Dating and courtship have destroyed the marriage institution and unfortunately, many Christians embrace these doctrines. People took to these doctrines because they watch movies about dating and courtship and even read books about it. Chris Ojigbani explains:
Though those books are not scriptural, people
yet embraced them and the result – has destroyed the marriage institution.
It's unfortunate that Christians know to learn
from the world and on the contrary the world is supposed to learn from Christians.
Marriage is an institution ordained by God,
so everything that concerns marriage must come from God, it must be from the
manner of instructions prepared by God and that's why the Bible says that
marriage is a mystery.
The Bible actually says marriage is not
something you learn with common sense, not based on common sense nor on logical
reasoning. Hence there are so many wrong doctrines of marriage that are being
preached, especially in the Christian Community.
It pains me so much that Christians suffer
more in the area of marriage than any other group of persons on earth.
Christians no longer practice the right doctrines. Many people struggle and
suffer in the area of marriage so much today. I'll expose how the devil has
used dating and courtship to destroy the marriage institution.
I would like you to know that before the year
1960 dating a married person was illegal in the whole world.
In the 1960s, there was this Italian
politician who lost his position in the government, he was asked to resign because
he kissed his wife in the public.
The news was all over the place that he
kissed in the public That was when there was sanity in the world. It continued
until the 1960s Sexual Revolution.
The1960s Sexual Revolution was what gave rise
to so many wrong marriage doctrines we practice today. We had millions in the
West carrying placards asking for the freedom to date whoever they want to date.
They
also asked for the freedom to be nude. Before then when a woman is dressed and her
breast is shown, she could be arrested but after the Sexual Revolution nudity
became legal, then you could show your breasts as long as the nipples are
not shown.
After the Sexual Revolution dating became
legal. You could date anybody you want to date whether the person is married
or not as long as you're an adult.
Those who lived before 1960 still see dating
as something wrong but the new generation feels that dating is good because
since they were born people have been dating.
I was shocked one day to realize that a
three-year-old boy in England has a girlfriend. I couldn't believe it so when I
asked I was told that it's normal they have girlfriends, the girls have
boyfriends. Imagine such people growing up you preached to them that dating
isn’t good they will think that something is wrong with you.
That's what is happening to this generation
when you tell them the truth because they've been doing the wrong thing for
years they think that what they are doing is good. That you have been doing
something bad for a long time does not make that thing good.
If something is bad it is bad no matter how
many years you are into or want to do it, will not make it good. That everybody
on earth indulges in dating does not make dating good. God is holy and can
never support dating between two persons who are not married.
If you love dating why not get married and
date your spouse. Some people say they
want to enjoy life, they want to experience life before getting married.
I would like to state clearly that dating is
not scriptural, nor is courtship. These strange doctrines have destroyed
marriages than it was made.
Courtship can be defined as a relationship
between a man and a woman who has agreed to marry each other though they want
to marry they decide to study themselves and find out if they are compatible
for a successful marriage relationship. Such study period ranges from six
months to three years and in some cases five years to 10 years. I've met a woman
in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, who courted for about 22 years.
I had
to beg her to leave the man. For the first time in my life, I begged a woman to
stop talking to a man, though I support marriage. I love marriage so much but
seeing her date for 22 years is. She said that he was her first boyfriend and they
have been dating since she was young. When I met her she was in her late 40s the
man was in his early 50s. The man refused to marry her, and also refused to leave
her.
Many Christians wrongly think that courtship
is scriptural. I've taken my time to study through the pages of the Bible from
the first page to the last page and I can boldly tell you that there's no
relationship in the Bible that looks like courtship how much more being in a
courtship relationship. I can also
categorically tell you that the word courtship cannot be found in the Bible.
The word courtship is modern, it cannot be
found in the archaic English dictionary, neither in the old Hebrew dictionary
nor in the ancient Greek dictionary.
There are two relationships in the Bible, and people misinterpret being courtship. The first one is the relationship Jacob
had with Rachel.
Jacob served Laban for seven years to marry
his daughter Rachel. Jacob's services
ended in futility as Laban tricked him into serving for another seven years
before getting married to Rachel, so people misinterpret that waiting period as
courtship.
Because of ignorance of wrong messages,
people don't take time to digest scriptures, and they don't study the Bible I
always say this and it is the truth we don't study the Bible what we do is
Bible reading and Bible reading does not have any benefit.
That you read 10 chapters of the Bible does
not make any sense, it's better you study one verse of the Bible and understand it
than read 10 chapters without any understanding.
The relationship between Jacob and Rachel was
not a courtship relationship. People read Bible instead of studying the word of
God, one scripture in your heart is better than ten thousand scriptures. Life
is not difficult we just need to understand it. knowledge is what we need.
The Bible said when Jacob saw Rachel he loved
her, afterward he proposed marriage to Rachel, and he told the father Laban that
he wanted to marry Rachel. The father agreed but Jacob didn't have money for the bride price and he was asked to serve for seven years without receiving a salary.
For those seven years, he wasn't paid any
money so the payment he would have received for the seven years represented the
bride price.
Jacob was willing to serve another seven
years to marry Rachel. He served the last second seven years and that cannot be
defined as a courtship relationship.
The second relationship people misinterpret
as courtship is a very interesting one and that is the relationship Mary had
with Joseph. When Joseph discovered that Mary was pregnant, some people
misinterpreted the relationship and another main cause of these problems is the
wrong rendering in translations in the book of Matthew chapter 1 verses 18 and
19. They wrongly rendered the word espousal to mean courtship. Some say they
were engaged, but they were never.
I want to tell you what espousal means. It
means the same thing as betrothal. This is a kind of marriage relationship that
existed between a man and his wife after the payment of the bride price; though the
bride price has been paid they don't live together as husband and wife. They
first live apart for a period of time this was how they got married in the
Asian Jewish tradition.
That was the period Joseph discovered that
Mary was pregnant because he had never slept with her and they were not living
together so he was sure it was not his pregnancy that was what gave him that
confidence to believe it was not his pregnancy because they had never lived
together for one day.
This is also the kind of relationship we have
with Jesus Christ. Apostle Paul said I've espoused you to one husband that I
may present you as a chest virgin to Christ. So Christ is that one husband the
whole church has been espoused to.
Today you see a lady dating or courting get to
wash his man's clothes, cook for him sleep with him give you that emotional
support.
Before the dating and courtship generation,
you are not permitted to talk to a woman, if you see a woman you like, it is usually family members before the couple is even allowed to meet one on one
for the first time. You don’t get close to the opposite until approved for
marriage.
Before the 1980s people married easily because
there was no courtship and in spite of the fact they did not court before
getting married. In Nigeria, we had less than one percent divorce rate in the entire Africa. Though they did not court they were not divorcing meaning that
courtship does not make the marriage work rather it is the reason people divorce
now in this era. We have over 51 percent divorce rate in this dispensation.
A few years ago we conducted research in
this ministry, we used two thousand divorcees as our sample participants
and in that study, we interviewed 2000 divorcees. It will shock you to know
that over 96 percent of the divorcees interviewed did courtship before getting
married. But the less than four percent that did not do courtship were not
Christians, they were Muslims. So all the Christians interviewed did courtship
and they were all divorced.
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