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Living Together Before Marriage? |
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As common as a practice might be, participation in it still must be authorized for it to be
legitimate. "Everybody's doing it!" is a common plea made by young people who want to follow
the crowd in an activity of which their parents do not approve.
An interesting statement is made in the Old Testament book of Exodus chapter 23 which fits just here. Moses said: "Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil." Perhaps you remember your parents saying to you, or maybe you have said to your children, "Would you go along with everybody else if they were jumping off a cliff?" (or something like this??) So, what about our title for this article? What is wrong with such a practice? Is it not evident and obvious that so many are living together without, as it used to be said, the benefit of marriage? Are not our laws and government making it "beneficial" for people to live together without marriage? Are not businesses being "forced" at times to offer "family benefits" or "partner benefits" for those who are not married to one another? The real question that ought to be considered in such a discussion as this might be: Does the majority practice make a thing right? Remember your history lessons regarding the Nazis in pre-World War Two Germany? Remember what was discovered at the close of World War Two at the concentration camps, work camps, and death camps? Since a society went along with a practice, did that make it right? Why were "war criminals" put on trial for something an entire society (or at least that society's leadership) approved? You might answer: "Well, that was immoral!" Just so! Living together before marriage is not a societal question, but rather a moral one. So, what does the Bible teach regarding this practice? First, we must understand that marriage is the invention of God, not mankind. At the beginning of our world, God said, "it is not good that the man should be alone" (Genesis 2.18). God made a woman for the man, and Moses wrote: "therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh" (verse 24). In the New Testament, the writer of the book of Hebrews said, "Let marriage be had in honor among all, and let the bed be undefiled: for fornicators and adulterers God will judge" (Heb 13:4 ASV). Fornication is having a sexual relationship with one who is not your spouse. There are all sorts of categories of fornication. Adultery is the sexual relationship one has with the spouse of another. Adultery is thus one form of fornication. It should be easy to see that God has contrasted marriage (honorable) with fornication (living together, etc.) as something to be judge or condemned. One final passage ought to show us that living together is sinful and wrong. Paul wrote these words to the Corinthians: "Or know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with men, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God" (1 Cor. 6:9-10). God bless you as you study His word and strive to live morally! Thanks for reading. |