This book is subtitled Recovering a Biblical View of Christian Dating. As a reason for writing this book, the authors state:
Dating is essentially a twentieth-century invention. But whether we like it or not, most of us who want to get married have to figure out how to date successfully. Even if dating is a worldly notion with which some Christians will be uncomfortable, it is nonetheless something that most of us can’t simply kiss goodbye.
I am very impressed with the godly principles presented in this book, especially the clear biblical teaching on the roles of husband and wife taken from Ephesians 5:22-33. If you are interested, this book may be ordered online from the Estore of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals.
Here is another quote from the book to whet your appetite:
A Christian man should seek to win the respect of the woman he is dating. His outlook is shaped by a husband’s duty to love his wife: “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Ephesians 5:25). This does not require a man to fall in love on the first date. But if he is to love a woman, it is to be the kind of self-sacrificing love shown to us by the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus “gave himself up” for his bride, the church, dying on the cross for our sins. Likewise, the Christian man is to put the spiritual and emotional well-being of a woman he is dating ahead of his own needs and desires. Unlike the norm for worldly men, the Christian is not to exploit the woman sexually, emotionally, or otherwise, but to minister to her needs so that she will be blessed.
Many men think of the call to give themselves for a woman solely in terms of her protection. They say, “I would defend her if there was trouble. If someone attacked her, I would step up for her protection.” But they fail to realize that when a woman enters a dating relationship, she mainly needs to be protected from the sins of the very man to whom she is offering her heart. The enemy that men need to stand up to is the one who lives within themselves: the one who is selfish, insensitive, and uncommitted. It is when that man is put to death that the woman will be safe and will be blessed in the relationship.
Everyone dates, they just have different names and rules for it which frames their future relationship. For example, Darren and I never hold hands–probably because that was part of the culture of our pre-marriage relationship.
Yes, dating usually means lots of physical involvement, but it doesn’t have to.
GTG, Deeder’s fussing, interesting topic…