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Today's Christian parents and teens are totally bombarded with the "dating scene."  As a pastor, it is obvious to me that many parents are groping about wildly like a blind monkey in a room full of bananas trying to gain some measure of control over their teens' dating habits or views of dating.  Other Christian parents appear just to have thrown up their hands and taken the "Johnny is an adult now and has to learn to make it on his own and pay for his own decisions" approach.  Still others seem genuinely perplexed and confused on where to draw lines and how to find balance between loving protection and assisting teens in becoming responsible adults.

The issues surrounding "dating" or "seeing someone" as most Americans call it are myriad and complex.  These blog posts will be aimed at parents and teens, for both have to recover a much more biblical vision of this Medusa.  And a much more biblical vision does exist, my friends.

First, some confessions.  Most Christian parents do almost nothing differently than non-Christian parents when it comes to how they permit teens to relate to one another.  And, most Christian teens date or "see" others almost exactly like all their peers are doing.  The utter lack of distinction in our attitudes and actions when it comes to dating is obvious to the most casual observers.  Saddest of all, it does not seem to be bothering most Christian parents or teens at all.

Do we really want to keep taking the "it'll all come out in the wash" approach to something this critical?  We must be intentional.  We are called to be distinct, "cities on a hill" if you will (Matt 5:14).

As Christians, we must ask of every circumstance, every situation, every issue, "What has God said?"  This really is the key that we allowed the Dragon of American Culture to eat, swallow, and excrete into the ocean of moral complacency.  Far too many Christians today are not text-driven.  That is, they are biblically ignorant and often blissfully so.

But our Savior God is a God who has spoken!  He is the self-revealing God who delights in showing mercy to lowly sinners who would not otherwise have a clue as to who He is and how to be made right in His eyes and how to live in His good pleasure.  The miracle of Divine revelation is captured poignantly in Deuteronomy 4-5.  Go read it.

For our purposes here, I am going to assume you Christ-followers reading this really do care what God has said, about every matter, including dating.  So, let's begin a journey of seeking the heart and mind of God, as found only in the Bible, in the matter of dating.

Ready, set, go!  Oh, wait a minute, let me get my Strong's Exhaustive Concordance and find the key word "dating."  Hmmm.  This cannot be . . . Mr. Strong must have made a typo.  The word is not in the concordance.  Maybe if I look for "courting" or "courtship."  Nope.  How 'bout "romance."  Nix.  Wow - maybe this series of blog posts will be shorter than I thought.

Friends, this is where we must begin our journey - with an honest admission that one will look in vain for any direct guidance in Scripture on dating.  Let me qualify that assertion.  One will not find any recommendations or commands from God concerning how best to go about the process of "dating" as we have come to define it in America.

The Bible is all but silent on anything remotely resembling what we call dating in our culture.  Now I know some of you are thinking of the "unequally yoked" passage (it's 2 Cor 6:14, by the way), and we shall come to it in due time.  But go read it in context and you will easily see that Paul did not have American dating in mind when he wrote those God-breathed words to the Church at Corinth.

Here's where we must begin this journey - even the Bible's silence speaks, if we are willing to listen.  We American Christians are going to have to significantly alter our way of thinking about "dating" if we want to gain God's perspective.

Next post: Dating = Practicing for Divorce.

"Who can find a virtuous woman?  For her price is far above rubies" (Proverbs 31:10).

Well, praise God, by His grace I found one and we just celebrated fifteen years of sacred marriage!  My heart still beats quickly for my queen, and my eyes are tearing up as I write this and think on her.  Michele, I know you do not read my blog because you hear it all preached ahead of time, but I want everyone reading this to know I love you. 

"Love" is an abused word in our culture if there ever was one.  And sadly in the church far too many have bought into the cultural, Greco/Roman concept of love, which stands in direct contrast to love as God defines it.  I suspect "romantic Greco / Roman" love has been the cause of the vast majority of divorces in the church, though tons of other reasons are formally "listed" on the legal documents.  If you want some great reading on how woefully short the cultural view of love comes when held up to God's standard, turn to chapter 3 in Voddie Baucham's book Family Driven Faith.  I cannot say it any better than Brother Baucham.

