Two ideas about Christian dating that make no sense to me. Any thoughts on the topic much appreciated.
I very much have the mindset that until we are satisfied by God, being with someone else can be trying to fill the need for His relationship with other stuff. I think I have been pretty clear on this. Getting right with God is priority and then if He so wishes He will bless one with a partner.
But then there is the whole 1 Corinthian 7 point of view that says you are to be with someone IF you can't deal with the matters of singleness. Be it lust, loneliness, dependency, insecurity or other. It is like marriage is what you do when you can't deal with being alone, not when you are content in aloneness.
So it stands to reason that if you are struggling in singleness you need to come to God to deal with it so that your relationship with Him is sorted and that He gets the priority. But then, once you deal with this you no longer need to get married 'cause He is enough and Paul says it is better not to.
Oversimplification perhaps but for this maths student the idea of marriage seems, therefore, to be what we do when we can't achieve sufficient intimacy with Jesus or affinity to the Kingdom. (Boy that sounds a lot more judgemental than I mean! I apply this equally to someone that is not married yet can't help but see the appeal and certainly don't actually mean that those who are have compromised their beliefs, just that I don't get it... hence the question.) Which definitely leaves an issue when it comes to the idea of ever dating someone - "Well baby, I wanna be with you 'cause I have failed in my faith". Not really gonna cut it as a classic Christian chat up line and I don't think relationships tinged with letting God down really do that well.
And then of course one must wonder where go forth and multiply comes into it. We can't ALL adopt singleness or there would very soon be no new people at all. Not to mention the fact that I feel obliged to play a part in populating the planet given that there are so many chav babies out there...
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Just to mess with your head even more, what about Matt 19:8-12 where Jesus seems to be saying you'll be crap at marriage UNLESS you're amazingly filled with the Spirit?
What I've always heard is that the "marry if you've got no self-control" is Paul saying that, while it may look dead dead holy to go all single (as the Corinthian church seemed to think), most of us actually aren't gifted with total mental, emotional and physical celibacy. Therefore, instead of trying to take the option that looks holier because it's more difficult (celibacy) we should be getting married (or, I would add, preparing ourselves to be more marriageable people).
On a more basic level, I always rather imagined that passage was Paul saying "getting your mack on isn't less holy just because it looks more fun."
But that's a slight stretch of the interpretation, perhaps.
How about (Matt 19v12) the people that renounce it for the Kingdom of Heaven? What if it is less about trying to be holy and more about genuinely wanting to serve God the most and knowing that, as in 1 Corinth 7:32-34, marriage gets in the way of that.
"Getting you mack on" (which by the way I have NEVER heard and would be curious about the origins thereof) isn't less holy foe show, but Paul does seem to think it is less important.
I suppose what I am wondering is, if one is not as equipped to be single as Paul was, does that mean it is suddenly no longer a better way to serve God?
Derek Frank's phrase 'A text out of context becomes a con' comes to mind! ;-)
Paul (and Jesus) was writing into a culture where getting married was the norm. People were paired off by their families and staying single was very rare indeed. The 'unmarried' in verse 8 mainly refers to those too young to get married. Paul is challenging the assumption that everyone will get married by presenting a new (but not superior) way of honouring God by staying single. Although there are spiritual reasons for doing this (v32-34) this should be done with a great deal of caution. The present crisis (v26) refers to sexual immorality rampant in the church at the time which is why he says its good to get married so that you can satisfy your sex drives with your partner (v2-4).
The single/married debate is difficult because it's so dependant on the person. Obviously Paul is going to favour the single position since he was single himself and sees the benefits of it in terms of freedom of service. He can't say the same about the married person because he has no experience of it. But you just need to speak to married people to know what a blessing it is to serve and grow together in service of God. How can nurturing someone else's spiritual growth in such a deep way ever be thought of as the weaker option?
With that in mind I don't agree with what you're saying about being wholly satified in God being a prerequisite for marriage. I don't think I'd ever get married if I thought like that! What's important is as Paul says, being in the place that God has called us to be for the time being, satisfied or not!
Lol Matt, lovin' the Derekism.
And lovin' also the call to readjust some of my prerequisites. You know how it is when you have your mind set a certain way and you don't want to change it but then a logical conclusion is so obviously not right your thinking stands out as a fallacious premise and you can no longer ignore?
Well I was ignoring it anyway so thanks for calling me on that! I particularly like the "being in the place that God has called us to be for the time being, satisfied or not!" Makes it a bit easier to be OK with not being OK.
Theoretically. Kiddies and husbands still take a lot of energy don't they?!
Hehe! Yes they do (replacing 'hubands' with wives' of course) That's why I'm clinging onto my singleness, that and the fact that Essex is full of ugly ugly women ;-)
Matt! I am shocked and appalled by your shallowness... :-O
I'm pretty sure that God loves marriage. Not tolerates it, not sees it as something as a last ditch option if you can't deal with your lust or loneliness, but actively loves for people to be married. I base that thought primarily off of two passages:
1. In the very beginning, when it was just God and Adam, and it was just the two of them in this perfect garden, and God audibly spoke to Adam, I have to imagine that Adam was closer to God than I'll ever be, but even in that perfect state of relationship, "18 The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him."" (Genesis 2:18), and he made a woman for Adam to be with from Adam's own flesh and it goes on to say, "24 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. 25 The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame." God created marriage, and he wanted Adam to have a partner, so he made him want, and to this day, men and women are united in one flesh and ideally in a marriage, the partners should be naked and unashamed, before God and with one another, physically, emotionally, spiritual naked and unashamed.
