Betrothal & Emotional Purity:

Betrothal & Emotional Purity:

A Biblical, Historiographical Approach

In previous essays I considered the teaching of betrothal and ‘emotional purity.’ I mentioned that one of the main justifications for this teaching is the argument that, (A) it was practiced in Biblical culture; and (B) scripture directly affirms betrothal and emotional purity be God’s-way-to-do-it. In this essay I would like to look first at claim (A) and then at claim (B).

Is Emotional Purity an Historical Concept?

Consider the following words, written by Jonathan Lindvall.

...in many parts of the world today, and certainly in the not-so-distant past world-wide, the concept ['emotional purity'] has been assumed. In the modern west, we...have entirely forgotten the idea of saving one's heart for the one we will marry.[1]

If Lindvall is prepared to make such an audacious assertion, you would expect him to at least provide a minimum of historical verification. Although there is a growing quantity of published tapes and literature on this subject, I have yet to see an advocate of betrothal cite even one historical example showing the idea of 'emotional purity' to be anything other than a modern invention.

The following quotation is a typical example. After positing the false problem of broken-heart syndrome and emotional impurity, Israel Wayne writes

What is the answer...? My wife and I found it in the Bible. You see, the ancient Jewish people held to the belief that your emotions should follow you, rather than you following your emotions. The Old Testament is filled with stories of young people who chose to marry their spouses before romantic love had begun. They made a decision to love the person they married. Our culture tells us to 'marry the person we love...'"[2]

Lindvall argues similarly, “the norm of scripture is that a couple becomes bonded emotionally after becoming committed to one another.”[3] Is this true? Is the Old Testament really literally 'filled' with such stories? Later on in this essay we shall be having a look to see whether this claim is correct, but it is first necessary to lay an historical framework for our study by considering the culture and customs relevant to those times.

Brief Survey of Old Testament Culture

The Old Testament culture was a patriarchal society, which meant that the rights of women were very minimal compared with today. However, the Lord established laws that showed an acute concern for the protection of woman. Thus, Israelite women had considerably more protection than women in the surrounding cultures of the day.

In Ancient Near Eastern culture marriage could often be treated more like a business contract than a relationship, and a wife like an object of property. A man could have many wives just as he would have many heads of cattle, although women were not able to have multiple husbands. If a man grew tired of his wife he could write her a certificate of divorce for an offense as trivial as cooking a meal in the wrong way. A woman was not granted the same privilege, however, and could only divorce her husband under special circumstances. As it is written in the Jewish Talmud, "A woman may be divorced with or without her consent, but a man can only be divorced with his consent."[4]

Regarding marriage, the bride had to be ‘bought’, if you will, by the bridegroom's father, either by money or service offered in exchange for the bride’s father being willing to part with her, while the bride herself received no dowry. When the bride was 'given in marriage' there was a transfer of ownership from her father to her husband.

It is only against this cultural backdrop that we can understand the custom for parents to authorize or, in some cases, to arrange a marriage. If a man wished to marry a girl, he had to first procure the permission of her father. This necessity for parents to authorize a match only applied on the woman's side. Like everything else, this was a function of the patriarchal society, as well as economic and social conditions. Economic conditions were such that dependence on parents and the larger pedigree played a crucial part in the establishment of a new family. People tended to think much less about the union of individuals and much more about the union of families or family groups. It is not difficult to see how this led naturally to some of the customs regarding parental authorization of marriage. Above all, it is a gross anachronism to suppose the need for such authorization derived from a set of ideals about emotional purity. When we consider the fact that fathers had the right to sell their daughters into slavery as a concubine if they wished (Ex. 21:7-8), it becomes absurd to suppose that the role a father also exercised over his daughter's marriage resulted from any set of ideas this culture might have held about marriage. It resulted, rather, from the simple fact that a daughter was considered her father's property, to do with as he liked whether that meant marriage or slavery. One of the reasons why this was is because women were completely dependent on their fathers or family until that dependence was transferred to a husband. You couldn't just move away from home when you were eighteen and support yourself. The sense in which women lacked economic autonomy led to lack of independence in other areas as well. Hence, we see in the Bible and Apocrypha that while young men did not always gain approval from their parents to marry, young women always did (i.e., Jacob had to get Leban's permission to marry Rachel, but not his father Isaac's, Tobias had to get Raguel’s permission to marry Sarah but not his father Tobit’s permission) except for cases when the woman was self-supporting, as in the case of Abigail's marriage to David.

