Christians—you ever hear something that seems… not quite right? Even though it sounds biblical? You might be dealing with a distorted teaching.

Welcome back to Distorted Teachings! One of my passions in life is taking whatever distorted Christian teachings I find and sorting them out so that others don’t stumble over them. It’s so important to me because the most important thing in everyone’s life is their relationship with God, and distorted teachings can hurt that. They can even lead people to reject God altogether.

I’m painfully aware of how long it’s been since I’ve posted anything; I’ve been pretty distracted with thinking about my career and figuring out which writing project to focus on. But the biggest, most blessed distraction I’ve had was falling in love with Jofae.

Lots of my attention has gone toward getting to know and love him, and is now going toward planning our wedding—which plays right into the topic of today’s post: Christian relationships. Almost everyone dreams of getting married someday, especially Christians… what bliss it must be to spend every day with the person you love, who you know loves you in return. But it doesn’t take long to realize just how overcomplicated marriage has become today. I’m not quite sure why, but I’m noticing a little surge of Christians going online to try and convince their brothers and sisters that dating is wrong. Have you noticed this? Even if you haven’t, there’s still a trend of Christians attempting to ban good things like dating, that maybe you have noticed. It doesn’t make sense. It boggles my mind that someone would look at 80% of the body of Christ and say they’re sinning by doing something that isn’t even conceptualized in Scripture.

The Good Intention

As I stated the first time, distorted teachings are well-meaning. If they didn’t have a grain of truth to them, no one would go around spreading them. It is true that there are no boyfriends or girlfriends in the Bible, and lots of boyfriends and girlfriends today are in ungodly relationships. There also are tons of couples in the world right now who should be married, but they’re not! Yet they’re still living together and doing things that only married people should be doing—you catch my drift?

Many Christians see this happening in the world today, compare it to what they see in the Bible at face value, and conclude, Well, having a boy- or girlfriend must be sinful then. But a lot of valuable information gets ignored by that conclusion.

The Distortion

When discerning if something is sinful that isn’t mentioned in Scripture (and sadly most controversial subjects today are not), it’s important to clearly identify and define what exactly you’re trying to label either “sinful” or “not sinful.” So let’s retrieve some definitions, shall we?

According to Merriam-Webster, the verb “date” can mean “to make a usually romantic social arrangement to meet with” someone. “Dating is a stage of romantic relationships in which two individuals regularly engage in activity together, most often with the intention of evaluating each other’s suitability as a partner in a future intimate relationship,” according to Wikipedia. And, in general, the definition of the word “girlfriend” is a regular female companion in a platonic, romantic or sexual relationship. (Heed the word “or” that I emphasized; you do not need to have a sexual relationship with whoever you’re dating.)

Some people believe it’s wrong to “date,” and instead people should “court”… what does that mean? Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries says courtship is “the time when two people have a romantic relationship before they get married; the process of developing this relationship.” Notice how there’s virtually no difference between dating and courting; one term is simply more old-fashioned than the other. Both dating and courting are an interim period of getting to know somebody, allowing love to grow, and evaluating whether they’d be a good partner for life.

Now Christians who don’t believe in dating seem to be under the impression that dating (or courting), as defined above, is not part of God’s plan for marriage. They say things like, “There are no girlfriends in the Bible; only friends and wives.” But is this because God didn’t want His people to date? Or was there a different reason?

Israelite Versus American Marriages

Most of the people arguing that Christians shouldn’t date seem to be American. Or at the very least, they live in a country where marriages are not arranged by parents. In most countries, like America, arranged marriage is not the norm, but in the Bible, it totally was.

In ancient Israel, the setting of the Bible, dating wasn’t a sin because it wasn’t even a concept. Arranged marriage dominated Israelite society. Israelites didn’t choose their own spouses; instead, fathers collaborated with each other to choose suitable spouses for their children. A father’s idea of a “suitable” husband usually was a wealthy and respectable man; not necessarily a handsome man who loved his daughter, got along with her, or was close to her age. This sounds lame to us today, but the Hebrews didn’t watch rom-coms and princess movies, so what sounds lame to us sounded practical to them. Parents didn’t prioritize their daughter’s fantasies; they prioritized her reputation and financial welfare.

In the Israelite patriarchal society, unmarried daughters were NOT like me—they weren’t expected to go to school, apply for jobs, move out and “get to know” themselves… THEN get married if they met someone they liked enough to date for at least a year. Israelite women needed husbands in order to have their basic needs met. This is something that modern-day Christians evidently forget. There’s a specific reason Israelite girls didn’t go on dates, and it’s not because God dislikes dating. Independence wasn’t an option for them, so neither was dating.

This isn’t because God is a cosmic misogynist, as many accuse Him to be. God made men and women different and wants their differences to be celebrated, not erased. God is not the one who mandated that women should have no independence in Israel, and nowhere did He say that women are less important. He did, however, recognize that He created women more delicate and vulnerable. He doesn’t want girls to be left to fend for themselves, and He also knew that deep down, women generally didn’t want to have to act like men. That’s why He holds men accountable for them.

Now I’m not a feminist and this post is not about women’s rights or anything like that. I bring up these details to show just how much more freedom young single people have today than they did in Bible times. That’s a good thing! It means you won’t be forced to marry somebody you don’t love. In fact, you don’t have to marry at all if you’re content alone and can take care of yourself. But Christians must understand that if they find themselves in a culture where your dad won’t choose your spouse for you, meeting somebody will take work. Hard work. Even in Israel, people still had to undergo a complex transition from singleness to marriage, contrary to what the anti-dating Christians say.

Israelite culture functioned very differently than modern Western culture, so it’s illogical for us to make our rules based on theirs.

Why This Matters

Why does it matter what people teach about dating? Because marriage is important to God—it’s important for bringing generations into the world, reflecting the love of God for His people, and holding society together. Whether we like it or not, dating is the only alternative to arranged marriage. So when Christians discourage dating, they are really discouraging building a healthy foundation for a potential marriage. God has given you the freedom and responsibility of choosing a suitable spouse for yourself. And He gave you His Word to help you do that, so that you know what qualities to look for.

Christians are adamant that just because culture changes doesn’t mean that the Word of God has changed. And they’re right. But in a select few cases, just because the Bible describes something does not mean that that thing is commanded of all followers of God. And it certainly doesn’t mean that anything that isn’t “biblical” is therefore wrong. Some Christians may not “believe in” dating, but entire generations are alive and changing the world because of it. I’m so glad I gave it a chance, because that’s how I, and many others, found the partner God has for me.