02 The Relationship Landscape

Speaker 1: You have a uh a sheet that's uh on page three, which is turned sideways. So it looks like this. And this is the relationship landscape, and we're going to go through some of this. We're going to do biblical marriage together as a group, and then we're going to split up for the other columns, just uh sitting in your chairs and going through it for about 10 minutes. Speaker 4: That is one of our wedding pictures you can see back in the dark ages, you know. We look just the same, don't you think? Speaker 1: Okay, so let's start with uh biblical marriage, and by this I mean sort of what we've just been over with the ideal biblical marriage. I would just course us. And uh, so when does a biblical marriage start? Speaker 4: This is interactive. We're after. Speaker 1: Yeah, just yell it out, or raise your hand and yell it out. When does a biblical marriage start? Speaker 2: Altar. Speaker 1: The altar, yeah. This is the picture of a biblical marriage starting. It starts when you get married. When does it end? Death. The death of the first partner. Right. And uh, what's the duration typically? Speaker 3: Life, life. Yeah, life. Speaker 1: There you go. 50 plus years. You know, I mean, I you see people married, you know, celebrating 50, 60 years. What's interesting is that you know they say a lot of marriages end in divorce. Actually, the most common way a marriage ends is in death. But you get married once, and then all the people marrying and divorcing in between don't even count for you. You don't you're you're lost in the statistics. You only get married once, and you're only counted in one year. And then all these, you know, you get one couple who gets married and divorced and married and divorced and married and divorced and married and divorced, and they count as eight marriages and eight divorces, but you only count as one marriage. So the staff can the staff can be really thrown off. It's a lot more difficult for a marriage to last a while. Okay, what's the commitment of marriage? This is a quiz. You're just given the answers. unknown: One life. Speaker 4: I hear a moment. One life. unknown: Specialness. Speaker 3: Yes, specialness, good. Speaker 1: Pardon me? Permanence. Permanence, good. And one life experience. That's the commitment of a biblical marriage. Specialness, permanence, one life commitment. Okay, and I think we've defined what those are, and I think understanding what a biblical marriage looks like you know, you know, get gets it half of the battle of today. Uh exclusivity. How how how how exclusive is marriage? Speaker 3: Totally. Totally, right? One for life. One and all one. Speaker 1: One for life? I don't know how to how you put that. I mean, if your spouse dies, I think you can get remarried. That's that's that's legitimate. But you can only make one person the most special thing in all creation at a time. And when they're gone, you honor their, you know, do you honor their memory and then you can get married again. Uh, intimacy. How intimate is marriage? Hopefully. Right. Uh you know, there's there's no limits on the verbal, emotional, romantic, or sexual intimacy in marriage other than what's proper in the marital commitment, you know? So so what what whatever. What whatever fulfills the marital commitment. And believe me, that there's a whole different talk for um married people because when married people understand what the three aspects of sexuality are, they understand what the purpose of intimacy is for. And you can give the same talk to a group of married people and they suddenly realize, you mean my sexuality is supposed to express these marital commitments? I get it. You know, I I I always thought it was, you know, uh yoga techniques, you know, that was the most important thing about sexuality, but it's not. It's expressing this marital commitment. And so then that sort of just opens up their minds to a lot of other things that they could share intimacy in, and it would be perfectly appropriate. What's the uh purpose and the result of of marriage? Holiness, holiness, okay, encouraging each other toward godliness? Yes, good. What else? Speaker 4: Kids, yeah, we're not. Speaker 1: Yes, children, children follow from this as part of the result. Good? What else? Speaker 4: Joy, joy. Speaker 1: Encouragement. Sure. Yeah, fellowship. Yeah, life partner? Speaker 3: Witnessing. Speaker 1: Yeah, witnessing. It ends your loneliness. I mean, everything that's everything that's an aspect of your life and your purpose, your marriage is. Because your marriage, you're sharing one life experience, and and and it's so it's everything in your life, but you're now you're sharing it together. You've got a partner there to do that with. Okay. So, biblical marriage, I think, is relatively easy. What I'd like to, and the end and result of biblical marriage, again, this is us uh last year, I hope, is is this lifelong partnership. I can tell you that the second best thing that ever happened to me after becoming a Christian was marrying Krisan. I would can't imagine the last 29 years without her. I'm looking forward to at least another 29 more. And having a life partner to share your life with ends a lot of the loneliness and angst that you can feel