The Application for Today

Some Christian teachers are now picking certain aspects out of this culture (such as arranged marriages) and arguing that these customs have a divine precedent simply because they were practiced in Old Testament times. Such an argument is not only theologically unsound (since it confuses scriptural description with scriptural prescription), but it is meaningless as long as we cannot also return to the social and economic conditions that lay behind those customs. Such conditions involved not simply an entirely foreign way of life, but many practices that would be objectionable to try to reintroduce into our society (such as the custom of raising up seed to your brother’s widow). The fact that the Lord gave commands to show His people how to operate within their existing social context, does not mean that this society always got it right. To use an obvious example, the fact that Deut. 21:15-17 gives laws to govern situations where a man has two wives in no way gives God's stamp of approval on the men of today taking multiple wives.[5]

It is against this cultural backdrop that we must understand a verse like Exodus 22:16-17. Here the Lord commands that if a man has premarital relations with a virgin, the father may refuse to give his daughter to him in marriage, though the young man must still pay the bride price. This scripture is often pointed to in order to prove that parental veto power "is not simply a cultural practice that is neutral in God's eyes. God didn't just permit it, but required it."[6] It may or may not be true that God intends fathers to veto marriages they believe will harm their daughter, but we cannot deduce such a position from this passage alone. The passage assumes a society in which a father had the power to veto his daughter’s marriage, just as Deut. 21:15-17 assumes a society in which men have the power to take more than one wife. But just as the laws governing polygamy or slavery do not tell us, one way or another, whether that is God’s ideal, neither does Exodus 22 tell us whether paternal veto power is God’s ideal.

Michael Pearl explains how Exodus 22:16-17 shows that fornication was viewed in terms of its economic implications since it guaranteed that the father was not defrauded of the bride price that accompanies betrothal. It also discouraged a young man from lying with a girl for temporary pleasure since he would have to pay the bride price anyway and might be forced to marry her. When we look at the Exodus passage in that light we find that the whole point of it is not to do with marriage at all, but the fact that there is a responsibility that a man acquires when he sleeps with a woman, and therefore he must pay the bride price even if they do not marry. There are many applications we might draw from that in our culture today. On the other hand, to read into this passage a Divine sanction for a certain procedure for getting married, is to make it into nonsense and to completely miss the whole point of what the passage is trying to tell us.

Having made these general observations about the Old Testament culture, I want to now move to and look closely at the custom of betrothal.

Marriage & Betrothal in Jewish Culture

In defining what betrothal meant in the ancient world, it is necessary to spend greater energy defining what it was not. Betrothal, as it was practiced in the Jewish and Israelite culture, was very different indeed to 'betrothal' in the new movement, even as the old fashion custom of courtship was very different from its application in the new movement.

At the time of Christ the Jews had very defined marriage customs, just as any culture has distinct ceremonies connected with their nuptial rites. These customs had evolved gradually as the culture matured and would not have been present in the ancient times of the patriarchs.

We tend to think of betrothal as similar to engagement, or maybe a halfway house between engagement and marriage. In the Jewish culture of the first century, however, betrothal (“ERUSIN”) was marriage. There were two stages to the marriage. During the betrothal stage, though they were legally married, they did not cohabit together. The wife remained in her parent's house preparing herself for the move to her husband's house. This lasted a month. If the wife was under twelve years of age, however, this period lasted a whole year, to give her time to prepare a trousseau. In some parts of ancient Judea, the man and wife were allowed intimate physical contact once during the betrothal period, to wet their appetite and to help the husband appreciate and desire his wife more. After the final wedding ceremony took place, the wife returned to her husband's home for the consummation of the marriage.

Just as the Jewish betrothal was equivalent to marriage, so their “shiduchim” would correspond to what we would call engagement, in so far as it was either a non-formalized agreement to get married or a formalized contract to enter at a later stage into a marriage (betrothal) contract.[7]

What Betrothal Was Not

Now I must say what betrothal was not. It had nothing to do with the idea of a father receiving direct revelation for who his child would marry, it had nothing to do with restriction on cross-gender friendships and, most importantly, it certainly had nothing to do with denying all romantic feelings until the betrothal period. On the contrary, Hasting’s Bible Dictionary tells us “that in ancient Israel the association of the sexes was comparatively unrestrained, and naturally led to personal attachments which sought satisfaction in marriage...”[8] And again, as the respected Hebrew scholar Alfred Edersheim wrote (about a hundred years ago),

