What are your beliefs about dating and premarital sex? Do your dating values conform to God’s standards or do they reflect cultural norms? We live in a sex-saturated society with relatively few remaining sexual taboos. But does this cultural permissiveness lead to satisfying, healthy relationships or to eventual heart break and disillusionment?
Do you desire God’s blessing on your relationships? Do you want to build something that will withstand the test of time and bring long-term happiness? If you do, you must follow God’s guidelines for relational success. Read the articles and ask the Holy Spirit to help you obey God’s directives and avoid sowing seeds of destruction. Time will confirm that Father God knows best.
Is Missionary Dating a Good Idea? Can’t God Use It?
Missionary dating is the modern idea that a Christian can date a non-Christian with the goal of leading that person to faith in Christ. While God canuse such relationships for evangelism, the Bible says our most important relationships should be with fellow believers.
One problem in evaluating missionary dating from a biblical perspective is that dating of any type was not widely practiced in biblical times. Most marriages were arranged. Yet, since dating is often seen today as a “pathway” leading to marriage, biblical principles for marriage can be applied to dating, the precursor of marriage. (read more)
14 Ways to Date without the Stress of “Falling in Love”
by Whitney Hopler
Dating doesn’t have to involve the heartache that goes along with our culture’s process of “falling in love,” which sends you on an out-of-control romantic journey that too often ends with a crash. There’s a better way to date: flying rather than falling. Flying involves relying on Jesus to help you navigate dating, so you can enjoy a peaceful, graceful journey. Here’s how you can do so. (read more)
Dating Advice You Actually Need
by Derek Rishmawy
I’ve been working in youth ministry in some capacity for roughly eight years, and this is one of the most common questions I’ve fielded from young Christians: “How can (insert boyfriend/girlfriend) and I have a Christian dating relationship? How do we keep it centered on Christ?” As often I’ve heard it, I still love the the heart behind the question. (read more)
Sexually Transmitted Unease: How Casual Sex Works Bad Chemistry from Good
by Terrell Clemmons
In Hooked: New Science on How Casual Sex is Affecting Our Children, OB-GYNs Dr. Joe S. McIlhaney Jr., and Dr. Freda McKissic Bush explain, from a neurobiological perspective, why physiological and emotional changes after sex happen and how. “Scientists are confirming that sex is more than a momentary physical act. It produces powerful, even lifelong, changes in our brains that direct and influence our future to a surprising degree,” they write. A single sexual encounter sets off a cascade of changes in a young brain, and modern imaging technology allows researchers to observe those changes more thoroughly than ever before. (read more)
State of the Sexual Union
While unmarried Christians have been given practical reasons to avoid sex, what we lack is a compelling vision of marital sex as God’s good design. We have never heard the poetry within the command to practice chastity — the “yes” that the “no” protects. When it comes to sex, we suffer from a theological deficit. (read more)
Why Save Intimacy for Marriage?
The Bible teaches that we should reserve sexual intimacy for marriage for no other reason than that, if we are Christians, we belong to God. Sex outside of marriage is not only a sin against ourselves and our partner, but a fraudulent misrepresentation of God and a cruel distortion of the intimacy he created to be a picture of the eternal intimacy of the Trinity itself. (read more)
Pure Again
by Laurel Robinson
You’ve heard plenty of stories about how true love waits. Respect yourself … save your virginity for your spouse. These are wonderful stories; kudos to all who live them out. Now, for those of you who feel like it’s too late for that story of purity and light, here’s another true story, derived from an eyewitness account by a man named John. (read more)
Three Lies About Premarital Sex
Is Scripture becoming outdated and archaic in light of today’s cultural views concerning premarital sex? (read article)
How Can I Long to Be Married Without Obsessing About It?
by John Piper
I suppose the dynamics of that question and its answer relate not just to marriage, but to almost any strong desire that you have, especially a desire relating to people. So my mind broadens out from the marriage issue to ask, “Why do we obsess about anything? Why do we have overweening preoccupations with anything?” (read more)