Sex, Dating, and Relationships: A Book Review

As a marriage and family teacher, I am always looking for helpful resources on a biblical understanding of marriage, purity, and sex. That's why I was really excited when I learned about this new book by Gerald Hiestand and Jay Thomas, Sex, Dating, and Relationships: A Fresh Approach.

I found myself saying "Yes!" out loud on a number of occasions as I read this book. And I could hardly put it down. Young people today are immersed in a faulty understanding of sex and relationships. The authors understand this and seek to counter that with more than what has been offered in the past. They say:

"Many Christian singles today lack a clear, biblical vision for sexual purity and relationships that extends beyond a truncated 'don't have sex' concept of purity" (11).

The entire book goes much farther than this age old mantra by first giving a biblical framework for our understanding of sex and purity, namely that God's plan for creating sex was to image the spiritual oneness between Christ and the Church (27). Everything God does relates to his image. He wants to be shown forth rightly in this world. And our responsibility as image bearers is to obey his commands. When we engage in sexual activity outside of marriage, we are actually telling a lie about our Creator we were made to image. And he owns the image, meaning he gets to tell us how he wants us to image him. This foundation profoundly shapes the way we talk about sex and purity with today's young people.

From there they talk about why the "how far?" question is insufficient, and then lay some principles for thinking through male/female relationships. Perhaps the most helpful thing they do is define biblically what those relationships are to be. The Bible only gives three categories for male/female relationships: family, neighbor, marriage. Only one of those relationships is permitted (and even commanded) to engage in sexual activity--the marriage relationship. This means that if you wouldn't do it with your neighbor or your brother or sister, you should not do it with your girlfriend or boyfriend. The question "how far is too far?" suddenly becomes irrelevant, or at least more serious. They provide some really helpful comments on the actual lack of commitment that comes with dating relationships, calling it a "mirage". While marriage is a covenant that should guarantee commitment, dating is not, and the other party is allowed to leave at any time with no real consequences, essentially exposing the real dangers inherent in a dating relationship. I found these distinctions extremely helpful in thinking through how I teach these things to my students.

Their chapters on a new definition of dating are sure to be the most controversial with people, but I think they are on to something. They propose a new category of relationships for singles called "dating friendships". These relationships are designed to be intentional in the same way others have talked about biblical dating, but the only difference is that the relationships also includes a level of romantic purity designed to protect both parties from becoming too emotionally attached too soon. Essentially, in a dating friendship both parties would grow as friends with their eye on marriage, but they would not view the other as uniquely there own until engagement. They take their cues from the relationship between Christ and the Church. He only has one Bride, one relationship, and one love, and that is his Church. Focusing on getting to know one another serves one purpose: is this person someone I could (and want to) marry? If so, the man proposes and the couple gets married. Our modern dating culture assumes that romance and dating (and sometimes sexual activity) is necessary for finding a spouse. But the authors present a very clear, albeit counter-cultural, approach that could save a lot of young people from unnecessary heartache. And I would imagine it would expedite a lot of weddings, too.

My only critique of the book was regarding their brief discussion regarding masturbation and other areas of the purity debate. They provide a helpful framework for thinking through such things, especially linking our actions to our motives and our heart. But at one point, in an attempt to encourage those who have stumbled into sexual sin, they say that we should not wallow in guilt over our failure in the area of lust and masturbation (123). While it is true that in Christ we are no longer guilty, and that guilt can be an unhealthy obstacle to joy in Christ and his finished work. Sometimes guilt is a good thing if it causes us to see hidden sin in our lives and drives us to repentance and faith. Especially in the arena of sexual purity there are some instances where the guilt is healthy and necessary for a person to begin the process of change. This section would have been served by such a clarification.

Overall, I loved this book. In fact, I'm thinking of using in my class this semester and at some point integrating it into my curriculum as required reading. It is counter-cultural, but if we are going to make any headway in this problem if sexual impurity in our churches we are going to need to do something radical, like go back to the Bible and see what God says. This is what the authors set out to do, and I think they do it very well. If you work with singles of all ages, this book is worth your time.

Jesus is Not Your Boyfriend

Daniel and I have just finished a much needed vacation, hence the silence on the blog this past week! But I have been writing. This morning, Her.meneutics (the Christianity Today blog for women) posted something I wrote on a popular trend in Christendom--single women calling Jesus/God their boyfriend. I'm sure at some point you have heard someone say something along these lines, "until God brings me a husband, I am content to just have him as my boyfriend." Some have even gone so far as calling God their lover, as so many popular songs often do.