Where the social intercourse between the sexes was nearly as unrestricted as among ourselves, so far as consistent with Eastern manners, it would, of course, be natural for a young man to make personal choice of his bride. Of this Scripture affords abundant evidence.[9]

In his taped lecture, "Scriptural Betrothal", Lindvall goes through every single verse in the Bible where the word betrothal occurs. As Lindvall simply tells us what the word betrothal meant (namely, the essence of his ideas), he is then able to take all these scriptures as support for his position. That is to say, he reasons to his conclusion based on premises that assume his conclusion! That initial assumption, however (i.e., the definition of betrothal in Bible times), is not subject to investigation or argument. Lindvall simply tells us that,

The scripture talks about a pattern that it calls betrothal.... In the Bible there were two steps, with a fairly long period of time in between. During that lengthy period in between the couple was encouraged to cultivate their romantic feelings towards one another but not be physical with one another. And it was during that period that they fell in love, but it was after the commitment had been made. So they were free and secure, they were not at risk emotionally of giving their heart to someone and then being defrauded. That is God's design. Let's look at the Biblical model of betrothal. God wants our young people to experience a no risk commitment.... God design is that we would encourage them to fall in love only after the commitment is made."[10]

Based on this definition of betrothal, Lindvall is able to argue that the ‘betrothal’ of Mary and Joseph was an irrevocable period (apart from adultery) for “them to mentally and emotionally prepare for marriage…”[11] The ‘betrothal’ of Mary and Joseph is in fact one of Lindvall’s main arguments. But is this what the word ‘betrothal’ actually meant in the first century? According to Lindvall, the answer is yes, for as he writes, “Even if one doesn't hold that betrothal is to be practiced today, it is at least clear what the Bible means when it uses the term.”[12] So what does the Bible mean by the term? According to Lindvall, “A biblical betrothal was an irrevocable covenant made at the beginning of the romance, authorizing the parties to bond emotionally.”[13] And again, “the parties keep (guard) their hearts from romantic involvement until after the commitment is made and then use the betrothal period to cultivate emotional attachment to one another…”[14]

I have never seen any documentary evidence to suggest that the above ideas were part of the Jewish custom of betrothal referred to in the Bible[15], especially as concerns no risk emotions. In fact, there is actually a wealth of evidence to the contrary. One piece of evidence is the fact that - whatever Lindvall may claim - a betrothal, like ordinary marriage, was not irrevocable and did not require an act of physical unfaithfulness for it to be terminated. Thus, to suppose that the concept of 'a no risk commitment' or 'emotional purity' lay behind the betrothal custom, is inconsistent with the fact that if a couple "fell out of love", or the man found another woman more beautiful, he could simply divorce his wife, whether it was during or after the betrothal period.[16]

To this we must add the fact that a man might acquire as many wives as he liked, a custom still practiced by the Jews in the first century. (The Talmud, while suggesting limits on the amount of wives, nevertheless supports polygamy.) When we add to this the fact that a degree of free association between the sexes was enjoyed and often led to romantic love occurring prior to any commitment, it becomes ludicrous to suppose that anything verging on emotional protection was a principle behind Jewish marriage traditions. It emerges that, whatever betrothal might have meant in that culture, it was very different from the principles behind modern ‘betrothal’, especially as concerns the protection of emotions.

Lindvall's teaching that children should be allowed veto-power but no positive volitional fiat in the decision whom to marry, is very unjewish as well. In the Jewish Talmud we read that

A man is forbidden to give his daughter in marriage while she is a minor, until she is grown up and says, 'I wish to marry so-and-so'..."[17]

As far as law was concerned, however, though a father could marry off his daughter while she was still a minor (less than twelve years and one day), she could annul the marriage upon reaching twelve years and a day without needing a divorce, if she did not love the man.

The Scripture’s Teaching

When Agur, son of Jakeh compared the way of a man with a maid to that of an Eagle in the sky, a snake on a rock, and a ship in the midst of the sea (Prov. 30:19), it is hardly something that can be construed as a pejorative description, despite the snake. Yet if, as Lindvall maintains, all ways between a man and a maid should be prohibited until after betrothal, this verse must be heavily qualified to ensure that the terms 'man' and 'maid' do not refer to persons of a single status. (The Hebrew term for maid that is used indicates a virgin.) It is indeed an exercise of unrestrained imagination to conceive such distinctions being inherent in this proverb. As I have already tried to show, such concepts would have been completely foreign to the Jewish way of thinking, and therefore cannot be externally imposed on the Biblical texts.

