What age range was 1 Corinthians 7:9 intended for?

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JohnB

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Jul 31, 2022
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Speak for yourself. When I was single, I cared if the woman I married as a virgin. My wife probably did, too. We had both waited until marriage.

My wife and I have had that conversation before-- would you remarry if I died, and what kind of person we'd want around our kids. At the time, I said I would probably remarry. If I did remarry, i would want to marry a virgin or a widow who had only been with her husband.

I wouldn't want to marry a woman who is 'one flesh' with another man. I am not saying someone else cannot marry someone who has fornicated or committed adultery. But I personally would not want to because it wouldn't feel right to me personally as far as my personal tastes and desires go. Also, statistically, previous sexual partners besides the husband correlated with a much higher rate of 'marriage disruption.' If someone has never had sex before marriage, sleeping with someone besides one's husband/wife is a big deal. I'd imagine sleeping with someone outside of marriage is a big deal for a widow/widower who has remained faithful. But if sleeping around was a lifestyle habit before marriage, I wouldn't want to be the victim of someone who fell back into a bad habit.

If finding a virgin or sexually moral widow meant living in Indonesia again, where I spent many years, and where it seems like virginity before marriage is much more common since there is a stigma attached to either male or female losing it outside of marriage, that would be okay with me. I speak the language, and have spent many years there.

It could be you have too narrow a view of 'the purity movement.' I am not sure about it, because I have never been to a church that used the term to describe what they are doing. But I would imagine there are churches that teach and promote marriage, teach fornicators to marry rather than to fornicate, and standard Biblical doctrine on the issue.... in addition to opposing certain aspects of the dating culture.
If it works for you fine, GOD bless you, but for the majority it will not. Jesus met a woman at a well who had been married 5 times and was not married to the man she was living with. That puts a big hole in the purity movement. She would never be accepted by them. She doesn't fit their standards.
 

JohnB

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I got saved in, and attended for about 10 yrs a Calvary Chapel in NJ. I don't ever remember hearing the term "purity Movement".

They taught Biblically sound principles on marriage and sex, just like you'd expect every Church to do.
They did at the main church Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa.
 

MsMediator

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Mar 8, 2022
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I don't want any grown men chasing my high school daughters around. But I also realize it's not a sin for a man to marry a teenage girl.

If their dads are cool with it and they are cool with it, it's okay, I guess, even if society frowns on it. Just from the perspectives of ethics, I think a girl should be physically mature enough to have children.

I occasionally hear comments on TV that imply it is wrong for 60+ year old men to marry 20-something-year-olds who are of the age legal adults. I don't see a moral problem with it. There are practical issues like who would raise the kid if he died.... and why she'd be attracted to a guy so old, and what will it be like for her in 20 years, when she is 45 and he is 85. But I don't see it as a sin issue. I'd be more concerned about someone divorcing his wife and marrying another and committing adultery or marrying her that is divorced and committing adultery, or with fornication. Those are sin issues. Some of those who seem to think this is morally reprehensible are probably women approaching middle age who have difficulty finding a partner who didn't try in their 20s.
I think there is always going to be stigma, at least coming from women, if there is a wide age gap. Usually men who target young women show their distaste for middle age or older women, so the negative reactive from women is expected. Also in many cases these women do not understand why a younger woman would want to marry a much older man, so some negative assumptions are made there as well against younger women.
 

presidente

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May 29, 2013
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I just wonder with the purity movement, and their emphasis on being a virgin before marriage, where does that put the person who has had sex or the person who has been divorced? Instead of pushing purity, they should have been pushing marriage even if you're not a virgin. In hindsight, I now wish I had gotten married in my 20's. Would have saved me years of struggling with being single.
Did you have an opportunity to marry in your 20s that you did not follow up on?
 

presidente

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May 29, 2013
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I know when I went to Calvary Chapel they had a College and Career group, for people between 18 and 30. They had to stop guys 40 and over from entering the room.
Why would they do that, instead of letting the 40 year olds match up with the 30 year olds?
 

Dirtman

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Jul 19, 2022
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Your such a romantic. The ladies really go for romantic men like that.
I have been with my wife from the day we met.
She said she wasnt playing any games, I said I'm serious; in our first conversation. We have been together ever since. Now its 26 years later and we are still married.
Now thats a romantic story.
 

ResidentAlien

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Apr 21, 2021
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It's been awhile since I watched these videos so I'll have to watch them again to get up to speed. I do remember they have a lot of good info on Calvary Chapel.


 

Dirtman

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Jul 19, 2022
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It's been awhile since I watched these videos so I'll have to watch them again to get up to speed. I do remember they have a lot of good info on Calvary Chapel.


About 15 or 20 years ago I was Calvary Chapel. It didn't last long.
 

