Month: March 2022

30
Mar
2022

Warning Signs When Dating

If you are in a dating relationship, you want to know if it is healthy.  I’ve already given some positive principles to follow, and if you follow them, you will greatly increase your chances of having a healthy relationship.  I now want to give some warning signs.  Think of these as you might think of a warning light on your car dash.  If you see these, you need to either make some changes or end the relationship. 

Warning Signs:

  • You make time for each other, but you don’t make time for God.  How you spend your time reveals your priorities.  If you have no time for God, He is not a priority to you.  He is not first, and keeping Christ first is the most important thing you can do toward maintaining a healthy relationship.
  • You pull away from God’s people.  When a couple pulls back from God’s people, they are in danger of living in their own little world. 
  • You have no time to serve God’s kingdom.  If the relationship is pulling you out of ministry altogether, you have a problem.
  • The other person begins to cling to you.  Clinginess shows an unhealthy need for you.  It reveals a soul that is not content outside the relationship.  Contented people are not clingy, and discontented people are miserable to live with.  Thus, when you see clinginess, you are seeing someone you don’t want to marry.
  • The other person is more interested in you than in God. 
  • The other person is not free from the control of his or her parents.  I’m not talking about someone who merely lives with her parents.  I’m talking about an unhealthy control that the parents exert in this person’s life.  I’m talking about parents who interfere excessively in the life of this person.  In marriage you must leave the parents and cling to the spouse.  Parents who want to control their adult children are one of the biggest problems married couples face.  If your love can’t say “no” to parents now, he or she won’t be able to do it later either.  Of course, consider age here.  Parents should have more control over a sixteen-year-old than a thirty-year-old. 
  • At least one of you talks about living together before you are married.  Living together unmarried harms the integrity and purity of the relationship usually for the sake of convenience.  Even speaking about living together is a warning sign.  It says something about how the person thinks.  People who maintain the integrity of the dating relationship are also more likely to maintain the integrity of the marriage.  This issue by itself is serious enough to consider ending the relationship.   
  • The other person prioritizes the pursuit of money or material goods.  These priorities will not change after you marry.
  • The other person is not content in Christ.
  • The other person makes sexual advances.  When this happens, draw the line immediately.  If the other person ignores the line you’ve drawn, end the relationship now.
  • The other person is romantically involved with someone else. 
  • The other person is caught up in the broader culture.  One of the big problems with being caught up in the culture is that the culture informs how you think.  Thus, when you marry, this person will not think from a godly mindset but from a cultural one.  That will hurt you in the long run. 
  • Godly people tell you they have concerns about the relationship.  Many people will want to give you advice on your relationship.  Not all advice is equal.  But when godly people speak, you need to listen. 
  • Disagreement on fundamental spiritual issues.  Disagreement itself is not a warning sign.  All healthy couples disagree on many things.  But if you are a Christian, there are some basic spiritual issues you and the other person must see eye to eye on. Those agreements will help you resolve your disagreements.  They give you common ground on the most important things.  Examples of fundamental spiritual issues include the basics of the Christian faith: the authority of Scripture, the Incarnation, grace, the Trinity, the Atonement and bodily Resurrection, the presence of a heart relationship with Christ.   This doesn’t mean you have to agree on every spiritual point.  A believing Baptist and a believing Lutheran can have a healthy relationship.  They may have to talk through some of their disagreements, but those disagreements are minor compared to the centrality of Christ.
  • Dysfunctional resolving of your disagreements.  You will disagree, and you do not have to resolve those disagreements perfectly.  But pay attention to how you handle them.  How you handle your disagreements often says more about the relationship than the actual disagreements themselves. 
  • If either of you tries to sweep conflict under the carpet, you have a problem.  Conflict avoidance is not conflict resolution.  When people avoid conflict, they add underlying pressure to their relationship.  Over time, that pressure builds, and the long-term cost of conflict avoidance is much steeper than dealing with the conflict in real time.  Don’t let the sun go down on your anger.
  • If either of you consistently deals with conflict by using verbal abuse or strong anger, you have a problem.  The key word here is consistently.  There will be times when healthy couples out of anger speak words they regret.  Regretting those words and seeking forgiveness for them is a healthy sign.  But if someone is blind to his consistent abuse and anger, he will be difficult to live with, and he is not walking well with God.
  • To the Christian: the other person is a nonChristian.  If this is the case, end the relationship now.
  • To the guys:  a girl caught up in her looks.
  • To the guys:  a girl who wants to take the lead in the relationship.  Here we are looking at the big picture, not an event or two.
  • To the girls:  a guy who wants to dominate whether it be physically or verbally.
  • To the girls:  a guy who won’t lead or move.
  • To the girls:  a guy who views pornography.