in college and and beyond. I mean, it it fulfills a lot of that. It brings a great amount of joy. So, what I'd like to do next is I'd like you to, we're going to take about 10 minutes. And what I'd like you to do is to look at if your birthday, so the day you were born, is the first through the sixth, I want you to make out you fill, you make sure you fill out the column for secular marriage. And then if your birthday is the 7th through the 12th, I want you to fill out those columns for friendship. And if your birthday is the 13th through the 18th, I want you to fill out the columns for a brother-sister relationship in Christ. And if you're 19 through 24, I want you to fill out the columns for dating. And if you're 25 through 31, I want you to fill out the columns for friends with benefits. You guys, I hope you all understand what friends with benefits are friends who also fulfill each other's sexual needs, but they're not really all that interested in being a couple. Speaker 4: And then we'll do this one again. Speaker 1: We're going to do ideal Christian courtship. If you finish this one and you want to do another one, if you don't like the one you were assigned, pick the one you really wanted to do. And if it's sitting with someone else and you want to work with them, just pick the one they're working on. You know, you can work together. Speaker: So I just want to make sure we have enough. Okay, we're gonna we're gonna come back together. Speaker 1: Thank you. Did most people get a chance to fill everything out or on your column? Yes. Okay, great. Good. So let's start with secular marriage. When we were getting married, the marriage of the century happened, and our marriage often got compared to their marriage because their marriage was expensive and our marriage wasn't. And because my mother-in-law was a royal uh lover, I guess you would say, and thought their marriage was awesome, and our marriage was just kind of two college kids who good for nothing son-in-law, you know, who's going to take her daughter away. So so this there I always think of secular marriage, and I always think of uh Charles and Diana. So, how does a secular marriage begin? Speaker 2: The altar. Speaker 1: The altar. Very good. And how does a secular marriage end? Speaker 2: Death or divorce. Speaker 1: Death or divorce. Good. Average age for a marriage? Average length. How long is the duration? I know. Does anyone know? Two years. Two years? Yeah, they they say it's two years, and then I've forgotten what what percentage of one of the two is unfaithful, but it's it's ridiculous. Yeah, two years. Seven years is also another kind of milestone if you make it past seven years, you're doing pretty good. I think 15 is average only because there's some of us that pull the average up. So for every one of us, there's somebody who bites the dust at seven or something like that. So marriages aren't aren't isn't in really great force. And why do you get married? Speaker 3: Secular marriage. Speaker 1: Secular marriage. Why do most people get married? Speaker 3: Happiness. Tax breaks. Happiness? Speaker 1: Tax breaks. Yeah, to be able to do that. Speaker 3: Actually, that's that's worse. Yeah, new Facebook static great. Speaker 1: Oh, what does someone say? Speaker 3: Children. Speaker 1: Children. Yeah, a lot of people live together and then when they decide to have kids, they get married because they don't want the mar the anniversary date to be after the birth date of the kid. They think the kid will think that's kind of strange. Speaker 3: Love and companionship. Speaker 1: Yeah, love and companionship. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Nobody wants to go through life alone. Good. Um, what's the commitment? When no one really knows. My my dad said he thought he understood what the role of marriage was and what the commitment of marriage was. He got married in the 1940s. And then after the 1940s, all the definitions changed. And he said he thought he knew what it was, and then all of a sudden, you know, he thought he knew what he was signing. It's like signing a contract, and then all the ink changes into something else, and you realize you've signed something that you don't even know what it is anymore. So that's a that's a difficulty. Princess uh Princess Diana and Prince and Prince Charles were asked when they were engaged, you know, the interviewer asked, Are you in love? And and Princess Diana said, uh, yes, of course. And Charles said, Whatever that means. And I I I heard that and I thought, this marriage is not going to go well. Whatever that means. I was, it was, it was serious. I mean, everyone saw it, and then everyone kind of shook their head and thought, what has she gotten herself into? She this guy doesn't even think he's in love. Whatever that means. Um, so yeah, so I I I would think the commitment of a secular marriage is, you know, so long as we both show love. That's the typical sort of secular, you know. Some people have a bigger commitment than that, some people don't, you know, so I understand. Uh exclusivity? Speaker 3: Depends. Speaker 1: Depends. Yeah. Yeah, it depends. Uh, they just I just read, they did an interview or a survey. They asked husbands and wives separately and anonymously and