Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Good Reads - Book Recommendation

"I Kissed Dating Goodbye" by Joshua Harris
Let's stop doing relationships like the world. It's time to be the peculiar people that God has called us to be.
 
"Camp is not a time to develop dating relationships." The echo of this phrase still rings in my ears. It is a constant refrain during our pre-camp training of our Junior Counselor guys and it is the cold water thrown on them when we see their hormones causing a convenient adolescent dementia throughout the summer. Honestly there's not a whole lot of interaction with girls during the summer, but that just makes the girls we do encounter all the more interesting when they make their brief appearance on the camp stage.

In all candidness, this phrase should be applied gratuitously to every context in which our young men and women find themselves during the teen years. Premature dating relationships are one of the biggest distractions and sources of problems with which I see the young men I disciple tangling. Dating prior to their readiness to physically, spiritually, and emotionally provide for a woman is unhelpful to their fight for purity and is totally unfair to the young ladies whose hearts


are often the biggest losers when the inevitable break-up takes place.

It's unfortunate that Joshua Harris' book "I Kissed Dating Goodbye" is so controversial in Christian circles. In this book he takes a noble crack at dismantling the contemporary approach to relationships that Christians have adopted from the world and offers an alternative vision. Should this vision be adopted wholesale without discernment of particular situations? ... of course not. But I dare say that his vision is far closer to the Biblical vision of relationships than what 99% of Christians are embracing today. Pick the book up, read it with open ears, ask yourself the hard questions, and where it finds it's footing in Biblical principles be prepared to reject the burdensome baggage that the world has so cunningly convinced us we should bear along with them.  
Josh Harris on
Josh Harris on "I Kissed Dating Goodbye"

Let's stop doing relationship like the world. It's time to be the peculiar people that God has called us to be.

No comments:

Post a Comment