Tried With Fire

~ Picking up where I left off yesterday in my review of Sex, Dating and Relationships (SDR)... Hiestand and Thomas spend several chapters discussing the current dating paradigm. They argue that the Christian subculture, not the Bible, has invented this new category, the Dating Relationship , in addition to those of Family, Neighbor, and Marriage. There is no ambiguity in Scriptures regarding purity for the previous three. But there is potential for great confusion: for when we invent our own category of male-female relationships, we are forced to invent our own purity guidelines for that category. But inventing our own moral guidelines has never gone well for humanity (think of what happened when Adam and Eve tried it, in Genesis 3, for example). 1 In addition, they discuss several pitfalls of the dating relationship including: ~ A false sense of security and commitment - "In the end, the commitment of a dating relationship is simply the commitment to inform the othe...

I started reading  Sex, Dating, and Relationships: A Fresh Approach   (SDR) by Gerald Hiestand and Jay Thomas on the strength of Kevin DeYoung's reference in Hole in Our Holiness . I was not disappointed. Finally! A book on courtship/dating and relationships that is rooted in the gospel. The authors wrote this book out of concern for the confused views of purity among believers. One attitude can be, "As long as I don't have sex before marriage, I can decide for myself what the boundaries are because the Bible doesn't specify them." On the opposite end of the spectrum are lists of do's and don'ts, heavy on moralistic legalism but short on gospel.  Hiestand and Thomas believe there is a better, biblical, God-glorifying way than either of those camps. In SDR, they begin with what the Bible clearly states: Marriage and the one-flesh union point to a greater reality - Christ's union with His church. This is no less than a picture of the gospel. It i...