One scholar, after I asked him if he knew of any documentary evidence that could be used to prove the unjewish-ness of ‘emotional purity’, pointed me to the Bible, which is full of examples of love occurring prior to commitment. We shall be examining some of these examples in this essay, but first it must be emphasized that because the Bible stories were not written to specifically address this subject, any bits we are able to extract should not be turned into a model for one method or another. This is precisely the mistake that the advocates of courtship and betrothal frequently make in approaching narrative scripture from a statistical pattern to try to determine right practice. It is always dangerous to turn the descriptive passages of scripture into prescriptive commands. A descriptive passage tells us what happened while a prescriptive passage tells us how something should happen. An example of this is the prayer of Jabez in 1 Chronicles 4:10, which is descriptive, vs. the prayer which Jesus taught his disciples to pray which is prescriptive. Now, of course, we can gain wisdom on how to live from studying the descriptive passages, but they should never be approached as blanket models for us to automatically apply in our own situations.

Having said that, I would like to now look at some of the descriptive passages of the Bible where we read about people getting married and having relationships. My purpose in the following survey is to show that the theories of emotional purity do not have a pedigree dating back to the Bible or ancient Jewish practice. (And even if they did, this would not itself prove that such ideas are normative, based on the above distinction between description and prescription.) In so doing we shall also see how completely untenable is the assumption that romantic love is a modern invention - an assumption so pervasive in the literature of the courtship and betrothal movements.

Isaac and Rebekah: Betrothal Blueprint?

The relationship between Isaac and Rebekah is a favorite among advocates of courtship and particularly betrothal. I cannot begin to count the amount of times I have seen Isaac and Rebekah’s relationship cited as a paradigm of 'God's way.' However, when we look at what the Bible actually says about Isaac and Rebekah, nowhere do we find God sanctioning the pattern of courtship, betrothal, emotional purity, or anything of the sort.

To fully understand story, we must back up and consider what God had been doing with Abraham. The Lord had set Abraham apart to found a nation that would be God's representative on earth. It was very important that Abraham's son, Isaac, should not procreate seed that was defiled, i.e., that was contaminated by the seed of other people's. Nowadays we see this principle applied in the New Testament where we are exhorted not to be unequally yoked. Racial purity is no longer an issue as it was back then.

So Abraham made his servant

swear by the Lord, the God of heaven and the God of the earth, that you will not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I dwell; but you shall go to my country and to my family, and take a wife for my son Isaac."

"And the servant said to him, 'Perhaps the woman will not be willing to follow me to this land. Must I take your son back to the land from which you came?'

"But Abraham said to him, 'Beware that you do not take my son back there. The Lord God of Heaven, who took me from my father's house and from the land of my family, and who spoke to me and swore to me, saying, 'To your descendants I give this land,' He will send an angel before you, and you shall take a wife for my son from there. And if the woman is not willing to follow you, then you will be released from this oath; only do not take my son back there.' (Gen. 24:3-8)

We do not know what was behind Abraham's reluctance for his son to travel to his homeland, although we can speculate. The betrothal lobby have suggested that this was because the custom was for young men not to be involved in their own marriage decisions. But notice the servant's reluctance to go without Isaac, and doubt as to whether the woman would want to go and marry a man she had not met. The implication is that under normal circumstances Isaac would have sought his own wife.[18] But this was an unusual situation, and that very fact never seems to be taken into account when the betrothal advocates appeal to this example. In fact, it was so unusual an occurrence that a miracle needed to happen. The servant had no idea which girl would be the right one as there was no knowledge of, or interchange with, these far off relatives. Hence, he had to rely solely on an act of divine intervention. Because this was part of the Lord's plan, in fulfilling the mission to found a chosen people through the patriarchs, the Lord moved directly in these affairs, bringing the girl of His choosing to the servant before he had met anyone else. It was all part of the Lord miraculously fulfilling his original word to Abraham. The servant recognized this marvelous act of mercy and praised the Lord for it, saying,

"'Blessed be the Lord God of my master Abraham, who has not forsaken His mercy and His truth toward my master. As for me, being on the way, the Lord led me to the house of my master's brethren.'" (Gen. 24:27)

What was Rebekah and her parent's response to this unusual proposal of marriage to a man she had never even met? Her parents recognized that "'The thing comes from the Lord...'" (Gen. 24:50) though they desired that their daughter remain with them for at least ten days before leaving (24:55). Despite her parent's wishes, Rebekah desired to depart the very next day (Gen. 24:56). In this Rebekah shows a degree of autonomy that is discouraged by the advocates of betrothal.

