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Dating or Courtship, which is right for a Christian?



Response to A Post Discouraging Christian Youths From Dating:

Caution! Dating or Courtship is all about semantics.
I think what we should consider most important is the PROCESS that would lead to a LASTING marriage for Christian youths. Those who are married who are taking a position on this should consider what worked for them; we all should look BACK at our experiences before heaping burden on those who are yet to cross the scale. There is a need to properly define what dating versus courtship means. I will NOT encourage my daughter to COURT anyone she does not know - to me, the process of KNOWING is dating. Many of us dated many people before we eventually court the one we married.

The word “dating” comes out of the word “date”, meaning appointment to meet. The question is what you are doing during your date. Using the time to know each other or spending it in amorous acts without a stamp of marriage. Christians are not supposed to engage in the later.

Many of our children have been dating without tagging it so – some of us parents consent to this already. When your daughter had a male friend visit her at home and we said yes because we knew it would be under our watch, that is dating. When your son spent time with his female friend from the church during lunch time or immediately after church that is dating. Courtship comes when both parties have agreed to go all the way to marriage, i.e. after western "engagement" where a man gives his to-be a ring (not Nigerian engagement). Dating may not always work out. But, youth should not be engaging in a courtship over and over again when they realize the person they had committed to is not the right one - this can cause a lot of heartaches. Dating has no commitment while courtship has some weight of commitment in my opinion. To me, Christian youth should first build themselves up to know the scripture – know their right from left, be prayerful about the choice of who to marry, step out in faith to date godly men who they are attracted to – if a commitment comes out of it based on several factors important to them, they should follow through with courtship. Courtship should help young people understand what will happen after the wedding day and be prepared to live a godly Christian life. This period should include teaching our children how to be a man or woman in a marriage relationship, how to be the head and how to be the support beside a man, teach them about working out differences because they are both different even though they see many things they have in common, how to manage their finance in a modern world (e.g. a man living in the West cannot be a sole provider except he is a millionaire, he needs the woman to contribute; practice saving some for the future, etc.), how to forgive because they will hurt each other, to look out for each other among other things. I will encourage my daughter to date without giving herself away free and definitely encourage courtship also.

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