Douglas Wilson - Her Hand in Marriage: Biblical Courtship in the Modern World

Biblical Courtship in the

Modern World

DOUGLAS WILSON

For Ben and Bekah, whom the Lord has blessed with covenant grace ...

For Ben and Bekah, whom the Lord has blessed with covenant grace ...

Look for more books in the Wilson Family Series:

by Doug Wilson:

Reforming Marriage

Standing on the Promises:

A Handbook on Biblical Childrearing

Fidelity:

What it Means to be a One-Woman Man

Federal Husband

Future Men

by Nancy Wilson:

Fruit of Her Hands:

Respect and the Christian Woman

Praise Her in the Gates:

The Calling of Christian Motherhood

Look for more books in the Wilson Family Series:

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There are three things which are too wonderful for me,

Yes, four which I do not understand:

The way of an eagle in the air,

The way of a serpent on a rock,

The way of a ship in the midst of the sea,

And the way of a man with a virgin

Agur, son of Jakeb

Proverbs 31:18-19

We like holding hands and pitchin' woo....

Merle Haggard

Sittin' on the front porch just a swangin'....

Stevie Ray [ aughn

Everyone dates. Or at least, everyone is supposed to date. Or, if they don't date, then something is wrong, or someone is ugly, right? But in America today, relationships between boys and girls, men and women, husbands and wives are a stretcher case. The fact that pride exists at the heart of this problem can be seen in our various responses to the difficulties. The worse our troubles get, the more faith we have in our methods and procedures. Like the woman in Luke's gospel, the treatment we receive from our physicians does not really touch or heal our condition. And like that woman, our livelihood is now up and gone (Lk. 8:43). The starting point for most of our marriage relationships, the modern recreational dating system, can be safely considered as bankrupt.

Consider how our system works. A young man notices a girl who attracts him. He asks her out, and she agrees. They start going together, and one of two things happens. Either they like each other or they don't, and both possibilities bring problems in their train. If neither one likes the other, then they both have had a bad experience. If they both hit it off, then the eventual temptation to immorality is strong, especially if they happened to pair off young-fourteen, say. "Glad you kids like each other! Now don't touch anything for eight more years!" "Okay, Mom!" And of course, if one is interested in staying together and the other one isn't, the possibilities for emotional snarls and interesting complications are almost endless.

If the young man and woman see one another more than just a few times, it is very easy for them both to drift into what can be called the tone of vulnerability. This zone of vulnerability is that place where one cannot leave the relationship without being hurt. At some point in a relationship, the man or the woman will come to the place where, if they break up, they get hurt. Once people are inside that zone, they are vulnerable. As long as he or she is outside that zone, they are not threatened at all by the relationship-it is still only a potential relationship. And, of course, in a relationship, the degree of vulnerability they feel toward one another will depend upon a number of factors. If a couple only went out three or four times, there may not be much damage-that will come after they each have seen twenty people three or four times. Some things accumulate. With another couple, if they have dated for three years, have been good friends, and have not behaved themselves sexually, a break-up is nothing less than a divorce without attorney's fees.

This means, of course, that a married couple is as far inside this zone of vulnerability as they can get. There is no way a couple can divorce without devastating both of them in some way. God hates divorce; His Word naturally provides the protection against the kind of damage which proceeds from disobedience. Consequently, God does not permit us to get into this zone without building a fence of protection around us. That fence is a covenantal oath; it is what we call a marriage. A covenant of permanent and faithful sexual union is made before God and numerous witnesses; the man and woman each declare that they are going to go together into this zone and stay there. They will live there for the rest of their lives.

But in our culture, men and women are trained to harden themselves so they may go readily from relationship to relationship. Sometimes there is a marriage oath made and broken, and sometimes not. Going from one relationship to another has become a national pastime. People start very early with recreational dating, and, protests notwithstanding, most dating today leads to a sexual relationship. In this regard, the pattern of behavior among young people who are professing Christians is not much different from that of the world. Because the church has largely adopted a worldly system of dating, the walls of protection for our children which God designed have been broken down. We have provided our children with enough Christianity to ensure their guilt when they fornicate, but not enough to ensure their purity.

Our system of recreational dating has broken down; it is time to return to the biblical pattern for getting together. Apart from biblical dating or courting, there are many destructive consequences-emotional, sexual, and spiritual. But if a young man seeks to initiate a relationship, and takes full responsibility for the relationship under the woman's father, there is scriptural accountability and protection. It is the purpose of this small book to define, defend, and describe how biblical dating or courtship works.

Objections to this assessment of the modern dating system may tend to come rather easily. Why can we not point to the successes, the happy endings in the modern dating system? Besides, this whole thing seems to work on television. Three responses come to mind. First, it is certain that everyone with good will rejoices when a godly Christian couple dates, behaves themselves, and then marries. The success stories within the modern recreational dating system, which certainly exist, are not the problem with it. Nothing said in the following pages should be taken as directed against godly Christians who came together within the dating system. The criticism is directed against the system generally considered as a system. People survive plane crashes too, some of them without a scratch, and we should all be happy about it. But this acknowledgment does not disqualify us from opposing the general habit of crashing airplanes.