The Big Issue?
What is the question?
When we go to a Christian meeting, we may be hoping to receive answers to our questions. Sometimes we may leave disappointed because what is said seems completely irrelevant to our needs, right here, right now. Why does this happen?
It may be because the speaker is not up to much and God’s Spirit is not obviously at work; the Bible is not properly expounded, so hearts are left unwarmed by Christ and His Good News. But it may also be that we have come to the meeting with preconceived ideas about what we need and what questions we need addressing. We may be thinking…
• Why isn’t my work going very well, despite my best efforts?
• Why do my family not get on?
• Why are these other Christians so useless, hypocritical and uncaring?
• Why don’t I ever seem to have enough money for what I’d like?
• Why won’t God heal me?
• How could God let me be so hurt?
• Why can’t I find someone to love who will love and accept me for who I am?
• Any others?
It may be that God has an entirely different opinion on what questions we need answering, “‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the LORD” (Isaiah 55:8). We should never forget “He knows how we are formed, He remembers that we are dust” (Psalm 103:14). Remember too that “your Father knows what you need before you ask him” (Matthew 6:8) and that “the LORD God is a sun and shield; the LORD bestows favour and honour; no good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless” (Psalm 84:11). Many of the questions above are expressions of dissatisfaction with our present condition. But God doesn’t seem to want to change our circumstances nearly so much as He wants to change our character within those circumstances: “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance” (James 1:2,3). If we are dissatisfied primarily with our circumstances, are we not saying to God that we do not fully trust Him to provide for us? Rather, we should be dissatisfied chiefly with our sin and those things that separate us from our Lord. Developing godly character is far more important that orchestrating a happy lifestyle.
What is God’s will for us? Our happiness? Yes, but not in the way we think. “It is God’s will that you should be sanctified” (1 Thessalonians 4:3), or set apart for Him. God wants us to become more like our Saviour and Lord Jesus Christ: “For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers” (Romans 8:29). This, as the disciples were to discover, involves not only “the power of his resurrection” but also “the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death” (Philippians 3:10). Being a Christ-follower means becoming like Christ; it means denying yourself, taking up your cross daily and following Him, even into the grave (Luke 9:23).
So, at the beginning and end of each day, and all the way through it, ask not what your Father in heaven can do for you, but what He can do through you and in you, as His master craftsman, the Holy Spirit, works on you every day to become more like the Son. The first line of the Lord’s prayer is: “Our Father in heaven Your will be done!” and the last line is “for Yours is the kingdom, the power and the glory, forever and ever, Amen”. It’s all about God, His kingdom, His desires and His work (Rev.4:11). The sooner we die to self, the sooner we may begin to live for Him, and be “transformed into his likeness with ever-¬increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:18). What we want is not significant (even if we could get it, would it be good for us?). Pleasing the Lord is our supreme concern: “find out what pleases the Lord” (Ephesians 5:10). Then we will be truly blessed, and happiness (or rather joy) will be a natural by-product of fulfilling our creation purpose by obeying our Creator.
What is the question? The question is: “How may I please God more?”
As we turn to our passage of 1 Corinthians 7, let’s look now at the different states the Lord grants us which enable us to please Him better…
Singleness, celibacy, friendship
Excellent
• Good to be single: “It is good for a man not to marry” (1); “it is good for them to stay unmarried, as I am” (8).
• The Holy Spirit even says it is “better” not to marry than to marry (38); Jesus says some people “have renounced marriage because of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it” (Matthew 19:12).
• Godly and single-minded: “an unmarried man is concerned about the Lord’s affairs- how he can please the Lord” (32); the Lord wants “undivided devotion” (35).
• Some people naturally want to be or have to be single (Matthew 19:12).
• “Do not spend your strength on women, your vigour on those who ruin kings” (Proverbs 30:2)!
• Jesus and Paul, the two greatest men to ever live, were single; so probably were John the Baptist, Daniel, Elijah, Elisha and many other great men of faith. (Extraordinarily, God let Ezekiel’s wife die and forbad him to cry about it- Ez. 24:16.)
• Friendship is a more important relationship than marriage in some ways, because as Michael W. Smith says, “Friends are friends forever, if the Lord’s the Lord of them…” Friendship, or rather brotherhood in Christ, is a permanent family relationship with have with other Christians. Marriage is not permanent. Sometimes people forget this and neglect their friends and brothers and sisters for the sake of the little romantic cocoon they are weaving for themselves. This kind of relationship is far more damaging than being single.
• Q: What other advantages can you see in being single?
• Q: Is there any way being single can feel anything other than ‘second best’? Is singleness really ‘the gift nobody wants’? Can we thank God for being single?
• Q: In what sense is singleness everyone’s destiny?
• Q. Does going out with someone (a) enhance or (b) detract from your relationship with others?
• Q. How are relationships (a) better and (b) worse when conducted in a group context?
Sex outside of marriage (adultery, sex before marriage, etc.)
