JW Dating rules

[Daniel Marsh]

Eight Complex Rules For Dating My Adult JW Daughter
JW Behavior
(1) You can only date her with “a view to marriage” with no way out if it doesn’t work out between you once you are married. It’s all or nothing--so you better take it dead serious.

(2) You better be a baptized JW in good standing because marriage is “only in the Lord”. Otherwise, if you are “worldly”, she’ll get marked (light shunning).

(3) Since dating is with a view to marriage, you better be old enough to marry, preferably in your twenties at least, be able to fully financially support a wife and children, and be the head out the house and “take the lead” spiritually.

(4) No pre-martial hanky-panky, not even second base! You cannot determine compatibility in this area before your wedding night! Mess up on this and you land before a judicial committee. Holding hands and kissing on the cheek? Don’t push your luck!

(5) You better not go on a date with her alone and get to know her one on one. Date in a group—or bring a chaperone (a friend, maybe a parent!). This applies even if you are in your fifties. God forbid you ride alone in the car together before you are married!!!!

(6) If you are regularly talking on the phone with her, emailing, texting THIS IS DATING. Serious business! Wait a minute, didn’t you sit near her during the meeting?

(7) You will conform to a ton of unwritten rules in the JW community that cannot be found in the Young People Ask book, Awake, or any publication. Therefore, you better pass a “background check” with each other’s elders before declare your interest to go on the first date. If you’re in your twenties, you better at least be a ministerial servant or the marriage is doomed. You are a ministerial servant? Why aren’t you an elder? You are an elder? Why haven’t you been to MTS school? Why haven’t you been to Bethel? You aren’t a regular pioneer? Why can’t you take a part-time job, pioneer, be an elder, and still be able to financially support a wife and children?

(8) The entire JW community will micromanage your relationship. They will watch, judge, and report back on your dating activities (even when there is nothing against the rules to report). Of course, that assumes they approve and will not work against the relationship or try to stop it before it starts.

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I have to say, dating as a JW is very stressful and full of drama! As a young teen, not being able to talk on the phone with a girl or go out on an innocent date leads a person unable to communicate or date later in life when one is finally ready for marriage. The cycle of trying and failing when you are young, enables a person to make better decisions later in life. Most of the stuff in the Young People Ask book is simply bad advice!

Eight Complex Rules For Dating My Adult JW Daughter : exjw

 

[Darkhorse]

This would be funny if they weren't serious about it - this isn't satire, right?

 

[Daniel Marsh]

This would be funny if they weren't serious about it - this isn't satire, right?

Not satire, but sure sounds like such.

 

[com7fy8]

Well, I have seen how a couple can show up out of nowhere and ambush everyone with their wedding plans. They have possibly courted in isolation, not getting input and ministry from mature people who could help them.

So, I can see the point of accountability and checking someone out with other people. After all, we in Jesus are family; we help each other; God has us as members of each other, even essential for each other.

But in case the JW's micromanage like you say, I suspect this can be an unbiblical way, since it is written >

"nor as being lords over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock." (1 Peter 5:3, New King James)

"not lording it over God's inheritance, but becoming examples to the flock." (1 Peter 5:3, New World Translation)

And we have >

"for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure." (Philippians 2:13)

So, according to how I understand this scripture > God in us personally works to get us to do what He wants. So, the One worthy to micro-manage us is God Himself . . . in us. I consider that whatever God wants us to will, He in us will work us to will this. So, this is how personal and intimate and sharing our Heavenly Father does desire to be with us > this would be all the time, as much as we have grown and matured personal submission to God in us. He would guide us, then, in how to share with the ones we court, and how to share with our other Jesus family people. So, we need to not act all by ourselves, nor depend only or mainly on others and their say-so.

So, what does the New World Translation say?

"For God is the one who for the sake of His good pleasure energizes you, giving you both the desire and the power to act." (Philippians 2:13, New World Translation)

My Greek Bible does not show the words like for energizing and giving you "desire". It simply says something like this >

for God it is who works in you both to will and to work according to good pleasure

I have talked with at least one Jehovah's Witness who outrightly denied that God in us personally works us to do what He wants.

But in order for God to give us "the desire", as the New World Translation does say, I would understand that God would have to be in our hearts, working or "energizing" in our hearts in order to give us the desire He wants us to have.

And the Greek Bible plainly and simply says God does work in us.

So, how God does this in us and our courting would be certainly better than how people might try to regulate us - - - or excuse us - - to inferior ways.

I think we can make sure with God, Himself, partly by staying prayerfully submissive to how He actually works our willing and doing, at any moment. He at any moment is God who knows what He really wants us to do; and we are not God to know, but we can discover by submitting to what He has us willing and doing, at any time.

But there are people who take their courting and choice making into their own hands, not being personally guided in them, by God Himself. So, of course they will not care for the JW way which likewise can be another way of taking things into their own hands, instead of submitting to how God in us works us to will and to do what He wants.

Our Father will guide us according to what He knows about each person we might consider for marriage. But He does use our Jesus brothers and sisters to help us. He includes us, since we are family in Jesus.

 

[Daniel Marsh]

New Living Translation
For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him.

The Emphasised
Philippians 2:13

For it is, God, who energiseth within you, both the desiring and the energising, in behalf of his good pleasure.

Looks like they borrowed from the The Emphasized Bible by J.B. Rotherham

 

[Daniel Marsh]

Started this thread here: JW - God in us personally