Biblical Courtship in the Modern World

     Before I continue on, I thought I'd let ya'll know that I'm in a courtship with Joshua Narwold! :) Many of you probably read his guest post that he did on my blog last week. He's a wonderful writer, and had some great thoughts and insights... didn't he?! :)
     A couple weeks ago, I started reading, "Her hand in Marriage" by Douglas Wilson. In this book, he goes over many things, but I thought I'd post just some things that stood out to me the most. The word "courtship", get many people confused. There's many different thoughts and opinions on what a courtship looks like. These are some of the thoughts that I agree with in Doug's book. Enjoy! :)
     Everyone dates. Or at least, everyone is supposed to date. Or, if they don't date, then something is wrong, or someone is ugly, right? But in America today, relationships between boys and girls, men and women, husbands and wives are a stretcher case. The fact that pride exists at the heart of this problem can be seen in our various responses to the difficulties. The worse our troubles get, the more faith we have in our methods and procedures. But in our culture, men and women are trained to harden themselves so they may go readily from relationship to relationship. Sometimes there is a marriage oath made and broken, and sometimes not. Going from one relationship to another has become a national pastime. People start very early with recreational dating, and, protest notwithstanding, most dating today leads to a sexual relationship. In this regard, the pattern of behavior among young people who are professing Christians is not much different from that of the world. Because the church has largely adopted a worldly system of dating, the walls of protection for our children which God designed have been broken down. We have provided our children with enough Christianity to ensure their guilt when they fornicate, but not enough to ensure their purity.
     Our system of recreational dating has broken down; it is time to return to the biblical pattern for getting together. Apart from biblical dating or courting, there are many destructive consequences-emotional, sexual, and spiritual. But if a young man seeks to initiate a relationship, and takes full responsibility for the relationship under the woman's father, there is a scriptural accountability and protection.
     Our dating system, considered as a system, does not biblically prepare young men and women for marriage-at least for marriage as God designed it. The modern dating system does not train young people to form a relationship. It trains them to form a series of relationships, and further trains them to harden themselves to the break-up of all but the current one. At the very least, this system is as much a preparation for divorce as it is for marriage. Men are created and called to initiate, and women are created and called to respond. First, the Bible calls men and women to fulfill their respective roles in courtship, and secondly, they are called to fulfill them with wisdom. Such wisdom requires that we follow God's revealed design.

Here are a couple great blog post/articles that talk about courtship a little bit more. :)
http://anoblecallingblog.blogspot.com/2014/09/my-thoughts-on-courtship-vs-dating-ll.html
http://anoblecallingblog.blogspot.com/2014/09/my-thoughts-on-courtship-vs-dating-ll_3.html
http://anoblecallingblog.blogspot.com/2014/09/my-thoughts-on-courtship-vs-dating-ll_4.html