How Do I Choose A Spouse?

Article by William Farley

Besides our children’s decision to follow Jesus, the most important decision they will make is whom to marry.

The multigenerational implications are huge. Despite the importance of this decision, however, some parents are more concerned about their children’s grades or athletic performance. They spend more time talking about how to get into the right college than about how to pick a future spouse. But whom your children marry may affect eternal destinies: their own, their spouses, your grandchildren, and your great-grandchildren.

Around the Table

As a parent of five grown children, I want to encourage you to discuss this subject with your children. As many mistakes as we made, my wife and I found that the best place to have these discussions was at the dinner table, where we gathered at least four times a week — and preferably six. Effective fathers and mothers (especially fathers) continually teach their children. They don’t teach just by example; they teach with their lips. It is hard to do that if the family does not regularly gather for a meal.

“It is better to remain single than to enter unwisely into marriage.”

We also found that the best time to teach our children was earlier rather than later. Parents will want to start discussing these matters by the time their children enter puberty, and continue the discussion regularly.

My wife and I regularly discussed about seven marriage principles with our children. There are more, but these are a good starting place.

Prefer singleness to an unwise marriage.

Most couples today (if their marriages survive) live together for fifty to seventy years. That is a long time. When a couple builds their union around Christ, that union has the potential to be sweet and wonderful. When one or both build it around something else, however, the prognosis is not so positive.

Therefore, parents can teach their children to do two key precepts. First, unless God gives you the desire to remain single for kingdom-related reasons, pursue marriage. Marriage is the normal, biblical pattern for adults. But second, pursue marriage carefully and with wisdom. It is better to remain single than to enter unwisely into marriage.

Marry to go deeper with Christ.

Second, teach them to marry to go deeper with Christ. God instructs his children to marry fellow believers only (Deuteronomy 7:3; 1 Corinthians 7:39; 2 Corinthians 6:14). This rule is an absolute — no exceptions. For a Christian to deliberately and knowingly marry an unbeliever is sin. For me, this principle includes Roman Catholics and liberal Protestants, who are not clear on the gospel or biblical authority.

This principle raises a bigger question: “What is a believer? When asked, many people will profess to be Christians because they “asked Jesus into their heart,” even if they are currently unfruitful or uninterested in spiritual things. This makes discernment difficult.

Here are some helpful questions to ask: Can your prospective spouse articulate the gospel? Does he believe it, and delight in it? Does his life revolve around Christ, or does it revolve around something else? Is Christ enthroned in the center of his life? Would marriage to this person manifestly draw me closer to Christ or subtly away from him?

Marry to go deeper with Christ. We want the effect of our union, whether after fifty years together or five, to be more faith, more obedience, more Christlikeness, and more need for and dependence upon the Holy Spirit. Don’t marry anyone who will not help you go there.

Marry a potential best friend.

Third, don’t marry a beautiful face or a young man’s future career success. I am not saying these things don’t matter, but they are very secondary. Marriage means decades together. It is more important to marry someone with whom you enjoy and share common interests, hobbies, and passions. The beautiful body will quickly fade. Career success will mean nothing if at age fifty you don’t share the deepest intimacy around a common commitment to Christ.

Focus on the vows.

Fourth, remind your children, especially your daughters, that the wedding is not about the flowers, the music, the wedding dress, the guest list, and the honeymoon. It is about the vows. Weddings are the recitation of vows in the presence of witnesses. Everything else accompanies the vows. And the most important witness is the holy, omniscient, and almighty Judge — a Judge who hates when people break vows because they have become costly.

Before I perform any marriage, I remind the couple of this truth. I encourage them to read their vows together and count the cost. Weddings are not a time for flippancy but for the joy of Psalm 2:11: “Rejoice with trembling.” Weddings are a time to fear God, to share in a sense of sobriety as the couple takes their vows.

Prepare to burn your bridges.

Fifth, wedding vows mean marriage is for life — “till death do us part.” When Christians marry, they burn their bridges so that there is no going back. Why?

“Besides our children’s decision to follow Jesus, the most important decision they will make is whom to marry.”

Christ’s love is covenantal. He has promised to “never leave you nor forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5). He “swears to his own hurt and does not change” (Psalm 15:4). Christians marry to live out God’s covenant love in front of their children and the world.

Therefore, there is no getting out of the relationship because “we don’t love each other anymore,” or “we’ve grown apart,” or “he just doesn’t get me.” I am thankful that both my parents and my wife’s parents impressed this upon us in our youth. We approached our wedding deeply sobered.

