- Classic “one-knee” proposal, ca. 1815 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Why not Date?
Of course, God must have had some reason for causing us to be male and female, yet also programming us to hesitate, to want to do it right, to hate divorce just as He does. What gives?
God set up the whole marriage relationship as a picture, a sort of parable, of perfection in relationship. You have to admit, when male/female relationships are going right, it can be heavenly, right? And when it all goes south, well . . .
Facts are, God is all about loving relationship. He says He IS love. He is a relationship. Love is everything. Love is all you need. And almost every problem on earth is a relationship problem.
Marriage is so important to God. He set up everything in His kingdom with the idea in mind of it being like a marriage. (Or maybe marriage is like His kingdom?) In fact, in all of His creation, out of all the things He created, there was only one thing He said was not good: That man should be alone, single. Man could never picture Heavenly things if He had no counterpart, no one to love, no one to become one with and be fruitful with.
But what is dating? Is it a loving thing? Or is it using someone just to have a good time? Or is it pretending to be married? Are we fools?
The Bible speaks of only two types of relationships between unmarried, non-familial men and women. One is betrothal. The other is over-anxious, questionable men hanging around loose women.
Guess which one we practice these days?
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