Me and a friend of mine hand an disagreement on the verse
1 Corinthians 7:27
If you have a wife, do not seek to end the marriage. If you do not have a wife, do not seek to get married.
to me all these verses are saying seek one
Pro 18:22
Pro19:14
Gen. 2:18
1 Cor. 7:3-5
Its not a question on weather or not its good or if you should. Its a question on whether you should SEEK to be Married. IE Dating sites, making and extra effort to meet singles. To me I think that my God given sex drive says I should FIND someone.
SO the question is this should i just wait for God to drop a women down from the sky into my arms. Or are there any verses that say you should activity look for someone?????Or was is a good explanation of what Paul was saying???
there's one important note to consider when reading that passage in 1 Cor:
Now concerning virgins: I have no commandment from the Lord; yet I give judgment as one whom the Lord in His mercy has made trustworthy. 26 I suppose therefore that this is good because of the present distressthat it is good for a man to remain as he is: 27 Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be loosed. Are you loosed from a wife? Do not seek a wife. 28 But even if you do marry, you have not sinned; and if a virgin marries, she has not sinned. Nevertheless such will have trouble in the flesh, but I would spare you.
its not a command from God that we shouldn't be seeking a spouse. Its Paul's personal advice to those in Corinth due to the conditions those people found themselves living in. If you believe that is good and sound advice for your own life then yes you should follow it. If not then there's no law or commandment saying you cannot look for a spouse.
From where does this foreknowledge come? Does it happen when you meet someone for the first time? The first date? The second date?I think that so many people don't do this (date with the knowledge that the people they date are people they might/etc get married to), and that is why they end up in 9 year engagements which are broken (or go into marriage, and then get divorced), or divorces 1-5 years later, or strings of exclusive partners...
JM
Ok, heres the thing about this.
you are partly right and partly wrong.
I'll address the part that I bolded in more detail near the end of my post.
Why do you think that if someone is "searching" that they are desperate?
As a Christian, if you are dating for any reason other than "examining" one another for marriage purposes, then you are doing something wrong, basically acting just like the world really.
If you are just hanging out with someone of the opposite sex as a "friend" that's one thing, but don't call that "dating".
Jesus said this:
7Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:
8For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.
9Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone?
10Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? 11If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?
Then as the other brother said, the scripture also says, "He who FINDS a wife FINDS a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the Lord."
Basically you are holding something against guys because they do what? Look for what they need?
If a person is thirsty and in a desert, do you find fault with them because they look for a glass of water? Probably not.
So then why would you find fault with guys when they seek a wife, which God himself said it wasn't good for man to be alone?
Like it or not, the Bible does say that woman was created for the man, and specifically not the other way around.
--
To the bolded part in more detail.
To the point on "marrying out of desperation", I shall say this.
In the ancient world, people did not have exactly the same social structure as we have today. Marriages were arranged, but it was still the woman's choice to refuse or to marry the man. But in general, marriages were arranged. You often grew up with the person you were intended to marry, and so "desperation" was rarely an issue.
In the Bible, there is even a passage in the law which addresses a man and woman who "lose themself" and have sex before marriage, which contrary to our modern way of thinking, the Bible commands them to be married. In the modern world, people tell them something like, "You made one mistake, don't make two mistakes." God on the other hand commands them to marry. And strangely, if they do marry, there is actually nothing even held against them.
These marital structures were very successful for thousands of years, and like I have pointed out in other threads, for some reason they managed to often have ten kids have ten kids have ten kids, etc, and this without electricity or indoor plumbing or gasoline or steam engines. And they lived just fine.
In most of the ancient weddings, including the most successful marriages recorded in the Bible, "Romance" was not even an issue. They were arranged marriages, in some cases where a complete stranger married a complete stranger (or cousin,) whom they had never seen or even heard of before in their life, literally a few days to about 3 months after meeting for the very first time. And they stayed married through as much as 100 years or more in Isaac and Rebekah's case, and for something like 80 years for Jacob with Leah. And then of course we have the law of the kinsman redeemer and Ruth is married to Boaz, whom she had never met or even heard of in her entire life, after knowing him for two days.
So how can this be? Because romance and love are two completely different things, which are not really even related.
Love lays down its life for the other person, that is what Paul said about husbands loving their wives as Christ loved the church.
Do you know we were all unworthy sinners, yet Jesus died for us, who were "strangers" and quite frankly, harlots(Rom 7)?
The fact of the matter is, we Christian singles have unrealistic expectations of what marriage is supposed to be.
I mean seriously, God told the prophet Hosea to go marry a woman that he knew ahead of time was a harlot. Literally to go look for a harlot and marry her. This as a parable of how God loved undeserving Israel, and as well the undeserving church. Now which do you suppose that took? "Romance" or "Love"?
It was hardly "romantic". The prophet spent his life wondering who she'd been with this time, and if his kids were really his.
Love isn't necessarily marrying someone who is "right" for you and has everything "together" just as you expect it to be. That's too easy to be love, because it doesn't require you to "deny yourself and take up the cross and follow Jesus." It doesn't require you to lay down your life for the other, because we expect the other to be "semi-perfect" for us to begin with. well, we may not necessarily say that, but it is a hangup for us nonetheless.
If you have real love, then you can marry a complete stranger, assuming they are a christian and also have such love, and it will work.
We have examples of real love in the Bible in such challenging contexts which we often deem "beneath" us in modern culture. Again, I remind you Rebekah drew water for camels for a "random" stranger she'd never met, then hops on the camels and travels half way around the known world to marry a guy she'd never even heard of until that day.