I love this story because it shows a family going out on a limb in faithfulness to God's word. The Lord blessed their faithfulness, for we are told that Isaac loved Rebekah (Gen. 24:67). This love was obviously emotional, for we read that it comforted Isaac after his mother's death. (24:67)

Nowhere do I find this story set out as a blue print for selecting a spouse. Rather, it is a story of Abraham, Isaac and Rebekah's trust in God's faithfulness. Abraham's faith in the Lord's word regarding his progeny is shown to have substance in the way God went before and prepared this young woman for Isaac, and then miraculously engineered the circumstances necessary to bring them together. To try to find from this story some divine methodology for finding a spouse reduces its power and significance.

Take a Wife

Now if a divine precedent for finding a spouse had been set through these events, then one would confidently expect Isaac to continue the procedure with his son Jacob. However, with Jacob we find a very different set of circumstances ensuing.

We are told in Genesis 26:34-35 that Jacob's brother Esau "took wives", which "were a grief of mind to Isaac and Rebekah." Ah, there you have it, Esau he took wives for himself rather than letting his father select them! Furthermore, the result brought grief to his parents. That is how the betrothal advocates interpret this verse. For example, Thompson mentions this by commenting that "every example where the father did NOT initiate and oversee the relationship (such as Esau/wives, Shechem/Dinah, Samson/Delilah, etc.) the outcome was either mixed or disastrous."[19]

But just hold on a second. The unifying factor in the three relationships that Thompson mentions, which accounts for the disastrous outcomes, is that each involved union with a Gentile, which God had forbidden. The grief Esau brought upon his parents was not that he 'took wives' for himself, for that same language is used of Abraham, a generation earlier, taking a wife for himself: "Abraham again took a wife, and her name was Keturah." (Gen. 25:1) So the grief would not have been because Esau took wives, but because, as Rebekah says,

“I am weary of my life because of the daughters of Heth; if Jacob takes a wife of the daughters of Heth, like these who are the daughters of the land, what good will my life be to me?” (Gen. 27: 46)

The grief Esau caused his parents was not because of the procedure for getting married, but because he took wives from among the pagans. So Isaac instructs Jacob not to take a wife from the daughters of Canaan, but to go find one amongst his own family.

Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him away to Padan Aram to take himself a wife from there, and that as he blessed him he gave him a charge, saying, "You shall not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan." (Gen. 28:6)

Isaac simply sent Jacob away to find a wife. Even I favor more parental involvement than that! Isaac had no idea who his son was going to choose, he simply asks that it be from his own kinsmen. When Esau heard of this he was jealous and went and took another wife from Abraham's family too. (Gen. 28:9)

Non-biblical literature from the Ancient Near East points in the same direction. In the apocryphal book of Tobit, Tobias' father instructed his son, saying, "do not disdain your brethren and the sons and daughters of your people by refusing to take a wife for yourself from among them." The implication of this statement was not that the father was exercising an inherent right to control his sons' marriage decision but, like everything else he said in that chapter, simply pointing him in the direction of what was right. The advice that Isaac and Tobit gave their sons would be similar to the way a Christian father might counsel his son not to seek a wife from among unbelievers. Here again, what is not said is as important as what actually is said in so far as the fathers say nothing concerning the need to approve the actual individual women.

