josh Harris stopped. The trouble comes in when Josh relates this directly to relationships. Josh says in a roundabout way that if we take advantage of our singleness now, God will provide us with something better down the line. Now this isn't to say that God doesn't bless obedience and when we follow his ways that good things can come from that, yeah, they can but it's not a guarantee or sometimes those things don't come through and that's okay. That doesn't mean that God's not good. It just means that our expectations were misplaced. In chapter six, Josh tells the story of King David and his emphasis is quite revealing. As he recounts the story of King David, one sentence in particular really stood out to me. The innocent shepherd was now an adulterer. Now obviously he's talking about David after he sinned with Bathsheba but here's the thing, David was not innocent before he sinned in that way. Honestly, I think this reveals a lot about purity culture and Josh Harris' perspective of it in general. Like, hey look, we're not pure just because we don't have sex outside of marriage or just because we don't have, you know, commit adultery. Meanwhile, the Bible tells us that if we've stumbled at one point, we're guilty of breaking all of his commandments that we are all impure before God and we are all in need of his redemption. In the next section of the chapter, Josh takes his aim at girls and guys. He begins with the guys with this. First, we must realize that girls don't struggle with the same temptations we struggle with. We wrestle more with our sex drives while girls struggle more with their emotions. Now personally, I don't find these broad generalizations to be that helpful at all, especially because you're minimizing the real temptations that girls experience in this area. You're basically saying to guys, hey, they won't struggle with this at all. I mean, I just think about pornography and how many girls I've seen have come out and said, hey, like I struggle mightily with pornography and many girls that are saying, hey, I have experienced the same thing and whether they got attached to it when they were young or a little bit older as well, this is a temptation that they experience. But the sad thing is they feel isolated in it because there's folks like this saying, girls don't struggle with this at all, you know, it's just a guy's thing and it makes girls feel like, oh man, I must be extra disgusting and dirty if I struggle with it, only a guy's temptation. Like I shouldn't be feeling this thing. When we should be saying God sees you, he sees your temptation and he doesn't think you're nasty or disgusting. No, he sees you as his child. There's community for you and we wanna invite you into that, into healing, into redemption, into restoration, not into isolation where we say, oh, you don't really struggle with this. It's not your issue. Go back into the darkness. Now Josh has his sight set on the girls because we know they don't struggle with any of the sexual temptation stuff. That's all in the guy's department as we learned previously. Thank you Josh for letting us know that. But now we are gonna talk to the girls and what issue is he gonna bring up to the girls? I think we can guess, modesty. Now I realize my sarcastic tone may give you the impression that I think this is the irrelevant conversation which I absolutely do not. I think it's actually a really important conversation that we need to have with both girls and guys. You get that, girls and guys? Here's my true sense on this. Modesty is heart word out. That means that our heart, if our heart is prideful or if it is boastful or if we want to show off, then that will display itself not only in our attitude, behavior, but also what we wear. So then our clothes then are basically the fruit of an immodest, boastful, prideful attention getting heart. To gain compliments or flattery, how about the attention from the opposite sex? I'm talking to guys too because I know guys do this. Our modesty should be motivated towards obeying God and the fruit of that is a benefit to those around us. Now this is not my notes and this could get me in trouble. But speaking as a guy, I do appreciate it when girls dress modestly. Like that's just a blessing. And look, I don't want them to constantly be thinking about, oh, you know, I should dress modestly so then Isaac doesn't stumble in any way. Like that's not what I want them to be thinking. I want them to be thinking how can my heart attitude be reflected in the way that I dress. And I want a humble heart before God and I want that to be demonstrated in how I'm dressing. And I definitely keep that in mind as I'm choosing what I wear as well. Because after a chapter on the importance of striving for purity, we need a reminder of God's grace. This is much of the problem with workspace teaching nowadays. They'll have a 50 minute sermon whacking you over the head with, do this, do this, be a better Christian, try this hard, you know, be more better, like all that stuff. But then they say at the end and they give you a little gospel presentation for like three minutes. That's kind of what this book is. It's like whacking you over the head with be more