For a few minutes, though, allow me to muse concerning how God has reformed my own idea of love, romance, marriage, parenting and the like over fifteen years.  Michele and I both agree we did not really love each other when we made our vows fifteen years ago.  We only thought we did, but we were self-deceived.  Here are just a few lessons learned from seeking God in His Word and a few things I would change if given a chance to do it all over again:

• The foundation of love is God and His gospel.  Anything less is not love (1 John 4:7-11).
• Love finds its fullest expression in Jesus Christ dying on the cross as our wrath-bearer, and rising again to ever live as our Advocate (Romans 5:8; 1 John 2:1-2).
• This "kind" of love is completely counter-cultural, as it rests on death to self and the life of Christ being lived in and through us (1 Cor 13).
• Building a marriage on gospel love from the very beginning would lead one to more easily jettison fears of getting married "too young" as our culture so often warns.  Typically, our culture counsels young men and women (18 or older) to spend many years "finding themselves" or "taking care of themselves" before attempting marriage.  What is really meant is that young people should indulge themselves selfishly for a decade or more prior to marriage.  How does that help prepare people for a relationship that demands selflessness if it is to survive and thrive?  This is anti-gospel psycho-babble. 
• Doing marriage God's way might also lead one to consider having children much earlier than the typical Christian does today.  Personally, if I had this to do over again, I would have still married Michele right after graduating college (which I did), but I would have started our family earlier.  Things go down hill my friends after you hit your mid-thirties.  Oh to have the energy I had when I was twenty-five to give to my wife and children!  Don't get me wrong, all children are gifts from God (Psalm 127), regardless of how or when they enter this world.  But that said, God's undeniable design for marriage is that it produce "godly offspring" (Malachi 2:15).  Why not get started earlier?! 
• A deeper grasp on gospel love has also caused me to truly appreciate the beauty of adoption.  For those of you who have adopted, you mirror the gracious love of our God who has adopted us unworthy sinners into the glorious family of Christ (Gal 4:4-7).  I commend you.  Our culture of death says "no unwanted child should have to be born into this world."  Our God says no child should ever be unwanted. 

All these lessons and so much more I owe to the grace of God as His Spirit has simply convicted and changed me by His Word.  Friends, the gospel changes everything.  Is forgiveness needed in your marriage?  Then study the forgiveness of God in Christ (Eph 4:32).  Is confession and repentance needed?  Ongoing faith and total trust in the work of Jesus Christ on the cross?  Then beg God on your knees with your wife for these gracious gifts (Eph 2:8-9; 2 Tim 2:24-26; James 5:16).  How is your view of children?  Considering adoption?  Embracing the larger families in your church, rather than making snide comments about birth control behind their backs?  The lessons go on and on, don't they?

Let me summarize the change God's gospel has made like this: When I tell Michele I love her now, what I mean is

"I love Christ far more than you; and because of Him, I choose to selflessly serve you today, even at the expense of my life."         

"And I will put My Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes and be careful to obey My rules" (Ezekiel 36:27).

Thus, the promise of God was made.  One day the Lord would send His Spirit to dwell within His redeemed people, enabling them FINALLY to live a life of obedience and faithfulness to His character and law. 

The New Testament then chronicles how God has fulfilled this promise through the sending of Jesus, the Son of God and the first true "Man of the Spirit."  As the work of atoning for the sins of His people was coming to its fruition, Jesus restated the promise to God's people:

But when the Helper [Holy Spirit] comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, He will bear witness about Me (John 15:26).

It is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you.  But if I go, I will send Him to you (John 16:7).

Then Pentecost came (Acts 2) and the Age of the Spirit dawned!  The church was never the same.  The band of competitive, naive and oft ill-tempered disciples were powerfully unified into an evangelisitc force that rocked the world, and is still rocking it!  Those who would renounce sin [repent] and cry out for mercy from Jesus the Christ would now experience the permanent presence of God dwelling with them by the Holy Spirit.  To be a Christian is to be a person of the Spirit (Rom 8:9; 1 John 4:13-16).  Therefore, it should come as no surprise that God now expects His people to "walk in the Spirit" (Gal 5:16). 

The very command from God implies that His people actually can obey.  Indeed, for followers of Christ indwelt by the Spirit of Christ [Holy Spirit], where God commands He enables obedience.  Obviously, Christians will not achieve perfect submission to the Spirit in this life due to remnants of our sin nature (Gal 5:16-17).  Nevertheless, God can and does enable His people to pursue Him in obedience.  This He does by His Spirit applying His truth [word] to our hearts and lives (John 17:17).  This He does as we continually repent, trust Christ and submit ourselves to the Spirit and the Word. 

