A thorough understanding of God’s standards for dating and marriage is essential, and applies to people of all ages. For instance the practice of serial monogamy—being sexually active with only one unmarried person at a time—is widely considered a suitable way to date and find a future mate. Many dating couples assume sexual intercourse is appropriate to determine if they are compatible. If the couple then breaks up and the two start dating others, the common assumption is that they are free to have sexual relations with their new partners.
Historical records, like those of the ancient city of Corinth, reveal the sexual values of the first century were so skewed that sexual relations with temple prostitutes was not looked upon as scandalous, but considered an appropriate form of worship. The Apostle Paul emphasised God sanctions sexual relations only within the marriage relationship (Hebrews 13:4). He exhorted the Corinthian church members to “Flee sexual immorality” and to “glorify God in your body and in your spirit…” (1 Corinthians 6:18-20).
Paul later addressed relationships between members of the opposite sex even more directly in 1 Thessalonian 4:3-8: “This is the will of God, that you should be holy: you must abstain from fornication…. not giving way to lust like the pagans who know nothing of God; no one must do his fellow-Christian wrong in this matter…..As we impressed on you before, the Lord punishes all such offences. For God called us to holiness, not to impurity. Anyone therefore who flouts these rules is flouting not man but the God who bestows on you his Holy Spirit” (Revised English Bible).
God expects us to enter marriage as virgins, and sociologists have found God’s standard for dating produces marriages that are most likely to last. “After analyzing cohabitation and marriage patterns among some 13,000 adults, two University of Wisconsin–Madison sociologists have concluded that couples who live together before marriage experience higher levels of marital conflict and do not communicate as well. Such couples were less committed to marriage and saw divorce as more likely than those who had not cohabited prior to marriage” (Journal of Marriage and the Family, Vol. 54, 1992).
When two people begin dating each other with an eye toward marriage, they should consider what values the other person holds. Finding a mate with similar religious values is important. The ancient nation of Israel repeatedly lost its spiritual moorings when its citizens intermarried with people with different religious convictions and practices (Numbers 25:1-3; Nehemiah 13:23-26). The Apostle Paul also advises against being “unequally yoked together” with someone of different religious beliefs (2 Corinthians 6:14). Ideally children should have two parents who believe, practice and teach the same religious principles.
In Genesis 2:24 God explains how and when a sexual union between a man and a woman should take place: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” “One flesh” means to have sexual intercourse (See 1 Corinthians 6:16) and, according to God’s instructions, this is to take place after a man and woman have been joined together in marriage. Having sex prior to marriage is immoral, and according to God’s Word, we are to “flee sexual immorality” (1 Corinthians 6:18).