These are just a handful of warning signs I have seen in romantic relationships. Think of them as symptoms.  If you see them, something is wrong. They do not all mean you need to end the relationship now, though some signs are more dire than others.  This is not a complete list.

Posted by mdemchsak, 0 comments
16
Mar
2022

Unequally Yoked

Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers (II Cor 6:14).

If we are going to talk about dating, then at some point, we have to talk about the concept of being unequally yoked.  This is the idea that a Christian should marry a Christian.

But before we talk about that, let’s talk more broadly about saying “no” to a potential date.  Perhaps you have had to do this and know what it is like.  The reality is that I have never met a person who would date anybody.  If you are single, you can think of people whom you would never date.  When I was single, I remember girls saying “no” to me.  And I remember girls interested in me whom I would never ask out.  The fact of the matter is that everybody has criteria to determine whom he or she can and cannot date.  If you are single, this is you and you know it.  Maybe you haven’t thought deeply about what your criteria are and, thus, can’t list them out, but you know you wouldn’t date just anybody.  I bet you could give me names of people right now whom you would never date.  You might even be able to give me reasons, and the moment you give me reasons, you are giving me criteria by which you make distinctions between eligible and noneligible dates. 

What I am describing is universal.  I say this to point out the fact that the business of excluding potential partners is something you already do, and you have no problem with it.  You have your criteria. 

Now the Biblical position on being unequally yoked simply says that one of the criteria for a Christian needs to be that the other person is also a Christian.  This is pretty basic.  So let me tell a story.

When I was a teenager, I remember hearing a youth leader speak about dating, and he advised Christians not to date nonChristians.  Inside me arose this visceral reaction.  I wanted to shout, “No!”  I felt that this leader’s advice was smack full of arrogance and that it communicated to most of the world, “I’m better than you.”  I genuinely believed that everyone was equal and that equality in dating meant that I must be open to anybody. 

Two things then happened to me.  The first is that I proceeded to walk with God.  I don’t mean I didn’t sin.  I had plenty of that.  But I immersed myself in the Scriptures.  I prayed daily.  I plugged into a church.  And I did these things from the heart.  I genuinely wanted to know God better. 

The second thing that happened to me is that I began to pay closer attention to the lives of girls, and I noticed a big difference between Christian and nonChristian girls.  It wasn’t that Christian girls were holy and nonChristian girls were sinners or that Christian girls were more fun to be around.  It was that Christian girls genuinely desired Jesus and nonChristian girls did not.  Here was the one thing in life that mattered most to me, and the Christian girls understood, but the nonChristian girls could not.  It’s not just that they did not understand.  They could not understand. 

By the time I had graduated from college, I had completely changed on this issue.  I knew Biblically, and I knew from life that as a Christian I could never marry a nonChristian.  I knew it.  And I understood that this new position was not the least bit arrogant.  In fact, it required me to humble myself before God.  I had to say, “I was wrong.”  I had to listen not so much to America but to Scripture.  I also realized that I already had seen many girls I could not date for reasons other than faith, and I did not consider myself arrogant for having those reasons.  If I was willing to say “no” to a girl because she smoked, then I also should have been able to do so because she had no faith.  Her lack of faith was a far deeper and more central issue than her smoking or her looks or even her personality, and I didn’t think myself arrogant for considering those things.  Marrying a Christian simply became one of my criteria. 