pure, be better, you know, do better in your relationships. And then it tax in a very short chapter about the gospel because we need that reminder. Look, I'm much less interested in getting a reminder of the gospel than I am having it coat every part of my life. And that should be our experience. It should be our obedience is motivated and coded with this idea and this reality that God has loved us and he has saved us. So that's why I want to strive for obeying him. Jesus shouldn't just be a cherry on the top of your Sunday. He should be the primary ingredient. In this chapter, Josh encouraged Jesus to sit down with a mentor or a parent and establish good boundaries within your relationship when you're in a relationship. And hey, look, this is pretty good advice. I think getting some outside input and so your vision isn't cloudy and your standards aren't lowered because you really like this person. Getting that outside input is really beneficial. But if you're interested in boundaries, I have a better book to suggest to you. Let me just get it. Okay, it's literally called Boundaries in Dating and I'll probably do a full video on this one day. It's by Dr. Henry Cloud and John Townsend and you can pick it up today. It's not an ad. Anyway, I'll probably do a video on it in the future so you can get yourself a head start if you're interested in this topic. In chapter nine, we're given a very interesting scenario. I will read it for you. You meet somebody of the opposite sex. He or she really catches your eye. Uh-oh, then you, I don't know why that, uh-oh, it just made me laugh. Then you get to, it's like, oh no, I could never be attracted to someone. No, no, call Jesus, we gotta stop this. It's like, okay, anyway, I'll get back to it. Then you get to know this person and you find out he or she has a great personality as well. Double, uh-oh, oh no. To top it all off, then the person sends you that I'd like to get to know you better vibe. Major, uh-oh, this book is hilariously written, I love it. If you decided to put romance on hold, well, until you're ready for marriage, what do you do in a situation like this? If you're not going to play the dating game, what's the plan? Dude, I think I have the answer. It's something known as friend zoning them. You must friend zone them. It's a tough reality, but you gotta do it. This gets us into guy-girl friendships and this is a pretty controversial, pretty controversial topic in Christian. I'm getting more loopy as this video goes on. This is a pretty controversial topic in Christianity today because, you know, people have different standards of what friends look like. And I know for some guys, you'll say, oh no, I could never be friends with a girl because their standards of what a friend is pretty high. Somebody that they're texting pretty consistently, they're going out on one-on-one kind of conversations or outings together and so on. If you did this with a girl in my experience, then you're giving them mixed messages. If you're saying, oh, I just wanna be friends and yet you're constantly texting them and you're going out with them one-on-one and yet you're not ready for a relationship, you're sending them false expectations. And in my experience, somebody in that scenario usually has feelings for one another. Now, I have to be honest, I've been back and forth on whether I believe guys and girls can be friends just because my standard of friend is pretty high. But, you know, for the ease of communication, I've lowered my standard of friend where a friend can just be somebody that you see every once in a while or maybe every week at church and you like to talk to them and that's a friend. You know, it doesn't need to be somebody that you're always, you know, in contact with and going out with one-on-one and all this stuff. Like, it doesn't need to be that. And so girls and guys, I definitely believe can be friends. The challenge is that you definitely need to treat that friendship differently than you treat a friendship with a guy because guys and girls are different and you don't wanna get your signals crossed because this can be touchy territory if you take things too far. Now, I'll readily admit I am not an expert on this. I feel like every year I learn something new about guy-girl friendships and all this kind of thing. But I've set up a few boundaries and I'll share a couple with you here, just basic ones, some differences between guys and girl friendships in my life that just makes sense to me. To me, it's just wisdom. It's not that you have this assurance that, oh my goodness, if I were to take this to the next level, all of a sudden they'd be loved with me like, no, it's not really about that. And it's not necessarily like, I need to set up boundaries so I don't fall into temptation and I do something I'll regret. It's like not really about that either. It's more about just kind of keeping everything out in the open and being really clear about where you're at and say, hey, we're just friends, we're just gonna be friends and that just makes it easier on everybody. So here are the some of the things that I do. I don't invite girls alone to my apartment. It's groups only. I don't hold running daily