Notes From the Reading Chair-Courtship and Biblical Dating

I recently finished reading Doug Wilson's book on courtship (or biblical dating if you prefer), Her Hand in Marriage. It is a most beautifully balanced book, so balanced that I'm amazed it's not more widely read.

Wilson begins with this much needed caution about the distinction between principles and methods:

"Because our contemporary practice of recreational dating has failed so miserably, many Christians are hungry for alternative methods. 'Just tell us what to do!' In this arena, as elsewhere, the Christian life is approached as though it were a paint-by-numbers kit. But nowhere is this kind of 'connect the dots' thinking better calculated to bring disaster than in the realm of courtship. We are men and women with sons and daughters, not social engineers playing with interchangeable, interconnecting tinker toys. This simplistic but destructive mentality is revealed in questions like, 'How man times must a young man come over before the young girl's father should allow him to sit next next to her at the dinner table?' The author of this small book frankly confesses that the answer is none of his business, and that he doesn't really care. Seek to understand principle, and appropriate methods will follow." (emphasis mine)

I learned much from Wilson's chapter on the authority of parents as he addresses issues such as whether couples are really married just because they've acted like they're married and whether or not sexual immorality was a capital crime in Israel.

He goes on to address preparing sons and preparing daughters for courtship as well as the culmination and details of courtship. This is good stuff. Stuff you want to be reading now when your Littles are Littles. (But if you wait until you have a Little that's turned into an 18 year old Big, like I did, that's good, too. Just read it, and praise God for the grace that does cover those areas that you wish you had done differently.)

If you refuse to read it because it's written by Doug Wilson, then calmly remove the chip off your shoulder so you don't miss the gem of a book among many courtship duds. If you've passed by this book because you think it's just another compendium of rules, then read the above quote again and know that Wilson stays true to that assertion throughout the book.

"So the time a person spends when he is single should be time spent in preparation for marriage. This is important even if he never gets married. This is because biblical preparation for marriage is nothing more than learning to follow Jesus Christ and to love one's neighbor. In other words, preparation for Christian marriage is basically the same as preparation for Christian living. Christians are to prepare for marriage by learning self-denial, subduing their pride, and putting their neighbor first. Once they learn to love God and love their neighbor, they are prepared to enter into the covenant of marriage with one of their neighbors."
~Doug Wilson

With love,
Trisha