I often think of my uncle who married his high school sweetheart. Ten years into marriage, she developed a brain tumor. My only memory was of her in a wheelchair, drooling compulsively, unable to communicate with her husband. My father would remind me that his brother took a vow to be faithful to her “in sickness and in health, in good times and bad times, till death do us part.” My uncle kept that vow faithfully. On my wedding day, I knew there was no guarantee this would not happen to me.

Don’t marry someone to change him.

Sixth, my wife’s father raised her with this excellent advice: don’t marry someone to change him. For example, “He doesn’t pick up after himself, but I know he’ll change.” “She talks too much, but I know she will change.” “She wants to devote her life to a career and not have children, but I know I can change her mind.” “He’s not attentive to me, but I know he’ll change after a few years together.”

Why is marrying others to change them a mistake? Because it is very unlikely that they will change, and if they don’t, you are still married for life. Instead, marry with the full knowledge of your future spouse’s weaknesses and failings but determined to love and forgive even if he never changes. If you can’t do that, don’t marry the person.

Expect to be sanctified.

Last, remind your children regularly that marriage is about more than love. It is about sanctification. I would estimate that, since marriage, about eighty percent of my sanctification has come through my relationship with my wife. To paraphrase author Gary Thomas, God is more interested in our holiness than our merely earthly happiness, and he will use our marriage to provoke us to that (happy) holiness.

The two people who say “I do” are always sinners, and that means inevitable conflict. There will be seasons of suffering and painful growth. Learning to serve another sinner will put a spotlight on your own faults and sins. I thank God for the struggles we have experienced.

Our Children’s Earthly Journey

Whom to marry is the second most important life decision your children will make. The ramifications will go on for decades. Therefore, wise parents regularly talk to their children about how to pick a spouse. They understand that this crucial decision could make or break their children’s earthly journey, and they treat it with a gravity that equals that reality.

After all, who is more qualified to teach them about marriage? You will have lived it for at least a decade. Nourish them through your experience.

William Farley is a retired pastor and church planter. He and his wife, Judy, have five children and twenty-two grandchildren. They live in Spokane, Washington. He is the author of seven books, including Gospel-Powered Parenting. You can read more of his writing at his website.

Posted at: https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/how-do-i-choose-a-spouse?utm_campaign=Daily+Email&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=76767940&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-93ORlkxnW8ZYhNwPm38SEAfwPf_liP9j6SZHR-R2FMXO9JZpOavKj7hDwyO-al9abZoyNtLiMry4g5uMmZp2pkeS37Ww&_hsmi=76767940

Confessions of a Reluctant Complementarian

Rebecca McLaughlin

Editors’ note: 

A version of this article first appeared on the author’s blog.

I was an undergraduate at Cambridge University when I first grappled with Ephesians 5:22. I’d come from an academically driven, equality-oriented, single-sex high school. And I was repulsed. “Wives, submit to your husbands, as to the Lord.” You’ve got to be kidding me.

I had three major problems with this verse.

The first was the premise that wives should submit. I knew women are just as competent as men—often more so. If there is wisdom in asymmetrical decision-making in marriage, I thought, surely it should depend on who was more competent in that area: sometimes the husband, sometimes the wife.

The second was the idea that wives should submit to their husbands “as to the Lord.” It’s one thing submitting to Jesus Christ, the self-sacrificing King of the universe. It’s quite another to submit to a fallible, sinful man—even as one thread in the fabric of a much greater submission to Christ.

The third—which perhaps grieved me most—was how harmful I believed this verse was to my gospel witness. I was offering my unbelieving friends a radical narrative of power inversion, in which the Creator God laid down his life, in which the poor out-class the rich, in which outcasts become family. The gospel is a consuming fire of love-across-difference with the power to burn up racial injustice and socioeconomic exploitation.

But here was this horrifying verse seeming to promote the subjugation of women. Jesus had elevated women to an equal status with men. Paul, it seemed to me, had pushed them back down. I worried this verse would ruin my witness.

Picture of Christ and the Church

In my frustration, I tried to explain Ephesians 5:22 away. In the Greek, the word translated “submit” appears in the previous verse, “Submit yourself to one another out of reverence for Christ” (Eph. 5:21), so I tried to argue that the rest of the passage must be applying submission as much to husbands as wives. But this didn’t stick: the following verses lay out distinct roles for husbands and wives.

Then I turned my attention to the command to husbands. “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Eph. 5:25). How did Christ love the church? By dying on the cross; by giving himself, naked and bleeding, to suffer for her; by putting her needs above his own; by giving everything for her.

