YUP! We’re back! I was in prayer, before I got into bed when I realized I hadn’t written an article for the week. So, here I am, at 11:13pm, writing an article/blog post on dating… you know this one is going to be short right? Like my eyes are sagging, but I’m dedicated to God, and He’s dedicated to teaching all of you about dating. He got me out of bed to do so. For my sake, I hope yall listen!
Dating v. Courting
Did you do your homework? Did you read Genesis chapter two a few times? Hope so.
Last week, we mostly talked about our purpose before we can date. We learned that in the process of dating, the first stage is learning who you are. Which is technically in the singleness stage, but, it’s also not in the singleness stage. Being single is all about learning God, then we learn about ourselves, and finally, we learn about a significant other.
So, one thing we need to talk about is what exactly dating is, and where it came from.
Dating: to make a usually romantic social arrangement to meet with : to have a date with
Merriam Webster Dictionary
Ok… so, dating revolves around romance. It involves spending lengthy moments together with a giddy feeling in our bellies. But… dating was created by man. Courtship was created by God.
Courting: to seek the affections of; to engage in social activities leading to engagement and marriage
Merriam Webster Dictionary
Do you see the stark differences between courting and dating? Dating has to do with romantic feelings, while courtship has to do with social activities to gain affections and eventually, leads to marriage. So, the jolting difference here is the end goal: marriage.
End Goals
In the world, dating is totally ok. You date around from person to person to figure out who you like the most. Some folks hop between the same two or three people until they find themselves in an obligatory marriage (I created that term for people who marry just because they’ve been together for a while). For some strange reason, Believers have adopted the concept of dating when there was no dating in the Bible.
Please. Don’t all shout at once that things have changed. With a never changing God, the One who’s always the same, things spiritually, have not changed. We just confused conformed with changed. Or maybe we’re just to embarrassed to admit that we as Believers, have conformed quite easily to the world without even batting an eye.
Did you know, there is absolutely nothing in the Bible about dating? In fact, there’s very little about courting, but we know that courting is God’s way of bringing people together because Jesus courted us.
As mentioned in the definition above, part of courting is winning the affections of the person you’re interested in. Which means Jesus won our affections when He died for us. And Jesus died for us, because He had every intention to marry us… He still is going to marry us when the world ends. So then, why does the Bible say he who finds a wife finds a good thing (Prov 18:22)? Are we supposed to go looking for our spouses?
No… absolutely not. In fact, the Bible asks, who can find a noble wife in Proverbs 8:11. So, that clearly means noble women don’t exist right?
WRONG!
Noble women are hard to find because wives are gifts. But not only that, a wife being a gift is secondary. A wife, as we’ll learn soon, is actually a part of man (Eve was taken from Adam’s side). So… gentlemen, if you’re having a hard time finding a noble wife, you must first look at yourself. If you are not a noble man, and the fiber of your very being has been used to fashion a woman as your aide, as your helper, then what kind of woman do you think you’re going to get?
Closing
Alright, it’s 11:52pm, I’m going to stop here. But don’t worry, I went super short because I totally spaced this week. However, I won’t the following week and we’ll have a great blog post!