And what about Job and his wife? We only directly see her in a point of weakness in which she criticizes Job and tells him to curse God and die, yet, after the temptation was past, the two of them must have reconciled quite nicely, because Job was starting back over at age 70 and begat 10 more children. Love remains whether the object is the richest person in the world, or whether he is penniless, naked, and covered in festering boils.
We do not see in the Bible where a person says they will love someone else if they have this quality, or that quality, or another. WE see them love even the "unlovable". Christ died for us while we were yet sinners. Paul said a husband should love his wife as Christ loved the church and gave himself (died) for it. If Christ died for us while we were sinners (alienated from God, filthy, unlean, unrighteous, undeserving,) Then don't we see that Paul is saying we should love one another, even if we are "undeserving"?
I am the first to admit that I have not attained to that by any means. Yet there it is. "Love suffereth long" and "love never faileth".
If we only love those who we deem "deserving" of our love, then we in fact do not have love. We have lust and vainglory.
From where does this foreknowledge come? Does it happen when you meet someone for the first time? The first date? The second date?
From where does this foreknowledge come? Does it happen when you meet someone for the first time? The first date? The second date?
I disagree. Your proposition here would imply that sexual intimacy is the underlying function of marriage, or romantic relationships. It takes time to learn who a person is; rushing into marriage is not a wise decision, one way or the other, and neither is an unhealthy focus on sex.If two people can date for such long times, or be engaged for such long times, and NOT have sex, and yet not go ahead and get married, then they should examine themselves whether they really are for one another. If you love someone you are passionate about them, and the "juices" are going to flow. If they aren't then you have two neuter people just hanging out, saying nice things about one another, and exchanging gifts, but you don't have a marriageable relationship.
FWIW - I agree with JITOW on this thread. And I know he and Quirk were disagreeing, but I'd like to point out that Quirk is 22 and JITOW is 28; your perspectives are probably a world apart given your age difference.
Honestly, I'd much rather have a good, solid Christian guy step up to the plate and say to me, "We might not know each other very well, but I'm willing to marry you and love you and be faithful to you forever", than go through the whole idiocy of dating anymore.
The whole modern "try out a bunch of people and then marry the one who tickles your fancy the best" way of thinking is revolting and stupid to me.
Back in "the day", a woman who found herself as a single mother (perhaps through rape or being widowed) would not have to kill herself working and trying to raise her children alone. A man would step up and offer to marry her because that's the honorable and noble thing to do. There was no dating period, there was no wondering if it would "work out". You married, you loved that person, you were faithful, and you made it work.
I know. Chivalry's dead.
/rant
Which biases and blinders are you referring to?Your questions seem entirely unrelated to what I was posting, and shows that you didn't comprehend what I was posting.
I would suggest rereading, and removing your biases and blinders.
JM
If, practically speaking, circumstances in the present prevent any serious ambitions of marriage, given the fulfillment of other criteria relevant to the decision, blind faith is not something required of by any Christian. Preparation and planning for a future are synonymous with patience, which is a virtue.We are so used to seeing the failed relationships that we almost cannot concieve of a successful one. It is as though we expect things to fail, and this is one reason why people won't commit.
Which biases and blinders are you referring to?
I disagree. Your proposition here would imply that sexual intimacy is the underlying function of marriage, or romantic relationships. It takes time to learn who a person is; rushing into marriage is not a wise decision, one way or the other, and neither is an unhealthy focus on sex.
There is dating with the goal of getting married, and dating without the goal of getting married.
Since I don't have sex with someone I am not married to or going to get married to, I am just getting to know or be friends with girls I am not exclusively dating. And if I am getting to know them, and I like them, and there seems like there might be a possibility of exclusively dating, then I will want to know whether there is the possibility of getting married in the future.
I don't want to just suddenly find out that I am emotionally intimate (physically intimate even worse) with the person and in love with them, but that they are all wrong for me. I also don't want to spend my efforts chasing someone (and if it is more than some casual dating, it is efforts), and have them be completely wrong for me. At worse, it is a waste of my time.
This all just seems rational to me.
JM
FWIW - I agree with JITOW on this thread. And I know he and Quirk were disagreeing, but I'd like to point out that Quirk is 22 and JITOW is 28; your perspectives are probably a world apart given your age difference.
Honestly, I'd much rather have a good, solid Christian guy step up to the plate and say to me, "We might not know each other very well, but I'm willing to marry you and love you and be faithful to you forever", than go through the whole idiocy of dating anymore.
The whole modern "try out a bunch of people and then marry the one who tickles your fancy the best" way of thinking is revolting and stupid to me.
Back in "the day", a woman who found herself as a single mother (perhaps through rape or being widowed) would not have to kill herself working and trying to raise her children alone. A man would step up and offer to marry her because that's the honorable and noble thing to do. There was no dating period, there was no wondering if it would "work out". You married, you loved that person, you were faithful, and you made it work.
I know. Chivalry's dead.
/rant
in this verse paul is telling you two different thingsMe and a friend of mine hand an disagreement on the verse
1 Corinthians 7:27
If you have a wife, do not seek to end the marriage. If you do not have a wife, do not seek to get married.
to me all these verses are saying seek one
Pro 18:22
Pro19:14
Gen. 2:18
1 Cor. 7:3-5
Its not a question on weather or not its good or if you should. Its a question on whether you should SEEK to be Married. IE Dating sites, making and extra effort to meet singles. To me I think that my God given sex drive says I should FIND someone.
SO the question is this should i just wait for God to drop a women down from the sky into my arms. Or are there any verses that say you should activity look for someone?????Or was is a good explanation of what Paul was saying???
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