Ehh there is more too it then that. . . That is certainly a good start.
But you have to ask yourself if you have a compatable lifestyle and habits with this person.
One of the first things you have to ask if if you are compatable religiously and spiritually speaking. Christians should not marry non Christians no matter how much they love the person. A Christian's first love is always God, and a non-Christian could never understand that. Besides the bible tells us not to be unequally yoked with unbelievers. (To be yoked with someone means to be tied to them.)
Things like having similar philophies in regards to money, child raising, future plans, gender roles, etc etc etc.
So don't get married to someone just because you love them right now. (You should love them, but a lot of other things are necessary.) Marriage changes a lot of things, and we're on month 21 of our marriage right now. (A year and 7 months) and one of the first things I noticed was things that where sometimes cute when you where dating are annoying when you are married. Little things become much bigger things when you are married.
Not everything has to be the same between two people. But if you have something that is the exact opposite, you can often live with it or ignore it when you are dating, but when you get married it can't be lived with or ignored forever.
When one gets married they have to be careful that they arn't so overly cautious that they are afraid to marry. But at the same time one can't walk into marriage with romantic blinders on thinking that their love will conquer all. Love can conquer all, but only unlimited and unconditional love conquers all. And humans do not have the ability within themselves to posess unlimited and unconditional love. Only God has that.
I've got to agree to disagree with you on something there. My boyfriend of six years was an athiest. (We broke up for reasons that had nothing to do with religion. Basically he wanted a job which require a lot of moving and I would prefer to be near my family.) We never once had a problem because of religion. Why? Because we both love and respect each other.
And you where never married. . . everything changes when you are married. More on that later. . .
Also just because you where able to successfully carry on a relationship for a long time does not mean the relationship was God condoned. I mean I could go out and commit a lot of sins. That doesn't mean that God has condoned that sin.
I would love to see him join the church, and hope that someday he will. But I also know that shoving the Bible down someone's throat does more harm than good, and they have to make the decision for themselves.
I agree and I disagree . . .
I agree that forcefully shoving the faith down someone's throat does more harm then good. However I don't belive in decision theology. The Holy Spirit gives us faith and the only decision that is possible to be made would be rejection. We can not accept faith, we have faith if we don't reject faith. If we accept faith then we are participating in our own salvation.
(I don't mean in any way that it does no good to try. People can certainly be led by example and by becoming more informed, but that's not the point of this post.) And he was always nothing but supportive of my faith and would listen and ask questions with interest when I talked about it.
Thats good, we will all pray that he will quit rejecting the gift of faith.
I don't see anything wrong with marrying someone of another religious belief as long as there's a mutual respect and support there. I really think that just depends on that particular person's feelings on the subject.
God's feeling on the subject are clear. Do not be unequally yoked with unbeilievers means that someone should not go out and do something which ties them in some way to an unbeliever. That includes marriage but that also includes things like forming a business together.
There is very good reasons for these things. The problem is that you and your boyfriend have entirely different principals and eventually that showed through with his job decision. But had you gotten married it would have showed through more.
How can one center their marriage on Christ when one half of the marriage rejects him?
If you have children, how are the children to be raised? One of the reasons that I married my wife is that she was a Lutheran and accepted the teachings of the Evangelical Lutheran Church (not to be confused with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America which is a schismatic, heterodox, organization which most confessional Lutherans like myself do not consider to be truely Lutheran.)
Would your boyfriend have liked giving away money to the church of a God that he rejects?
See the talk about respecting eachother's faith and things like that. . . its great . . . it really is . . . for friendships. But when someone starts having to tie themselves financially or in other ways to someone who has a completly different worldview, a lot of problems start to appear. And the only way to solve those problems is to withhold some of yourself and your heart from God. You have to compromise your faith for this person.
Trust me when I tell you, interfaith marriages only work when one or both people put their top priority on someone that is not God.
And I was an atheist for a long time and was not raised a Christian. My parents are diests by belief.
