Text size Text size:. Music size Music size:. Capo Capo:. Contacting server This is a preview of your FlexScore. Page Scans. View Page. Hymns to the Living God The Baptist Hymnal The Cyber Hymnal Trinity Hymnal Rev. Trinity Psalter Hymnal Suggestions or corrections? Contact us. It looks like you are using an ad-blocker. That means two things.
We both affirmed the same confession of faith. Two, that means we have both entered the church by a common church covenant. We both understand our lives as members of a church in a certain way. Praise the Lord for the local church! A third thing to consider is basic life compatibility.
You should have similar desires and goals for your futures. It is a bad idea to date someone who would never go overseas if you desire to do frontier missions. If the girl you like has no plans to be a mother you might want to think about that long and hard. There is room to wiggle. You want to look for a general pattern that you both think the Lord would have for you.
If you are general agreement, go for it! Like really that is it. Brother, you have to consider if some of your criteria stems from a selfish heart that sees marriage as another way to serve yourself rather than a desire to see the Lord Jesus magnified in a covenant relationship that mirrors yours with His.
Take some time to read this article by Scott Croft here. True attraction will never be fostered by mere outward appearance. Love is sustained, not by butterflies in the stomach, but by enthrallment with the godliness of another fueled by an objective, permanent covenant made before God. Is she godly? That should be attractive. Physical attraction is good and romance is a gift from the Lord. But that romance will be better fueled by those things that are most beautiful.
How do you know who you should marry? If you are mature enough to do so and you find someone who has these qualities and they are increasing in you both, just pull the trigger. Ask those around you what they think. Then ask the girl out. Part One: Dating Reformed: Why listen to me? That may sound strange to you. It appears self-evident what dating is all about. We know what dating is…. Dating is the process of seeing if the Lord would have you and the other person married.
Put another way, dating is for marriage. The Bible always tells us what God had done before it tells us what to do. What dating is will have an unmistakable effect on what is done while dating. Where a dating relationship starts will determine, in large part, where it will end up.
So what is the purpose of dating? We are not allowed to do with this gift what we will. Our gracious and all-wise Father has a design in marriage — a man and a woman coming together in an one-flesh union that depicts the gospel of Jesus Christ. Marriage is a parable. Marriage tells the heavenly story.
Like our Lord Jesus, husbands lay down their lives for his bride. Like the church, wives joyfully submit to and flourish under their husbands godly leadership. In this union the free grace of God is displayed to the world. Marriage is a matrix in which we have the opportunity to show forth the sufficiency and glory of our great God in an unique way. Marriage is for holiness as well as happiness. Marriage is for God. The goal of dating, if the Lord wills, is marriage.
That means a few things for us. First, if you are not ready to be married then you should not date. Practically if you could not see yourself happily married within about a year then you should ask yourself why. Are you too immature? Do you continually give in to sexual sin? Such things are not reasons to get married but are reasons to put off marriage under God gives more spiritual growth.
Are you pursuing your career right now and feel like a wife would just slow you down? Check you heart, brother.
The normal expectation for the Christian life is that we would be married. Consider this a plea for young men; In the most gospel-centered way possible, grow up. If you are not ready for marriage then you have no business dating. This also means that you should have a pretty good idea about the girl you want to ask out before you do. How can you get to know these things without dating first?
Ask about them from people that you know. Observe them not in a creepy way from afar. How do they serve the people of God? What do they obviously love?
Is Christ fresh on her lips? This is a good time to make a plug for trying to date within the local church. It is easier to know what someone is about when you have already covenanted together in membership based on a common confession of faith and church covenant. You can ask other women in your church about her.
Ladies you can ask elders if they know anything about the guy. Long story short, if you cannot see yourself potentially being married to a person then you should not date them. You want to date in such a way that will maximize your time if the Lord would have you be marriage. Remember the end influences the means. If we are trying to show forth the glory of our Triune God in the one flesh union of marriage in the ways that God has ordained for us to do so, that will necessarily have an effect on how we spend that wonderful time called dating.
But if you think you are ready, and others in your church affirm that, go for it. A lot of what I have learned has been from negative example — both from myself and those around me. Our dating needs to be reformed, meaning that how swaths of Christians have gone about dating has only served to bring reproach on the Lord Jesus. But we know that is not always the case. Unfortunately, none of us can live as well as we confess. The gospel continues to be good news. That is not the whole story though.
Paul calls us to live lives worthy of the gospel in Ephesians. Not perfectly, but really, we can use our dating relationships in holiness and in hopes that it would be another matrix in which God would be magnified.
The gospel should have an effect on how we date. Jesus becomes Lord over all areas of life when we are converted and his saving grace pervades as many areas of our lives that sin once had dominion over.
To get all of my cards out on the table, there is not a whole lot about dating in the Bible. You could even say that it is not addressed by the Bible at all.
This will play a big role in discussions to come. What I am advocating is a heart posture. How do we think about dating? Just like we think about everything else. Dating should be unto the glory of God. However certain things necessarily follow from such a declaration. How do we glorify God? God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him. Or, for our purposes, God is most glorified in our dating relationships when our dating relationships show forth our superior satisfaction in Him.
We are dating coram deo. Dating is not a gift that we are left to define for ourselves and do with it what we will. Our hearts, if we are to date well, must be enamored with the beauty and holiness of our Triune Savior. Now please allow me to admit that I am the last person person who you would expect to write anything on how to approach biblical dating.
Relationships served as a god for me. My entire world was dedicated to the passionate pursuit of relationships in order to fulfill ungodly lusts and to provide something to delight in. I used women like they were tools in order to gratify myself. God stood only to give me what I wanted, when I wanted. But God intervened. Two thousand years ago my sin of dissatisfaction in God was punished on the cross of Christ.
The wrath that was due my sin was satisfied by the eternal Son of God made flesh. Jesus never disobeyed, fully imaging His Father, and He exchanged my filthy rags for His righteousness before God. The Holy Spirit opened my eyes to see the beauty of Jesus and the heinous nature of my sin. The risen Christ saved my life from hell and lesser joys. God is my God and I am His adopted son. Anything right that I do in dating is owing completely to the grace of God. I continue to do things wrong, to think wrong thoughts, and to desire wrong desires.
This gospel changes everything, including how we date. Lindsey is not my supreme treasure. The gospel I just explained has freed me to enjoy my relationship with her in a way that shows that God is God and that He is so much better. The blood of Jesus allows us to encourage one another in holiness and happiness in God. Lord willing, Linds and I may get to portray a picture of the gospel together in marriage.
What will follow are a series of meditations on how to date in a God-honoring way. Consider this your invitation to swallow the meat and spit out the bones. Indeed Christians in all generations have always found themselves in this situation.
As long as there has been revelation to fallen people there has been heresy and idolatry. Man, in an effort to try and degrade the very glory for which he has been created, espouses false theology in homage to his false god. God is a God of specific truth and ideas are the hinge between eternal life and eternal death. As Christians we are called to defend the faith.
This ancient body of divinity did not originate in the minds of men but from the eternal, Triune God of the universe. The truth does not change because God does not change.
His gracious self-disclosure, namely the Bible, is our only guide to faith and practice. Without that light, we live in utter darkness and sit completely without hope. Gospel Tracts. Foreign Missions. Home Missions. Diaconal Ministries. Inter-Church Relations. Confessions and Catechisms. Book of Church Order.
Resources Church Directory. Audio Sermons.
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