Secular Versus Religious Dating

Abstract

How we look for a partner has changed drastically in the past century mainly due to increased communication. When our ability to communicate was limited to how far we could travel in a day so were our choices of a spouse. This isolation led to a limited number of choices from which parents and children had to select their future partner. Today we meet people online from around the world thus increasing our choices. With so many people to choose from it seems that those dating no longer care if they go through a hundred relationships before they find one that fits their nature.

Dating in the modern world is one of the fundamental rights of passages into adulthood. It is not in and of itself a relationship it is however a method employed in our culture to get to know others who we wish to have a sexual relationship with. Unfortunately social dating is a new phenomenon that was not employed in Biblical times though it has its roots in courting (Bailey 1989). Since the Bible does not speak directly on dating or courtship we will be comparing modern dating to what the Bible tells us about relationships in general.

From the biblical perspective God encourages us to seek out a mate not just for procreation but for companionship "Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh" (Matthew 19:5). This is a very telling passage from it we can infer that the husband and wife were not physically together until they were married. The other lesson I always get from this is to be a faithful and dutiful husband, "hold fast to his wife", I know how good I have it and I do my level best not to screw it up. It's too bad we the modern adults have mucked this up by turning dating into a game where we see how far we can get sexually with our partner before being smacked down. Courtships allowed for a single relationship at a time with the couple being supervised during most if not all of it. Today we send our teens out into the world together and trust them not to do anything, God tried this with two adults, Adam and Eve and look where that got us.

Is dating a bad thing? No, most people don't know everybody in their town so we as sociable creatures need dating to get to know our potential mates, unless of course we want to revert to our parents arranging marriages. The primary flaw with dating is that it doesn't prepare us for a long term sustainable relationship. It encourages us to go from partner to partner and hardens our heart each time we lose someone we really connected with. The solution is simple children should not be dating i.e. looking for a mate. Adults on the other hand should be supervised, get all of the folks together on the first date, sit down, have dinner and get to know both families before you start looking at a committed relationship.