JennJenn is offline JennJenn Post #1  February 28,2009, 6:21am
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I wanted to start this debate with you all because I think it's interesting to hear/read other people's opinions and Scripture references that they can bring to the table. It should help us singles grow in understanding of God's love for us and hopefully help us wait for the plan God has for us.


Where are the lines drawn in a relationship before you go too far?


What does the Bible say about crossing boundaries?


How do humanistic view compare with Biblical truth?
 
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holyghostgirl is offline holyghostgirl Post #2  February 28,2009, 5:11pm
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Wow. for me each of theses is a thread by itself. But I'll take a stab at it. These are just my self guidelines.


1. Lines in relationships are drawn at the outset.They should be talked about casually before anystrong emotions and attachements are involved. Socializing closely with only Christian men draws some lines automatically. No need to explain the no sex rules.


2. I have a slightly diffrent view and mildly object to the word boundary. For me, boundary almost speaks of the law and has a "no" quality about itand as you know we are under Grace and all of God's promises are "Yes and Amen in Jesus." Butit's your thread so I repect the word boundary. I believe the Biblical view of boudaries can be summed up in "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" Do we prey on our brothers human frailties or do we enhance their spiritual maturity? Do we lift up or tear down? Do we put stumbling blocks before them or walk with them down the straight an narrow path? Consider this verse from Gal 5:


22But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.


If we walk in the spirit and dedicate our relartionship to the Lord, we have no boundaries. We are free to love and that active loves keeps us wanting God's blessing. We don't violate his statutes out of joy not fear of our own flesh.


3. Humanisin Biblical truth


Sinful man centeredHoly God centered


Intuitive Inspired


Subjective Objective


Temporal Eternal


Democratic Theocratic


Fluxuating Fixed


limited to this life Transcends death


Present Omnipresent (God)


Knowledge is limited Omniscient (God)


Good for certain situations Good for all situations


Death LIFE


Rehabilitaion Redemption


Survival of the fittest Laying your life down for another


Self agrandizementHumility


I'm sure there's more, but for me this is a good start. Thanks for the Question!
 
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holyghostgirl is offline holyghostgirl Post #3  February 28,2009, 5:14pm
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PS. There should be a" /" between the list for humanisim/biblical truth. You'll see where they should go.
 
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winn is offline winn Post #4  February 28,2009, 7:48pm

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Socializing closely with only Christian men draws some lines automatically. No need to explain the no sex rules.


Amazingly, I feel I need to disagree. I have already run into one man who, claiming to be Christian, did not think it would be a problem for the two of us to have sex before marriage if we already felt that that would be where we were headed. His premise.....If you are going to be my wife anyways then, as two consenting adults, there's not a problem. REALLY?????


So, suffise it to say, it's still important to talk about the no sex rule when dating a Christian man.
 
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tumbleweed is offline tumbleweed Post #5  February 28,2009, 10:01pm
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WOW im going to try to tread real softly on this one ,this isnt an easy one to just put down as just a few sex rules , the bible from begining to end deals with this problem, sodom and gomora, the female suductrice ,davids downfall, slomans downfall ,what paul says on the subject, as so on, im devorced, is it allright for me to remarrry, or if i do am i comiting adultry, i struggled with this one for a long time, getting so many differant v iews on what the bible says, i finaly desided to go with what the church i go to belives, so i asked the preacher and he told me it was ok in my sercomestanaces, now lets get to the no sex rule, il try not to be gender spicific but as judge judy put it, men are stupid and weman are maniplitive, saying this i just stepped on a few toes, i dont believe a relationship should be like this but as ive seen and exsperanced ive found this to be true, so the no sex rule, id have to say wait a minute, its not just that simple, each couple needs to talk and have an understanding, if you realy are camitted to making the relationship work you may even get a counceler invalved , god gave us sertan desires and we need to lern how to deal with them, ya right how arewe to deal with this as we all have failed here, yes this is a strong statement but that is the way i feal, i do include myself in this, as to what i belive about no sex is i need god guidence on this one
 
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JennJenn is offline JennJenn Post #6  March 1,2009, 4:12am
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Great input guys! I was hoping to inspire some debate on what can be one of the hardest issues in Christian living today...the sanctity of marriage.


As Christians we are commanded to wait until marriage. So how come is it so difficult to abstain from the one you love? Well, by God's grace and power we can, despite what the world says. Some of us, including me, need a lot of prayer, grace, and strength to resist the temptations.


The marriage bed should be a place of honor without being defiled because marriage reflects our relationship with God. It is a love that honors. It is a choice to please God by submitting to His will. It is a choice to uphold His statutes and design for our lives. Likewise, we must do that for our future spouse.


I agree with Winn. This is a topic that needs to be discussed with the future spouse. Holyghost Girl has good points too. Perhaps this really is three threads. Yet, doesn't God set "boundaries" for us? Where we are freed from man's law by Jesus' sacrifice, are we not bound by God's law as believers?


