The Nonny Enticement Pt 2 - Why Not
Here are a few of the thoughts I gathered over the last year or so. There’s a lot that could be said, but I don’t think exhaustive blogging is really something to aim for, so here goes:
The answer's no
Sometimes, in the heat of the moment, what you have to act on is this: God says not to, that's why. Later you can work through why God says not to, if that is important to you. In the meantime, you have to stick within the guidelines, and trust that God has good reasons for giving them. In my case I never genuinely wanted to go out with Rochester while he wasn’t a Christian, I just badly wanted him to become one. Still, the issue in the moment was this one, and you can only make your decisions and choices based on now (and I know many a disappointed woman who married a fellow hoping he’d turn to God and years later he hasn't).
I've actually met a number of Christians who are not convinced that God actually does say no, with regards dating/marrying non-Christians. I humbly suggest that these people need to spend more time understanding God and how he relates to his people and what he requires of them. I lost count of how many times in the Old Testament God tells Israel not to get tangled up with men/women from other nations. It was the downfall of Solomon, the wisest man living, so we mustn't think it won't be the downfall of us. In the New Testament Paul tells widows, who would have been perhaps the only single women of the time faced with such a choice, to marry "only in the Lord" (I Cor 7:39). It doesn’t make it clear in 2 Cor 6:14, what being unequally yoked means, but I think you could safely say it includes marriage to unbelievers.
To question this is to be like Eve in the garden, listening to the snake whisper "Did God really say ...?", then doing exactly what Eve did in concluding that God is holding out on you with something that really would be for your good, and choosing it anyway. It's basically the original sin.
What is your faith?
Following on from that I was really challenged to ask myself whether I really did believe that God was good, and that he meant good for me - and not just other people. The choice for me was never between some fabulous Christian guy who would be a spiritual leader of a relationship and help me raise kids to follow Jesus etc. It was between Rochester and nobody. It can be really hard to accept that singleness may be God’s good for you, and I have railed against that and messed myself up over the reasons why that might so, but in the end I have to be able to submit to God’s will for my life, whatever that is, and offer myself a living sacrifice (even if I keep wanting to crawl off the altar). There’s much more that could be said here about singleness. I am actually going to work through that in January over at the EQUIP book club, so you can pick that up over there if you like.
What's really your issue?
I had to think: what would dating a non-Christian really be saying about what matters to me? It's hard to get around the conclusion that what it means is that a relationship matters to me more than Christ. Then basically what I’d have for myself is an idol. If you are a Christian, you know that dating a non-Christian is wrong, and you willfully do it, then you really need to be honest with yourself about the fact that you don’t trust in God and something else is more important to you. Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also (Luke 12:34).
And might I say that this is where "missionary dating" is absolutely farcical. You can't date someone in order to "save" them. That might sound noble, but you have already totally discredited yourself and the gospel. And to toy with that person in your own indecision most certainly doesn't adorn the gospel either. It’s crucial to your gospel witness that you treat them with integrity, mean what you say, live like you believe it and then go away and stay away and pray. That’s what will best serve their salvation. Believing that enabled me to keep my resolve and leave it all with God. Then later last year I read this article on Pyromaniacs, so I will just quote a section of it here. And you simply have to read what he says at the end of the article in response to the defense that "other people have done it, and it worked out OK for them" (if that is one of the tantalising ideas that runs through your head):
“See, if you are in a dating relationship with someone who doesn't love Christ, you've already said the Christ-issue isn't the issue to you. Her looks, his job, the way she treats you, his sense of humor — whatever; these things matter more to you than Christ does.
You want this person to believe that he is a sinner, under God's wrath, and deserving His judgment. You want him to know that his righteous deeds are as filthy rags, that everything he can produce is not enough for God.
But you've already communicated, by your choice, that what he has is enough for you. That you and he share enough values, goals, aspirations, and affections to create (or even consider) an exclusive and intimate relationship.
See? You've already dealt a death-blow to your own credibility. You really might as well stop talking. Your priorities, your choices, have drowned out your words (cf. the principle of Titus 1:16).”
I also discovered how true it is that what the heart loves, the will chooses and the mind justifies. Oh, the mental gymnastics I did in working this through. I thought crazy things! Beware that your mind plays dreadful tricks on you when you want to find a way to have something.
What do you think marriage is for?
I didn’t have all of this sorted out at the time, but I did read Ephesians 5 and wonder how any of that would be possible if I was married to a non-believer. Even one who I thought would be a great husband and potentially father. How could he possibly encourage my sanctification? I had to explore and remind myself what marriage is actually for. If we think all it's for is so we can have some one to go places with, share relational and sexual intimacy, set up a nice home, have some children, then we won't be able to what is really wrong with dating non-Christians. But marriage is about something so much grander than that. As John Piper says in his book, This Momentary Marriage (which is not available yet in Australia, but sounds like necessary reading):
… ultimately, marriage is the display of God. It displays the covenant-keeping love between Christ and his people to the world in a way that no other event or institution does. Marriage, therefore, is not mainly about being in love. It’s mainly about telling the truth with our lives. And staying married is not about staying in love. It is about keeping covenant and putting the glory of Christ’s covenant-keeping love on display.
Similarly, I haven’t read Married for God, by Christopher Ash, and I have a question over that book for another time, but marriage (as well as everything else) is for God’s glory and service. Remember that and see way past the immediate romance and small-scale vision of life with a non-christian. (And as an aside, one of the other things that really scares me about marrying a nonny is the thought of marrying somebody who is relying on me to make them happy. Because what are they going to do when I fail (which I will, as sure as the sun rises and sets)? I need to be able to believe that the fellow is looking to Jesus, and not me, as the source of his worth, identity, joy … And we also mustn't think we can marry a non-Christian and expect them to have a Christian view of marriage. You can't impose your own values on someone who has no reason to hold those values.)
That's all for now. That's really just scratching the surface and I am sure I will think of more salient points in future - and feel free to add some.