Steve Gregg on "romance and marriage" (RAD-06)

[_Rick_C]

I've benefitted from many of Steve's lectures both in theology and personal Christian living. His lectures on relationships between the sexes and acquiring a spouse were very thought provoking. The other day I had insomnia and decided to listen to and type out an excerpt from one lecture to send to a friend for their opinions about it. Since I have it typed I thought to go ahead and post it here for possible discussion. Here goes:

Steve Gregg commenting on "romance in marriage"
from Social Norms Between the Sexes, Part 1, (RAD-06)
(CAPS replacing italics for Steve's emphasis and easy copy & paste)
(paragraphs, my choice)

"There are people who consecrate themselves just to God and are given the gift of singleness; Paul talked about that.

"But if a person is not in that category [of being celibate] and most people ARE NOT; then the other two possibilities are: 1) the person you have a romantic interest in is either your future spouse, or 2) someone else's. If they're someone else's---you stay away from them! And the only way you could, then, legitimately allow yourself the luxury of romantic feelings is if you were CERTAIN that that person's going to be YOUR spouse. Now this sounds so strange to our culture because everyone says, "How would I know someone's going to be my spouse until I ALREADY have romantic feelings toward them?"

"And this is the saddest thing about our culture that can be said: The assumption is: You have to have romance first---and then---BASED on the presence of that romance you decide to get married. This is the opposite of the biblical position. I'm not saying romance doesn't have a place in marriage; every happy marriage has romance as one of the leading features. But to say that marriage is based on romance...this is the stuff of divorce! When people say, "We don't feel like we love each another any more" what do they mean? You CHOOSE to love. If I feel like I don't love someone, SO WHAT? I have to DECIDE to love them---that's what the Bible says. What they mean is "We don't feel romantic toward each other any more." And for many people this is excuse enough to end the marriage because the assumption is: romance is the BASIS of marriage! Where does it say THAT anywhere in the Scripture? Don't you know how many people in the Bible married people they had never MET (in Scripture) and...lived happily ever after? Now no one can say that they had romantic feelings for a person they hadn't even met. I'm not going to advocate going back to the Jewish culture on all of this. You might be afraid that I am.

"In a later lecture I will tell what I believe the Bible DOES teach about finding a mate. But let me just challenge the assumption initally that you MUST have romantic feelings toward someone before you can decide to marry them. I don't see why. You CAN develop romantic feelings toward anyone that you find appealing in other respects. Obviously you would not choose to marry someone unless there were things you respected about them, and find somewhat attractive, (maybe very, maybe not so very). But the fact is, there are things about them that you decide: THAT'S the person I want to raise children with. THIS is the person I want to spend the rest of my life with. That person has character. That person looks good to me. That person has a good personality I enjoy. That person is a good Christian. I could feel SAFE allowing myself to get romantic with THAT person---but only after I know FOR SURE that that person's going to be mine for life. Because I'm not going to hurt their heart and I don't want them hurting mine. The world may be used to doing that kind of thing but it ISN'T what hearts are made for. It's NOT what ROMANCE is for. And every person you could possibly be interested in is either your future spouse or someone else's future spouse. And if it's someone else's you've got no business being with them or even having romantic feelings toward them, any more than you want your spouse to have romantic feelings for someone else.

"It's amazing how much we've been asleep on this issue! I mean, it's as plain as the nose on your face if you think about it in Scriptural categories. And yet, how many people have thought about it in our culture--in the church even? Very rarely have the cultural norms been challenged."

I see a lot of wisdom in this. A few difficulties too, no doubt, but some definate ideas to grapple with and really think about. I have to go right now though...be back soon.

Any takers?

Till then,
God bless you all,
Rick

P.S. I cast my vote for: Yes. Romance must be shared only with the one you WILL marry or are married to. It was a close call to the option before it. I will comment on this more later...TC :)



[note from Steve: Because of grammarical errors in my speaking, I took the liberty of changing a few words in the above citation after Rick posted this, simply to bring things like tense and number into agreement within a given sentence. Nothing of substance was altered.]

[_Rick_C]

P.S.S. I now realize the question may have been better as:
Is romance reserved for marriage?
But I don't think it makes much difference....

[Guest]

A man may have "romantic feelings" toward a woman or several women.
A woman may also have such feelings toward one or more men.

Feelings come and go. We don't seem to have much control of them. It's not the feelings about which we need to be concerned. It's what we do with them. If we don't intend to marry the person for which we have these feelings, or if it is not practically possible to marry that person, we ought not to act on the romantic feelings we have.

[Guest]

I agree with Paidion. Our feelings are not at our beck and call. However, in my lectures I am talking about the intentional development of romantic feelings for a person. I agree that one may feel unbidden attraction for many women (including, sadly, women who are already married), and that such attraction is not unnatural, nor fully under our control. Men are not to be blamed for their having been "wired" this way, and most godly men find it to be a considerable nuisance.

What I am discussing is the cultivation of a romantic relationship. It certainly is not necessary, nor appropriate to cultivate romantic feelings for every woman that you find yourself feeling attracted to.

