Christian Dating: Practice for Divorce, Part III

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A Three Part Series

In the first addition to this series, Christian Dating: A Failed Experiment, we concluded that the expectations, practices, and end results of the majority of Christian dating relationships are not a far cry from the secular realm of dating.  This led us to the second installment, Christian Dating: Raising a Legacy.  Because the current system is failing to keep our children pure physically and to protect them from scars both emotionally and spiritually, parents must take responsibility for their children and accept that in the face of sure persecution from the world, a change must be made – a paradigm must be shifted.

I want to express, as I have said before, that I know there are Christians who found their spouse by dating, had wonderful dating experiences, and remained godly throughout.  My experience and my conclusion is that these sadly are not the standard.  My purpose here is to express that dating as a method to find a spouse is not the ideal, nor does it follow Biblical principles.

A Cyclical Process

Dating in its essence is meant to find someone a mate, but it completely disregards any biblical model for man/ woman relationship.  Modern dating looks something like, "This one looks good, but when that model gets old, I'm going to pick a different one that suits my fancy better."  This cyclical process is dangerous because you are allowing a pattern of thought and action to develop and stay with your child as he or she reaches adulthood. When we allow our children to date, we allow our children to practice for divorce.  This is a bold statement, but think it through.  We allow them to have all the freedom in the world from a young age to "sow their wild oats," but all of the sudden when they get married they are expected to uphold their end of the bargain in a covenant made before both God and man.  Our culture tells our children, "We are the priority: our self confidence and our own success must come first."  Our youth hear this and are taught to filter everything they do by the principles set forth by these messages; yet when they marry, all of the sudden, we expect that they will shed an old standard for a new?  Children are prepared for a fairy tale, but what they receive is a big dose of reality, and this translates into marital un-bliss.  For half of the marriages that do last, this transformation to reality can be excruciating.  The other half end in irreconcilable differences. 

The Parent's Role

We may think it best that our children have choices in life, that they explore, experience, and succeed.  Our best might be that our children grow up to have a great self-worth and to be happy and to make others happy.  All those things are good, but how do we go about helping our children accomplish and still train them up in the Lord?  Our God given role as parents is not to ensure our children's success in worldly things.  Our God given role as parents, is to ensure that our children grow up to be God-honoring, God-seeking, God-glorifying adults.  If our youth, while dating, are busy giving their hearts away to this partner and that partner, then our children's hearts are not being protected and they are not learning to singularly rely on God for their life's worth.

Courtship: A Worthy Alternative

We prepare our children for a life of discontent when we allow them to date.  By the time our children reach adulthood they have been trained to equate romantic relationships with impulsiveness.  Since dating to find a mate does not have positive results on the whole (fifty percent of Christian marriages end in divorce), then there must be a better alternative.  This alternative is courtship.  Many people sneer at the thought of courtship because it is often times is equated in peoples' minds with arranged marriage.  We should not sneer because the purpose behind courtship is much closer to the Biblical standard and allows for children to voice their opinion and make independent decisions with the intense supervision and guidance of wise Christian parents.  Courtship is meant to protect the heart of the child.  It is designed to shield children physically, emotionally, and spiritually from themselves and those that desire only to take and destroy.  Courtship is a purposeful means to an end, where dating is an ongoing cyclical process that occurs throughout the teen years and into adulthood.  

By utilizing courtship as a means for a young man or woman to find a wife or a husband, the parent is taking an intensive role in the process.  Children are prepared from a young age to respect their fathers and to follow in His wisdom and leading.  Sons and daughters are taught proper Biblical roles for men and women.  The daughters are subject to their fathers while in the home and should be trained for the role of wife, mother, and homemaker while young by the mother.  Sons should be groomed for the role of a man.  He should be trained for the role of husband, father, and bread winner.  Girls and boys should be taught from a young age, God's Word and how it affects every part of life.  Children should have a good understanding from early on that marriage is not about love.  Love in marriage is wonderful and good, but marriage is primarily about glorifying God not achieving love.  Marriage is a picture of Christ as Head and the Church, His Bride. (Ephesians 5:21-33)  The husband loves and leads the wife, while the wife respectfully follows her husband and supports His headship in the home.  When these principles are taught in the home to the children, the idea of courting in order to find their spouse will not feel like a loss of life experience.  In fact, courting will be a rewarding experience.

Courtship can have a variety of faces and different ranges of strictness depending on the family and the situation.  Courtship requires that parents hold their children closer, protect their hearts thoroughly, and guide their children purposefully.  Where dating allows for multiple partners and many broken hearts, the purpose of courtship is to weed out a volatile relationship before it even has the time to develop.  Expectations and obligations are explicitly set forth at the beginning of the courting relationship, and parents guide their children from an objective view point as to the pace and depth that the relationship should proceed.  Where this method might seem too strict to most, this method is working well today in many Christian homes.  Children grow up and do not feel resentful and do not go through rebellious phases because they were trained from a young age that these things do not align with Godly living.  In a world where immaturity is expected, there are Christian families that require different action from their children.  Godly training produces righteous living through the power of God.

The greatest joy for us as parents in the courting experience is the culmination of years of prayer and seeking after God for His will, and not our own, for our children.  This joy comes when our children, after seeking our guidance choose the spouse that we know will be the God ordained leader for our daughter or helpmeet for our son.  We can be assured of their emotional and spiritual maturity because we were right there leading, guiding, and training them the entire way.  There is no fear in giving our daughters away or letting our sons go because we trust that now our children are equipped to make wise decisions according to God’s Word and Will, and we trust God that He has His hand on them.  Our sons and daughters are able to lead independent lives that are God-honoring and not self-serving.  Our joy as parents comes, not when our role as parents ends, but when our years of toil give way to years of fellowship between families.  We know that we are not perfect parents and that God sovereignly spared all of us from failure, but we know that His covenantal grace carries us through and allows success in spite of ourselves.

Grace Abounds

There is a case to be heard for courtship.  Dating is a modern concept.  Dating has not done our children any favors.  Overall, it has served to extend irresponsibility and immaturity in our children.  Youth are allowed to be self-serving in the way that they choose their partners and how they interact with them.  This cyclical process of “putting down an old model when a new one comes a long” only serves as practice for divorce.  When half of Christian marriages end in divorce we should not be surprised, because our young adults are only acting out what we allowed them to practice as children.  Our children are a blessing from the Lord and we must protect them and preserve their hearts for what the Lord has set forth for their lives.  Dating among Christians as a positive standard has proven itself to be a failed experiment, by purposefully raising a legacy through intensive training of our children in the Lord, we can keep them from following a path of destruction and lead them down a road to righteousness.  At all times we remember that God holds us and His Word guides our steps so that we might lead them.  May God have mercy on our failures and succeed in our stead.