a relatively new phenomenon. And of course, normal doesn’t mean right. But beyond that, it’s important to realize that our views of dating are probably affected a lot more by the world we live in than we realize—either in absorbing what the world thinks or reacting against it. So we can’t afford to be passive in our thinking about marriage or dating instead we need to do the hard work of thinking – Biblically about these things. Paul reminds us in Romans 12:2: not be “Do conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” So we’ve from the clarity of angelically-guided dating by Isaac, to the unclarity of how our world thinks about dating today. How can we get back to clarity? Let’s see what basic principles the Bible would give us for pursuing marriage. As I mentioned earlier, we’re going to use the word to describe those “courtship” principles. Defining Courtship What are we talking about? – Before you leave on a trip, you need to determine where you’re heading. Well, we have 6 more weeks on this journey of talking about courtship, so a good place to begin is to define our terms. So how do we define courtship? Courtship is a relationship between a man and a woman with three important characteristics: (1) it always has marriage as its goal; (2) it’s conducted under authority; and (3) it is led by the man. Let’s see where each of these three come from in Scripture.
a relatively new phenomenon. And of course, normal doesn’t mean right. But beyond that, it’s important to realize that our views of dating are probably affected a lot more by the world we live in than we realize—either in absorbing what the world thinks or reacting against it. So we can’t afford to be passive in our thinking about marriage or dating – instead we need to do the hard work of thinking Biblically about these things. Paul reminds us in Romans 12:2: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” So we’ve from the clarity of angelically-guided dating by Isaac, to the unclarity of how our world thinks about dating today. How can we get back to clarity? Let’s see what basic principles the Bible would give us for pursuing marriage. As I mentioned earlier, we’re going to use the word “courtship” to describe those principles. Defining Courtship – What are we talking about? Before you leave on a trip, you need to determine where you’re heading. Well, we have 6 more weeks on this journey of talking about courtship, so a good place to begin is to define our terms. So how do we define courtship? Courtship is a relationship between a man and a woman with three important characteristics: (1) it always has marriage as its goal; (2) it’s conducted under authority; and (3) it is led by the man. Let’s see where each of these three come from in Scripture.
0e4981331_1458920229_6singleness-courtshipcourtshipmanuscript2015.docx