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Courtship

The self-proclaimed courtship expert weighs in...

Just kidding! And any sarcasm was directed towards myself, so I guess now I can be accused of feeding myself to the lions!<g>

Interestingly enough, courtship is the hot topic on another list I'm on. I won't repeat my lengthy posts there on the topic (no sense in boring two separate groups of people) but would like to bring up several points:

1. The Bible does not mandate a list of rules concerning "How to meet your spouse and ultimately marry him/her". If we read the Biblical accounts of how people married, we would be hard-pressed to garner any sort of method or guidelines. ("Let's see. Rules for the young men. Have your father send his servant to find a wife from among your kinsfolk. Or maybe allow your future wife to glean from you fields. Or notice a woman and..." "Rules for young women. Hang around wells and water the camels of anyone who comes and asks for a drink. Lay on the threshing floor at the feet of the guy you want to marry. Meet your future husband while trying to save the life of your drunken fool of a present husband. etc."

2. It seems silly and futile, IMO, to reduce "courtship" to some sort of system and list of rules.

3. It seems equally silly, IMO, to allow people outside of your family, people who have never met you or your children, to dictate how your children should meet and marry.

4. Courtship means a lot of different things to a lot of different people and I've grown tired, over the years, listening to people wrangle over what courtship is and whether or not Couple A are really "doing courtship" or simply---gasp!---dating on the sly under the cover of courtship. Let's remember that the goal here is not jumping through the proper courtship hoops (which no one agrees upon, anyway) but bringing every aspect of one's life---even the romantic aspects---under the Lordship of Christ. Since Christ has given us a great deal of liberty in this area, how we meet and marry will be different than how other people do it---and rightly so.

copyright 1999 by Rebecca Prewett

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