What Does the Bible Say About Dating?

2006-10-30T19:20:00.000-08:00

We know the topic of dating is a huge buzz word in Christian circles. We also know we are no experts. We're just a couple who have lived in this wonderful college town for about a decade now, loving and serving college students. We just thought we loved Texas A&M when we attended. Now, it's just ridiculous how in love we are with Aggies after serving alongside them at our church. Because of our relationships with college students two big things have occurred...

1. We look cool no matter how old we get. Seriously. If we lived anywhere else, Aaron would be a dweeb, and I would be a frumpy house wife. Thanks to tons of college students running around our church and invading our refrigerator, Aaron wears cool shoes and I wear leggings. Praise be to God and Aggies.

2. We have seen the idea of dating literally consume the people we love so much.

After seeing many tears and much confusion for so long, we did what we always do as a couple ... we went to God's Word for some help and for some clarity about dating so that we could offer wise counsel in this huge area to the younger people in our lives. Surely the Bible could fix this. Have no fear, the Bible is here … right? Wrong. Do you know what we found about dating in the Bible? Nothing. Did you hear what we just said? We said, we couldn't find ANYTHING about dating in the Bible. “That’s odd,” we said to ourselves.

How can the Bible be silent about something that we see CONSUMING the minds of multitudes of singles? Is the Bible really silent on something so important in our culture? Is the Bible not relevant in this one, tiny speck of our existence? We found that hard to believe since God seems to have covered EVERYTHING else we've ever needed to know in His Word. Surely 2 Timothy 3:16-17 still applies, even to dating:

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

Since dating leads to marriage and marriage is very good, according to God, why isn’t there anything about dating in the Bible? How does God expect people to get married? How can God love marriage so much, but leave out the "how to get that way" part? Usually God is so specific about everything. Why isn't He about dating? What is His problem? Did this slip His mighty mind?

There are TONS of verses about marriage and the roles of husbands and wives. There are just none about dating ... or at least what we call dating in our culture. This should tell us something. While the Bible may never come right out and say the word dating, we do think we can take some dating related issues, concerns, habits, behaviors and compare them to God's Word. Are the emotions and the results of dating relationships supported by the Bible? So, we think we should slap some scripture on this situation. Most of what we have to say is what we know can NOT be a part of a dating relationship ... because God's Word IS very clear about those things.

We are here to raise some questions from scripture and offer you our perspective and insights. However, what a God-centered dating relationship looks like is something you and the Lord are ultimately going to have to work through together. We are not going to trade you a worldly formula for a "good, Godly" formula. God is not into formulas.

We know this worksheet is frustrating. It takes work. We have suffered great persecution for what we try to point out, areas from God's Word that we see being ignored while dating, and areas we certainly ignored in our own experience, hurting one another deeply. Many of the habits and behaviors we picked up while dating, still pop up from time to time in our own marriage even though we have been married since 1999! We can't believe how far reaching the effects of sin have been.

We are well aware that people want to punch us because of what we're trying to bring up and wrestle through out loud. We're sorry. This worksheet is not about us trying to tell you to adopt our ideas. We know it would be easier if we would simply come right out and tell you what we think. We so love our learning to come neatly packaged on a cute little spoon. Actually, if I could choose, I would want my learning to come on a spork ... because they are a marvel ... a true marvel. Anyway, this is going to be work. It's going to be hard. It's going to be worth it.

Here’s the challenge … we challenge you to let GOD’S WORD be the only thing you use to answer the questions in this study. This means, the answers can't be based on your opinions, your fears about what the end result may look like, or what you've seen "work" in other couple's lives. We want the answers to the questions to come from SCRIPTURE (nowhere else) . Be honest. For heaven’s sake be honest. Get over your anger … your need to justify yourself … your own ideas ... and be honest. Tell the truth!

Why do we not want to hear your opinions? Are we being insensitive? Yes, probably a little bit. But, mainly we know that really, God's heart about this is the only thing we're after. It doesn't matter what WE think. It doesn't matter what YOU think. It matters what God thinks. You aren't God, and you aren’t married. You’re not finished with this process. You are in the midst of it, perhaps even caught in a huge fog of your own self-made sin. It breaks our hearts when you say things like, “I dated a lot and I’m glad I did. I learned SO MUCH great stuff from that experience.”

When married people hear you say things like that we secretly wonder if you just smoked some dope. Seriously. Come on. You have no way of knowing what you are learning about dating while you're in the middle of it. The smartest thing you could do right now is admit that until you are on the marriage side, honestly looking back, you have no right to claim you have done the right thing prior to marriage. Right now, forever-intimacy with someone else is something you are ridiculously naive and ignorant about. We're sorry, that’s harsh … but really … thinking we knew what real intimacy was before we were married, or having a clue how much we would deeply love one another once married, prior to marriage, would be like thinking we know what it’s like to live in space even though we've never been there.

We can read all the books about it that we want. We can sit outside and watch the heavens and the stars. We can look at the sky through a telescope, but unless we've been there, we would be idiotic to think we know what it’s like to live in space, or think we know enough to offer the pros and cons of living on Mars, or heaven forbid think we were such experts on space travel that we could get up and offer a seminar on it at NASA.
This is one area where you are going to have to go to God’s Word … and as much as you hate it, listen to older people in your life who have already been where you are and wear the bruises and have the scars to prove it. We are aware that the older people (like us for some time) have abandoned you. Your confusion and frustration are partly our fault. We have quit thinking about where you are, because we are finished with this phase in our life and are so thankful to be, since almost all of us look back with incredible regret. However, we are older and we should care enough to rethink this topic and share what we learned the hard, painful way. The Bible commands us to do that. It also commands you to listen! We'll do our part. It's up to you to do yours!

Someway, somehow, God desires for you and your brothers and sisters in Christ to go from "singled out" to married without ever taking your eyes off of Him. Somehow, God is calling you to go through this season, this transition from single to married, with holiness as the standard.

Each section of the dating worksheet is listed on the right side of the blog under "Dating Topics." Please go through the sections one by one. The comments under each section are incredibly helpful.