Absolutely not
• People who insist on having sex outside of marriage and will not repent of this will not go to heaven. Sounds extreme? Read 1 Corinthians 6:9 and Hebrews 13:3-5.
• God created sex as a powerful emotional glue. When you sleep with someone, you become “one flesh” with them. If this bond is broken, you are left half a person, all torn in the middle. Not very pleasant image, is it? An even more distressing reality.
• Q: How can we avoid stirring up sexual temptations outside of a marriage context?
• Q: What are we supposed to do with our ‘hormones’ and our loneliness whilst we’re waiting for ‘the one’?!
• Q: What happens if we do mess up sexually (see 2 Samuel 12 and Psalm 51)?
Going out with a non-Christian?
Absolutely not
• God commands us not to be “yoked together with unbelievers…what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever…Therefore, come out from them and be separate” (2 Corinthians 6:14-17).
• It’s clear that we should only marry “only a wo/man who is a follower of the Lord” (1 Cor. 7:39, CEV); Paul speaks of our “right to take a believing wife along with us” (1 Cor. 9:5). We have no right to take an unbelieving spouse.
• Look at what happened to Solomon (1 Kings 11:1,2 ), Ezra’s men (Ezra 9 & 10), Nehemiah’s men (Nehemiah 13:23-28), Ahab (Jezebel), etc.
• If we say we love a non-Christian, how does that love most helpfully express itself? In seeking ways to lead that person to Christ. Is romantic involvement likely to (a) hinder or (b) help that person’s clear vision of Jesus? Is there such a thing as missionary dating? Is the best way to make someone become a Christian to go out with them? When we say Jesus is our number one, and we ignore His teachings, what kind of message does that give to our unbelieving boyfriend or girlfriend? My still-not-yet-Christian ex Hannah said that if what I said to her about Jesus was true, she was going to hell and it was largely my fault because my hypocritical lifestyle completely denied the validity of my gospel. I wept for over an hour and never went out with a non-Christian again (this was back in 1995).
• Q: What other practical reasons are there against getting hooked up with unbelievers?
• Q: What happens if you ‘fall in love’ with a non-Christian?
Going out with a Christian?
Maybe
• There is no real mention of ‘dating’ in the Bible. There is only engagement. Part of the problem in our society is that people see marriage as something to be put off for quite a while whilst we ‘get our careers sorted’, but really this is a cloak for a selfish spirit of non-commitment and pleasure-seeking. A girl called Anna asks, “How many times have I given my heart away in short-term relationships? Will I have anything left to give to my husband?” Josh Harris follows this: “I have no business asking for a girl’s heart and affections if I’m not ready to back up my request with a lifelong commitment…by avoiding romance before God tells me I’m ready for it, I can better serve girls as a friend, and I can remain free to keep my focus on the Lord.” Harris also says, “Dating leads to intimacy but not necessarily to commitment…God…has made the fulfilment of intimacy a byproduct of commitment-based love…Most dating relationships are pure ‘icing’ [with no cake!].”
• Obviously, if God wants us to be equally yoked, it’s important that we really know the person we’re intended to hook up with. So it seems then that if dating is a good thing, its purpose is primarily to be to figure out whether marriage is a good plan, whether the two people are compatible for life. The notion of dating short-term, for fun, is radically unbiblical, and only comes to grief.
• Mike Bickle (with whom I radically disagree on many other issues) is very wise on this subject: “The purpose of dating is spiritual fellowship.” It is asking the question, “Can I get along with this person and do we build up each other’s faith?” Only go out with someone you are good friends with first, is my advice! “Intimacy without friendship is superficial. A relationship based only on physical attraction and romantic feelings will last only as long as the feelings last” (Harris).
• Q. Have your Christian friends supported your decision(s) to go out with someone? What about your family? Christian leaders? How much store should we set by the views of others (Proverbs 15:22)? Bickle says, “If God wants it, and your parents disapprove, God will move heaven and earth to change your parents’ mind.”
• Q. The Bible says that “everything that does not come from faith is sin” (Romans 14:23). Is going out with someone an act of faith, an act of obedience to God? Has God prompted you to become linked with that person? Did He set you up? Are you dating simply because you feel incomplete without a boy/girlfriend? Honestly now?
• Q: Is it possible to be “unequally yoked” with another Christian?
• Q: How do you know whether God wants you to go out with someone, or stay friends?
• Q: What are the key differences between going out with someone and being friends?
Engagement
Maybe
• The only people I can think of who are engaged in the Bible are Mary and Joseph. Joseph decides to break off the engagement with Mary in Matthew 1, and it is actually described as divorce! They took engagement that seriously. It was basically marriage without the consummation (sex).
• As Christians we are “betrothed” to Jesus Christ as His Bride, the Church (Ephesians 5:22-33); this engagement is almost as serious as marriage- we are waiting for the consummation when He returns.
