‘Don’t Pray Together’ and Other Bad Dating Advice for Christians

I think that you should pray with anybody and everybody. Tell me why its ok to bow heads with a man in prison that, while I love him, I will never see again but its not ok to pray with the woman I could potentially spend the rest of my life with. I say pray together and pray often.

I don’t think he was saying if your single that your only possible mission is to go ”take the gospel to spear wielding, head-hunting pygmy’s in some remote country”, I think that was more humor, thus the exaggerated quality of the statement. But he definitely didn’t say everyone is supposed to be married. The statement says “Unless God is calling you to be single…..He has called you to be married.” in essence so yes there are people God calls to be single for his kingdom but otherwise you are called to be married.

Firmi11:

Thank you for your thoughtful response. Angie is correct in that I (attempted) to use humorous hyperbole for the sake of effect when making the “pygmy” reference. I greatly appreciate your bringing up “selfish singleness” because my use of hyperbole was intended to trivialize some of common, self-centered notions of singleness to which you are implicitly referring. You also raise two very good questions:

(1) [two parts]: Is God calling everyone to be married? Does God calling you into a hazardous context necessarily mean that a person cannot/should not marry?
(2) What role does our “sex drive” have in our calling toward (or away from) marriage?

I’ll attempt to answer the first question in this response, and then return to the second question at a later time.

Question #1: The principles behind my comment were drawn from 1 Corinthians 7, where Paul famously wishes that “all” were single as he is (vv.6-7). My conclusions are not too dissimilar to your own:

(1) There is a benefit to being single with respect to a single-minded devotion to God (vv. 6-7, 32-35).

(2) The context of Paul’s admonition toward single-minded devotion is one of difficulty or persecution — “in view of the present distress” (v. 26). Scholars are divided as to whether the “distress” is natural (a famine in Corinth) or spiritual (persecution).

Neither interpretation takes away from the fact that Paul is teaching into uniquely difficult circumstances, where being “anxious” about worldly things might be amplified, thus distracting a married couple from single-minded devotion.

(3) Nowhere in this passage, or any other that comes to mind, does the biblical author presume that singleness is normative. In fact, given his teaching on marriage elsewhere, one can confidently assert that Paul understood marriage to be normative and singleness to be an exception to the rule according to the criteria listed above (#1-2).

Outside of this exception to the rule, every man and woman find themselves bound together to the creation mandate: together they reflect God (a) through procreation (creation and care of new life), (b) “subduing” the earth through a division of labor in which the man is responsible for the provision and protection of the family and the wife for the care and nurture of the family, and by the (c) exercise of “dominion” over creation.

Unless God specifically and graciously releases a man or a woman from their obligation to this mandate (as he did with Paul), then every man and woman is intended, by virtue of creation, to reflect God through the the fulfillment of this mandate.

I realize that my final comment opens up a can of worms concerning the roles of men and women that are beyond the scope of this discussion. Even if one wants to define the specific roles of the man and the woman differently, they cannot dismiss the obvious fact that men and women are intended to reflect the triune God together as a family — distinct persons bound as “one” in self-giving and submissive love for one another.

Thoughts?

This is beast…thanks for the encouragement!

Jeff, thanks for posting this. Collegians NEED to hear this. At DBC especially, I always heard that praying together would lead to premature intimacy with one another that only a husband and wife should experience together.

Ha, as I can somewhat understand the concern, this notion is completely ridiculous. Being able to gather (with the right motives) together and come before the Lord as His beloved children and  ask for guidance is THE MOST wisest counsel a God honoring couple can follow.

Amen.

Had I been more of a leader and taken the time to pray together with my last girlfriend, we might be married right now.  I’m convinced that my breakup was the result of my inability to lead in that regard and therefore, it is my biggest regret not taking the time to pray together. 
 
This is an interesting article that elicits a couple different responses.  First I guess is my philosophy on dating: If she isn’t marriage material, then she isn’t dating material.  Obviously dating is used for what it’s purpose is for – to get to know the other person to see if you’re compatible, but with the backdrop of not merely, “are we compatible (i.e. do we simply get a long),” but instead, ”could I marry this person?”
 
