Real talk. Quality time IS essential for dating Christians. This is where the search for compatibility is done. Most people would agree that people hold back some of who they are, making the search for compatibility tougher. This is one reason why society prescribes exclusive dating, or boyfriends & girlfriends as a system to learn, love, and discover the truth in the people we date. In theory, you are supposed to date one another exclusively, and meet each others family, and loved ones. The hope is that somewhere in the process of doing this, that a person will drop their guard long enough for you to see their true self. We are supposed to use these moments of clarity to choose whether or not we have compatibility or not. For the person who is living their lives for the Lord, there are a couple of major problems with this approach:Intimacy. Intimacy is great, it's a gift from God. Some mild forms of it are even necessary when dating. The problem with intimacy and exclusive dating is that men often become aroused in intimacy with women, and women on the other hand begin to feel secure in intimacy with men. Ya'll stop me when i'm lying. So you take a women that is feeling all warm and secure, and a man that is aroused, and then you add the dynamic of "your my boyfriend" and what we get is what we see in the church today; men and women exploring sex in all it's forms before marriage.
Timing. Another problem with exclusive dating is that many people dating this way in the church discover that the person they dated, sometimes for years, is not going to be their spouse. Now here is the thing, during the time a woman is a man's boyfriend, she doesn't know that man is NOT her husband, but God does. So being the good and righteous God that he is, he sends good men, Godly men your way. Now the woman calls it bad timing, because she has a boyfriend. We can only imagine God's perspective as he tried to bless her, but she was unavailable.
"We all know that in every case but one, exclusive dating concludes with a break - up" ,the exception of course being marriage. Seeing that marriage is what dating Christians ultimately seek, why not make marriage the centerpiece of dating, without all the ties? In the Bible, exclusivity before marriage was granted with a price. When Jacob told Laban that he wanted to marry his daughter Rachel, they agreed on a price before she was set-aside for him. Today, with our boyfriend and girlfriend culture, exclusivity costs nothing and is given freely therefore it means next to nothing, especially to men. It is Biblical for a man to collect his savings, buy a diamond and offer it to a woman as a sacrifice and a promise to marry her. No matter what our society says, the Bible does NOT support the process of women setting themselves aside exclusively before a sacrificial offering has been made. Imagine Jacob asking Laban to marry Rachel without a sacrificial demonstration of his love. Jacob worked 7 years for the hand of Rachel. How much are you worth?-James is the host of FindingMorris.com, an online singles ministry radio program that is available 24/7
The next live taping is Saturday January 31st, 2009
