By Emily Woods
A hot topic that comes up again and again in the church is the issue of Christians dating, or wanting to date, non-Christians. So here, we are going to expose the 6 most common reasons (ahem, excuses) Christians give for going out with unbelievers. Get ready "cos it"s time to buckle up and get real about dating God"s way.
1. "Who I go out with is my business and no-one can tell me what to do." Wrong. If you are a Christian, your life is no longer your own; you were bought with a price and now belong to Jesus. It"s far more than just having God as your best mate; it means following Jesus Christ as your Lord and Master and living for His glory and purposes. And that changes everything. We no longer go with the flow of the culture, but have new standards to live by: God"s Word. His ways are higher and better than ours and He always gives us grace and help to live by them. And don"t forget that we don"t obey God to make Him love us - we do it because He loved us first.
2. "Dating is just harmless fun - what does it matter who I go out with?" Romance is definitely fun, but romance and dating were not created simply for our own selfish pleasure; they were designed for one purpose - marriage. And are you really going to marry a non-Christian? Didn"t think so. Or if you are, it clearly shows that your priority in life is that person and not God. Now some may think that this is a bit extreme, but that"s because we"ve let the world dictate too much on how dating should be, instead of looking to God"s standards. And He doesn"t want us running around playing married with every guy/girl we fancy; He wants us to seriously look for a potential marriage partner. It"s plain common sense that dating around is not "harmless fun"; it implicates our heart and our emotions and can have painful, damaging consequences when it doesn"t work out.
3. "I love the way they make me feel, and how I feel is what really matters." Your feelings may be important but they are not the be-all and end-all of your life. As a Christian, was truly matters is not your happiness or self-esteem (surprisingly enough) but your spiritual growth. And nothing compares to the joy that comes from walking closely with God, trust me!
4. "I"m in love with a non-Christian, therefore doesn"t that mean I should be with them?" Here"s something everyone in our generation needs to hear, blasted through a megaphone, and repeated about ten times: love is not a feeling! You"re shocked, I"m sure. But it really isn"t. What we call "in love" is just a romantic feeling, but real love - robust, biblical love - is an action. If love was just a feeling, then no relationship or marriage would be safe; I mean, what would happen if your spouse woke up one day and didn"t feel in love with you but felt in love with someone else? The bottom line: feelings are misleading and you can"t always trust them, and so we should never go solely by our them when deciding on who to date, but be looking at character and spiritual maturity. So just because you are "in love" with an unbeliever in no way means you"re meant to be with them.
5. "I"m trying to evangelise to them. If I date them, they might come to know Jesus." Oh really? That"s your true, sole reason for dating (or wanting to date) a non-Christian? Come off it. I"ve heard this excuse so many times to justify this kind of relationship, when really the motive behind it all is just selfish pleasure. I know because I"ve used it before! For those of you, however, who are a little more sincere, take my advice: seriously, dating evangelism just doesn"t work. "Oh but I know a guy who became a Christian because he went out with a Christian girl," you"ll tell me. Yes, and I know of a legally blind man in the USA who was issued a gun permit; does that mean we should go round giving blind people guns? Of course not. The moral of the story: don"t turn an exception into a rule. If you really want that girl or guy to become a Christian, then pray for them, bring them to church, serve them, talk to them about God - but for goodness sake, don"t go getting all romantically involved. What version of Christianity are you portraying to them if you are compromising God"s standards and disobeying His Word? Just think about it.
6. "God doesn"t actually say that I shouldn"t date a non-Christian, does He?" Actually, He does. If you look at 2 Corinthians 6:14-16, you will see that it commands us not to be "unequally yoked to unbelievers". Quite simply, this means don"t create romantic ties with non-Christians.
So there you have it, plain and simple. Dating must be brought under God"s standards because He loves you and has the best for you, and because you have given your very life to Him when you chose to follow Jesus. And this means going out with someone who truly loves Jesus and is following Him hard like you.
About the author
Emily Woods is a contributing editor for STREETBRAND, the Christian youth culture magazine available at www.streetbrand.com