And IF ONLY....
Adam did not eat the fruit....
Then he would have said, "Need a new spouse there God...this one ate that fruit you said not to"
But then....he had an odd number of ribs. This would have balanced him out.
How long have you been single?
- Thread starter Rainstorm
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Adam did not eat the fruit....
Then he would have said, "Need a new spouse there God...this one ate that fruit you said not to"
But then....he had an odd number of ribs. This would have balanced him out.
You refuse to date, no one is arranging a marriage to force you into, and you do not have a matchmaker bringing women to you.
So you sit around, bitter that you have no soul mate?
Adam did date Eve. He had no one else to do things with. They were on a perpetual date.
Dating is not worldly, it is just going to dinner or coffee, bowling, whatever fun you both like.
If you will not try to be with a woman in some context, you create your own unmarried condition.
Here are things that are more worldly than dating: watching television, going to movies, hanging out in taverns, attending sports events, attending music concerts, taking drugs, reading novels, viewing adult entertainment.
I didn't refuse what doesn't exist. Neither dating nor arranged marriage exists in my personal life or anybody else's life, in my knowledge.
Adam dating Eve? Pffft. Pop, you may have grown up in a simpler era of free love, but not me. It is a bygone era which I actually envy and admire.
And I'm absolutely not "bitter". There's nothing to be bitter about. I'm grateful everyday for the peace, joy and freedom God has granted me.
And it sounds like your faith is in the preservation of your genes, not resurrection.
Now if Christ is preached that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty. Yes, and we are found false witnesses of God, because we have testified of God that He raised up Christ, whom He did not raise up—if in fact the dead do not rise. For if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins! Then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable. (1 Cor. 15:12-19)
It sounds like your faith is in the preservation of your genes, not resurrection.
Now if Christ is preached that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty. Yes, and we are found false witnesses of God, because we have testified of God that He raised up Christ, whom He did not raise up—if in fact the dead do not rise. For if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins! Then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable. (1 Cor. 15:12-19)
Paul also wished that everyone could remain single as he was, marriage was a suboptimal concession, causing "troubles in the flesh". Not everyone is marriage material, God won't give you more than what you can handle.
You have strange ideas about relationships. No one you know is dating anyone? You run with an unusual crowd.
Adam and Eve were brought together by God in what might be called marriage. I never said anything about free love. Adam and Eve had dates whenever they did things together. Married people have date nights.
If you are not bitter, you are something outside of happy, for you are obsessing over marriage in this thread.
That's Paul's own opinion, as he himself admits. Good for him, haha. More power to you, Paul! Paul says that he wishes that everyone was single like him. Not that God wishes it. Paul even says that he has no "commandment from God" on that point.
Paul says lots of stuff along these lines. He says that he, personally, is content with being single ── but he admits that not everyone is like that. He says that it's good to stay single, but that it's better to marry if you have strong desires. Paul "supposes" that it's better to stay single because of "the present distress," some crisis that the church in Corinth was dealing with at the time. He says you're not sinning by marrying. Paul says a widow would be happier if she stayed single, but he admits that this is just a personal opinion. Evidently, many people are not happier being single. In 1 Timothy 4:1-3 Paul also condemns people who forbid marriage. And if Paul wrote the Book of Hebrews, then he also said that marriage is a good thing.
If you have the desire to marry, it's OK to pursue that.
"Obsessing over marriage"? Says you and everybody else who idolize and prize over marriage, and couldn't stop promoting the false prosperity gospel of "heavenly marriage".
But it's not OK to impose your own selfish carnal desire on another person who may or may not have the same desire in you, at the cost of violating their consent and bodily autonomy. "You shall not covet." In poems and arts, it might be better to have loved and lost than never having loved at all, but in reality, it's much, much worse, to the point of having you traumatized for the rest of your life.
Being attracted to someone is a "selfish desire"? Being attracted to someone means "violating their consent and bodily autonomy"?
What do you mean?
Committing adultery in your heart. "I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart." And what Israelites did. - "Now Israel remained in Acacia Grove, and the people began to commit harlotry with the women of Moab." (Num. 25:1)
You simply finding someone physically attractive is not "lust." Someone simply finding you attractive is not lust, either.
No, of course not, that's admiration and adoration. But if you feel aroused, flushed, if you begin to imagine yourself mingled with her, possessing her, as though she's already yours, even though she's still a stranger to you at present, that's not fine.
Yeah, I agree. But we can still desire romance. We can still desire marriage. We can still desire sex. And we can still pursue these goals in godly ways, if we have those desires. That stuff is all still true.
I'm just gonna be blunt. My body heart and soul were made for sexual union with a woman. I'm talking about me. I absolutely feel it's an essential part of my life to be able to pour my heart and my passion, my body and my strength and my prayers into a woman. That's just how I was made. It's more of a distraction for me to be single than it is to be married. If we're gonna talk about Ministry. Until then I feel like I'm half a man. Not totally. I'm a lot stronger than I was and I can take care of myself and if God says that I have to be single until I die so be it. But I'm not keeping my eyes close to the gift of God. And if Ruth comes along and lays at my feet, as I said before, I'm throwing the jacket and blanket over her and I'm gonna claim her to be mine. And I will give all of myself to her. As song of song says. "Love is as strong as death. It's jealousy unyielding as the grave"
And such desires are the root of all your agony and melancholy. Expectation minus reality equals disappointment, reality minus expectation equals happiness.
Believe it or not I've done my research on dating, marriage and relationship. "Dating" is modern invention, a byproduct of industrialization, urbanization and immigration in the 19th century, which drew people out of their local villages where they had lived for generations, and into large cities and new settlements. Before that, marriage was mostly a negotiation between not two indivuals, but two families, two tribes, even two kingdoms. There was courtship, frolicking and other fun activities, but no modern romantic dinner, no dating apps, no "situationship", no "friends with benefits", no any of these abominations with a total stranger whom you're jsut attracted to and attempting to impress, if a gentleman sought pleasure he'd go to professional hookers or a housemaid. There's absolutely nothing about dating that's remotely biblical or godly.
Interestingly, in Jewish and later feminist folklore, the first woman was called "lilith", created directly out of the dust like Adam, and thus equal with Adam; but then Adam was behaving like a pervert by throwing himself at her and taking her by force, she objected and fled. God sent angels to retrieve her, but found at the shore of the Red Sea totally possessed by demons, and breeding new demons, so God made a new woman, a more mild, more submissive one out of Adam, which was Eve. But it doesn't stop there, Lilith went back with vengeance, as a formidible figure, a mother of demons who hates all men, so she curses and obstracts all reproductive activities, including causing infertility, infant death, miscarriage, nocturnal ejeculation, etc.
Paul was saying that you should do what you can, where you can, while you can. Because if you wait for your life to fit some definition of perfect before you start doing stuff, you will never get anything done.