While a personal relationship with our Savior is crucial, it is not a personal romantic relationship. In fact, when we use earthly relationships to describe our relationship with Jesus we miss something really important, namely the fact that our earthly relationships (i.e. marriage) is meant to image his relationship with his Bride (the church). We are a collective bride, not an individual one.

In the post I say this:

Just as self-marriage misses the mark for what God designed marriage to point to, “marriage” to Jesus misses what his work accomplished. Marriage to Jesus while waiting for a husband can often trivialize our Savior in a way that makes him more like a sweet boyfriend who takes us out on dates, rather than the God-man who paid for our sin on the cross. Jesus did not accomplish redemption to marry us individually. He died for the church corporate, of which we are apart. His death accomplished something much greater than simply meeting our deep-seated desires for a significant other. That is what Paul is getting at in Ephesians 5:22–33 when speaks of the mystery of marriage.

Read the rest of the post here.

For All of the Valentine's Day Haters

I used to hate Valentine's Day. In fact, my disdain for the day went so far as avoiding wearing pink or red on February 14 (and I love red!). So I understand why some people really dread this day. I was a Valentine's Day hater. Sure, when I was a little kid it was fun. Everyone got a valentine and tons of candy at school. There was no coupling and no dates. And then something happened.

Hormones blossomed and Valentine's Day moved from an excuse for an elementary school party to a day of flowers, boyfriends, and the unwelcome reality that not everyone gets to celebrate with a special someone. So what did I do? I did what any self-preserving girl would do. I loathed the day. I acted like it was no big deal that I had no valentine on Valentine's Day. I even went so far as proclaiming the day as a lame excuse for people in-love to go out and buy each other presents. Who needs Valentine's Day anyway, I thought.

And now here I am all these years later. I'm wearing red (so is my husband). I'm celebrating the day in my class today. I'm buying my husband a present. And I've honestly been looking forward to this day for weeks. You could say that I'm now a proud member of the Valentine's Day celebrator club.

What happened? How did I go from hater to lover? I now have that special someone to celebrate with. But as I look back on my years of being a Valentine's Day hater I wish I had been more honest with myself. Some people legitimately hate Valentine's Day, or are indifferent to it. There is nothing wrong with that. But I wasn't one of those people. You see, deep down I really wanted to celebrate the day. I am a hopeless romantic at heart. So instead of admitting that I really wanted a husband, I settled for being a Debbie Downer, because, let's face it, it's just a whole lot easier being a cynic than letting our true feelings show. And I wish I had been so bold. Admitting that Valentine's Day was hard for me would have opened up opportunities for people to know my heart, to know my desires, and perhaps even pray alongside me for God to grant the fulfillment of those desires.

So if you are a legitimate Valentine's Day hater, that's fine. It's not for everyone. But if your hatred for the day is really a disguise for your true desires for love, be honest with yourself. There is nothing wrong with recognizing that this day, like so many other holidays, can be one of great pain and longing for single people. In an often cold and loud way, it highlights what you don't have. But there is peace and contentment in recognizing what the day does for you, rather than scorning it. God knows the deepest desires of your heart anyway, so even the greatest attempts at hiding your true feelings aren't lost on him. And honestly, hating the day won't make you feel any better. Trust me, I know.

Boundaries in the Workplace

How do you think through your working relationships with the opposite sex? Do you have boundaries? Does it even matter? Even more than that, does the Bible have anything to say about these things?

That is the question I seek to answer in an article I wrote for Boundless webzine. There are a host of opinions on this topic, and honestly there are a lot of variables at play too. In the article I say:

"From corporate America to the church office, we cannot escape the often uncomfortable situations that our careers find us in. Many are thrust into environments where lunch meetings are the norm. Some are required to travel with the opposite sex on business trips. And the reality is that sometimes we simply cannot avoid these things. While the Bible doesn’t say “thou shall never travel with a woman or have lunch alone with a male co-worker,” there are guidelines to help us think through our working relationships with the opposite sex."

Instead of making a list of rules, I wanted to provide a biblical framework for thinking through the often sticky situations in the work environment. So if you find yourself in the same predicament when you venture into your place of employment (or if you know someone in your life who does), I hope this article serves you as you work.

Read the rest of the article here.

Singles and the Church

If marriage is at a record low, the logical conclusion is that we are now left with a large singles population in our churches. Chelsea commented that it would be helpful to talk about how to encourage singles in our churches. Often we are left with singles that strongly (and rightly) desire marriage, yet feel disillusioned about their usefulness due to their marital status. Depending on where you go to church, there may be only one single person in your congregation, or you may go to a church with many singles. Regardless of the amount, there is still a place for singles of all ages and stages of life to serve the body. Since I am a single, I hope to offer examples from my own experience in church.

