So what is your opinion on what is appropriate before people get married?

Kissing, hugging, holding hands, etc.

There's not much in the bible about this particular topic except for
"It is good for a man not to touch a woman."
Which is about as general and non-specific as you can get and could be interpreted a dozen different ways.

Lazarus

as for me, kissing, hugging, holding hands can be done outside of marriage. I know many people who say kissing is within marriage only, and it has worked out for many, but I haven't been convicted of it.

I'd have to say, it'd be pretty darn hard not to hug before marriage. it's really a standard form of greeting for many people (namely girls).

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"Patience, my good citizen, patience. It's bad enough to rob a man of his dream"
-Sydney Carton, Tale of Two Cities
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quote:

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Originally posted by Lazarus:
There's not much in the bible about this particular topic except for
"It is good for a man not to touch a woman."
Which is about as general and non-specific as you can get and could be interpreted a dozen different ways.

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If I remember right, in the Greek, the word "touch" actually means something more like "ignite" - as in igniting passion. So I understand it as saying that unmarried people should not touch each other in ways so as to get turned on.

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it's pronounced "tonics"

It's a wierd situation, and it's tough to know how exactly to take that small verse, and different translations present it differently.

quote:

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NIV: 1 Corinthians 7:1
Now for the matters you wrote about: It is good for a man not to marry.

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Basically, it looks like Paul is using that phrase to lay out the topic about which they had written him. Some translations make this topic-setting even more clear by putting that phrase in quotes:

quote:

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ESV: 1 Corinthians 7:1
Now concerning the matters about which you wrote: "It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman."

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So I'm not necessarily sure that Paul even held that view -- I think that Paul is rather referring to something that the Corinthians had written to him about. I imagine they had written to him about many things, and he was just setting up what in specific he was responding to -- similar to the way we quote previous forum posts when writing back to other people.

All this said, other people don't translate it quite like that (look at NASB for an example of this, but they try to be more literal rather than contextually interpretative).

One really has to read the whole chapter (preferrably the whole book) in one sitting in order to really get the feel for what Paul is saying -- it's too easy to get wierd doctrine when taking verses out of context and just prooftexting them one at a time without balancing it out with the rest of what scripture has to say on the subject.

When Tonnyx and I were dating, we had very strict rules that we laid out for ourselves as far as physical and emotional contact. The specifics of our rules aren't important (they were pretty strict, and sometimes we thought they were overly so), but I think it really helped us. We were allowed to extend the rules, but if we wanted to extend the rules, we had to agree on it, and it would only take effect a week later -- we didn't want to allow ourselves to bend the rules in the heat of the moment in order to have more immediate gratification.

It's not that we had rules for ourselves because we wanted to be holier than other people -- that's not it at all. We *know* we're not as holy as other people, and that's what was scary to us. We didn't trust ourselves, and that's the only reason why we made those rules. I know I couldn't have been making-out with her and still kept my heart in the right place.

It was tough, but from what I hear from friends who are making out with their significant others, it's tougher when you don't have clear and well-defined rules. Kissing is foreplay for deeper intimacy. I personally know I'm not strong enough to stop there, so I'd rather not tempt myself.

Edit: Archangel -- yeah. I totally know what you mean about hugging. We were fine hugging, but we didn't want it to extend into the huggy/cuddly kind of thing. So we were fine with hugs that said "hello" and "goodbye", but we wanted to avoid hugging just to be physically cuddly.

--clint

[This message has been edited by HanClinto (edited November 02, 2006).]

When I started dating the girl who would be my wife, my pastor gave me a great piece of advice: don't hang out together, alone, late at night, in each other's bedrooms. That probably kept us out of trouble.

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|steveth45|
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quote:

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Originally posted by ArchAngel:
as for me, kissing, hugging, holding hands can be done outside of marriage. I know many people who say kissing is within marriage only, and it has worked out for many, but I haven't been convicted of it.

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I personally want to stay out of kissing an non-immediate family member until I'm married.

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All Your Base Are Belong To Us!!! chown -r us ./base
"After three days without programming, life becomes meaningless.'' -- Tao of Programming Book 2

Meeehhh!!! It would be so easy If the bible wasn't interpereted in so many different ways...

As for me...

??

I'm not a firm beliver of no-touchy (Or Kissy) but I need a girlfriend before I can figure that out.

(Sould I be laughing or crying as I say that?)

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yeah, im a little crazy

i agree with Arch. absolutely.

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that post was really cool ^
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[|=D) <---|| me