• Mike Bickle adds: “The purpose of engagement is emotional intimacy.” He only feels one should start to fully fall in love and share one’s deepest feelings when one is in the process of engagement. He also says that we should not develop the physical side of the relationship, even in engagement. He is adamant that getting physical even at this stage leads to immense frustration, as there is a law of diminishing returns. Embracing gives a thrill which eventually begins to wane; so the couple try holding hands- very exciting at first! This gets a little ordinary, so they kiss briefly. This turns into out-right snogging, which leads to… which leads to…
• Interesting fact: one of the regrets of my married friends is that they were too physical before marriage (with each other, let alone with other people). They regret ‘being sexual’ in the engagement period, even if they didn’t go the whole way. It is almost as if they robbed (“defrauded”, 1 Thess. 4:6, KJV) their future married selves of a unity, intimacy and trust which should have been unique to their ‘Mr and Mrs’ married life. One friend says, “More importantly it put us on a bad footing at the start of our marriage because a marriage works best when it’s fully submitted to Christ and in our relationship we weren’t fully submitted to Christ because of how we were behaving physically before; in some respects that carried over into the beginning of our marriage… you’ve started off telling God you know best, not Him.”
• If you get physical with someone you don’t marry, you’re messing around with someone else’s future husband or wife.
• Q: What is the place of physical expressions of affection in the Christian life, both romantic and non-romantic?
• Q: How long should people go out before they get engaged? Should engagements be short or long?
• Q: Can you be too young or too old to get married?
Married?
Perhaps not
• Not to be sought after, particularly: “Are you unmarried? Do not look for a wife” (27).
• There are “many troubles” involved with marriage (28).
• Ought not to be clung onto: “those who have wives should live as if they had none” (29).
• Can induce worldliness and double-mindedness: “a married man is concerned about the affairs of this world- how he can please his wife- and his interests are divided” (33,34).
• Marriage is not a solution to our emotional problems; Creflo Dollar (also disagree with him on most other things!) says, “Whatever problems you have before your marriage, you’ll take them with you and they may well multiply.” Mike Bickle says, “If you don’t weed your garden now, you’ll have to weed it later on and it’ll be much tougher…”
• Q: What are some of the troubles involved with marriage?
• Q: Just exactly how is marriage a temporary state (Matthew 22:30)?
• Q: If I said that erotic (romantic) love was the fourth most important type of love [three others being agape, philia and storge], what would I mean, and would you agree with me?
Maybe
• It’s not sinful (28).
• It’s the pattern God laid down for most people (Genesis 2:24).
• And even though it is better to be single and self-controlled, it is also “better to marry than to burn with passion” (9).
• But we should “not arouse or awaken love until it so desires” (Song of Songs 2:7, 3:5).
• Q: Are we admitting defeat to lust and loss of self-control if we get married?
• Q: How else can we deal with our sexual longings if not through marriage?
Perhaps, yes
• We can help our partners. God said in the beginning, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him” (Genesis 2:18).
• We can pick each other up and comfort and defend each other: “Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work: If one falls down, his friend can help him up! Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone? Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken” (Ecclesiastes 4:9-12).
• It is a blessing direct from God: “He who finds a wife finds what is good and receives favour from the LORD” (Proverbs 18:22).
• It is a pleasing and legitimate form of sexual and physical expression (see whole of Song of Songs!).
• A good wife is almost as good as wisdom and certainly better than rubies (Proverbs 3:15, 31:10).
• A good wife is deft with her hands, a great cook, knows a fine bargain when she sees it, has big biceps, etc. (Proverbs 31). You find some more qualities!
• Even when we are married our primary relationship with our spouse is that of sister or brother in Christ (look at the syntax in Song of Songs 4:9, 4:10, 4:12, 5:1). That is the relationship which will be everlasting. Our temporary marriage partnership is for furthering the work of the gospel: either you can be a husband-and-wife team for the Lord’s work, or don’t marry that person. If a girl doesn’t thrill you as a committed Christian sister, she shouldn’t turn you on as a lover either.
• Q: Which question is more important of the following two? 1. What kind of person should I marry? 2. What kind of person should I be becoming?
• Q: What other questions should we ask about whether we should marry a certain person or not?
• Q: If someone doesn’t get married, does that mean God is choosing not to bless them, and they have to ‘make do’?
• Q: What are the other benefits of marriage?
Other states: widowed (see single; if young widow, you should marry apparently- 1 Tim. 5:14!); divorced (avoid at all costs, unless other person insists; you can only instigate if they are adulterous, and some Christians say you can’t even then- Matthew 19:8); remarried (some Christians say only on grounds of death, i.e. widowhood; some say it should only happen on the grounds of death or adultery by other person; some give more latitude. I am number 2, my mum is number 1 and she is probably cleverer than me!).
Good books about relationships
Dickson, John Hanging in there
Harris, Josh I kissed dating goodbye
Hsu, Al The single issue
Jensen, Philip and Payne, Tony Pure Sex
Jensen, Philip and Payne, Tony The Last Word on Guidance
Lewis, C.S. The Four Loves
McDowell, Josh Why say no to sex?
Mowday, Lois The Snare
Pollock, Nigel Relationships Revolution
White, John Eros Defiled
White, John Eros Redeemed
