Is there a "Biblical" way to meet someone?

Question:
Is there a "Biblical" way to meet someone?

Answer:
The whole relationship / dating experience is fraught with risks, and sometimes well-meaning older people, in order to minimise those risks, will set up certain rules. "God will only bless a relationship if you meet him here at church", I was once told. Another wise older Christian told me: "You should never meet a boy one-on-one... you should always get to know him through a cell group or a church activity, with a group of other people. Meeting someone one-on-one invites temptation."

A lecturer at a well-known seminary in the US once remarked: "Should we allow young people to date? Well, should we allow a young woman and a young man to meet up alone, often in some secluded place, and see if they get into trouble? It's obvious, isn't it?"

Well, with all due respect to all these wise people, it's not obvious. Not at all.

The Bible contains lots of stories of people in relationships, and lots of marriages that were blessed by God. Many of these marriages played a small role in the grander story of God's salvation of his people. I'm thinking of a few examples: Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Leah and Rachel, Judah and Tamar, Moses and Zipporah, Ruth and Boaz... the list goes on. The Bible is a story about God and his work of salvation of his people, and not just a story for the sake of a story... so we're not given a lot of details of these marriages, and sometimes the details that we are given are not exactly pretty (think the story of Judah and Tamar, Genesis 38).

The only thing in common between these marriages is their role in God's story. In other words, the only thing they had in common was that God used them for his purpose. Isaac and Rebekah was an arranged marriage, Jacob fell in love with Rachel, and Ruth met Boaz alone, in a secluded place, in the dark. The Bible simply doesn't give a framework as to how we are to meet, court, and get to know members of the opposite sex. It only tells us that once we have decided on a spouse, we need to hold fast to that spouse and not let go (Genesis 2:24, Matthew 19:3-6).

I am, of course, wary of using people of the Old Testament to be examples for us. After all, just because Ruth met Boaz in the dark in a secluded place, it doesn't mean I would want my daughter meeting a boy like that. And indeed it is true, some forms of dating does invite more temptation than others. We do want our young people behaving in a righteous, honourable way, don't we? So what is wrong with making a rule about the circumstances of their courtship?

Well, for one thing, making rules and legislating good behaviour simply doesn't work. What happens when we try to get a sinful person to behave righteously by obeying laws? More sin - look at Romans 7:7-12 - where Paul confesses that, because of his own sinful self, the law "do not covet" didn't produce righteousness but "every covetous desire". So we know that making a rule about how young people should relate to one another will not work, because we are all such sinful people. Telling a young person not to meet a member of the opposite sex in the park will not produce fruits of righteousness - after all, temptation is readily available in other places, such as pornography.

So, if making rules won't work, what will? Is there a biblical framework of how we can ensure our young people can get to know each other in a healthy, romantic way (and, dare I say it, exciting way) without falling into sin?

The answer lies in Romans 6:1-14. Paul tells us that we have died with Christ, and raised from death with him, and now walking in newness of life (verse 5). Therefore, we consider ourselves dead to our sinful ways, and alive to God (verse 11). Because we are alive to God and He is altogether glorious, so we can turn away from our temptations and our sins, and surrender ourselves to God (ver 13). So that is how we can face temptation: because our God is more glorious and more attractive and holds more power over our hearts than that thing that is tempting us. And that is how Ruth was able to meet with Boaz, in the dark, for the glory of God.

Relationships are fraught with risks - risks that scare older people and excite younger people. There is no "biblical" way to get to know someone that doesn't involve risks. If we want to minimise these risks, the most biblical way to do it would be to realise just how wonderful, glorious, and attractive our God is... and to fall in love with Him over and over again.

Is there a soul mate for me?

Question:
Is there a soul mate for me?

Answer:

Did you know that this idea of the "soul mate other half" comes from pagan Greek mythology? The idea was that humans were created whole and androgynous - that is, we were a creature that is both male and female. Then, the gods split us up so we are no longer whole, but two halves. We spend the rest of our lives yearning and incomplete until we find our "one true love" (sound familiar?), at which point we will be finally complete and content. Least you are tempted to just dismiss this as ancient pagan philosophy that has no relevance today, think about how this idea permeates in our modern society. Fairy tales tell us that they lived "happily ever after", as if finding a partner the key to lifelong happiness. The internet is filled with quizzes like "How to find out if he is The One!". A recent trend in Hollywood movies is to have a protagonist be already married, and then finding their soulmate some years after their marriage. In those movies, we are lead to be sympathetic to their adultery because - after all - the person they married was not their other half!