I asked myself how I would feel if this was the command to wives: Wives, love your husbands to the point of death, putting his needs above yours, and sacrificing yourself for him.

If the gospel is true, none of us comes to the table with rights. The only way in is flat on your face. If I want to hold on to my fundamental right to self-determination, I must reject the message of Jesus, because he calls me to submit completely to him: to deny myself and take up my cross and follow him (Luke 9:23).

Then, the penny really dropped. Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church. This model isn’t ultimately about any individual wife and husband; it’s about Jesus and the church. God created sex and marriage to give us a glimpse of his intimacy with us.

Because our marriages point to a greater marriage, the roles are not interchangeable: Jesus gives himself for us; we submit to him.

Three Concerns

So, much to my surprise, the three problems I had when I first read Ephesians 5:22 were resolved. But I now have three concerns about how complementarian marriage is often taught.

1. Attempts to summarize

Complementarian marriage is often summarized as “Wives submit, husbands lead.” But this summary doesn’t reflect the biblical commands. Wives are indeed called to submit (Eph. 5:22; Col. 3:18; 1 Pet. 3:1). But the primary call for husbands is love (Eph. 5:25, 28, 33; Col. 3:19), and the additional commands call for empathy and honor (1 Pet. 3:7). The command to wives in Ephesians certainly implies that husbands should lead with the sacrificial love of Christ. But if we must boil the Scriptures down, “Wives submit, husbands love” is a more accurate reflection of their weight.

2. Attempts at psychological grounding

Hoping to uphold the goodness of God’s commands, Christians sometimes try to ground complementarian marriage in gendered psychology: women are natural followers, men are natural leaders; men need respect, women need love; and so on. I’ve heard the claim that women are naturally more submissive, but I’ve never heard anyone argue that men are naturally more loving.

I’ve also heard people argue that we are given the commands because they address what we’re naturally bad at: women are good at love, men are good at respect, so the calls are reversed. But to say that human history teaches us that men naturally respect women is to stick your head in the sand with a blindfold on and earplugs for good measure.

At best, these claims about gender are generalizations, analogous to the claim that men are taller than women—though far less verifiable. At worst, they cause needless offense to a generation that already misunderstands and misrepresents what the Bible says about gender. They also invite exceptions: if these commands are given because wives are naturally more submissive, and I find I’m a more natural leader than my husband, does that mean we can switch roles?

If we look closely, however, we’ll see that these claims are nowhere to be found in the text. Ephesians 5 grounds our marital roles not in gendered psychology, but in Christ-centered theology.

3. Attempts to justify “traditional” gender roles

Ephesians 5 sticks like a burr in our 21st-century, Western ears. But we must not misread it as justifying “traditional” gender roles. The text doesn’t say the husband is the one whose needs come first and whose comfort is paramount.

In fact, Ephesians 5 is a withering critique of traditional gender roles, in its original context and today. In the drama of marriage, the wife’s needs come first, and the husband’s drive to prioritize himself is cut down with the axe of the gospel.

One Challenge

But my greatest concern when I hear Ephesians 5 taught is my failure to live up to it. I’ve been married for a decade, and it’s a daily challenge to remember what I’m called to in this gospel drama, and to notice opportunities to submit to my husband as to the Lord—not because I’m naturally more or less submissive, or because he is naturally more or less loving, but because Jesus submitted to the cross for me.

My marriage isn’t ultimately about me and my husband, any more than Romeo and Juliet is about the actors playing the title roles. My marriage is about reflecting Jesus and his church.

Ephesians 5:22 used to repulse me. Now it convicts me and calls me toward Jesus: the true husband who satisfies our needs, the one man who deserves our ultimate submission.

Rebecca McLaughlin holds a PhD from Cambridge University and a theology degree from Oak Hill seminary in London. She is a regular writer for The Gospel Coalition and her first book, Confronting Christianity: 12 Hard Questions for the World’s Largest Religion, will be published by Crossway in 2019. You can follow her on Twitter or at www.rebeccamclaughlin.org.

Posted at: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/confessions-reluctant-complementarian/

When the Not-Yet Married Meet: Dating to Display Jesus

Article by Marshall Segal  Staff writer, desiringGod.org

Dating is dead.

So says the media. Girls, stop expecting guys to make any formal attempt at winning your affections. Don’t sit around waiting for a boy to make you a priority, communicate his intentions, or even call you on the phone. Exclusivity and intentionality are ancient rituals, things of the past, and misplaced hopes.