So, how can the local church serve their singles?

1. You can start by teaching them about the gift of their singleness. God has not made a mistake with them. And the same God who saves and keeps them knows the end of their singleness. His purposes have not failed with singles. For many, singleness is a season, not a lifetime. Yet this season is not to be seen as a “filler-period” while you pine away for Mr. or Miss Right. We must encourage our singles to see this period as a gift, and not a curse. It can be extremely painful at times, and we should not take that lightly. Rather we should point them to the truth that God is not in error in causing them to be single, rather he is lavishing his grace upon them by giving them this gift and either preserving them for the one he has for them, or preserving them for a life of unhindered service to him alone. Often this is a hard thing to wrestle through, and older, mature Christians have an opportunity to encourage and shepherd their singles by walking through this period with them. There have been times in my singleness where I have felt intense loneliness as I watched close friends and siblings get married. But it is here that I have also experienced the most joy in knowing that God has allowed me to serve in far greater capacities than I would have been able to had I been married. I have grown tremendously in this time because godly Christian people have encouraged me not to waste this gift.
2. Once we see that this season is a gift, we must be exhorted to use our gifts for the glory of God. Singleness is not a license for selfishness, though I have found that it has been a great temptation for me to claim “my time” rather than give of my time. The single life should be filled with radical Christian service to the local church. One of the ways that local churches can serve singles is by pointing them to areas in the church where they can pour out their lives. Maybe your church needs help in the nursery, encourage a single woman to serve on a Sunday morning. Maybe you need help in your youth department, encourage a single man to join your mentorship team. There are many areas in the local church that singles can serve based on their God-given gifts, and we should encourage them towards this end.
3. Because many of our singles desire to be married, it is extremely important that you teach us what a godly marriage is supposed to look like. We are bombarded with conflicting worldviews regarding marriage and biblical manhood and womanhood, and it is in the church through the preaching of God’s word that we are to be set straight. We should not learn marriage once we say “I do.” The local church should model it, teach it, and encourage it among their singles, because it is here that we will see the Gospel begin to change the tide regarding marriage.
4. Teach your church to adopt singles in their church. One of the greatest blessings in my life was the amount of families that were in my life at Bethlehem. I learned so much about how godly families operate and was able to be underneath the loving protection of godly people who cared about the well-being of my soul. They were the first people who encouraged me to go to seminary, and the first people I go see when I go back to Minneapolis. There are so many ways that families and married couples can make singles feel wanted and appreciated in the local body, and sometimes it begins with a simple phone call or invite to lunch.

Singles are not an “in limbo” category of the church, rather they can be a tremendous blessing and service to the local body simply because God has allowed them to be free to do so in this season of life. We should encourage singles towards an unwasted singleness that is counter-cultural and God-centered. The church is a family, and I really learned that at my previous church. God used them to encourage me to not waste my singleness and use my gifts for the glory of God.

Being a Life Giver, Part 3: Life Giving in the Community

Based on the biblical basis for being a life-giver, there are three areas where we, as women, can, by God’s grace, apply this principle to our everyday life. At a practical level we can be life-givers in our community, home, and church. For each woman, these interactions will be quite varied. But not matter our location, stage of life, or circumstance, we are called to be life-givers in our communities. And whether we are stay-at-home mothers, working mothers, college students, or single, working women, we each have a community to give life to.

Because I am not married, I will not attempt to speak to what life giving means as a married woman in her community. I can say though that the Girl Talk blog is an excellent resource in this regard. In fact, being a life-giver as a married woman might manifest itself in different ways, but the principle still stands—married or single. And the Girl Talkers have been a tremendous help to me in this regard! You can visit them at the link on the side of this blog.

As single women, our lives should not be characterized by the endless quest to climb the corporate ladder and secure the corner office and six-figure income. And even if your ultimate goal is to stay home with your children, your time at your job should not be seen as a useless means to a greater end—even though the end goal is great indeed! Every place of life that we are in should not be seen as useless, even if it is filing papers or making Starbucks coffee for the same frustrating customer every day. It is divinely appointed by our God for our good and growth.