Jacob: Love Before Commitment

Getting back to Jacob, the events that unfolded show that people did not hold back their emotions prior to commitment. In Jacob's case, exactly the opposite is found. At the first meeting of Jacob and Rachel, even before there is any record of Jacob and Rachel exchanging words, what does Jacob do? Jacob kisses Rachel! (Gen. 29:11) Shortly afterwards we are told that "Jacob loved Rachel" (Gen. 29:18) before he asked Leban if he could marry her. In other words, the love preceded the commitment. (If I’m not mistaken, he did things the wrong way round according to some.) As Jacob was penniless, and therefore had no bride price to pay or means to support a wife, he had to work fourteen years to earn her. As Schaijik observes, “Jacob did not labor fourteen years for Rachel’s hand because he had ‘discerned a compatibility’ with her, but ‘because he loved her.’”[20] So deep was Jacob’s love for Rachel, in fact, that these seven years “seemed only a few days to him because of the love he had for her.” (Gen. 29:20) Again, in that culture the father of the bride always had to give consent. Now Leban was a scoundrel, as can be seen more clearly by juxtaposing this account with the similar narrative history book of the Jews called The Book of Jasher.[21] Leban took advantage of Jacob's penniless state, maneuvering things to get fourteen years work out of Jacob. You all know the story, how Jacob was tricked into marrying Leah thinking he was marrying Rachel. It is interesting that in this case the arranged marriage (Jacob and Leah) was actually a disaster. Why was the arranged marriage a disaster? Quite simply because Jacob didn't love Leah (Gen. 29:31). On the other hand, the relationship that Jacob himself chose, prospered because it was a love-match.

Lindvall acknowledges that “there are several instances in scripture of men and women clearly being drawn emotionally to one another prior to their marriage,” BUT he hastily adds, “these seem to be not only exceptional, but to invariably result in unique problems.”[22] I wonder what sort of ‘unique problems’ Lindvall imagines resulted from the fact that Jacob loved Rachel before gaining permission to marry her. He doesn’t say. Anyway, problems in a marriage does not mean that the match is wrong, nor does it imply that how the relationship was conducted before marriage was wrong. All marriages experience problems.

Dinah and Shechem

Perhaps Lindvall would point instead to a story such as that of Dinah and Shechem (Gen. 34). This incident has been cited by others as an example of the disasters brought about by choosing your own marriage partner. However, the incident proves nothing either way, but it does serve to demonstrate the difference between the proper way that Jacob handled his emotions versus the improper way of the Gentile Shechem. Jacob was in love with Rachel just as Shechem was in love with Dinah, but Shechem wanted physical satisfaction immediately while Jacob showed restraint. Jacob obviously desired Rachel physically too (Gen. 29:21), but he waited. Jacob’s attitude runs contrary to the consumerism of our materialistic age, where the primacy of instant gratification leaves little point of contact with romantic love, while Shechem demonstrates the opposite. It is interesting to note that, even so, Shechem went to his father to ask him to obtain Dinah for his wife. This shows that this procedure for parental authorization concerning the female was the protocol that was required in order to be married - by the godly and the ungodly alike, by the pagans as well as the children of Israel. There was a general acceptance of the customs, etiquette and protocol of the culture.

Sampson

We see this again in the story of Sampson. (Judges 14) Although Sampson had found a girl that "pleased him well" and whom he desired to marry, it was still necessary for the actual marriage that cultural customs were observed. So Sampson said to his parents, "'get her for me as a wife.'" (Judges 14:2) The parents initially refused on the grounds that she was from their enemies, the Philistines. Again we see that the authority of the parents to make the plans was an intrinsic part of that culture. It was not simply a custom observed by righteous people, as if it was 'God's way' that He had instituted, but was also practiced by those outside the covenant.

David

Another person who needs to be studied is David. In 1 Samuel 18:20 we read that "Michal, Saul's daughter, loved David. And they told Saul, and the thing pleased him." Notice here again that the love preceded the commitment. It is obvious that this was how people lived then as we do today. Also notice that the father was informed subsequent to the love.

Saul’s interference eventually destroyed David’s marriage to Michal and David took the widow Abigail to be his wife (1 Sam. 25:39-42). David and Abigail certainly didn't follow any procedure of parental authorization. David asks directly for Abigail to be his wife (through messengers) and she accepts immediately. We also read that “David also took Ahinoam of Jezreel” (25:43), but we are told nothing about it.

Christ's Betrothal to the Church

John Thompson writes,

Perhaps the most compelling reason for recognizing betrothal as transcultural is our Lord's use of this standard for His relationship with His own "multicultural" bride, the church. As the spiritual father of the Corinthians, Paul declares: "...for I betrothed you to one husband, that to Christ I might present you as a pure virgin" (2 Cor. 11:2). Why would Christ choose betrothal if it were not God's own prescription for pre-marital fidelity? Indeed, Paul suggests that its primary purpose is to "present you as a pure virgin." Just as Christ doesn't want us "dating around" in the spiritual realm because it leads to physical, mental and emotional impurity, so likewise in the natural realm.