What has all this to do with Christian marriage?  Everything!  The church desperately needs to recover what I call "You can" theology.  In the church, we are quite good at telling people what not to do, and this is an essential aspect of walking with God.  But, what we do not do enough is to tell people what they can do in the power of the Spirit and the freedom of Christ.  Christ, by His Spirit and truth has set us free!  We can obey Him now because He can and will empower us!  "You can because He can."  You can because He is, and He is with you!

For sin will not have dominion over you, since you are not under the law but under grace (Rom 6:14).

Christian brother, you can do marriage God's way.  You can lead and love your wife like Christ leads and loves His church.  You can enjoy life-long, God-like love with your wife.  You can love your wife and children sacrificially.  You can fight lust, the world and the devil.  Your home can reflect the glory of the Risen Savior.  You can because He can!

Christian sister, you can do marriage God's way.  You can submit to your husband as unto the Lord.  You can respect him and love him as a determined act of your will, even if he is not exercising perfect headship.  You can pour your life into your children and your home.  You can fight worldly ideals of two-income American dream chasing.  You can clothe yourself with strength and honor (Prov 31).  You can have a gentle and quiet spirit which is precious in God's eyes (1 Peter 3).  You can because your God can!

While we will not fully and finally shake off this sin nature this side of glory, we must never forget that we have been set free, unshakled as it were, to doggedly pursue God's purposes and pleasure in our homes.  And pursue them we must!  We must because we can!  We can because King Jesus is, and He is with us!

God help all of us, married or yet-to-be married, to live by this creed: "Christ in you, the hope of glory" (Col 1:27).

J. Budziszewski wrote a great article recently posted on Boundless Webzine.  In it, he chronicled how a young college student relayed to him his utter paralysis when it came to the issue of marriage.  This young man had no plans to marry, and doubted whether any couple can really stay married anymore until death parts them.

This is a sad scenario, isn't it?  This is an animal of our culture's own making.  Rampant lack of fidelity in marriages and decades of divorce have left our young people today quaking in their boots at the very thought of getting married.  Our baby-booming parents got divorced and remarried at the cyclical rate.  And, my generation appears to be following suit.  It never ceases to amaze me when I hear of folks in my graduating class who have been divorced and re-married three times, four times, or more.  We are not even forty years old yet!  

It is not my intent to be judgmental.  My hearts goes out to every divorcee, to every single-parent, to ever parent trying to make a blended family work.  My desire is to see every family experience the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ, to be healed by Jesus the Great Healer of souls, and to know the power for living that comes by the gift of God's Spirit to everyone who trusts Christ alone for forgiveness of sins.  So, no stone throwing from this sinner saved by grace!  Precisely because I do understand how deeply sin affects and infects us all, I realize no marriage is immune to divorce.  This is why I love the book by Dave Harvey titled When Sinners Say I Do.  The very title says it all.  Sin is the issue and human creatures do not possess inherent power to do battle against this resident foe.

The deep level hurt that divorce leaves in its wake is now surfacing in the paralysis of college students who have lost all faith in marriage as an institution.  Coming from students who do not have the Risen Christ in their lives, this reaction might not be cause for surprise.  But, what is most disturbing to me is the number of young Christian men and women who now shy away from marriage because they have witnessed their own Christian parents divorce.  

I confess some anger wells up in me when I see Christian couples divorce.  It says to a lost world, and even to Christian children, that there really is no significant power for living available to followers of Christ.  I mean, if Jesus cannot enable two of His followers to stay true to their marital vows, what makes us think He can assure us of eternal life with Him?  

Hypocrisy is the one excuse I hear most often for why someone raised in church has now abandoned it, or for why someone not raised in church has no interest in it.  Ruined Christian families littering the American landscape cannot bode well for our evangelism.  We can address the hypocrisy issue biblically (and maybe I'll take up that mantle in future posts), but for now can we Christians just admit there is some legitimacy to the reasoning of a person who watches us live and sees no real difference, particularly in how we "do home"?     

So, what to do?  

For starters, Christians "make your calling and election sure" (2 Peter 1:10).  You are not one of the "many" who will stand self-deceived before King Jesus one day, are you?  See Matthew 7:21-23.  Second, followers of Christ must get a handle on biblical sanctification and what I call "You Can because He Can" theology.  Stay tuned . . . more to follow on these matters.