#singleness and dating

Navigating the Space between Singleness and Marriage

There’s little doubt that the modern world creates some unique challenges when it comes to navigating the space between singleness and marriage. There are a host of factors that exist across Western culture and a separate bundle of issues that exist within Christian culture. Put together they can create significant difficulties in successfully pairing up and transitioning from singleness to marriage. This challenge is the topic of Paul Grimmond’s new book Water For My Camels. Though the title is clever …

It’s No Tragedy To Miss the Model

When I was a kid, one of my hobbies was building model airplanes. I’m sure you remember those little boxes of plastic parts you’d buy at a hobby shop or toy store. Your job was to paint them, glue them, and make them into something that bore a resemblance to an airplane. I must have made hundreds of them through the course of my childhood before, inevitably, blowing them all up with firecrackers. A few weeks ago I was speaking …

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What’s Wrong With Christian Dating (Part Two)

What has gone wrong with Christian dating? Join me for the second part of the discussion (see part one right here) of some common questions about Christian dating and purity.   Transcript What qualities should you look for in a potential mate? Well, the very first quality you need to look for is salvation. The Bible makes it very, very clear that a Christian can only marry another Christian. You may not marry somebody who is an unbeliever. You should …

Sexual Consent in a Confused, Confusing World

Over the past few years, there has been a crescendo of talk about sexual consent aimed especially at our teens and young adults. Freshman orientation at the local college is now less likely to orient students in the ins and the outs of campus and curriculum and more likely to teach the ins and outs of sex and consent. Students are taught that consent must be given before the commencement of any sexual encounter and again explicitly through each and …

Danger Signs of an Unhealthy Dating Relationship

I expect we have all seen dating relationships go wrong. We have all seen people move from unwise and unhealthy dating relationships into turbulent, difficult, or even doomed marriages. How can we help people avoid this? What are some danger signs of an unhealthy dating relationship? Lou Priolo’s books have often been helpful to me and this has proven the case once more with a little booklet he’s written on this very subject. He offers a long list of danger signs, but …

What Is the Gift of Singleness?

What is this gift of singleness that demands so much attention from Christian pastors and writers? And when some believers have such a strong desire to be married, is it right and considerate to refer to singleness as a gift? These are valid questions that stem from a desire to understand a tricky text. In 1 Corinthians 7:6-7 Paul says, “Now as a concession, not a command, I say this, I wish that all were as I myself am. But …

Positive Purity

We live in a sexualized culture—a very, very sexualized culture. You already know that, of course. You can barely walk out your door or turn on a screen without seeing clear evidence of the fact. As Christians we are always in danger of being swept along with the current of the culture around us. For that reason I, like every other Christian, pursue sexual purity in my own heart and life. God calls us to nothing less. Thankfully, the Bible …

5 Ways to Ruin a Perfectly Good Dating Relationship

Somewhere along the way dating became too hard. There must have been a time when it was easy—people knew what was expected of them and how to behave (even if too often they just went ahead and chose not to behave). But today I talk to an endless succession of young people who are trapped between dating and courting and some weird hybrid of the two. Dating has become the most difficult thing in the world, probably because they’ve got a …

What Is Engagement?

A friend of mine expects that she will soon be engaged to be married, and finds herself wondering about the nature of engagement. We assume it: We must get engaged to be married before we actually get married. But what is engagement? Is it an inviolable agreement with all the significance of marriage? Is it a tentative agreement that can be broken off on a whim? What exactly is this thing we call engagement? The first thing we must admit …

How Far Is Too Far?

Everyone has had to ask or answer the question at one time or another: When it comes to the physical component of a dating relationship, how far is too far? Can we hold hands? Can we kiss? Can we do a little bit more than kiss? Should we even explore the physical relationship a little bit to ensure we are compatible? I am accustomed to giving the easy answer: “It’s not about how far can we go, but how holy …