Sex & Dating – by Josie Hoover, M.Div.

Hmmm – so I am supposed to tell you ‘NO SEX WHILE DATING’ or ‘NO SEX BEFORE MARRIAGE’? What purpose does it serve to share my thoughts on sex and dating in these short (and few) paragraphs? I’m no expert nor do I claim to have any answers but I hope that I can provide something based upon my own experiences and therefore help you think about this as well. And, try to do this without tarnishing my professional image (a big ‘wink’).
In thinking about this subject, I was pondering several questions and approaches to this blog entry. The two questions that resurfaced several times was “how hard or easy is it to live your life for Jesus Christ while dating?” Or, “can your faith in Jesus Christ keep you from being distracted while denying your physical desires?” I can go on and on but I thought I would stop and instead just deal with the issues at hand: sex and dating.

Depending on who you ask, it’s already hard enough to date – period. Then, add your Christian faith to that, well, dating can become even more complicated. When we’re dating, we might do so for the purposes of companionship, to find “the one”, to curb our loneliness or ‘just because it’s something to do ..” But, in all honesty, we can find this companionship or curb our loneliness with our personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Sure, we know that Jesus Christ represents many things to us (i.e. an advocate for the disenfranchised, healer, etc.) but the reality is that a personal relationship with him helps us to make better decisions about whom we choose to date or why we date in the first place.

Now, let’s add sex to the equation, and things become really funky. I cannot sit here and point my finger at you and sound like your parochial school teacher (or your parent) and vehemently say, ‘NO sex before marriage!!” because I realize that we are human and fall short of glory each day we are alive. Now, just because we fall short of Jesus’ perfection doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t strive for wisdom. However, I must again say that if we have a solid relationship with Jesus Christ, we might be able to make wise decisions as it relates to who we want to share our time with and share our bodies with.

Sex is considered one of the most sacred levels of intimacy one can ever encounter. It literally binds souls together in more ways you can imagine. It also makes statements without one word being uttered. Additionally, it creates room for complications and compromise to occur in a relationship. Now, I don’t say that because I am a married person, but I say that out of experience because I haven’t been married as long as I was single.

1 Corinthians 6: 19-20 tells us that our body is a temple and that it essentially does not belong to us. Therefore, we have a responsibility to make wise decisions on whom we’re dating and what we do when we are dating that person. Now, I’m probably not exegeting this particular scripture and this blog entry may not be the place to do so; however, I have always been led to believe that this is a pertinent scripture as it relates to our humanness. Besides, the scripture seems to be quite appropriate for this subject.

If you were to take my question that I presented at the beginning of this blog entry, I can answer in the utmost and confident manner that it can be both easy and hard to date as a Christian single. And yes, your faith can keep the distractions of the world afar from your individual life. I am confident that it begins with our relationship with our Maker; it should be intact or at least in progress. This way, we won’t fall prey to societal pressures and individual pressures to compromise our well-being. So, have fun, enjoy yourself, be responsible and most importantly, keep God first.