I beg to differ. It’s not that this new line of thinking is necessarily untrue today, or that it’s not the current and corrupt trend of our culture. It’s wrong. One of our most precious pursuits, that of a lifelong partner for all of life, is tragically being relegated to tweets, texts, and snaps, to ambiguous flirtation and fooling around. It’s wrong.

Dating That Preserves Marriage

There is a God. And this God created and rules his world, including men, women, the biological compulsions that bind them together, and the institution that declares their union and keeps it sacred and safe. Therefore, only he can prescribe the purpose, parameters, and means of our marriages.

If fullness of life could be found in sexual stimulation, or if it was just a matter of making babies, the “forget formality and just have sex” approach might temporarily satisfy cravings and cause enough conception. But God had much more in mind with romance than orgasms or even procreation, and so should we. So must we.

When people in the world are expecting less and less of each other in dating, God isn’t. So, as singles we have to work harder in our not-yet-married relationships to preserve what marriage ought to picture and provide.

Mom, Where Do Weddings Come From?

Nothing in my life and faith has been more confusing and spiritually hazardous than my pursuit of marriage. From far too young, I longed for the affection, safety, and intimacy I anticipated with a wife.

Sadly, my immature and unhealthy desires predictably did much more harm than good. I started dating too early. I stayed in relationships too long. I experimented too much with our hearts and allowed things to go too far. I said, “I love you” too soon. And now my singleness is a regular reminder that I messed up, missed opportunities, or did it wrong.

Maybe dating has been hard for you too, for these reasons or others. Maybe Mr. (or Mrs.) Right has started to look like Mr. (or Mrs.) Myth. Maybe you’ve wanted the relationship or liked the guy or girl, and you’ve never had the chance. Maybe all the suggestions and advice you’ve collected have become a confusing mess of good-intentioned contradictions and ambiguity. It’s enough to leave you like an eight-year-old, asking, “Mom, where do weddings come from?”

Expecting More from Marriage

The vision of marriage we see in God’s word — the beautiful, radical display of God’s infinite, persevering love for sinners — makes it worth it to date, and date well. The world’s approach can provide fun and sex and children and eventually even some level of commitment, but it cannot lead to the life-giving Jesus after whom our marriages are to take their cues.

“The vision of marriage we see in God’s word makes it worth it to date, and date well.”

Friends who enjoy sex with “no strings attached” will find pleasure, but not the peaks waiting on the other side of mutual promises. The happiness of marriage is not only or even mainly physical. With the sex, there ought to be a deep sense of safety, a sense of being loved and accepted for who you are, a desire to please without the need to impress. When God engineered the sexual bond between a man and a woman, he made something much more satisfying than the act itself.

Those who recklessly give themselves to a love life of dating without really dating, of romantic rendezvouses without Christ and commitment, are settling. They’re settling for less than God intended and less than he made possible by sending his Son to rescue and repurpose our lives, including our love lives, for something more. More happiness. More security. More purpose.

And the more is found in a mutual faith in, and following of, Jesus. With this “more,” we can say to the watching world, Don’t settle for artificial and thin loyalty, affection, security, and sexual experimentation when God intends and promises so much more through a Christian union. And a Christian union can only be found through Christian dating.

If Christian dating — the intentional, selfless, and prayerful process of pursuing marriage — sounds like slavery, we don’t get it. If low-commitment sexual promiscuity sounds like freedom, we don’t get it. Jesus may ask more of us, but he does so to secure and increase our greatest and longest-lasting (sexual) happiness.

How Then Shall We Date?

For those whose roads are marked more by mistakes than selflessness, patience, and sound judgment, take hope in the God who truly and mysteriously blesses your broken road and redeems you from it, and who can begin in you a new, pure, wise, godly pursuit of marriage today.

Here are (some) principles for your not-yet marriages. It’s not nearly a comprehensive or exhaustive list. They’re simply lessons I’ve learned and hope can be a blessing for you, your boyfriend or girlfriend, and your future spouse.

1. It really is as simple as they say.

In a day when people are marrying later and later, and more and more are resorting to online matchmaking, we probably need to be reminded that marriage really is less about compatibility than commitment. After all, there has never been a less compatible relationship than a holy God and his sinful bride, and that’s the mold we’re aiming for in our marriages.