and with all the statistics. They asked them, do you think that your marriage marriage commitment means that you can't have sex with other people? And they found, what's interesting is they found a lot of marriages where one said yes and one said no. They didn't even agree between the two. I mean, I understand, you know, an open marriage and, you know, we're gonna have other partners, we both agree to that, but they didn't even agree between the two of them what the marriage commitment meant. And I thought that was that's really shocking today, but but you know, so I I I guess it's exclusive for a lot of people, or at least a lot, at least half the people think it's exclusive and the other half may not. And they may be married to each other. It's kind of hard to tell. Speaker: What's the intimacy? Speaker 1: What's the level of intimacy? Speaker 3: High. Speaker 1: High? Yeah? Yeah. How about the level of sharing? Yeah, it depends. Uh, I I know a lot of marriages, you know, there's just a little bit that's left in overlap. And it's the intersection of the two lives, not the union of two lives. And you can, you know, as two people change and grow, sometimes they drift apart, and if they drift apart, you know, they may not be a whole lot of intersection left. So it it depends. It's not necessarily all aspects of the other person's life that I'm intimate and knowledgeable of. It may only be some aspects. Uh, the purpose and result? Speaker 4: We hadn't talked about that. Speaker 1: Yeah, we kind of talked about that, partner of children. Okay, good. So secular marriage. The uh the end of a secular marriage, at least in Princess Diana's case, is you get your lives made into a TV miniseries. Which I understand. Is Charles and Camilla having problems now too? You know, and I love I love the subtitle, whatever love means. That was just that's just perfect, you know, for the subtitle of this movie, this miniseries. So, anyway. Friendship. When does friendship start? Pardon me, you have to yell it out a little bit. Speaker 4: When you meet. When you meet. Speaker 1: When you meet, yeah, good. Sure. Or when you like or choose to start spending time together. It's it's it's a I mean, friendships are based a lot on time together. You make some of your best friends in college because you spend a whole lot of time with them. And then they and then you can often come back to an old friend later if you spent a lot of time to sort of build the relationship. Okay. And when does it end? Yeah. Speaker 3: Uh when you unfriend them on Facebook. Yeah, when you unfriend them on Facebook. Very good. Speaker 1: We now have a definite concluding point. You unfriend them on Facebook. Or you stop choosing to spend time with them or something like that. Yeah. What's the commitment? What's the commitment of friendship? Sure, it depends. But but kind of give me an uh an aspect if you had to define it. Speaker 3: Loyalty. Speaker 1: Loyalty, sure. Loyalty. Yeah. Friend's gonna stick with you even when you're wrong. Yeah. Yeah, bearing each other's burdens. Sure. You're gonna be there for the other person. When the other person calls up and has just had some heartbreak in their life, you're gonna break out the ice cream and spend time with them and cancel your cancel your other appointments. Speaker 3: Right. Speaker 1: Good. Yeah, so so spending time together, trust, loyalty, sharing, respect. There's kind of a spectrum of intensity from people who are really your best friends to people who are old friends to people who are, you know, just kind of people you you like and love to spend time with, but you don't spend that much time with them. What's the exclus exclusivity? Speaker 4: Right. Speaker 1: I think on Facebook it's 500, isn't it? Speaker 4: 5,000. Speaker 1: Isn't that right? Yeah, I mean the more friends, the better. I mean, the the the more people you know and and and are have contact with the better, in some. I mean, you can only you can only spend a lot of time with a few, but but having more friends is is generally seen as good. Um, what's the intimacy? unknown: Awkward. Speaker 4: Awkward is what he said. Speaker 1: Awkward intimacy, okay. Trust, yeah. Sure trust. What else? Speaker 3: Like emotional intimacy. Speaker 1: Yeah, the emotional intimacy is huge in friendship. Yeah. Yeah. Verbal intimacy is huge. You tell you tell your friends things and you expect them not to post it on Facebook. So so I mean there, yeah, there's a lot of there's a lot of trust there. Um romantic and sexual? unknown: No. Speaker 1: No. No. If you're if you get romantic and sexual, you're not, you're, you're beyond friends. That's the definition of beyond friends. You've moved out of friendship. And what's the purpose and the result? Encouragement, fellowship, support. Yeah, encouragement, fellowship, support. That's great. Comfort, shared interest, spending time together, avoiding loneliness. And, you know, I've got a couple people here working on a project together, but you know, friends, friends happen at all ages, and you've got all kinds of things. So, you know, I've I I turned 50 this year. I am now a member of the Senior Center. And the Senior Center has so many activities. It's the it's the social life for 50 and 60 year olds. There's