That’s my story, and I tell it to say that this is not a mere theory to me. It’s real life. I think it’s helpful to understand that before we look at the Scriptures.

So let’s now look at the Scriptures. Let’s begin with marriage itself.  I’ve already written about marriage, so I’m just going to summarize.  In marriage, “a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh” (Gen 2:28).  That is the definition of marriage Jesus gives.  If the two are one, they need to be intimate on the most important and deepest issues, they need to be one in their finances, in their priorities, in their child rearing, and in their service to God.  This is what marriage is.  In addition, the purpose of marriage is to reflect Christ and the Church (Eph 5:22-32).  This definition and purpose of marriage do not directly forbid a Christian from marrying an unbeliever, but they lay the foundation for understanding why. 

Elsewhere, however, Scripture does directly forbid a believer from marrying an unbeliever.  Here is Paul:

 Do not be unequally yoked with an unbeliever.  For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness?  Or what fellowship has light with darkness?  What accord has Christ with Belial?  Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever?  What agreement has the temple of God with idols?  For we are the temple of the living God . . . (II Cor 6:14-16)

A yoke

Do not be unequally yoked.  I imagine you have seen pictures of a yoke or have heard perhaps of a yoke of oxen.  A yoke is a heavy wooden bar that connects two animals together, usually for the purpose of plowing or pulling a cart.  The yoke takes the two animals and makes them one.  It allows them to pull together as a team.  The yoke also inextricably binds the two animals together.  This is the picture Paul gives. 

A yoke being used to pull a cart.

Paul says to Christians not to be unequally yoked with unbelievers.  The idea is that the Christian should not enter a relationship with an unbeliever in which the two are bound together as one.  He then gives his reason for the command through a series of questions.  What partnership has righteousness with lawlessness?  Light with darkness?  And so on. 

Paul is not forbidding ordinary friendships because ordinary friendships do not require that the two be bound as one.  Marriage, however, is a different type of relationship.  If ever there was a relationship in which the two are bound as one, marriage is that relationship. 

But the concept of being unequally yoked is not restricted to II Corinthians.  In the Old Testament, God commanded the Israelite men not to intermarry with the daughters of the peoples around them (Ex 34:16; Dt 7:3; Mal 2:11).  In Judges the Israelites took wives from the other peoples around them and wound up serving the gods of those wives (Jg 3:6).  In Ezra and Nehemiah the Israelites took wives from the nations around them and had to repent of it (Ez 10:2; Neh 13:23-7).  Paul instructs believing widows that they are free to remarry, “only in the Lord” (I Cor 7:39).  And, of course marriage portrays Christ and the Church.  The Church is the Bride of Christ.  The concept of an unbelieving Church is nonsensical. 

Thus, when Paul commands believers not to be unequally yoked with unbelievers, he is not communicating something new or strange.  He is simply repeating the consistent Biblical message on this topic. 

But why?  Why should believers not marry unbelievers? 

The main reason deals with your spiritual life.  When God forbade Israel from intermarrying, He says that the reason is spiritual – lest “you take of their daughters for your sons and their daughters whore after their gods and make your sons whore after their gods.” (Ex 34:16).  Significant time bound as one to an unbeliever will make it harder for you to walk intimately with Christ.  NonChristians cannot understand a complete commitment to Jesus Christ.  They cannot share with you the deepest, most important desires you have.  They will never understand your faith.

But marriage involves more than just understanding.  In marriage, a man and woman become one.  They must then live life as one.  When a believer is thus yoked to an unbeliever, the two cannot move forward together spiritually.  The believer will want to give sacrificially from their finances to the work of the kingdom.  The unbeliever will think that is the craziest idea he has ever heard.  The believer will want to raise their kids in Christ.  The unbeliever will most likely oppose that desire, but even if not, at best, the unbeliever can simply acquiesce.  She can never help out.  The believer will want to spend significant time with God’s people and serving God in ministry.  The unbeliever will not care.  The believer will want Christ to be the top priority in the family.  The unbeliever will push back on that priority. 

