biblical principals vs. personal Practice
Apr. 21 2008So if you have not read Erin Sutherland and Joseph Stigora’s articles on gospel applied to relationships give them a look-over: Erin’s for girls,and Joseph’s for guys.
What I love about Erin and Joseph’s articles are that they are clear that what they are trying to do is apply the principles that emerge from the gospel to relationships. This is what biblical wisdom is--the discipline of taking principles like “laying down your life” and applying them to specific issues in life.
As I was reading these articles I had a thought about relationships: Guy/Girl relationships so easily fall into legalism and rule keeping, don’t they? I think our tendency can be to moralize our practices by confusing specific personal practice with biblical imperatives. So lets be careful that we not take our personal practices in relationships and seek to talk to others about them as though they are biblical imperatives.
For example, I knew a very godly couple who felt that they were not going to hold hands before engagement because of the temptations it created. I respect them for their commitment, but if they began to tell others that this is what the Bible commands and that they should follow their example...then I would disagree. The Bible nowhere commands that they don’t hold hands.
Here is what the Bible does command when it comes to guy/girl relationships (and assumed in this is that dating/courting is a means to an end in marriage):
1.Seek absolute purity in your dating relationship (I Timothy 5:2). (Now I know some of you are thinking what is absolute purity? Some say like a sister. Well I got to be honest, if you study 1st century Jewish family life when this was written there was a whole lot of affection expressed between brothers and sisters that may not even be appropriate for a dating couple. I will write about that later.)
2.Absolutely no sexual contact before marriage (I Thess. 4:3-8)
3.The person should be a believer (I Cor. 7:39)
4.The person you date should be of the opposite sex (Lev. 18:22, Rom. 1:26-27)
These are very helpful commands of God and should be obeyed. Does this mean that besides these four commands that the Bible is silent on guy/girl relationships? Nope, not at all. The bible has much to say about relationships and it takes wisdom to mine it for its principles. That is what Erin and Joseph are trying to do--take a scripture and apply it to relationships so that you can gain wisdom in how to walk these relationships out.
So lets be careful in our church contexts that we make sure we know the difference between personal practice and biblical commands. Lets also be diligent to mine Gods word for principles of wisdom like Erin and Joseph are seeking to do.
Comments
Thanks Eric!
YellerDaisies on Thu Apr 24, 2008 at 6:43 am
What about what Paul says in 1Cor 7:32—“I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious about the affairs of the Lord, how to please the Lord; but the married man is anxious about worldly affairs, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided. And the unmarried woman or girl is anxious about the affairs of the Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit; but the married woman is anxious about worldly affairs, how to please her husband.”
Do you think that because we all want to be married and because our culture is big into marriage that we might come up with “the guidelines for marriage” and a huge amount of literature about Christian marriage and dating that really is disproportionate to the amount of talk in scripture about dating and marriage?
What I’m saying is that Christians talk a LOT about dating and the like, when the bible has a LOT more to say on other things. Do you take those proportions to mean something… like maybe we’re way more consumed with this than we should be?
Matt Browning on Tue Apr 22, 2008 at 12:49 am