God's law is that we wait for marriage so that He might intensely bless us. I broke that law for the first time in January. I almost lost the relationship because it provided a "barrier" between my man and myself. We are gradually getting back to the Spiritual connection that we shared before the act of selfishness. Fortunately there are a few states between us to hold the physical relationship at bay. As a woman of faith, I am praying that God takes away the physical desire until marriage, and rekindles and intensifiesthe Spiritual desire along with emotional chemistry.


I agree with Tim and Beverly LaHaye, Dr. Ed Wheat, and Gary Smalley that the "act of marriage" should only occur within marriage. Any other way, it is just a "self" act without regard or honor to the other person.
 
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winn is offline winn Post #7  March 1,2009, 7:20pm

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Thanks for expanding on this some more JennJenn, I agree with you but I think in this day and age there are going to be more people, men and women, who don't because there is just so much emphasis on the "if you love each other then..." Yes but, if you love each other, the anticipation will make the sex that much sweeter when you are married, and if you have trouble waiting, move up your wedding date. Paul has some good words to say about this in I Corinthians 7: 1-9. Especially verses 8&9 which say, "Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I am. But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion."
 
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tumbleweed is offline tumbleweed Post #8  March 1,2009, 7:20pm
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the bible says your body is a temple and it also says it was bought at a price, so to have sex with a harlet would be to defile the body[temple] i believe that what the bible says about becomeing one with your partner is alittle more complicated than it sounds, i also am not perfect here like most people i haven fallen short here, after my devorse and a few bad relationships i asked god to take away cluods of my sexual desire as they were blinding me to the truth , at the same time i also asked thati feel the pain of others, i felt these were the two things keeping me from becoming a true cristien, well ask and you shal recieve, i see clerer and have a better understanding today, i still fall short from time to time, so i ask, most of the time when i ask im just asking witch path to take. i know tat if i ask for a new car he wouldnt respond,, this last statement isnt entirly true as at one time in my life when i was angry i asked for a 4dr dieasel with leather interior and all the extras plus numerous other things and he gave them to me, ilearned a vary valuable lesson here, god works in missterious ways as this isnt what i needed, i now try more to listen to him and what he want from me, i know i can have any toy i want but that is selfesh and not what i need
 
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winn is offline winn Post #9  March 1,2009, 8:54pm

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JennJenn, you really do have three threads running here. I just reread what you first asked at the beginning post and I thought, there's no way I can talk about all three in a single thread.


Okay, so i already said what I needed to about sex before marriage, now I guess I want to say something about boundaries. I'm not sure what you are trying to get at when talking boundaries but I do agree with HGG when she talks about doing to others as you would have them do to yourself. I think that works whether it's a casual relationship, a friendship relationship or a relationship involving family (spouse, children, father, mother, siblings,extended family, etc.)


I believe that often it is easier for us to keep the boundaries up when it comes to strangers than it does for family and friends. Through observation I've come to the conclusion that the more familiar we get with each other, the more obscure those boundaries start to be. We become relaxed with each other and the respect tends to go out the window. We think we know the other person so well that we start to fail in our listening skills and thereby become blind to taking the time to learn new things from each other. We start to interrupt one another and not allow the other to finish their sentences. We may mock the opinion of the other person as being trivial and insignificant. We stop learning the new things about a person and limit who they are or the fact that they too can grow in wisdom and knowledge like ourselves. The result is we start stepping into that person's space and answering for that person instead of letting them answer for themselves. We step over the boundary between our space and theirs.
 
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blessedinNC is offline blessedinNC Post #10  March 2,2009, 4:37pm
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Socializing closely with only Christian men draws some lines automatically. No need to explain the no sex rules.

I wish I could say that matched my own experiences. Granted we have to first weed out those who claim to be Christian, but don't make any real effort to make God a part of their life. From what I've encountered though - there still seems to be a large percentage of Christian's who think sex outside of marriage is OK. The common reasoning seems to always be something along the lines of "God made me with these needs - so He understands...".

I'll give you that I've been on both sides of this. The clear and simple truth though is that it isn't OK. God does forgive us, but if we want to be forgiven and have a restored relationship, we need to repent our sins. We need to pray and strive to live a life pleasing to Him. We can't do that if we want to pick and choose which sins we want to repent, and which ones we want to keep.

When you asked about boundaries - I read that to flow along with drawing the line of how far is too far ?
OK - just throwing in my two cents here - but I think we have to draw the line at the point where our mind starts to entertain feelings and desires that we know we can't do anything about. The desires are normal - but we can either take a step back (figuratively and literally) and try to keep them under control - or we can feed them. That's where we get into trouble. Once we start entertaining these thoughts we get into lust. If we encourage our partner to also lust - we are encouraging a fellow Christian to sin, and we are creating a stumbling block for our Christian sibling.
I know it isn't easy - but if we could just remember that first and foremost we are brothers and sisters in Christ who should be encouraging each other to grow in our spiritual walk - not tempting each other to sin - we'd be a lot better off.
I'm sure most people would read this and think I'm being unrealistic - but God wouldn't ask us to do it if He wasn't there ready, willing, and able to give us the strength to do His will.
 
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