chess clubs and bridge clubs, and there's all kinds of projects and service things and lectures and stuff like that. So, so yeah, you've got friends at every age, and and and y'all come back to it. All right. Brother, sister, and Christ. When does it start? unknown: Salvation. Speaker 4: Right, salvation. Speaker 1: Salvation, yeah. It it starts when you become a Christian. If you're a Christian, I am your brother in Christ. Even if we've never met and we've never talked before, we're family. I'm Italian and an Italian family you kiss. And when you go to Italy and you go to the village where all the Marotta live, you kiss on the cheeks, and you know family, even though they don't speak any English because you're introduced to them and they kiss you on each cheek. And that's how you know it's family. So uh Christianity is like that. Even if you've never met, if you're family, you're family, and you're part of a family. And even if you think I'm particularly weird, I'm just the 50-year-old Uncle Dave, who's a little weird. But I'm still your family, and you still have to treat me like family. So it's it's uh it's it's it's a relationship. So both become Christians. When both are people are Christians, they have a brother-sister relationship in Christ. And when does it end? Speaker 3: Eternity. Speaker 1: Eternity. It never ends. It's an eternal commitment, eternal relationship. Yeah. That's amazing. If you don't get to know me in this life, we'll have time. So and and it's probably the highest, it's probably the highest relationship you can think about because it never ends, it never changes, it's based upon our relationship and and and in Christ, and it has a very high calling. So you can be brother-sister in Christ, and you can be friends, and that's great. But if you had to pick between one or the other, the brother-sister relationship in Christ is actually a higher one. What's the commitment? Speaker 2: Accountability. Speaker 1: Accountability, yeah. Good. What else? Speaker 3: Helping them growing in Christ. Speaker 1: Yes. Yeah, you're always seeking their best, helping them grow in Christ. That's the commitment. The commitment is to always seek their best. I mean, if you think about it, we have that commitment to the whole world. We're always seeking the whole world's best. But throughout scripture, there's this, especially the brotherhood, or especially um, you know, believers. Because they're family, and there's a higher level of commitment to our brothers and sisters in Christ than there is to the rest of the world. Yeah, so I put down unity, agape love, having their best interests, honesty, respect, accountability, faith, trust. It's that family commitment that you're always out for their best. Exclusivity? Yeah, I mean, it's it's it's the eternal family. We're always looking for more members. So if you're here and you're not a Christian, join the family. Um, intimacy. What's the level of intimacy? Spiritual? Okay. How much verbal? A lot. Yeah, how much emotional? A lot. Yeah. It just doesn't have to be romantic and sexual, but there's a lot of intimacy within a brother-sister relationship in Christ. And I don't think there's a pretty much a limit on on that. And what's the purpose and the result? Yeah, and again, it's it's helping to grow in Christ. That's the whole purpose and result. What's interesting about the family relationships with brothers-sisters in Christ is that it pulls us out of a lot of other things. So I've got this picture of a of a whole bunch of people at a church. These are all brothers and sisters in Christ. They're different ages, they're different socioeconomic statuses, they're different genders. There's all kinds of diversity within our family life as Christians, and yet there's this bond of helping each other and encouraging each other in Christ. And I think that's a beautiful picture of what the world is supposed to be like. Okay. Dating. By dating I meant secular, I meant secular dating. So I'm I'm and I realize dating has a lot of different nuances to it. So um what when do you start dating? When do you start a dating relationship? Speaker 3: Facebook static, good? Go somewhere you two. Speaker 1: Yeah, go somewhere just you two? Yeah. Can you be dating someone but they don't know that they're dating you? Speaker 3: Oh yeah. Speaker 1: I hear, oh yeah. And then people are shaking their heads. I love that ambiguity. Yeah. I mean, how many times did one person turn to the other and said, Are we dating? I'm not really sure, but it kind of looks like it. So um I I I I it's very nebulous. I mean, I I put down agreement to be more than just friends. But I I think there ought to be an agreement there at least. I've been dating you for years, haven't you noticed? Speaker 3: Whoa. Okay. Speaker 1: And and when does it stop? Speaker 3: One gets tired of the other. Speaker 1: Yeah, one gets tired of the other. It's a unilateral downgrade in your relationship status. So it doesn't have to be mutually uh agreeable. You just one can downgrade and then you are not dating anymore. So, and they just told you you're not dating anymore. So Yeah, so it's some kind of a unal and how long and oh, and how does it end? So, well, that's one way it can end. How else can it