Christians can buy into this as well. After all, we know that "it is not good for man to be alone" (Genesis 2:18). We can easily imbibe the popular cultural belief that we are incomplete, unfulfilled, and deficient unless we are in a relationship.

What does the Bible say?

1. In the beginning (Genesis 1:26-31)
In the beginning, God created humans, and set us apart from all of His other creation. We uniquely bear His image and likeness, we alone were given the commission to have dominion over the vastness of the earth. There can be no doubt about it - we were his people, in his garden, doing his work, reflecting his image, enjoying his presence and blessing. And God looked and said this is very good... and stepped back and rested.

The "fall" of mankind is described in chapter 3 - the forbidden fruit which brought about death. Eve looked at the fruit and saw that it was "good", and in that moment mankind turned away from the source of our life and blessing, toward something we thought was better. The result? We could no longer be his people, in his garden, doing his work, enjoying his presence. We separated from the one God that brought us life, and we continue seek to find the life, shelter and identity we once had in Eden... except that we look for it in anything but God. The creation that was intended to be subdued by us now has now become our master (Romans 1:25).

Perhaps you will think that I am taking a detour, but it is important to see that we were indeed whole at one time, but our wholeness had nothing to do with a "soulmate" of the opposite sex. God saw that man was not good by himself, and so made the woman, and together they imaged God... but the source of their life and fulfilment came not from each other but from God and his commission.

2. The solution

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:14-19, emphasis added)

God had a singular solution to our fallenness: Christ, who lived the life that we should have lived, and endured the death we should have died. Not only that, he gave us a new heart in the Spirit to replace our old hearts which have grown deaf and numb to him (Ezekiel 11:19). Through Christ, we can be filled with the fullness of God. In other words, if you are looking to be fulfilled in your human life, it is not going to come from a member of the opposite sex. To truly get back to Eden, to that place where we can be filled with the riches of his glory again, we need Christ to dwell in our hearts through faith.

3. What does this mean for me?
This means that there is no such thing as "The One"... unless of course you are talking about Christ. I'm not sorry to pop your bubble - because this is wonderfully liberating. You're not looking for someone who is "perfect" for you, or someone who understands you completely - you've already found him in Christ! And if you are already dating someone, you can stop asking yourself if he or she is the "soulmate" who is going to give fulfilment to your life. I can tell you that he (or she) is not, Christ is.

A Sola Scriptura approach to dating, relationships, singleness, and all that

I had hoped to escape the stereotype of a Christian woman writing solely about "micro" issues such as marriage and relationships - I had fully intended for my next writing "project" to be an exploration of faith vs works. However, recent conversations with young people around me convinced me that these "micro" issues need to be addressed just as much, perhaps even more urgently.

While my previous article was directed toward married couples, this is for those who are unmarried - either single, or in a relationship that hasn't progressed on to engagement or marriage. As I write this, I have been married to my husband for four years. It was not so long ago that I was single, praying and asking God to "prepare" for me my future "other half". Some of the issues that I have outlined below are issues that I myself have wrestled with - others have arisen from my conversation with people in similar situations.

What is Sola Scriptura?
Sola Scriptura is a slogan that was coined in the sixteenth century by the emerging Reformation in protest against the Catholic Church. Sola Scriptura means scripture alone - only the Holy Bible is to be viewed as definitive, prescriptive and divinely inspired. It means that we base our life and decisions solely on what the Bible says. It doesn't mean that we don't look to other sources to help us understand the Bible (indeed I will be using lots of dictionaries and commentaries to help write this series), but it does mean that scripture alone is holy writ.

Christian boy-girl relationships is a hot topic, as I have discovered, and everybody has an opinion. Almost everyone has some opinions on how it should or shouldn't be done - and the married couples are often quick to say: "Well, this is how we did it". It all gets very confusing. Sola Scriptura asks the question: what does the Bible say?

Some frequently asked questions:
(Click on the question you are most interested in. If there is a question that is not covered, contact me and I'll give it a go.)

I'm Christian and single, and I'm ready for a relationship. How do I "handle" my singleness?
- Is there a soulmate for me?
- Is there a "Biblical" way to meet someone?
- Does the Bible really say that I can only date other Christians?
- How do I "prepare" myself for a relationship?

I'm Christian and in a relationship, it's all going pretty well, but...
- How do I really know that he/she is the one God has prepared for me?

What does the Bible actually say about sex outside of marriage?

What does the Bible say about pornography?

If you have any other questions that are not covered above, then contact me via the comments.

God willing, I will move on to some "meaty" theological topics. Coming up next: faith vs works.