There are many practical things that we can do to exhibit the humility and kindness of a life-giver in our workplace. Instead of grumbling over the seemingly meaningless daily tasks required of you, consider that your work is not unto yourself, or even your immediate boss, but unto the Lord. Often work can become a very ordinary task, especially when our ultimate desire is to be married and have children. But this place that God has us in right now is designed to prepare us for that task, even if it is not for another twenty years. Being a life-giver is not a role that we take on the day we say “I do,” rather it is an ongoing sanctification process that begins when we say “I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.”

And when we go home at the end of the day it’s very easy to get out of our cars and walk into the house without ever thinking about the family next door, or the little boy without a father who plays alone in the front yard every day. Maybe instead of eating alone, or eating with the same people every day, we could invite our neighbors over for dinner—and not out of duty but out of a genuine desire to love them and point them to the Savior. Or maybe we could offer to watch our neighbor’s young children for an evening, while she and her husband have a much needed date night.

Being a life giver may mean that you stay up that extra hour with a freshman on your hall just so she can share with you her feelings of homesickness or struggles with her new found freedom. It may mean that you invite the single mother and her three children over for dinner, even though you are exhausted and know that your cultural differences would require the extra effort on your part. It might just mean that you wake up tomorrow morning asking God to give you more grace to enjoy the job that has become so mundane, because ultimately all of your work is done for him.

All of these things are possible because Christ has already done it all for us. We love because he first loved us. We give our lives because he gave his life for us. As you move into this Easter weekend, may you be able to give life to someone in your workplace, or neighborhood, because Jesus has already done it all for you.

p.s. Carolyn McCulley has an excellent blog for women called Radical Womanhood (http://solofemininity.blogs.com/). She posts often on biblical womanhood for single women. Check her out!

Friday Devotional: Here Comes the Bride

“Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out, ‘Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exult and give him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready.”—Revelation 19:6-7

The wedding season is upon us. At the dawn of the first day of summer the wedding invitations begin pouring in, and our weekends are quickly booked with all of the festivities of our friends and loved one’s happy nuptials.

As women, many of us have been planning our wedding since we were five years old, down to the color of the flowers and the number of attendants that we have already chosen. All we’re really missing is the groom, and we are pretty certain that he will come soon to sweep us off of our feet and carry us off to wedded bliss. This is not wrong. In fact, we should desire marriage and look forward to that day, should God choose to give us that. But the end result of our wanting to be married should be a hope in a marriage to a very different man—the God man, Jesus Christ.

Marriage exists to point people to the Gospel, and it’s really easy to lose sight of that when we desperately desire marriage here on earth. Often times we have a Hollywood understanding of marriage, thinking that our life will be complete if that “perfect man” came to our doorstep and promised us love and happiness for ever. The perfect man did come, and will come again to redeem His Bride, the Church.

For many of us, our days are spent dreaming of a marriage here on earth, even to the extent that with the first “hello” from an eligible bachelor we are planning the big event before we even know his name. And for others, we can probably confess that we are all too guilty of confusing a phone call with a marriage proposal. Are we content with our only marriage being the final marriage where we are eternally joined to our Bridegroom, Christ? Carolyn McCulley says that if Jesus came back tomorrow and you are disappointed because you aren’t married yet, you are idolizing an earthly husband, and desiring the wrong marriage. And I think she’s right.

The marriage we should long for is the final marriage that all marriages should point to, Christ and the Church (Ephesians 5:32). Jesus is not our own personal boyfriend/fiancé/husband. The marriage supper of the Lamb is not an individualized marriage. We will not each be personally walking down the aisle to Jesus in the last day, despite what some women’s Bible studies and worship songs allude to. He is the Bridegroom of the Church collectively, of which we are a part if we are in Christ. In our preparation to meet our Groom, our lives should reflect less of an American, individualistic ideology, and more of our brothers and sisters in the book of Acts, who gave their lives for the building up of the local church. This means we should spend more time changing diapers in the nursery and sitting in the pews under the Word of God, than picking out our wedding songs and drooling over designer dresses.

We muddy the Gospel when we bank all of our happiness on a marriage here on earth. Instead, let us cry out with the whole earth “come quickly, Lord Jesus!” All of our right, earthly desires for a husband are here to give us a temporary picture of an eternal reality—the Gospel.

I am all for marriage here on earth, and I love going to weddings where God is glorified in the joining of two Christians declaring a covenant before God and His people. Like Calvin said, our hearts are idol factories, and every good and biblical desire always has the potential to replace God as our object of worship. Whenever I am struggling with whether or not a desire is an idol, a question I always ask myself is “if God chose to never fulfill this desire in my life, would I still love Him? Would I still desire to serve Him?” Those are hard questions to ask, because more often than not, I find myself chafing at the idea of not getting what I want. But as we seek to honor God with our desires, let us keep an eternal perspective. Resolve today, dear Christian, to love and serve your local congregation, members of the Church. And dream of the greatest wedding party of all, where the Vera Wang dress will fade away in the face of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Is It Good for Man to be Alone?