Imagine two oxen yoked together, and one wants to go right and the other left.  Or one walks forward but drags the other.  This is a marriage between a believer and an unbeliever when it comes to spiritual matters. 

Occasionally you hear people bring up the idea of evangelistic dating.  You know.  “What if my dating her is the only witness she has?  And if she does convert, we are then free to marry.” 

You are playing with fire.  She may convert.  She may not.  You may “fall in love” with her and all of a sudden you’re making all sorts of excuses as to why you can marry her.  And she doesn’t need you to date her for you to be a witness to her.  In fact, you’ll be a better witness to her if you don’t date her.  Follow Scripture.  Not what you want. 

In unequally yoked relationships I have seen the unbeliever convert.  It happens.  But more often what happens is that the Christian flounders spiritually and, to use Biblical language, pursues the gods of the nations. 

If you are a Christian, don’t marry a nonChristian.  Which means, don’t even date one. 

Finally, I need to say something to the Christian already married to a nonChristian. Paul addresses this situation as well. If you are a believer but your spouse is not, remain with your spouse (I Cor 7:12ff). You are married. You are one flesh for life. Love your spouse well. Pray for him or her. You have obvious limits to what you can do together spiritually, but the story isn’t over. God is in the business of redeeming the lost. Pray for that, and above all, walk with Christ yourself.

Posted by mdemchsak, 0 comments
02
Mar
2022

Dating and Sexual Boundaries

There once was a woman who landed at an airport in Columbia.  She needed to take a cab up into the mountains where the roads were windy, narrow, and had steep drop offs with no guard rails.  She approached the line of cabs at the airport, told the first driver where she needed to go and asked him how good a driver he was and how close he could drive to the edge of the road without going over the side.

The man said, “Ma’am, I am a very good driver.  I can drive within half a meter of the edge without going over.”

She went to the next cab.  “Ma’am,” that driver said.  “I can get ten centimeters from the edge.”

She went to the next cab and the man put his hands up and said, “Ma’am, if you come with me, we are staying as far from that edge as possible.” 

“Open the door,” she said.  “I’ll go with you.”

When it comes to dating and sex, most people think like the first two cab drivers.  “How close can I get without crossing the line?” 

Paul, however, commands us to “flee sexual immorality.”  The idea is not to inch our way close to immorality without going over the edge but to stay as far from it as possible. 

When you date, sexual sin is a real danger, much more than with other forms of courtship, and contemporary culture makes this topic difficult to talk about.  On the one hand, if you look at the big picture of the Christian dating scene, it is obvious that we have a problem.  I could list name after name after name after name of people who identified with Christ but who committed sexual sin before marriage.  On the other hand, we have many people who, once they hear you talk about sexual boundaries, protest vehemently.  They say you are being legalistic and setting up merely a list of do’s and don’ts.  They often say as well that you are being judgmental and creating an unhealthy atmosphere that condemns sex. 

So here I am stuck in the middle.  We have a glaring problem that I need to address, but once I do, many will say I am legalistic.  Oh well.  I guess I can’t please everybody. 

I will concede first that legalism about sex can and does exist within certain quarters, and I do wish to avoid it.  But I also need to say that many people who decry legalism are really decrying holiness by calling it legalism.  To them almost all righteousness is legalism.  They could not tell the difference between legalism and righteousness if they had to.

The Christian pursues Christ.  Part of that pursuit of Christ involves fleeing sexual immorality.  But when we flee it, we do so because we are pursuing something greater.  This is holiness.  Legalism, however, argues about the technicalities of whether an activity is OK or not. 

Now in this discussion, I will at times talk about activities that cross the line.  Unfortunately, there’s no way to avoid the idea of a line somewhere, but I don’t want our focus to be on where the lines are.  In holiness, the focus is on Christ and on honoring Him.  If He is your focus, you will not cross the lines even if you don’t know exactly where they are.  But if you focus on where the lines are, you are not focusing on Christ and will be more likely to violate the boundaries, even if you know exactly where they are.  Christ is more powerful than mere knowledge. Pursue Him.