JohnB

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Jul 31, 2022
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Did you have an opportunity to marry in your 20s that you did not follow up on?
I had opportunities I was too scared to follow thru or was blind to what happened. Lacking experience. Wish I could go back with the experience I have now.
 

presidente

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May 29, 2013
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Because the men in their 40's were hitting on the 18 year old women.
Again, marrying an 18-year-old is not a sin.

I have a duaghter who will soon turn 18. I would rather see her matched up with a 40-year-old never married virgin than a 25-year-old on his 2nd marriage...if those were the only two choices.
 

presidente

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I had opportunities I was too scared to follow thru or was blind to what happened. Lacking experience. Wish I could go back with the experience I have now.
If older church people had encouraged marriage and taught from I Corinthians 7, do you think things would have gone differently?
 

presidente

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May 29, 2013
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I think there is always going to be stigma, at least coming from women, if there is a wide age gap. Usually men who target young women show their distaste for middle age or older women, so the negative reactive from women is expected. Also in many cases these women do not understand why a younger woman would want to marry a much older man, so some negative assumptions are made there as well against younger women.
I can understand. If I had remained single until now, I would want a woman who'd started to wrinkle and sag like me. She'd have to be young and pretty enough for the both of us. I ended up with a woman whose kept a thin fairly youthful look into her 40s...enough beauty on her end for both of us.

If a man hits 40 and wants kids, if he marries a woman his age, the chances are lower, especially if he wants more than one. So he probably needs to marry a younger woman if h we wants kids.
 

presidente

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May 29, 2013
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I have been with my wife from the day we met.
She said she wasnt playing any games, I said I'm serious; in our first conversation. We have been together ever since. Now its 26 years later and we are still married.
Now thats a romantic story.
Did you just exchange disclosures on your first date, go home and read them, meet to plan the wedding, and get married within the much? Was there a bit of courtship to get to know each other at all?

I'd gotten a word from someone that I wasn't supposed to date until met my wife, and I was following that. It was difficult, because how to do you date without knowing the person well yet. I didn't tell my wife that when I met her. I told her 'Let's just be friends.' But that quickly turned into taking my 'friend' out for dinner every night, going to church together, and all kinds of other activities. At some point early on, I believed the Lord was speaking to me in my prayers that she was to be my wife, and I even got some rather detailed information about her that she told me about on our next phone call, which was a confirmation to me that I was hearing right. She told me fairly early on that she didn't want to date until she'd met her future husband, also. So it was 'just friends' for a while, till I felt almost like I was lying by introducing her as a friend, since she was my de facto girlfriend. if I'd realized that people in her country, where we were, would say they were 'friends' then hang around together and eventually announce an engagement, I might not have been concerned with the girlfriend thing.

We figured out after our first conversation that we'd met about a year before. But from that first conversation to the time I proposed was about 5 months minus 5 days. Then maybe a month later month, I went to discuss marriage with her with her parents (which required a long journey) and we married about 10 months after our first conversation.

How long did it take you to propose and marry with the 'disclosure statements' approach?

Btw, I think it does make sense for those looking to marry to be somewhat up front about it. You might want to see how the other party reacts leading up to that in the conversation. But within a few dates, communicating that you are looking for a marriage partner, not just someone to hang out with, and if she realizes you aren't that, to let her know early, and you'll let her know if you don't think you are a good match and try not to lead her on. It could save time, and even money, doing it that way. It's good to meet her dad and ask if he doesn't mine your getting to know her, too. It's sort of old-fashioned, but it shows respect and may make a potential engagement easier later.

There are probably a lot of women who would appreciate this approach, especially after they hit 30. A young woman who wants to marry may not take it that seriously if she feels like she has all the time in the world (a typical deception of youth for both ages.) But if a man lays it out like that, then she may either start thinking seriously about marriage if she is interested in the man, or else if she isn't serious, then she can go off and play elsewhere.
 

presidente

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May 29, 2013
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Well, JohnB, are you getting any single women PMing you, and saying, "Here John, marry me! Marry me! or anything a little less subtle"?

Do you like Asian women? Would you be willing to have someone set you up on a 'meeting'-- a blind date? Koreans do that. You can ask pastors or higher a matchmaker. Japanese pastors might set people up, too. I hear managers do that there.

My wife is from Indonesia, and if you made a good friend in her people-group, at least, you could ask if he had any godly cousins who were single, or friends. That works better in Indonesia than with expats abroad, though, and you'd need to know the lingua franca or a local language unless they happened to have an English-speaking relative. Also, if you had a Filipino coworker, you might ask if he had a cousin, if you are in a very multi-ethnic area that has a community. Lots of collectivist.... not individualistic societies like Anglo societies and western European (especially Germanic type societies) may be more likely to set people up.

