Dating and Relationships...

My husband has just started a new series on dating and relationships, a subject very near and dear to my heart, since I chose to do a crazy method of dating called, courtship. I normally am interested in the hubby's lessons since he does such a great job with them, and always likes me to hang around so we can have 'talks' on the subject. This time, however, I was able to contribute a lot more than a thought or two, since we had some pretty lengthy discussions prior to his normal Tuesday night lesson preparation.
Both he and I are excited to begin this study (which really has already begun, since we started Wednesday) because we finally feel like we are in a position to talk about it. I would like to one day talk about marriage tips on here, but our pastor told me that we lose 'newlywed' status once we come to the one year mark. Maybe then I'll give some tips on how to have a great first year in marriage.
Well, enough about marriage, and onto what we are talking about in youth. This past week we started on Biblical guidelines, and having a purpose for dating. To be honest there are only a few core guidelines written in the Bible, but in them we can have a foundation for some personal guidelines.

The first guideline is no sexual sin...I Thessalonians 4:3

Basically, waiting until marriage to have sex (Genesis 2:24). This is where we can form some guidelines to help us stay away from this and keep it from becoming a temptation for us. When I was eleven, I decided that I would wait and kiss for the first time on my wedding day. It wasn't because I wanted to keep my self from temptation or anything, but because Mom had read a story about a girl who had waited and I thought that was super romantic! When I told my cousins, they just laughed and told me to wait until I was 16, things would be much different. This, of course, made me more determined, and once I got older and actually interested in boys, that determination helped me make some other decision that changed the way I viewed dating, or really my mom helped make the decisions, seeing that at 13 I was ready to enter the dating world and she stopped me in my tracks and gave me a Joshua Harris book to read (thanks Mom!).
Courtship is just an old fashioned word that really means Godly dating, and Joshua Harris talks a lot about this in his books (which I highly recommend). Courtship gives you some extra guidelines that help keep you from making decisions that lead up to sex. These can range anywhere to holding hands to kissing to, well, more stuff. Just because I made the decision to not kiss before marriage, doesn't mean others need to (Everyone is tempted by different things, and exhibit a lot more self control than others), but it is good to have these guidelines, before you enter the dating/courtship arena.

The second guideline is for believers to date believers...II Corinthians 6:14

This is extremely important! My husband's and my first conversations were on our salvation stories. Why? This was the most important event in our lives and needed to be equally important to the other. Common beliefs are important as well, since it is important that you worship together.

These are the two main guidelines that are found in the Bible. My husband went on in the lesson to explain that our purpose for dating should not be purely recreational, but should be with the end goal of marriage. On and off dating is just really good practice for divorce (this, of course, is my opinion, and doesn't mean that a person who has dated a lot can't have a lasting marriage, it just means they may have to work a little harder at it.). Another reason I like courtship, is that you start the relationship thinking about marriage, therefore, you are constantly asking your boyfriend/girlfriend questions about finance, child rearing, etc. to see if you agree.

So, that is it for this week. I hope you have enjoyed this post (the first one on the blog, actually!) and that it might help you who are single in making future decisions.