Click here to listen to this article. The first step in the process of moving toward marriage through the initiation of or participation in a godly relationship is to evaluate yourself spiritually. Remember, one of our guiding principles here is that we are trying to be or prepare to be a godly spouse even as we try to find a godly spouse. All singles who profess Christ and aspire to marriage — even as a possibility — have this responsibility even outside this area of life, we should all be trying to grow in Christ.
Are you a Christian? Are you generally humble and teachable, and do you respect authority? As a practical matter, are you responsible and holy in the way you possess your own spirit, mind and body? As you move into the stage of life in which you begin to seriously consider marriage generally or a particular relationship, your first step should be to soberly reflect, before God, on your own spiritual walk and maturity in Christ.
If you aspire to be a godly husband or wife someday, what have you done and what are you doing to prepare for that ministry? Second, are you at a place in your life at which you are ready and able to marry? Dating is for the purpose of finding a marriage partner. For you busy singles with time for only one mildly irritating column per day, the summary is this: Pick a potential dating partner with an eye toward godly manhood and womanhood — with an eye toward who would make a good husband or wife, defined by those characteristics God esteems in His Word, not the ones Hollywood likes.
See what an unsatisfying bumper-sticker treatment that was? You might want to read the full piece. Among the different roles assigned to men and women in the Bible, men are assigned the role of leadership. This is true in the church and in the family. This is not a signal of male superiority or of the greater importance of men. Men initiate, women respond. Briefly, biblical support for this position is found, among other passages, in the creation order in Genesis 2 , in 1 Corinthians , and Ephesians 5.
True, these passages refer to marriage, but it is wise and right to set patterns that will serve you well in marriage, especially if one accepts the premise that the purpose of dating is to find a marriage partner.