text conversations with girls that kind of like good morning and good night texts and how is your day type of thing. Like that's the get to know you type territory preparing for dating. And that's okay if you're in that space but you are really kind of pushing this intention like I'm really trying to get to know you better here to see if something more might happen, which is okay if you're in that space. But if you're not, if you're just like, hey, we're just friends, then don't do that. And that's kind of my mentality. I'm like, I'm not gonna give you an impression that I want something more. So I'm not gonna carry on these long winded text conversation paragraph type deals. It's like, I don't really like texting anyway. So we're gonna cut that off. Ultimately here as a friend, you want to guard that person's heart and you don't wanna send out false expectations or faulty signals. So you just wanna keep everything above board. Throughout the book, there's this demonization of short-term dating. I think in large part Josh is condemning and targeting the type of person that gets into a relationship with really no intentions at all and just wants to have a good time. Yeah, I get it. I'm with you. But here's the thing, even when a couple does approach a relationship, a dating relationship with intention and commitment, it sometimes doesn't work out. And that doesn't mean that they necessarily did something so wrong that, oh no, it went not according to plan or somebody really sinned in it. That's why it didn't work out because if you approach it with good boundaries and good communication and good intentionality and good commitment and you're not thinking about hopping around all these different people then it should work out. Well, that's just not reality and it doesn't mean that you just did something wrong and that's why it didn't work out. No, it just, you weren't the two right people for each other. That's it. Even if your standards are still super high and your boundaries are even higher, you can still get hurt. I learned from a pastor friend of mine that the goal in a relationship isn't avoiding hurt, it's about seeking godliness. Another way to say that is that godliness within a relationship doesn't mean the absence of hurt. Okay, for the next few chapters because they're pretty inconsequential, I'm going to just zip through them and give them a sentence per chapter. So I'm gonna get them here. So chapter 11, how to come out of the closet that you no longer date. I like that one. Chapter 12 was marriage is not a destination, a deeper relationship with Christ is. That's a good word. Chapter 13, marriage isn't all ponies and rainbows, it's a refining process, a refining process. Well, here's my word on that. This is too little too late from Joshua Harris. Like at the beginning, he was talking about how if we do our part, if we give our best, then God will give his best. And all of a sudden he's talking about marriage being this tough thing and that the reality of it, it's really challenging. And hey, what happened to my expectations that I built up at the beginning of this book? Like now he's actually saying it as it is. Like, hey man, it's not all ponies and rainbows, but now I'm met with these unmet expectations already in this book. Like I'm already being let down. Like I thought I was supposed to be avoiding hurt. Now this book is letting me down. Back to the rapid fire. Chapter 14 is character over charm. I've talked about this before on the channel. I don't think you need much of a refresher on this. If you always go for the looks, then man, you're gonna be left behind. Like you gotta look for character too, man. Charm fades, character stays maybe. That's a good catchphrase. In chapter 15, Joshua gives us a blueprint in how we can pursue a relationship. This is gonna be so interesting. I'm so excited. Finally I could stop being single and I can get in a relationship. Wow, this is amazing timing. So good. Okay, so this is when I get a little bit nervous at Joshua's advice here. See, if you've been in the friendship stage, maybe you've been hanging out in groups or maybe even one-on-one, but you haven't got to the big issues yet. The big questions of life, those big things that you really gotta be aligned on if you're gonna move it any further. Those big red flag stuff, like, you know, oh, I'm an atheist. It's like, okay, I can't do that anymore. Or I don't wanna have kids. It's like, oh, well, I definitely do. So that's the big red flag. If you haven't been through all those big questions, this next step might be preemptive. I'd be careful about saying any of what Josh is about to tell you to say if you haven't been through those big questions already. So this is supposed to be what you say to this girl that you've gotten to know either in a group setting or one-on-one, and you're just friends, technically, but this is what you're supposed to say. Okay, we're going closer in friendship, and I need to be upfront with my motives. With your parents' permission, I want to explore the possibility of marriage. I'm not interested in playing the game of being boyfriend and girlfriend. I'm ready to be tested by you, your family, and those who