end? Marriage. Yeah, it could end in marriage. That would not be dating anymore. Another Facebook can change status. Maybe engagement and then marriage. You know, you can that way you can get two things on Facebook for people to say, woohoo! Um does it typically last? So let's just start. In junior high. One to three weeks, junior high. How about high school? One to three months? Yes. Okay. College. Speaker 3: One to three years. One to three years. Yes. Speaker 1: So obviously dating in junior high is different than dating in high school, which is different than dating in college. And so it kind of gets progressively more serious and progressively more intense and progressively longer durations. Okay. So that's that's again sort of nebulous. What is the commitment of dating? Pretend like I'm from another planet, and I am, because I was born in 1960. Pretend like I'm from another planet. I just don't understand the modern dating scene. And I and you say, okay, what's the commitment of marriage? And you're trying to explain it to me. You say, well, when when you're dating. Yeah, dating. When you when you get the commitment of dating, what is it? Speaker 3: Stay in it until something better comes along. Speaker 1: Stay in it until okay, stay in it until something better comes along. And and what does stay in it mean? Speaker 3: Hanging out. Staying out. Speaker 1: Hanging out. Okay, so I gotta hang out with a person. What else do I have to do? unknown: Buy them gifts. Speaker 3: I have to buy them gifts. Do they have to buy me gifts? Speaker 1: Okay, so I have to buy them things and I have to hang out with them. What else? So far it sounds like friendship. Speaker 3: Romance. Speaker 1: Romance. Okay. What do I have to do? I said woo her over here. Speaker 3: I have to woo her. Speaker 1: Woo! What does it mean? What is the commitment of I've to woo this person? What is the commitment of dating in today's culture? What does that mean? What do I have to do? Speaker 3: How do you get to make them feel special? Speaker 1: I'm supposed to make them feel special. Okay. Great. I'm not supposed to make so how does it differ from friends? I don't have to make my friends feel special, right? Speaker 3: Progressively more intimate. Speaker 1: Progressively more intimate. So if I hold hands with them one day, then the next day, I'm supposed to do something more. Is that right? Emotional. So if I tell them I like their shoes one day, then I can tell them I like their ankles the next day. What's the commitment of me of dating? What does this commitment mean? I'm not quite sure. Do I have to let them hold my hand one day? And do I have to let them do something more the next day? Is it progressively more intimate knowledge of my body I have to give them every day? unknown: No, no. Speaker 1: Possibly? No. Yeah. They have to be my new best friend? Is that what you mean? Yeah. So they need to be my best friend. Yeah. Like the booch boys, all the guys go steady because you wouldn't want to leave your best girl home on a Saturday night. I get it. Okay, so can can you see that the commitment of dating is very nebulous? It's a very nebulous state. Is it in and I love these words progressively more? I like I like that because that captures what dating is sort of what it what it has. It's going to get progressively more until what? Until what? Do I do I just keep getting progressively more romantic and sexually intimate? I'm I'm I'm I'm I I I to be really honest, I'm I'm mystified at what the dating commitment is, and I've never had somebody really define it well that seems satisfactory. And when you look at the dating commitment, it seems really bizarre. So spend time with them. Progressively more romantic, progressively more physical intimacy. Okay, let's just lay that aside for a second. Exclusivity. Can I date more than one person? Yes, I can. Yes, I can. How many? I asked you this question because my father was off in World War II, and my mother was in college, and my mother was very poor, and there were not meals on the weekends, and she did not have food for she didn't have money for food on the weekends. So she lined up a whole string of guys who would take her out every weekend. And she had about she had about ten of them, so it wasn't too exclusive with any one of them. And so she got her meals paid for in college that way, and then married my dad when he came back. So in fact, he came he came back from a war and she had to cancel three dates just to spend some time with him. So, you know, date dating dating dating scene hasn't changed a whole lot since the 1940s. Speaker 2: Yeah. Going on dates and dating. Okay. Speaker 1: Yeah. Going on dates and dating are a little bit separate. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I will tell you, my mom got three marriage proposals she had to turn down out of that whole ordeal. So I don't I do not recommend it. Do not break men's hearts that way. It's not kind. So um, so okay, so this this this this scene of dating, yeah, you you can you can be dating someone. That's different than going on a date. Going on a date is a prearranged agreement to meet someplace and do something, right? And you can go on a date with your girlfriend if you're a girl and your guy friends if you're a guy. So there's a there's a difference between there. Yeah, but there is a status of sort of those two are going together, and whatever that means, it sort of means something. And what is intimacy? What is the intimacy in dating? Speaker 2: Fluid. Speaker 1: Fluid, yeah. You kind of loan your heart and you loan some knowledge of your body. I don't I don't know how else to put it, but you you kind of do that, and then you either give it to them permanently because they've exercised their options, or you take it back again and then you give it to someone else. I mean it's it's sort of difficult that way. Uh and the purpose and result? Have a good time. Good. Experience, yeah. You you get to know somebody. Sure. To evaluate for marriage. Yeah, you can evaluate someone for marriage. If you try to keep dating as a permanent relationship status, what would that look like? Could you do it? Pardon me? An uncommitted marriage? Maybe. Yeah, but you're you you don't want to go all the way and give them everything and and because then it is marriage. It's a common law marriage, is what they would call it. But what if you just try to keep dating as this permanent, you know, I'm gonna be validated by a significant other, but I'm not really gonna commit myself and I'm gonna have, you know, all of that. And it it's I think I think the point is it's not intended to be a steady state. It's intended to go somewhere, progressively more something, and it's intended to go somewhere. So I tried to think in our culture what is the thing that's most like trying to keep dating as a steady state reaction. And I came up with Twilight. You know, Twilight is that sort of permanent emotional angst situation of what you're trying to do. You know, you're never really there, but you're not there, and are you there or not? Anyway. Okay, friends with benefits. Little quiz. Two of these people in the tenure, in the ten seasons, two of these people have not slept with each other, kissed each other, seen each other naked, slept in the same bed, even if it's just in a dream sequence. So, and and I don't even know which two, so I don't even know I don't even know which two of these haven't done that. But anyway, so Friends is a show that has a lot of different connections in it. Okay. So when is when does Friends with Benefit start? Speaker 2: You're bored. Speaker 1: You're both bored and you're both drunk and you sleep with your friend. Yeah. I mean that's I mean friendship, yeah. When you have sex with a friend that you're not really that that into, because you just want to have sex, that's when friends with benefits start. And when does it stop? Speaker 2: When you get bored. When you get when you get bored. Speaker 1: When you stop having sex with your friend. Yeah, exactly, and you move on to something else. Uh typical duration? You know, it could be one night, it could be nine months. They don't they it generally doesn't last that long. So, and it's generally just a uh a state of something else. Is there a commitment? No, that's the point. So is there exclusivity? No, that's the point. Speaker 3: Right. Speaker 1: Uh intimacy is probably sexual and some romantic, but you're not supposed to. So, you know, I mean, there's a at least three sitcoms three romantic comedy movies coming out this summer, all based on the idea that you're not supposed to fall in love with the one that you're just sleeping with for sex. So that's sort of and then and then they do, and that's the you know, hilarity ensues. Speaker 3: And and the purpose? Speaker 1: The purpose and the result. Yeah, pleasure, sexual release, all that kind of stuff. You know, I mean, but the and but the purpose in the end is that usually because of sexuality, two people do either you know fall in love or they don't, and and then there's some kind of heartbreak or something, and so you know, the the result is not always all that good. Okay, just very quickly, an ideal Christian courtship. So by this, I'm trying to ask the question, because we don't ask it that often. If you had to pick things from various columns in the way that you wanted your route to marriage to go, what would you pick? Because I think a lot of people think they don't have the choice to pick what they want. They think they just sort of have to get swept along with the culture, and they can't decide for themselves how they want to come to the decision of marriage. So let's just talk about it. Um, if you were trying to have an ideal Christian courtship, what would be the start? Yeah, it would start as a brother-sister in Christ, and you would ask her, do you want to consider marriage? In other words, in other words, you would say, May I court you? Speaker 3: May I court you, miss? Speaker 1: In other words, you've gotten to know each other enough to know that you're interested, and that this is the kind of person for whom you might be interested in a life partnership. Now, it doesn't have to be that blunt, although, you know, in the day in which we did courtship a lot more gracefully, sometimes it was, you know, I'm going to come see you on this afternoon, and there were times at which it was appropriate to come, and there were arrangements for that, and all that kind of stuff makes sense. So at