Why Can't We Be Friends? Quotes

“... imposing extrabiblical restrictions on all believers hinders spiritual growth and does not promote purity.”
― Aimee Byrd, Why Can't We Be Friends?: Avoidance Is Not Purity

“In God's household, we have solidarity with one another in suffering, which reveals our true hope for the fruit of righteousness.”
― Aimee Byrd, Why Can't We Be Friends?: Avoidance Is Not Purity

“Sex does not make us whole. Our Elder Brother is the most satisfied and fulfilled person who ever walked this earth, and he never married or had sex. He had deep friendships and intimate fellowship in all purity, because he had already experienced the most satisfying communion of all. And he is outgoing in sharing the blessed communion of the triune God with his siblings.”
― Aimee Byrd, Why Can't We Be Friends?: Avoidance Is Not Purity

“Our siblingships are usually the longest-lasting relationships in our lives. So it is fitting that we share the status of siblings with God's people, because our siblingship will never end in death.”
― Aimee Byrd, Why Can't We Be Friends?: Avoidance Is Not Purity

“When instead we regard one another as temptations, as means merely of gratifying sexual desires, or as threats to our image, and we do not regard one another honorably as brothers and sisters, we are not loving deeply.”
― Aimee Byrd, Why Can't We Be Friends?: Avoidance Is Not Purity

“It's easy to confuse legitimate desires for intimacy, closeness, and meaningfulness in our friendships with illegitimate romantic notions -- even if only in our thoughts.”
― Aimee Byrd, Why Can't We Be Friends?: Avoidance Is Not Purity

“There's nothing to hide when you treat people with common decency and respect.”
― Aimee Byrd, Why Can't We Be Friends?: Avoidance Is Not Purity

“Is it possible that we misread appropriate feelings due to the overly sexualized messages we hear, don't know how to recognize or maturely handle them, and resist the intimacy that we could experience as brothers and sisters?”
― Aimee Byrd, Why Can't We Be Friends?: Avoidance Is Not Purity

“When Peter tells us to abstain from 'fleshly lusts,' he expects us to exercise the spiritual fruit of self-control in our relationships. He's not saying, 'I know you can't help it. You're never going to get better, so please, just smile, give a polite greeting, and keep your distance. That way you can remain pure.' No, he expects the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit to affect how we behave and relate. He expects love!”
― Aimee Byrd, Why Can't We Be Friends?: Avoidance Is Not Purity

“Yet in Scripture we see Jesus accept invitations into women's homes, talk with women unaccompanied by a chaperone, travel with women, let a woman show affection for him, ask a woman for a drink and engage with her in theological discussion in the middle of the day where everyone could see, and trust women to be the first heralds of the gospel in an age when a woman's testimony was discounted. People whispered. They questioned his credibility because of his interactions with these women.”
― Aimee Byrd, Why Can't We Be Friends?: Avoidance Is Not Purity

“A man and a woman can't be friends if one or both of them are deadlocked in immaturity and fear. Without spiritual maturity, we are back to catering to immature notions of sexuality.”
― Aimee Byrd, Why Can't We Be Friends?: Avoidance Is Not Purity

“I see these unbiblical rules imposed on men and women as pickpocketing purity, stealing unearned virtue at the expense of another's dignity. Though I think that those who uphold the rules are the misdirected ones, wanting to exercise a virtue without noticing the positive work that they need to put in.”
― Aimee Byrd, Why Can't We Be Friends?: Avoidance Is Not Purity

“While it may seem safe to impose rules that separate us from ordinary encounters with the other sex, this isn't the virtue of purity. It is overly sexualizing of others. Rejecting impurity or sexual transgression should never lead to rejecting the value of another person.”
― Aimee Byrd, Why Can't We Be Friends?: Avoidance Is Not Purity

“Singlehood seems like a cruel judgement on someone's inability to land a mate, rather than a dignified status for a chaste person who is wholeheartedly committed to God.”
― Aimee Byrd, Why Can't We Be Friends?: Avoidance Is Not Purity

“Zealous to protect their purity, many have put such a weight on sexual temptation and have sexualized their peers to such a degree that, having never been on dates or developed cross-sex friendships, they haven't found the perfect spouse they were promised. Others have rushed into courtships that ended in divorce and are ashamed of their failure in this whole Christian purity venture.”
― Aimee Byrd, Why Can't We Be Friends?: Avoidance Is Not Purity

“Men learn a whole different aspect of brotherhood when they have sisters. Likewise, women cannot get a complete picture of what it means to be a sister without having brothers.”
― Aimee Byrd, Why Can't We Be Friends?: Avoidance Is Not Purity

“To view the other sex as constant temptations to sin and threats to purity merely perpetuates the thinking and behavior of the unredeemed.”
― Aimee Byrd, Why Can't We Be Friends?: Avoidance Is Not Purity

“It's hard to think of a future when our minds will be free from sinful thoughts, our hearts will long only for righteousness, and our bodies will serve God with perfect stewardship. It sounds too good to be true. But it is true!”
― Aimee Byrd, Why Can't We Be Friends?: Avoidance Is Not Purity