With that in mind, the whole issue of intimacy is already in place.  Like Jeff said, God put those desires in us and they are good; it is just up to us to control ourselves until “the time.”  Self Control is after all one of the fruits of the spirit.  But I think if two people are already down the road to marriage, they don’t been any help adding more “intimacy.”  Those drives were already there – they were probably even the reason the guy went up and talked to the girl in the place.  So, I think that praying isn’t going to hurt any more then young couples already are.  I think the only thing it can do is help.  Satan and sin corrupt good things.  Prayer is a good thing.  Can it be used to make someone fall?  Sure!  Satan has been doing that for ages – corrupting good things and deceiving us by telling us just enough truth to make us believe otherwise.  If prayer is the method by which a young couple falls into sin, I think the temptations were there long before they started praying together.  Prayer may be a catalyst (which I think is doubtful) but not the cause.  If they are honest in prayer, and sure, even praying for self control over their bodies and their lust, what can happen besides victory?  I am convinced that if I had taken the time to prayer with my old flame, it would have saved us from some inappropriate levels of intimacy.
 
Again, like Jeff said above, you can’t expect intimacy and passion to erupt abruptly in the back of a limo on the wedding night.  I think it is the same way with leadership.  You aren’t suddenly a leader once you say, “I do.”  It is something that is practiced and perfected while you’re dating.  I think prayer is part of it.  Prayer is already the hardest thing to get a Christian to do, so why not take advantage of this person who is closer than any other to you (regardless of whether sex has been had or not – contemplating marriage with another, I think, automatically places that person at the top of the “most important list”) and kneel down and pray together?
 
Beware of thinking that not being legalistic is an invitation for license.  You are NOT to continue in sin that grace may abound.  I think I would be a little “legalistic” about requiring some form of quiet time between a couple who is dating.  But then, I don’t think it would be legalistic in the true sense of the word, because I think it is something they should already be doing.  Don’t simply believe in the arbitrary notion of “Faith working through love,” and use that to think, ”oh great, we don’t have to pray together.”  What does that verse even mean, and more importantly, what does that look like?  For one thing, I think it looks like prayer. 
 
Lastly, creating intimacy through prayer isn’t such a bad thing.  In my case, I think it would have strengthened me against misbehaving.  Let intimacy grow, just don’t let it lead to sex.  They aren’t the same thing, and I don’t think one has to lead to the other.  Continually “buffet your body” as is the command.  Some may disagree, but I also think that making the other party in the relationship aware of your struggles can help he/she pray for you on their own time.  Sure, leave out all the juicy details, no need to get inappropriate, but I don’t think hiding it is necessary either. 

This may have been all over the place, but I hope my logic (it makes sense in my head anyways :p ) is clear enough to be understood.  Anyways, it is late.  I should be in bed.

I agree with the theological aspect but disagree with the application and practicality. I am a college student in a relationship so this was certainly an interesting article to read as I find myself trying to work out many of these issues with my relationship.
Here is my issue with the article: A relationship with out boundaries is dangerous. I think you leave it too open ended and an immature believer could read this, follow your advice, and end up in a licentious relationship. For me personally, I know where I struggle, I know where I prone to make mistakes in a relationship and so I set up boundaries in those areas. This is not to suck the intimacy from a relationship, but to protect myself and my girlfriend from ourselves.

The fact is, the is little to no clear biblical guidance (that I have found) for practical aspects of a “dating relationship.” There is discussion of marriage and singleness, but not much in between. This seems obvious, but when you are dating, you are NOT in a covenantal relationship like a marriage relationship. Therefore you should not act like you are.

Basically, I think that as a dating relationship progresses, (towards marriage) the levels of intimacy should increase. HOWEVER, like you said, we are hard-wired for intimacy and this natural desire often drives people to move to fast. I think if you do not establish reasonable boundaries, you are setting yourself up for failure.

So is this article only for men to read? If I’m remembering fifth grade correctly, I didn’t have peach fuzz on my upper lip.  And if I’m supposed to be a Christian woman, I doubt I’ll ever have a bride either.  Seriously, there are two parts to a couple.  If you want to get your message across, you may want to try addressing both.