There is a reason the Bible doesn’t have a book devoted to how to choose a spouse. It was not an oversight on the part of the God of all history, as if he couldn’t see into the twenty-first century. The qualifications are wonderfully clear and simple: (1) they must believe your God (2 Corinthians 6:14) and (2) they must be of the opposite sex (Genesis 2:23–24; Matthew 19:4–6; Ephesians 5:22–32).

Now undeniably there will be more involved in your discernment while dating. Apart from questions of attraction and chemistry, which are not insignificant, the Bible articulates some roles for wives and husbands. A husband ought to protect and provide for his wife (Ephesians 5:25–29). A wife ought to help and submit to her man (Genesis 2:18; Ephesians 5:22–24). Fathers ought to lead their families in God’s word (Ephesians 6:4). Parents must love and raise their children in the faith (Deuteronomy 6:7). So, admittedly we are looking for more than an attractive person who “loves Jesus.”

That said, many of us need to be reminded that God’s perfect person for me isn’t all that perfect. Every person who marries is a sinner, so the search for a spouse isn’t a pursuit of perfection, but a mutually flawed pursuit of Jesus. It is a faith-filled attempt to become like him and make him known together. Regardless of the believer you marry, you will likely find out soon that you do not feel as “compatible” as you once did, but hopefully you will marvel more at God’s love for you in Jesus and the amazing privilege it is to live out that love together, especially in light of your differences.

2. Know what makes a marriage worth having.

In our worst moments, our objectives are small and misguided. We just don’t want to be alone on a Friday night anymore. We just want to post almost-candid, artistically framed pictures with someone on a bridge somewhere. We want a guilt-free way to enjoy sex. We just want a guy or girl to tell us we’re attractive and funny and smart and good at our job.

If marriage only offered us these things, though, it really wouldn’t be worth it. Many will try to deny that, but the divorce statistics are enough to establish that marriage asks more of you than most could have ever imagined on their wedding day. Most of my married friends would say that what seems fun and pretty and unbreakable at the altar did not feel as clean or easy even days into their lives together. It’s still intensely good and beautiful, but it’s costly — too costly for small aims.

Marriage is worth having because you get God in your lifelong commitment to one another. Marriage is about knowing God, worshiping God, depending on God, displaying God, being made like God. God made man and woman in his image and joined them together, giving them unique responsibilities to care for one another in their broken, but beautiful union.

What makes marriage worth having is that you, your spouse, and those around you see more of God and his love for us in Jesus. If you’re not experiencing that with your boyfriend, break up with him. If that’s not our priority, we need to get a new game plan and probably a new scorecard for our next significant other.

3. Look for clarity more than intimacy.

The greatest danger of dating is giving parts of our hearts and lives to someone to whom we’re not married. It is a significant risk, and many, many men and women have deep and lasting wounds from relationships because a couple enjoyed emotional or physical closeness without a lasting, durable commitment. Cheap intimacy feels real for the moment, but you get what you pay for.

While the great prize in marriage is Christ-centered intimacy, the great prize in dating is Christ-centered clarity. Intimacy is safest in the context of marriage, and marriage is safest in the context of clarity. The purpose of our dating is determining whether the two of us should get married, so we should focus our effort there.

“The great prize in marriage is Christ-centered intimacy. The great prize in dating is Christ-centered clarity.”

In our pursuit of clarity, we will undoubtedly develop intimacy, but we ought not do so too quickly or too naively. Let’s be intentional and outspoken to one another as Christians. Intimacy before marriage is dangerous, while clarity is unbelievably precious.

4. Find a fiancé on the frontlines.

This is a throwback to a previous post. The idea is to look for love in the right places. Focus on the harvest, and you’re bound to find a helper. Instead of making it your mission to get married, make your mission God’s global cause and the advance of the gospel where you are, and look for someone pursuing the same. If you’re hoping to marry someone who passionately loves Jesus and makes him known, it’s probably best to put yourself in a community of people committed to that.

This does not mean that we should serve because we might find love. God is not ultimately honored with that kind of self-serving service. No, it simply means that if we’re looking for a particular kind of person, there are good, safe, identifiable places where those kinds of people live and serve and worship together. Get involved in a community like that, serve each other, and look for God to open doors for dating.

5. Don’t let your mind marry him before the rest of you can.

While this may seem like it’s much more common among women, I’ve been single long enough around enough single guys to know it’s not exclusively a female problem. The trajectory of all truly Christian romance ought to be marriage, so it should not surprise us that our dreams and expectations, our hearts, race out ahead of everything else.

