Premarital relationship and the Bible – Part 3

Biblical and Worldly – The Differences. 

Flowing from the previous edition, I have outlined a few differences between the biblical-based premarital relationship and the worldly-based premarital relationship.

The world’s view of premarital relationships, either expressed in dating or courting, assumes that there will be several intimate romantic relationships in a person’s life before marriage. The world believes in a high level of emotional involvement in premarital relationships, and some level of physical involvement as well. As an ideal thing to do, it advocates “playing the field” to determine “what one wants” in a mate, thereby introducing terms like “sexual compatibility”. A concept many young people have bought into; however, not without the destruction, it has brought to the emotional health of many. For the world, dating or courtship tends to assume that you will spend a great deal of time together (most of it alone).

Premarital relationship, from the perspective of the Bible, on the other hand, assumes no physical intimacy and more limited emotional intimacy outside of marriage. It will want to avoid anything that will tempt the couple involved to awaken their erotic love before its due time and they tend to spend time with each other in group activities or with other people the couple knows well.

The world also assumes that what I do and who I desire to go out with as an adult is entirely up to me and is private (my family or the church has no formal or practical authority). However, from the biblical sense, premarital relationships assume a context of spiritual accountability, as is true in every other area of Christian life. This is what I talked about early on in the fourth rule in godly premarital relationships in the previous chapter.

Again, the world’s marital approach tells us that the way to figure out whether I want to marry someone is to act like we are already married. If we like it, we make it official. If we don’t, then we let it go. This looks at another premarital concept known as cohabitation. This is an arrangement where two people are not married but live together characterized by romantic or sexually intimate relationship. In biblical relationships, Scripture guides us as to how to find a mate and marry, and it teaches, among other things, that we should act in such a way so as not to imply a marriage-level commitment until that commitment exists before the Lord.

If you are already in a relationship, I want you to pause here and ask yourself: “which of these two describes my relationship?” If you are also considering entering into a relationship, ask yourself, “Which of these two do I want to pursue?”

Remember this one thing: the process is as important as the product.