Christian teenagers and dating: a youth pastor’s dilemma pt 4–the impact on teens and our response

In the final part on my series on teen dating, I look at how dating can impact teens and how someone in youth ministry can helpfully negotiate the situation. For preceding posts: part 1, part 2 and part 3.

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What impact can dating have on the lives of Christians?

All of this can have a profound impact on the spiritual lives of Christian teens. By being drawn into a dating relationship, especially when framed as the secular world does, dating can lead to negative outcomes for people whose lives should revolve around their Lord and Saviour.

Christian teenagers and dating: a youth pastor’s dilemma pt 3 – dating vs marriage

Here is the third part of the series on dating and Christian teens. Here is part one and part two. In part 1, I laid out what dating is and why I think it is so prevalent. In part 2, I went through the Bible’s view of marriage and its importance. In part 3, I compare dating to the Bible’s view on marriage.

Christian teenagers and dating: a youth pastor’s dilemma pt 2 – Marriage

Here is the much belated second part of my article on Christian teens and dating. Part 1 can be found here. In part 1, I laid out what dating is and why I think it is so prevalent. In part 2, I go through the Bible’s view of marriage and its importance.

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Marriage in the Bible

 

When it comes to men and women, the ultimate relationship in the Bible is marriage. From the very beginning, we see that God designed men and women to be married and share an exclusive relationship with each other. Genesis 2:24 says:

For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.

The relationship we see develop between the man and woman in Genesis 2 is a pattern for all men and women. They are to join together in a permanent, life-long union and become one flesh, united in a bond shared with no other. This is the pinnacle of God’s design for relationship between men and women.

Throughout the Bible we see God affirming the institution of marriage, be it in the 10 Commandments (“You shall not commit adultery;… you shall not covet your neighbour’s wife” Exodus 20:14,17); Proverbs (“Drink water from your own cistern, … let them be yours alone, never to be shared with strangers… and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth.” Proverbs 5:15-18); the Prophets (“The man who hates and divorces his wife,” says the LORD, the God of Israel, “does violence to the one he should protect.” Malachi 2:16); and in the New Testament (“Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning.” Matthew 19:8). The Bible is clear and consistent: marriage is God’s plan for exclusive relationships between men and women. Because marriage is the aim, it shapes how we relate to each other before marriage.

Christian marriage

 

The Bible, along with its emphasis of life-long, monogamous marriage, promotes a model for relationships that stands in stark contrast to our modern, secular society. The ultimate expression of marriage in the Bible, and the spiritual reality that marriage points to, is the bond between Christ and the Church, God’s universal people.

“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” ³² This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.” (Ephesians 5:31-32)

Marriage reveals the relationship not just between men and women but also between Christ and the church. Christian marriage should mimic the relationship between Jesus and his people. It is an extension of our wider Christian lives, that stem from the work of Christ on the cross and drive us towards service of others. Earlier in Ephesians 5, Paul explains how this all plays out:

 

²² Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. ²³ For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Saviour. ²⁴ Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

²⁵ Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her ²⁶ to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, ²⁷ and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. (Ephesians 5:22-27)

If Genesis shows us the design of marriage, then the New Testament shows us the manner in which God’s design for marriage should work out. Christian marriage is essentially an exercise of self-sacrifice for the sake of the other, modelled on Jesus and the church.

When we get married, the husband is not to live for himself but to give himself up for his bride, sacrificing everything of himself, to present her spotless and without blemish before God. Marriage isn’t for his indulgence but for his service of his wife, dying to himself just like Christ died on the cross for us. The wife, similarly, isn’t to live for her own desires but to live in submission to her husband, as the church has submitted to Jesus.

Through mutual service of each other, both husband and wife is loved and cared for. Rather being torn apart by our individual desires, the marriage is build up cooperatively, with both husband and wife filling important roles within the marriage. Christian marriage brings about the full expression of the ‘one flesh-ness’ design of Genesis, bringing two people together in an intimate and loving relationship.

Christian teenagers and dating: a youth pastor’s dilemma pt 1

Over the last year as part of my ministry apprenticeship, I wrote an article of my reflections on Christian teens and our culture’s approach to dating. My hope for this blog is a bit of dialogue – you commenting and critiquing my ideas, with the hope that both your thinking and mine will be sharpened – iron on iron as I have heard said.

So I present the first part of a few of my draft article. Please feel free to comment away.

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The sign is always ominous – the relationship status on Facebook for one of the guys in your youth group changing to ‘In a relationship’. In our modern world, dating is normal and commonplace for young people today and Christians are no different. For me, Christian teenagers dating always fills the pit of my stomach with dread, all stemming from the question, ‘how will dating impact my young charge’s relationship with Jesus?’. And I believe this question is one all of us involved in the lives of Christian teenagers – parents, youth pastors, youth group leaders, should seek to answer.

Dating and the modern world

 

Now for the purposes of this article, I will not be exploring whether Christian adults should or shouldn’t date – there are plenty of books out there that deal with this issue. What I want to look at primarily is how our culture of dating is affecting the spiritual growth of Christian teenagers, particularly those aged 10 – 16, and the implications for those involved in youth ministry.

Also, I want to add that I am not talking about Christianised kids, that is kids who have grown up in church but haven’t come to personally trust Jesus as Lord and accept him personally as Saviour. Although the reality of youth groups are far from that cut and dried, it is important that I point out that I am talking about regenerated kids, who are to be discipled in their relationship with Jesus.

So we should begin by defining what dating is and I would describe it like this: a form of romantic courtship between two individuals who may or may not expect marriage (wikitionary). The key elements are that it is a romantic relationship, as opposed to friendship alone; that it is exclusive; and that there is no permanent commitment to marriage.

It is this formula that makes dating so common today. We live in a world that doesn’t see marriage as the pinnacle of a relationship between men and women; instead, marriage is one option amongst many. People are reluctant to commit their lives to another easily so dating has everything people want (an exclusive romantic relationship) with none of what they don’t want (permanent commitment).

Amongst young people, dating is commonplace. In my experience, it isn’t unheard of for kids as young as 10 or 11 to have boyfriends or girlfriends, even with a sexual element to their relationships. I find a TV show like Home and Away to be an excellent barometer of public opinion on a variety of issues. It tries to capture the majority of mainstream thinking in order to be immensely popular, with a dash of the edgy to make it controversial. And when we look at that show, we see teenagers dating all the time. No one at home would ever raise an eyebrow now to the kids portrayed positively in the show dating others (though, of course, with a lot of breakups to make it suitably dramatic).

Christian kids live aren’t immune to this worldview. As they will reach puberty, their peers will start dating and so they will be tempted to date members of the opposite sex too. However, is that what is best for them? Is it compatible with what the Bible has to say on relationships between men and women?

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Part 2 I shall unveil later this week