It simply isn’t that hard to imagine what your children would look like or where you would vacation together or how family holidays would work or what kind of house you might buy. And just like sex, all these things could be really good and safe and beautiful, but in the context of your covenant. Satan wants to subtly help you build marriage and family idols that are too fragile for your not-yet-married relationship.

“He told me he loved me.” “She said she would never leave.” They’re the seemingly priceless sentences that don’t always cash. They’re often said with good intentions, but without the ring — and without a ring, the results can be devastating. Guard your heart and imagination from running out ahead of your current commitment.

6. Boundaries make for the best of friends.

The most oft-asked dating question among Christians might be “How far is too far before marriage?” The fact that we keep asking that question suggests we all agree we need to draw some lines and that the lines seem pretty blurry to most. If you’re pursuing marriage and it’s going well, you’re going to experience temptation — a lot of temptation.

Sexual sin may be the devil’s weapon of choice in corrupting Christian relationships. If you don’t acknowledge your enemy and engage him, you’ll find yourselves wondering how you lost so easily. Some of our best friends in the battle will be the boundaries we set to keep us pure.

While spontaneous plunges into intimacy look great in chick flicks and feel great in the moment, they breed shame, regret, and distrust. Let’s try talking about touching before touching. Trade some titillation for trust, surprise for clarity and confidence. Make decisions prayerfully and intentionally before diving in.

Boundaries are necessary because on the road to marriage and its consummation, the appetite for intimacy only grows as you feed it. You are biologically built that way. Touching leads to more touching. Being alone together in certain situations will welcome fierce temptation. Even praying together or talking for hours upon hours on the phone can create unhealthy overdoses of intimacy with not-yet spouses.

If we’re honest, we much more often like to err by wading into love too far rather than waiting too long to take the next step. You will be hard-pressed, though, to find a couple regretting the boundaries they made in dating, while you will very easily find those that wish they would have made more. As followers of Christ, we really ought to be the most careful and vigilant.

Boundaries protect, and boundaries provide the trenches of trust-building. As we establish some mutual boundaries, small and large, and commit to keeping them together, we develop depths and patterns of trust that will serve our intimacy, covenant-keeping, and decision-making should God lead us to marry each other.

7. Consistently include your community.

Dating is a matter of doing your best to discern a person’s ability to fulfill God’s vision and purpose for marriage with you. While you might be the one with the final say, you might not be the best person to assess at every point. Just as in every other area of your Christian life, you need the body of Christ as you think about whom to date, how to date, and when to wed.

While it’s rarely quick or convenient, gaining the perspective of people who know you, love you, and have great hope for your future will always pay dividends. It may lead to hard conversations or deep disagreement, but it will force you to deal with things you did not or could not have seen on your own. You’ll find safety with an abundance of counselors (Proverbs 11:14).

Invite other people to look into your relationship. Spend time together with other people, couples and singles, who are willing to point out the good, the bad, and the ugly.

8. Let all your dating be missionary dating.

No, I am not encouraging you to date not-yet believing men or women. When I say missionary dating, I mean dating that displays and promotes faith in Jesus and his good news, a dating that is in step with the gospel before the watching world. I want us to win disciples by dating radically — by confronting the world’s paradigms and pleasure-seeking with sacrifice, selflessness, and intentionality.

“In your dating, confront the world’s paradigms with sacrifice, selflessness, and intentionality.”

Men and women in the world want many of the same things you want: affection, commitment, conversation, stability, sex, and so on. Eventually, they will see that the ground under your lives and relationship is firmer than the flimsy flings they know. They’ll see something deeper, stronger, and more meaningful between you and your significant other.

Do the people in each of your lives know and love Jesus more because you’re together? Do they see God’s grace and truth working in you and your relationship as you walk through life together? Are the two of you thinking proactively about how to bless your friends and family, and point them to Christ? More and more, as the world is watering down dating, your relationship can be a provocative picture of your fidelity to Christ and a call to follow him.

Pursuing Marriage the Right Way

Is this dating perfectly safe? No. Will it keep you from being hurt or disappointed? No. Will it guarantee you never go through another breakup? No. But by God’s grace, it may guard us from deeper heartache and more devastating failure. My prayer is that these principles would prepare you to love your spouse in a way that more beautifully and dramatically displays the truth and power of the gospel.

If you are like me, you may have blown it on multiple fronts already. Maybe you’re blowing it right now in a relationship. Be willing to make the hard decisions, large and small, to pursue marriage the right way today. Whether you’re ultimately married to one another or not (or married at all, for that matter), you will thank each other later.

Article posted at:  https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/when-the-not-yet-married-meet