Are you single and loving it? According to an article in today's issue of USA Today, “Free as a Bird and Loving It: Being Single Has It’s Benefits”, there are many adults, young and old, who are bucking tradition and retaining their singleness. This is not a new finding and it has been written about in many different venues in recent years. And it’s not something that is foreign to the Christian environment either. We are seeing a host of young people in our churches who are postponing marriage in pursuit of prolonged “fun”. Singleness just offers more freedom.

A friend of mine recently wrote about the “marriage culture” on a Christian college campus that has freshmen women toting bridal magazines in quest for “Mr. Right,” yet he addressed the problem that this offers for these women because their hope is resting on a marriage partner’s arrival—not on their Savior. This is true, but I think it is addressing a very real desire in these women’s hearts—a desire that was placed there by God. But in contrast to that, there is another very real aspect of this culture on campuses that has many young people bemoaning marriage, and treating it as a mere lifestyle choice—and not necessarily an institution ordained by a sovereign Creator.

Bella DePaul, a social psychologist, was quoted in the article saying, “What I love about my single life are the nearly limitless opportunities it offers.” The people in the article were choosing singleness because freedom was worth far more than settling down and sharing life with another person. Our American quest for independence and personal autonomy has left us with a warped view of what it means to live in the world. The supposed “benefit” that we receive by being single is rooted in a rebellion towards any form of commitment and dependence. As the article states, the singleness revolution started blossoming in the 1960’s—and so did the sexual revolution and feminism—which declared war on any semblance of moral virtue and values.

So what does this mean for us as Christians? How can we fight for the sanctity of marriage in legislation if we don’t fight for the sanctity of marriage in our own churches? All of the correct and biblical legislation in the world will mean nothing if we do not first model and practice what we preach. The Gospel is displayed in godly marriages. Even our precious Savior died in order to redeem His Bride, the Church. Marriage matters. It shows to a dying world the image of a perfect Savior leading, dying for, and pursuing His Bride. We should want that. It should not become an idol, but it definitely should not become a source of cynicism.

Our culture does not need anymore Christian twenty-somethings, thirty-somethings, and so on, capitulating to their values. Our culture needs redemption and a Savior—and it must begin with us. Maybe what we need to do is to find the bride magazine toting young women and not condemn them, but actually teach them that their desire for marriage and children is right, and then teach them what it means to live how their Creator created them. The fight for marriage begins in our churches—in our Sunday school classes and in our women’s ministries. That is counter-cultural—and it is definitely not “independent.”

Musings on Valentine's Day

Valentines Day puts people in two camps: the single and the non-single. The single is forced to swarm through the Hallmark propaganda and deal with bitter emotions at all the "happy couples," and the non-single spends the work day dreaming about his or her significant other.

As a single, I have a choice. I can either wallow in my singleness and join the cynical banter of the many other people in my situation, or I can see the beauty of God's sovereignty in in my singleness. Because either way, God is on the throne whether my sinful heart can see it or not. So, here are some truths that have made me marvel at our great God today.

Matthew 19:6 says "What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate." Though this is often read at weddings, we don't think about what it implies even when we aren't the ones walking down the isle. God is the one who joins. Marriage is far more than people just deciding to love each other and be together forever. It is a holy union, predestined before our births, ordained and created by God. Therefore any attitude of frustration against our marital status (or lack thereof) is actually an offense against God, because it is fundamentally saying "You can't really be trusted in my love life, maybe everything else, but not that."

As painful as being alone can be sometimes, it ultimately is an instrument that is ordained by God to make us rest in Him. To see Him as all. Elisabeth Elliot knew what it meant to be alone, and had to learn, through very hard circumstances, what it meant to trust in the sovereignty of God over all things. In her book Quest for Love, she says "The surrender of the hearts deepest longing is perhaps as close as we come to an understanding of the cross . . . In every form of our own sufferings, He calls us to that fellowship [the fellowship of His own suffering]. Ought we not to be thankful, then, for that?"

So this Valentines Day, I am learning that although I desire to be married someday, I have great fellowship with my Savior because He knows my longings. He knows because He longed for fellowship with His Father on the road to the Cross, yet He had to wait until His will was finished. I can rest in His power because I know that He holds every detail of my life in His hands, and He does all things for our good and His glory.