One should not, in my opinion, marry someone unless they find them to be attractive on many levels--physical, spiritual, social, and character. However, one can usually learn enough about a person, prior to allowing the romantic element into the relationship, to know if this attraction exists and whether it is realistic to think that one could cultivate a romantic relationship with that person in marriage.

I do not lay this down as law, but as principle. In all of my counsel to unmarried people, I make it clear that this is not a matter of legalism, but of wisdom.

I should also say that I am discussing ideals. That is, we must recognize that most of us, as a result of living in a fallen and less-than-ideal world, have sub-ideal experience. For example, I believe that God intended (ideally) for a man to have only one romantic partner in a lifetime. However, for many, that ideal has been shattered by the ugly realities of sin and of death. Therefore, I and many others, have been deprived of living this ideal, by the fact of a spouse's sinful abandonment and/or death. These were not a part of God's ideal in creating man and woman, but they are realities that we must live with. The result is that some people, due to these sub-ideal realities, end up having more than one partner in a lifetime. We should not think that God has any displeasure toward those who have been deprived of the normal circumstances that He intended in creation, but it would be a mistake to redefine the norms to fit the current situation.

My presentation (above) will seem extreme, if it is taken as a legalistic code imposed upon single people seeking mates. That is not what I am presenting. My message is that we must not lose sight of the norms of scripture simply because our culture and the church have forgotten them entirely. Those of us whose own experience is already sub-normative, can at least hope to teach a younger generation of pristine singles what they should aim for. God's ability to redeem and to bless situations which fall short of the mark does not provide an argument for ceasing to aim at the target.

[_Rick_C]

Paidion and Steve,

What you guys said.....
This stuff is so very important. So neglected. So needed "out in the open"....

I've been kind of sick lately but will post some thoughts later.
Thank you,
Rick

[Guest]

Our feelings are not at our beck and call. However, in my lectures I am talking about the intentional development of romantic feelings for a person. I agree that one may feel unbidden attraction for many women (including, sadly, women who are already married), and that such attraction is not unnatural, nor fully under our control. Men are not to be blamed for their having been "wired" this way, and most godly men find it to be a considerable nuisance.

What I am discussing is the cultivation of a romantic relationship. It certainly is not necessary, nor appropriate to cultivate romantic feelings for every woman that you find yourself feeling attracted to.

Thank you Steve for clarifying this. I listened to "Social Norms Between the Sexes" last year, and always wondered what you defined "romance" as, so thank you for clarifying this.

[Guest]

I would like to give you a great big AMEN! Steve. My wife and I have tried to get people within the church to understand what you spoke of here. Too many are wrapped up in the culture and get drawn away into "romance" before marriage. I know one of our goals is to reach the youth on this topic before they reach their teen years.

Jim

[_Rick_C]

Greetings,
I was unable to log-in for a few weeks...Brother Derek helped me fix it (we had emailed before & I finally contacted him).

At any rate, I really appreciate Steve's teaching on relationships (that specific series and the one from above). When I first heard "Social Norms" I thought, "Wow, this guy's really radical! He's like, Stoic!" Then I thought something like, "Well, he's just a lot more spiritual than I am...I'll probably never get that far."

But after hearing basically all of Steve's stuff on relationships of every kind I could see he should be taken in the full context of his entire teaching. You know, like how we do with the Bible!

If Steve sees this, I don't know how much to thank you (him)! "Wisdom, not Legalism" is the key, as Steve posted above.

I attended and almost graduated from a Bible college (Assemblies of God) taking "Marriage & The Family" as an elective. As Steve mentioned in his lectures, evangelicals more or less accept worldly values on "dating". At any rate, about all I got out of this class was secular social theory and psychology. "Dating" was considered to be the social norm but not much at all was said about how Christians should "do it". The college did have "talks about the opposite sex" at the beginning of each semester. We guys met with the head cook who gave us a kind of pep-talk, "Okay guys: Let's be Christian. Keep your hands to yourself! No heavy petting!" I thought, Huh? What's this all about? DUH.....

So, to sum up: I was 50 years old last year and it was at that time that I first learned about "Social Norms Between the Sexes" and what the Bible really says about it! (Isn't that a shame)? But it's never too late!

I've shared links with several people to Steve's various relationships lectures. While they haven't been as fully convinced as I am that Steve (and his interpretation of the Bible) is right...I do believe some people have benefitted greatly from them. One point I constantly harp about is, "You have to like them first," lol

edited today for personal reasons

[_Rick_C]

"Online Christian Friends" is another but related topic, at least in my case. I know that if two people (a man and woman) just so happen meet online (while not really "looking" for someone) and find they have similar interests, and so on, that the beginnings of a relationship that might lead to marriage is possible. Of course, meeting someone in person and other "geographical" and "logistical" issues are presented in a mere online friendship. While I would never rule out anything I do on the web as having potentialities of any kind; the web does have its limitations. Anyway, thanx for reading this "side-topic" of mine.

God is good: All the time.

edited today for personal reasons

[Guest]

Hi Rick,

For anyone, like yourself, getting to know people over the intertnet, or for anyone else seeking a marriage partner, I would recommend the following posting in this category: http://www.wvss.com/forumc/viewtopic.php?t=1666