are responsible for you. My desire is to win your heart. Okay, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, some of that was good. Some of that was good, but some of that was not so good. Okay, so what was good, what was good? Okay, I like the part about not playing around. That's important, you know? Like, hey, I don't want to play around. I think that's a reasonable thing to say. I've said that before, you know? Hey, like, I don't want to play around with your feelings and I want to be intentional in this. That's good to communicate that because some guys aren't like that, so you want to communicate that. Also, the possibility of marriage. I mean, look, some guys are like a possibility of a further, you know, getting to know you further or, you know, see if marriage might come. Like, if you want to drop the M word, that's up to you. But obviously, everybody knows that's kind of where you want it to lead, at least in this context of the intentional dating context. You know, hey, I'm dating for marriage. Like, that makes sense, right? I'm ready to be tested by you, your family, and those who are responsible for you. I wouldn't phrase it like that. I wouldn't say that. I've been shooting this video for hours. I am ready to be tested by you. My desire is to win your heart, to get you from the castle, to deliver you from the dragon, and to deliver you into my heart. I'm recovering, I'm recovering. I'm getting back. I'm coming back to, we're so close, we're so close. So Josh also talks about talking to the father before you kind of do this, like propose to date them or court them, I guess. And I kind of go back and forth on that. I think it really depends on their family culture. Like the girl's family culture. Is that something that they've done in the past? Also, what's your relationship like with the father? You definitely don't want to be an unknown entity. Like you want to make your presence known to say, hey, my name's Gregory, and I want to get to know your daughter better. And like, hey, I'm around here and I'm not playing games. I'm being serious. Communicate your expectations to people around. Like, hey, yeah, this is what I'm here for. That makes sense to me. And so whether you need to have a formal conversation with the father where you sit down and he grills you and you say, I need your daughter's hand in dating or courtship. Or if it's just like you're sitting around and you're like, hey, I'm looking forward to taking a little bit more of a step with your daughter and I don't want to play games and I think we should start courting or dating or whatever you want to call it. Look, I'm not an expert on this. You guys know this. So you tell me in the comments what you should do. We've made it. Let's give yourself a big round of applause everybody. Good job, good job. It was a long journey but we have made it to the final chapter and I just want to leave you with Josh's final words. I think it's a very fitting way to sum up this whole book. Someday I'll have a story to tell. So will you? How will you respond when one day you look back on your love story? Will it bring you tears of joy or tears of remorse? Will it remind you of God's goodness or your lack of faith in that goodness? Will it be a story of purity, of faith, of selfless love or will it be a story of impatience, selfishness and compromise? It's your choice. I encourage you and continue to remind myself to write a love story with your life that you'll feel proud to tell. The story of this book is a story of good intentions gone wrong, of wisdom tainted with the presence of shameful stories. It's got good morals tied up in deadly motives and false expectations. The crowning piece of purity culture that further muddy the waters between God's commands and arbitrary rules. It shared timeless wisdom about seeking godly boundaries and accountability and on face value it said a lot of good stuff but it never mentioned that God's love and his grace was the fuel with which we are motivated and empowered to walk with God. It left readers with false expectations and promises that God never made. I truly hope that those who were hurt by this book and by purity culture in general would come to experience the true love and redeeming grace of Jesus. And don't get me wrong, that is not the progressive Christian God who's disposed of moral accountability and old sexual ethics because they made us feel bad. But the true God who has seen us rebel into sin and wallow in that sin and unrighteous uncleanness and has yet stooped to our level to offer us grace that when God looks at us, he would see a pure, spotless, blameless child of his not because we held to the rules of purity culture but because we are clothed in the righteousness of Christ. And that is enough. That's good news for all of us. Until next time. This video was an absolute beast to make and there's no way I could have done it without the wonderful people on Patreon who support me on a monthly basis and they support this ministry. My mission here is to quit people to follow Jesus daily and if that's a mission you wanna get behind and support me in what I'm doing, head to the link in my description and sign up on Patreon today.