To say that betrothal must be God's way because He drew upon it to illustrate His relationship with the church, is a fallacious argument, for two reasons. First, Jesus used whatever material was around at the time for illustrations. He drew upon many things from living in tents to using swords in warfare. Does that mean that fighting with swords is more godly than fighting with guns because God used the former and not the latter as an illustration? Is it godlier for farmers to plant vineyards of grapes rather than fields of oats because God used the former as an illustration and not the latter?

Secondly, when we realize the vast difference between true historical betrothal vs. modern betrothal, then the above argument amounts to saying, "modern betrothal must be God's way because He drew upon historical betrothal to illustrate His relationship with the church", even though the latter, as we have seen, was entirely different, both in its outworking as well as the ideology behind it.

One aspect of historical betrothal that is particularly meaningful in illustrating Christ's relationship with the church is the two distinct phases: first, the judicial union of the couple at the commencement of the betrothal, and then the physical union after the wedding at the end of the betrothal. This being so, betrothal was a particularly apt custom for Paul to draw upon in describing Christ's marriage to the church since Christ's union to the church occurred judicially when Christ died but will not be consummated until He returns in glory when "the Spirit and the bride say 'Come!'" to the bridegroom. (Rev. 22:17) When that time comes, we shall say,

"'Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready.' And to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints." (Rev. 19:7-8)

The principle that matters here is that we remain faithful to Christ, and not desert our first love (Rev. 2:4), but eagerly await the return of the bridegroom when the above verse will be fulfilled. While we wait, we can make ourselves ready by arraying ourselves in the fine linen of righteous acts.

To try to reduce these truths into a method for getting married misses the whole point that the scripture is making. It is absurd to say that Paul and John were exhorting their hearers on a "prescription for pre-marital fidelity" here. Paul spent considerable detail elsewhere laying down rules for marital and premarital behavior, never mentioning anything close to such ideas.

The attempt to see Christ's relationship with the church as an illustration of modern betrothal has actually led some teachers to implicitly deny the basic gospel message. To show how this is so it is first necessary to review the four-fold progression once the go ahead has been given for a match.

1. First an offer of marriage/love is made to the woman

2. Then the woman accepts an irrevocable commitment.

3. Then the couple 'falls in love'.

4. Finally, there is marriage and consummation.

The advocates of betrothal are teaching that the above progression parallels Christ's relationship to the church. First Christ makes us an offer of marriage through the gift of salvation. Then after we accept comes the betrothal period. During this time Christ woos us and we fall in love with Him. It is irrevocable apart from spiritual adultery, which would be turning our back on Him. Finally, when Christ returns, there is consummation of the marriage.

God forbid! Scripture declares that Christ's love for us preceded our commitment to Him. “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His son to be the propitiation for our sins… We love him because he first love us." (1 Jn. 4:10-19) And again, "God demonstrates His own love towards us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Rom. 5:8). Why did He die for us and offer salvation? Out of love (John. 3:16). Therefore His love cannot be the effect of our commitment to Him, but the other way round. When we say 'yes' to Christ's marriage proposal, it is because He has wooed us by His great love through the Holy Spirit (John 6:44), instead of in the modern betrothal method where the husband woos the woman only after she has made a commitment to Him. Christ's relationship to us is the very antithesis of the pattern of modern betrothal.

What About 'Defrauding'?

There are two other verses from Paul's letters that are frequently cited by both courtship and betrothal advocates. One is 1 Thessalonians 4:3-6.

For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God; that no one should take advantage of and defraud his brother in this matter, because the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also forewarned you and testified.

This is the main verse that Lindvall cites as a proof text for betrothal a la Lindvall. Lindvall argues that Paul's words that no man should take advantage of (or 'go beyond' as some translations have it), is referring to the sins of sexual impurity, while the word' 'defraud' is referring to the sin of emotional impurity. "We can all recognize," writes Lindvall, "that 'going beyond' applies to physical impurity. This is important, but it's not all there is. He also said not to 'defraud' one another."[23] Lindvall argues that defrauding applies when a person's emotions are drawn towards someone that they do not end up marrying. They are defrauded because they expected something that was not given. Hence, emotions should only be released after a commitment to marriage.[24]

Surely this is to artificially impose a distinction in Paul's words that the syntax does not allow. The use of the inclusive conjunction, together with both phrases being linked into 'this matter' of sexual immorality, indicate that 'taking advantage' and 'defrauding' are part of the self same thought rather than being a distinction between different forms of sin. Furthermore, since defrauding, by definition, involves deceit, it cannot apply to cases where there is simply emotional attachment that is not culminated in marriage, as is being suggested, but only to those cases where a person flatters or flirts a person who believes they are being genuine when they are not.

