Sex, Dating, and Relationships: A Fresh Approach

Christ never intended right-living for the Church to be formulated by an apostle. Instruction in righteousness had already been laid down by God in the form of the Old Testament Scriptures, the "it is written" referred to many times by Christ. Christ referred disputers on the subject of divorce to Genesis 2. Thus in Acts 17 the Bereans were praised as "noble-minded" because they held the apostle Paul and Silas to the bar of OT Scripture. We should do the same when it comes to sex, dating, and relationships. We need a Scriptural, not a fresh approach. It is for this reason that I have a problem with "Sex, Dating, and Relationships: A Fresh Approach". The authors press the Christ-church marriage analogy to an extreme.While it is true the apostle Paul exhorted husbands to love their wives like Christ loved the Church, he said this to emphasize "So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies." Husbands on the contrary tend to fixate and obsess on imagined authority. They tend to compel their wives to be like them (the error of Patriarchy). God has designed the man and woman to become one flesh—a totally new man in Christ.Christ came with the intention of restoring all things—He makes all things new. Thus marriage should be viewed in light of the restoration process He has begun. Christ came to restore us to the Father. He is restoring men and women in marriage to Genesis 1. In the Beginning the Father and Son said "Let Us make man in our image", and it is this "Us" image that male-female is to be formed. Marriage is intended to reflect the Father-Son unity—and to replicate it through the making of disciples. This is what Christ referred to in John 17. No doubt—as the authors commendably point out—the gospel message that Christ died for us should transform our lives, and in the picture of Christ and his bride there is much for us to imitate. Nevertheless, I think the authors press the Christ-marriage analogy way too far.

The moment I finished reading this book, I started reading it again. These Pastors have been used well by God to reveal radical, yet simple, truths. My mind was changed, and I knew I would want to be able to share this wisdom with others, so I am happily rereading to be able to do so.So often we Christians are told to "guard our hearts". Whenever I heard that phrase in the past, I always thought of it as guarding my heart FROM something, not guarding it FOR something. That is exactly the kind of thinking this book causes. Rather than focusing on the negatives of premarital sexual behavior and using fear of heartbreak to motivate readers to seek purity, they remind us about the importance and beauty of sex in God's design. So we are not told to guard our hearts for our protection, or even our benefit really, but to guard our hearts for God, because of God.Please read this book. It is my belief that by reading this book you will have lost nothing and gained much. It has caused me to strive for purity in entirely new ways, and for entirely new reasons. Yes, I want to honor God, but now I want to honor Him with my whole heart and not just my actions.

One reviewer of this book said it was "Surprisingly paradigm-changing" and I couldn't agree more. I'm not the kind of guy who just can't wait for the next dating book to come out...most of them are kind of cheesy for my liking. More than that they all seem to be based off of an "I think" foundation that gives little solid ground for anyone to stand on. This shaky ground of subjectivity on the subject of Christian pre-marriage relationships has left the youth of the church, well the adults too actually, with a convoluted message of holiness within a pre-marriage relationship. The reason why this "dating" book is so good is because it's not primarily about dating...which the bible kinda never really talks about. It's a book on purity, holiness, marriage and ultimately the gospel. I left the book desiring holiness more than before I read it, and I left the book more in love with the gospel and the God who gave it more than before I read it. I love this book for many of the same reasons I love the bible: it challenged me, it encouraged me, and it equipped me. I couldn't recommend this book more. Please buy it and please read it.

I'm a college pastor who bought a dozen of these books for one of our women's small groups. I selected it based on the positive reviews and its description as a book that "adds a new, almost provocative voice to the conversation that pleads with Christians to get serious about honoring Christ with their sexuality."So what's this new, provocative voice saying? Don't kiss until you're married and probably don't even bother holding hands. Practice "friendship dating" instead.Really, guys? This is "I Kissed Dating Good-Bye" rebooted with some conservative Reformed theology thrown in.The women's small group is hating too, and they don't even know who Josh Harris is.To the authors' credit, it's very well written and their earliest chapter on sex being an image of the Gospel is interesting, but after that, it goes downhill fast. Their primary theological mistake--or cornerstone doctrine, if you support their thesis--is that since the Bible doesn't talk about dating, then Christians shouldn't date either. This is the kind of bad theology that is utilized by the Church of Christ and other Christian sects to justify some pretty weird stuff. But since they're doing this in the name of purity, apparently the authors give themselves an exegetical pass.If you want to emphasize purity and denial of any and all sexual expression until marriage, this book will back up that agenda. If you're looking for anything more nuanced or less repressive than that though, look elsewhere. I'm open to suggestions too.

I thought this book was awesome, thoroughly biblical and truly fresh in the perspective it offers. The heart of this book is the gospel message and how earthly romance is a picture of the heavenly romance between Christ and His church. The book shows how the new category of relationship, the boyfriend/girlfriend relationship, which was only invented in the last 100 years, has lead to Christians thinking once you are "in a relationship" it's okay to treat someone as if they are yours, both emotionally and physically and this has distorted the reflection of Christ's covenent love for His bride. However, God views an unengaged/unmarried person as still single and the expectations when it comes to boundaries should be the same as with any other neighbour/brother/sister in Christ. Their suggestion of dating-friendships removes so many of the pitfalls of the boyfriend/girlfriend relationship and even some of the pitfalls of current modern courtship culture. Highly recommended and completely disagree with 2 negative reviews on here.

I have bought this for myself and for friends and recommend it to anyone thinking about dating and wanting to see God's plan for how to treat people, especially of the opposite sex.A really great book that outlines a biblical view of courtship and is very clear in its teaching.The points are well backed up with scripture and it is a lovely fresh view of dating.Would recommend to anyone from teenage-age up.

Please have a read for all modern women who want to follow Christ’s will for our relationships. It’s worth the buy.

Fantastic book! Chapter 2 had some ideas I hadn't come across before but they were very well put and convinced me that they are biblical. I found this incredibly helpful and have been recommending it to my friends.

My wife and I are in full-time youth ministry. I'm a Camp director and my wife works at our Bible Institute where I teach on occasion and we are both very involved in Biblical Discipleship with college students.This book is a fabulous read. It is very Biblical, all of the principles of the book are taken right from the scripture. This is a must read for anyone in a dating relationship or anyone counselling anyone in a dating relationship. It is practical, convicting and hard to put down. We are now giving it out the the students we disciple and they are using it as a help to think Biblically about dating and to write their Biblical priorities for dating.