Maybe you could take a trip to Poland and do some work with Ukrainian refugees at a church there. They will probably be experiencing an imbalance of male and female population, and there could be a lot of widows already. They may need some time to grieve. But Ukraine's divorce rate is often worse than the US's.

On the other hand, I had a friend who went to a Chinese church, and he said they were very weird about dating within the congregation, so it may depend on the church and the culture of that people-group.
 

PennEd

Senior Member
Apr 22, 2013
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It's been awhile since I watched these videos so I'll have to watch them again to get up to speed. I do remember they have a lot of good info on Calvary Chapel.


Yes. Let's sniff out all heretics and burn them at the stake!

Attacking the brethren seems to be a full time job for a lot of "Christians".
 

ResidentAlien

Well-known member
Apr 21, 2021
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Yes. Let's sniff out all heretics and burn them at the stake!

Attacking the brethren seems to be a full time job for a lot of "Christians".
You probably haven't even watched the videos and don't have a clue what you're talking about. So crawl back under whatever rock you crawled out of and go back to sleep.
 

PennEd

Senior Member
Apr 22, 2013
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You probably haven't even watched the videos and don't have a clue what you're talking about. So crawl back under whatever rock you crawled out of and go back to sleep.
I don't need to watch the videos. I WENT to that Church. Solid, God loving brothers and sisters in Christ.

But as it is ever your pleasure to accuse the Brethren, I'm not at all surprised you salivate at the prospect of tearing them down.


The term "certain men crept in"... always comes to mind with the likes of You.

And the ONLY rock I crawl ON, is that of Jesus Christ. :p


Oh look, I put an emoji at the end of my post! I guess that means we're all good!
 

Dirtman

Well-known member
Jul 19, 2022
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441
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Did you just exchange disclosures on your first date, go home and read them, meet to plan the wedding, and get married within the much? Was there a bit of courtship to get to know each other at all?

I'd gotten a word from someone that I wasn't supposed to date until met my wife, and I was following that. It was difficult, because how to do you date without knowing the person well yet. I didn't tell my wife that when I met her. I told her 'Let's just be friends.' But that quickly turned into taking my 'friend' out for dinner every night, going to church together, and all kinds of other activities. At some point early on, I believed the Lord was speaking to me in my prayers that she was to be my wife, and I even got some rather detailed information about her that she told me about on our next phone call, which was a confirmation to me that I was hearing right. She told me fairly early on that she didn't want to date until she'd met her future husband, also. So it was 'just friends' for a while, till I felt almost like I was lying by introducing her as a friend, since she was my de facto girlfriend. if I'd realized that people in her country, where we were, would say they were 'friends' then hang around together and eventually announce an engagement, I might not have been concerned with the girlfriend thing.

We figured out after our first conversation that we'd met about a year before. But from that first conversation to the time I proposed was about 5 months minus 5 days. Then maybe a month later month, I went to discuss marriage with her with her parents (which required a long journey) and we married about 10 months after our first conversation.

How long did it take you to propose and marry with the 'disclosure statements' approach?

Btw, I think it does make sense for those looking to marry to be somewhat up front about it. You might want to see how the other party reacts leading up to that in the conversation. But within a few dates, communicating that you are looking for a marriage partner, not just someone to hang out with, and if she realizes you aren't that, to let her know early, and you'll let her know if you don't think you are a good match and try not to lead her on. It could save time, and even money, doing it that way. It's good to meet her dad and ask if he doesn't mine your getting to know her, too. It's sort of old-fashioned, but it shows respect and may make a potential engagement easier later.

There are probably a lot of women who would appreciate this approach, especially after they hit 30. A young woman who wants to marry may not take it that seriously if she feels like she has all the time in the world (a typical deception of youth for both ages.) But if a man lays it out like that, then she may either start thinking seriously about marriage if she is interested in the man, or else if she isn't serious, then she can go off and play elsewhere.
The evening we met. We talked.(complete story and disclosure and what we were looking for and expectations) We didnt write it down. After that We dated about a year before getting married. We both knew our goal in dating was to get married so we were exclusive from that evening.
 

ResidentAlien

Well-known member
Apr 21, 2021
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I don't need to watch the videos. I WENT to that Church. Solid, God loving brothers and sisters in Christ.

But as it is ever your pleasure to accuse the Brethren, I'm not at all surprised you salivate at the prospect of tearing them down.


The term "certain men crept in"... always comes to mind with the likes of You.

And the ONLY rock I crawl ON, is that of Jesus Christ. :p


Oh look, I put an emoji at the end of my post! I guess that means we're all good!
Sure, I'll accept criticism from someone who thinks the Mormon loving heretic Dallas Jenkins' show The Chosen has any kind of redeeming value. Yeah, bring on some more criticism.