The next thing I need to discuss is why.  Why should dating couples care about sexual boundaries?  The answer may not be what you think.  Most people think that Christians avoid premarital sex because they view sex as some dirty thing.  The reality is just the opposite.  To Christians, sex is a beautiful and holy thing; and because it is so beautiful and holy, Christians do not consider it profane.  Sex is special and is, thus, reserved for a special relationship.  Christians have a much higher view of sex than the world that ironically says the Christian view is so low.  When you are single, you need sexual boundaries because you are protecting something special.

I could say more about the Christian view of sex, but I already have.  Go here and here.  It might be helpful to read those blogs before you move on, for they lay some foundation for any healthy thinking about sex. 

Sexual passion is powerful, and the farther you walk down its path, the harder it is to turn back.  It is easier to avoid sexual sin by drawing boundaries early than by waiting until you are kissing.  Sexual sin never begins with intercourse or even kissing.  It begins with a look.  That look becomes a stare.  That stare implants itself as a recurring thought.  Maybe a week later, that thought impels you to grab her hand and another week after that to touch her hair.  Soon you are touching her waist and then her legs and then you are kissing.  The exact sequence and time frame are not always the same, but you get the idea.  You see the direction this is going in.  Each step in the progression makes the passion roar.  It is far easier to stop that progression earlier than later.  The farther down that road you travel, the more drunk you become with passion, the less clear is your thinking and the weaker your self control. 

So I want to talk about that progression and how to handle it in a dating relationship.  You need some boundaries that you will not cross.  How do you decide where they are?  Some activities are clearly out of bounds:  intercourse, petting, passionate kissing, taking off clothes, touching private parts, crude joking, and others. 

Other activities, however – hugging, holding hands – may be appropriate.  You have to decide what is appropriate, and the answer will not be the same for every couple.  I don’t mean anything goes.  No one will be able to go too far down that progression, but different couples may draw lines in different places in the early stages of that progression. 

Here are some factors to consider.  Culture will have some say about what is and is not appropriate.  You might not hold hands in a conservative Arab culture but feel comfortable doing so in a secular Western one.  Personal histories will affect what is appropriate.  If someone has a history of sexual abuse, or if the woman has experienced rape, you will likely need to honor some tight boundaries and move slowly.  If either party has a history of promiscuity, you will need to do the same but for different reasons.  Personal weaknesses factor into this.  Some people are more easily tempted than others.  If you get sexually stimulated by hugging, maybe you need to back off.  When I talk this way, I am not being legalistic but loving.  If you ignore cultural and personal factors in your relationship, you are being unloving and inconsiderate.

Remember, the goal is to honor Christ, not just avoid some behavior.  So walk closely with Christ.  If you are doing that, here are some principles that can help with sexual boundaries.

  • If an action makes you feel a twinge in your conscience, don’t do it.
  • Don’t push the other person.  If the other person is uncomfortable with something physical, back off.  That is love.
  • If the other person pushes you to take some step physically that you are uncomfortable with, end the relationship now.  That person cares more for his or her desire than for you.
  • Don’t live together until you are married.
  • Talk to one another openly about what you are comfortable and uncomfortable with. 
  • When you draw boundaries, draw them early in the relationship and don’t go far in that physical progression.  You are to flee sexual immorality, not get close to it. 
  • If possible, think through these issues before a relationship begins.  You may adjust after a relationship begins, but thinking things through beforehand will help you even in the adjustment. 
  • To the guys:  You have a built-in mechanism for determining if an action is sexually stimulating.  It’s called an erection.  Think of an erection as a warning light that the engine is getting too hot.  It’s a sign to back off. 

These principles will help you and the other person as a couple decide what is appropriate and not.  Above all, let your primary pursuit be Christ and His righteousness. Your primary pursuit must not be the other person. If you win that battle, you’ll win the war.

Posted by mdemchsak, 0 comments