2. In Ephesisans 5:22-33, Paul compares the marriage relationship between a man and a wife as like the relationship between Christ and his church and cites the verse in Genesis 2 about men and women becoming one flesh. In this passage, marriage, which was already created by God, is given a new meaning, as a pale, earthly example of Christ and his church. Yes, Christ and his church (us) is the ultimate marriage that is more important than marriage to any man, but a good godly marriage can provide a beautiful glimpse of who Christ is.
All throughout the Bible, marriage is talked about, advice is given about marriage, there's even a whole book (Song of Solomon) written to praise the love between a man and a woman.
Then there's 1 Corinthians 7 which says
"25Now about virgins: I have no command from the Lord, but I give a judgment as one who by the Lord's mercy is trustworthy. 26Because of the present crisis, I think that it is good for you to remain as you are." He goes on to that if you do get married, you're not sinning. I think it's good that Matt pointed out the context of what was going on during this time. There was a "present crisis," which I believe was persecution of the church and the expectation that Christ would return very very soon. In light of that, Paul thinks that it's better to stay single. He states that he doesn't have a command from the Lord, but he has a judgment as a trustworthy man in the Lord. I feel like much of this is Paul's opinion, which we should trust because of who he is and he has the spirit, but it it not the definitive word of God, like a command or anything.
Later on in the passage, he says "39A woman is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is free to marry anyone she wishes, but he must belong to the Lord. 40In my judgment, she is happier if she stays as she is—and I think that I too have the Spirit of God." So again he says, this is my judgment, and I have the Spirit of the Lord.
I get a lot of these ideas from the authority of my church and pastor, who this past February taught a sermon series on marriage. You can access podcasts of these sermons here: http://www.comchurch.com/sites/document.asp?did=8198
Wow crackers and cheese, thanks for that!
There are definitely some great aspects to marriage that are all too easy for a cynical cow like me to overlook so thank you all for refusing to let me get away with it!
Maybe it is not so much marriage that is a thing to distract from the kingdom but the thought of marriage. Let us move on to higher things...!
Kate,
A very interesting point put forward.
I think that we have to look at the Bible as a whole to understand how this works out.
Firstly, there is only one thing in creation that God says is "not good" and that is for "man to be alone" (Gen. 2:18).
Are we to assume that when Paul says it is better to be single than to marry, that God has changed his mind?
Man was not alone when God created him, in the sense that he walked with God. So since the resurrection of Jesus and then Pentecost, we are even more alone than we were then (I am sure you will agree that even the Holy Spirit and the voice of the Father and the Son doesn't quite match up to the power of the presence of God).
So if it is not good for man to be alone, then why does Paul seem to suggest so?
Perhaps the answer lies with Jesus' followers. When one asked if they could bury their Father, Jesus told them to leave their past behind them, he said that they could have no earthly father. In that same sense, we must put Jesus first.
From this, I agree with your initial point about needing to be right with God - except that we are always and already right with God through the death and resurrection of Jesus. I don't think that relationships can be attributed to blessing if we are 'doing things right' - that flies in the face of grace, so to speak.
I think that what Paul is trying to say is that if your marriage is going to distract you from God, then it's a bad idea ... because, rather logically, you have less time to spend with God. But unless you are gifted specifically with singleness, then it is not good for you to be alone, so being married is logical, right, appropriate and in line with the will of God.
Which leads us to a situation where the world does not become underpopulated out of extensive desire for singleness, but where God gifts certain individuals who were designed by God to handle it, and where God gifts the rest of us with the miracle of childbirth!
Hope that makes sense and is of some help.
Ben
Lol, posting on Mich's wall obviously reawakened this 'ole chestnut!
Thanks for your comment Ben. I'm not really feeling in the mood to start a debate at the mo, but...:
I can't help but that think the whole "It's not good for man to be alone" thing can be taken in a different context. Namely, that of community. At the time man(kind) was literally totally alone and, having been given Eve i.e. a companion AND the possibility of procreation, one questions if it is always about having a "life partner" to satisfies the loneliness.
In this light, while marriage is still a good and worthy thing to desire, to outlaw any alternative or even to say that it is always the will of God for someone that doesn't feel called to singleness seems a little extreme. Especially give not everyone that wants to ends up married or with children and I don't think we can imply from that either that
a) God wanted something "not good" for them or that
b) they were just not following his will.
Not sure how I feel about the whole "more alone that we were then" thing as, though clearly we live in a world that tries to get between us and God we are also living NOW in a Kingdom that is forcefully advancing (Matt 11v12) and I think personal intimacy with God is always something that can be increased and sought after.
I do agree that marriage is less terrible that my initial post seems to suggest(!) and certainly I have been forced to think recently about how, more even than serving God better (which is no mere thing in itself), romantic relationships (as in Song of Songs) are something beautiful and lovely there to bless us when appropriate... which seems a silly thing not to have grasped but I am a bit slow and cynical! Just I suppose we cannot choose the ways in which God blesses us.
Oh my, I found quite a lot to say.
Thanks for your visit :o)
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