Haha. Fair enough. After a while, “they’s,” “he or she” and “him or her” gets a little laborious. I appreciate the constructive feedback, though. Very helpful. I will work to be more inclusive in my language going forward.

I hope that you found the underlying principles to still hold true and that the one gender specific illustration did not distract too much from the main goal of the post. Just in case, I changed some of the pronouns to avoid any additional confusion.

Edward,

I couldn’t agree more! I appreciate how your intentional pursuit of holiness in your current relationship and hope that the gospel bears much fruit as you continue your journey together.

I made sure at the end of the post to qualify that I am not opposed to boundaries and rules. In fact, I think boundaries and rules are good — just not ultimate.

I think your response did a great job of extracting the uniqueness of each person and relationship (“I know where I struggle, etc). This is the exact reason that blanket rules and boundaries are not sufficient.

Maybe the principles from Romans 14 might be applicable (meat sacrificed to idols)? One person might not struggle in the same manner as their bf/gf, but chooses to relinquish his or her freedoms in order to create boundaries relevant to the unique circumstances and struggles of that other person. Only the gospel can compel us to love others in such a way that we would give up our freedoms for their well-being.

If you can pray without struggling, but she can’t…consider her more important than yourself by not praying together. If she can give little kisses without struggling, but you can’t…she should consider you more important than herself by not kissing on you. And so on…and so on. Over time, as you both grow in your knowledge of God and He strengthens you with all power, you might both be able to walk together in gospel freedom where you once could not without causing one another to stumble.

What do you think?

You wrote: “Don’t simply believe in the arbitrary notion of “Faith working through love,” and use that to think, ”oh great, we don’t have to pray together.”  What does that verse even mean, and more importantly, what does that look like?  For one thing, I think it looks like prayer.”  

The question, I think, is what kind of prayer does the “arbitrary” notion call for?  Should we “pray like the hypocrites (Matt 6:7-8)” or “like the Gentiles (Matt 6:7-8)?”  Or should we pray like Jesus (Matt 6:9-13).”  Apparently, not all prayer is good prayer.

So is it less egregious for a couple to pray out of legalistic motivations than NOT pray together out of licentious motivations, simply because they are praying together?  Is there ever a time when the gospel appropriately compels a couple to NOT pray together?

Thanks for the clarification of it marriage being “normative”, I think that is a little different from what originally came across when you said that we where all called to marriage. I guess I also responded strongly because I feel like marriage is sometimes elevated to a unhealthy degree in the church and single people are treated like there is something wrong with them. I have also heard things from some Christians like if you have a sex drive then it is God’s will for you to be married. I know that Paul says it is better to marry then to burn with passion but I’m don’t think that’s what he meant. 

As far as your second to last paragraph: I would say that was the original mandate and how God’s kingdom grew, through procreation and the population growth of Israel, but  now God’s kingdom grows through the spreading of the gospel. Plus I’m not so sure that there is a huge need to populate the planet as there was in the beginning when that mandate was given. I’m not saying I’m against marriage or families, not at all, I think that there is a huge need for kids to be raised in Christian families in the midst of all the junk that’s going on in our culture, BUT I also don’t think that singles who are following the Lord and growing God’s kingdom in other ways should be told things like “It’s God’s will for us all to be married”. Also I can’t take credit for all of this, John Piper talks about this subject in his book This Momentary Marriage in the chapter on singleness. Best book about marriage ever! (In my opinion)

You’re not cutting me any slack!  Thank you (seriously)!  I hope these brief responses are helpful, since each of your questions deserve responses that are beyond the scope of this conversation.

Check out my follow-up post, “If ‘Sexuality’ is So ‘Good,’ Why Do I Feel So Dirty?” I hope it helps answer some of your questions.

Also on further reflection I might have been reading what other people have said ex. “if you have a sex drive it’s God’s will for you get married” unfairly into what you where saying. Still a good conversation though. Also I liked your new article. It brought up a lot of things I’ve never thought about before. 

Great read! Really an interesting (and in my opinion, valid) take on something that nearly all Christian couples run into at one point or another.

Thanks, Jeff!