The words 'possess his own vessel' Lindvall says mean 'acquire his own wife.' Scholars disagree whether the words 'vessel' are referring to a wife or one's own body. If they refer to a wife (which is unlikely from the context of the passage), it is interesting that the emphasis is not on the father acquiring a spouse but the individual in question. Lindvall claims that the words 'passion of lust' refers to the process of pursuing a partner through romance and dating rather than God's method of betrothal.[25]

But let's not forget that the whole passage - the whole book of 1 Thessalonians in fact - is talking about personal sanctification versus sexual immorality. If this passage is read in the context in which it occurs, it becomes obvious that it is not a passage to unmarried people about how to (or how not to) get a wife. When Paul intended to give specific advice to unmarried people, as in 1st Corinthians 7, he said that that is what he was doing. But 1 Thessalonians 4:3-6 is a passage about the general wrongs of sexual immorality, similar to Paul's exhortation in 1 Corinthians 6:18-20. He emphasizes the seriousness of sexual purity, and the sinfulness of following the passion of lust. Seen in this context, when we read not 'to take advantage of and defraud his brother in this matter', it is clear that 'this matter' is the sexual immorality spoken of in verse 3, and more specifically adultery. To make out that this is a reference to pre-marital emotions is absurd, for if Paul had meant that, he surely would have made it clear. While Paul may not have been the most organized of writers, let's give him more credit than that!

What About Brothers & Sisters?

Another passage that these teachers are quick to point to is Paul’s words in 1 Tim. 5:2, where he instructed Timothy to treat “younger women as sisters, with all purity” and to treat the older woman as if they were mothers. Lindvall argues that this passage indicates that Paul disapproved of romance before engagement.

What did Paul mean by his words to Timothy? Surely he meant that Timothy should show respect to young women as he would his sister, even as he should respect elderly woman as he would his mother. So the application is don’t mess around or flirt because the bottom line in all relationships must be AGAPE love. If Paul had wanted to say that romance was wrong, and that most of the entire human race had been deceived by the romantic inclination, he did not say it here. Further, it is interesting that Paul’s words only make sense if you assume that there was at least some level of interaction between the young men and women.

The Song of Songs

No discussion of love in the Bible can ever be complete without considering the Song of Songs (also called Song of Solomon). If space permitted, I would devote an entire chapter to this beautiful book of the Bible.

The Song of Songs has always held a mysterious excitement for me, going back to my childhood when I was permitted to read all the books of the Bible except this one. Later, when I was grown and attending a Bible college that advocated Gothard/Lindvall type ideas about love, I waited in anticipation for the time when this book would be studied, curious to see how it would be handled. When the book was finally treated, it was not seen as a celebration of the glory and beauty of human love, but understood as only allegory.

I do believe that the Song of Songs can be understood for its allegorical significance in symbolizing the love relationship between Christ and His bride. Though the allegorical interpretation has often been espoused by those who find a straightforward interpretation embarrassing, even shocking, we should not think that the two approaches are mutually exclusive.

There are many different ways of reading the Song of Songs. Those who advocate betrothal have claimed the book for their side, suggesting that it is about a betrothed couple and thus shows how romantic ‘betrothal’ can be. Other scholars, such as Tremper Longman III, have suggested that the book is a collection of disconnected love poetry. By far the most pervasive reading of the book is to understand it as showing a love relationship between king Solomon and a Shulamite woman. Other scholars have suggested an alternative interpretation of the book that is less well known but, in my opinion, more clean and internally consistent. (See Dr. Bullinger’s Companion Bible and C. D. Ginsberg commentary on The Song of Songs.)

According to this alternative interpretation, the book is not about a mutual love between King Solomon and the Shulamite woman at all; rather, it is the story of Solomon attempting to woo the Shulamite away from her shepherd boy lover. The Song of Songs is the story of how, despite enormous pressure, the Shulamite lass remains faithful and true to him until the end when their love is restored. It is a story of the triumph of love, enduring at all costs and victorious in the end. It is a story of a love that must be pursued in secret when it is opposed first (not insignificantly) by familial authority and secondly by the King himself. Space prohibits any further explanation or defense of this way of interpreting the book, but anyone interested in knowing more should consult my article titled ‘A Song of Love.’

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