some point you would reach the point of a friendship or a Christian brother-sister relationship in Christ, and you'd say, you know what, you're you're someone I'd like to get to know better. Uh and it would be an understanding, I'd like to get you know to know you better because it might be that God is calling the two of us together. Now, is that terrifying? Yes. Is anyone in this room going to go up and say, now I court you? No. You're not going to do that. But you're going to have some awkward conversation that probably means the same thing. And it's going to be a lot less understood by the other party because you're not saying it that bluntly. And believe me, communication is hard enough in marriage. When you're just trying to come to the decision of marriage, it's nigh impossible to have those kinds of discussions. So you would get to know someone with the idea that you're not just getting to know them for the casual, any of these other casual relationships, you're getting to know them because maybe God's calling the two of you together. Um, and uh when would it stop? Speaker 3: Marriage. Speaker 1: Marriage. Speaker 3: Or not marriage. Speaker 1: It could come, you get to know each other and you say, you know what, you're a really neat sister in Christ. And I think you should get to know my roommate. Because you two would make a great couple. But we could drive each other up the wall. You think like he does, and you don't think like me. And we have almost nothing in common for our life goals and our plans and all that other stuff. So we just not we're not gonna be the a good match, but I think you'd really be a great match for him. So it would and then your roommate would thank you because you hadn't done all the things with her that he wouldn't have wanted someone who wasn't him to have done. So if the two of them end up getting married, you'd you could still talk to your roommate and not be embarrassed by it. So the commitment. What's the commitment of courtship? Speaker 3: Honesty. Speaker 1: Honesty? Good, yeah. Very open honesty because you're trying to decide a very important decision and you don't wanna you don't want to hold any of that back. What else is the commitment? Pardon me? Yeah, I don't think it's really good to court three people at once. That's kind of bad form. You ought to make the decision on one and then make the decision on the other, and and you kind of ought to do that one at a time. And uh and therefore, how long should the duration be? Until you know what the answer is. Right. If you decided this isn't the one, would you want to continue? No, you wouldn't. So now the decision can take a long time. It took us about a year. About a year to come to the decision of marriage. You know? And maybe about nine months through it, we probably knew where it was headed. Speaker 4: But we had friends, it took nine days. Speaker 1: That's right. Speaker 4: We're still married, but it took us a year. We're a little slow, I mean. Speaker 1: Right. We're a little more methodical of trying to think through the pro-con lists. Um, and the exclusivity is if if I'm not the one for you, someone else is. What about the uh intimacy? Spiritual, emotional, right. Uh verbal. All of that intimacy should be um unbarred. Romantic and sexual? You're gonna have some feelings. The question is, what are you gonna do with them? I mean, I think the feelings, if you're considering marrying someone, um you will have the feelings, then you'll decide to get married, and then all of your feelings will disappear out of sheer terror because marriage is a scary prospect. So the feelings will come and go. unknown: Right. Speaker 1: The feelings will come and go. And and and feelings aren't aren't a great indicator of what you ought to do any at any point. If I don't feel like being married to Chrisson, should I still be married to her? Speaker 3: Yes. Speaker 1: Yes. It just makes it harder, but it's still the right decision. So so the feelings ebb and flow. So even in even in uh getting to know someone, I mean, the so the feelings you might have there, but the question is whether you fan them. Do would you want to fan them and have that ever progressively deeper physical contact and ro and emotional contact when you haven't made the decision of marriage? No, because you're trying to make the decision of marriage. And the romance and the sex will happen, guaranteed. That's going to happen. If you put two people in a room together long enough, and that will probably happen. So that's not the deciding factor. The deciding factor is you know, if there's two people who are the last people on earth, I hope they would fall in love with each other. Because that's the way God intended it. He intended that kind of thing to draw people together. So again, and then the purpose is making a decision about marriage and treating the other person in the way in which you would want them to be treated if they were going to marry someone else. Or or you know, so so that that's the purpose. We are going to take a um ten-minute break, and then we're gonna come back come back because we'll talk about sexuality, and we'll talk about coming to the decision of marriage and how you should make that decision. Speaker: So a ten-minute break.