Courtship vs. Dating

What is the difference between courting and dating? Before I answer this question there are at least three ways one can look at the issue of man meets woman. The first is simply you are not serious about finding a soulmate but want to enjoy a relationship without any attachments. This is the dating relationship. Here a person doesn't want to grow up. They still want to play. They often times view marriage negatively because it is represented as an ending of the "fun time" to settling down to boredom. Therefore, I believe that dating is never appropriate for a Christian. This mindset is unbiblical and relationally it is inappropriate to view the dating partner in this way. For it cheapens that partner and quite realistically harms them for when they do meet their marriage partner. For biblically we are made for one man and one woman where God's desire is for godly seed to be borne. They are meant for each other exclusively. The dating relationship has no regard for this for it is purely selfish. As there is no commitment the question is always, "what can I get out of her?" I alluded to the second form of relationship. You are not interested in dating, instead you are seeking a person you can commit to. You are looking for a marriageable partner. Your goals are to find the one God has for you. Therefore you seek and you find her. But as you become involved with her physically, a superman complex takes over and you find yourself in compromising situations. But you think you can handle them. These are the things you say to yourself. As a result of this "superman complex" you do not seek counsel and you refuse good advice if it causes you to put parameters around the relationship. Instead you gather around yourself people who will encourage you and approve or otherwise confirm that you are doing right. You trust your own instincts. Now before I get into the third option, which is the courtship approach,I want to show why both of these first two are unbiblical and inappropriate for the Christian. The simple difference, from my experience, is that either of these approaches breed independence in deciding for oneself who is best suited for me. Or, in the case of dating, the dating partner is objectified in totality. But still it is my decision and I have no need to seek approval or advice since this is my business as it pertains to my personal life. This stands completely opposed to courtship and, in particular, Christian courtship. Why? What makes courtship different from these other two options? That is a very good question. As the other two approaches rely on one's own abilities to make life's most important decisions (and that usually at such a young, immature age), the courtship option the young person has a far more mature outlook. He or she is not so naive to think that they can make a mature, right decision. They understand the gravity of their sinfulness and the natural processes that wage a battle with our minds to desire to impatiently act selfishly instead of waiting on God and finding satisfaction in Him until the right time. The courtship option covets parental accountability or if the parent is not there, a godly guardian who receives full trust and honor that their counsel will be adhered to even when it is difficult. Courtship is all about accountability. The relationship is marked by parameters and rules are set up, in love, in order that they will maintain their honor and integrity in case the relationship is broken off. There is no unbounded physical freedom that each have with one another. They do not trust themselves, for they understand that the flesh will desire more until it overrules the mind. This is to be protected against at every point in the courtship. Each one is looking to the good of the other and not trying to satisfy what they want. They view each other as persons and do not look at one another as simply objects to explore and plunder. Now a young man and woman, who find interest in each other, ought to look at their relationship as a final stop to marriage in the first place. Therefore, the second option is good as far as that point goes. But the focus must shift to a healthy fear that they, at any time, could blow it all up. We are human and should not, at any time, think that interaction between one another is "in the bag" and can be handled apart from counsel and relational accountability; for this is not using wisdom. It will become inevitable, for it is natural and of God when the love for one another leads to a desire to wish to be with each other every moment of every day, that compromising situations crop up tempting us and teaching us that we can handle it on our own. But passions will begin to overrule our minds and will lead us into forbidden lands. We must not place ourselves anywhere near that place where we begin to draw conclusions and justifications that speak of being able to handle the intimacy we have allowed ourselves to enjoy; we must not listen to these lies. A young man thinks he needs no one to tell him how to manage his relationship with the woman he loves. It is natural and God's will that he should leave his parents home and cleave to his wife making a home with her. But there is order in this. There are rules to heed. How ironic it is that we can say we will follow our Lord yet refuse counsel of those who know better the rules of relationships. Yet young people want no rules during their courtship (for they refuse to hear good advice) yet they push their relationships physically to the point where they come up against the very walls of disobedience and sin, to God's decrees and laws, and think that they are still on safe ground. But when they, in their passion, loose their minds and climb over the wall and sin against God, how can anyone think that they will heed any rule or parameter of God when they failed to practice obedience in heeding counsel from godly people who warned them before all this trouble started? No, they will continue to resist rules and parameters even though they come from God's prophets (people) who speak the very words of Christ to them. They refuse to listen to them so how do they think that they will hear God's voice in any other way? Do they look for an audible voice? Or is God's voice that which confirms their own wants and desires? These are very real questions that a young man must answer honestly setting his desires aside. But they must not throw reason aside. Love must not be awakened until the proper time as the Song of Solomon reiterates on several occasions. Any godly relationship with one another needs rules and parameters that steer so far clear of that Great Wall that one can still hear God's voice through his prophets and can make right judgements that are not influenced by his passion for the one he loves. I am reading a book presently by Gene Edward Veith,Jr. In it he talks about how four factors play a key part in destroying the aesthetic element of any work of art. They are these: Obscenity, Pornography, Vulgarity, and Profanity. Each of these, in their own way, removes the aesthetic mode out of such things as play and movies. We know what he means. For who cannot agree that just as we begin to get "into" a movie or a book it gets interrupted by some illicit scene that has no bearing whatsoever with the story? In other words, take it or leave it the interruption brings an unnecessary and unwarranted break to the story. So as the reader or moviegoer begins to be caught up in the aesthetic element of the plot (the beauty and creative element), the author or director changes the mood suddenly to arouse the audience in a different way. This serves to distract from the storyline and causes the audience to lose interest. The author or director then switches back to the storyline as if nothing out of the ordinary ever happened. A relationship likewise ought to be on guard against such interruptions. For the aesthetic element in any relationship, between man and woman, is the love and respect, purity, honor and selflessness present in it. But the obscene and profane are those elements that serve as the unnecessary interruptions to the edification and strengthening of it. They are introduced only to get a person to lower their guard and become impatient and intolerant with the holy and pure; the aesthetic creativity. To accept the profane is easier than cultivating beauty in a work of art. For settling for the profane takes no skill but is what is natural to us. But insisting on creating a work of art requires great skill and perseverance. It requires hard work when the temptation is always to settle for the easiest pathway. Please feel free to comment and/or add some other observations to what I have written. -Joe