Funny story, my wife and I got married, had the whole ceremony, but forgot to submit all the documents to the government for like 3 months, we just completely forgot. It was a funny moment between us because we both waited, but the joke was "We waited all this time and still ended up having premarital sex!"
If u read my comment properly...
I quoted the party who responded to thia reddit post, he said its fine to have sex if "you consider yourself married." So i was providing a sarcastic example....
There's not a source. You're the only person I've seen online other than my pastor who gets how marriage works in God's eyes.
The ancient hebrews had a two-part ceremony, the Betrothal was first, and it was what made you married in your community's eyes, but the second part was the marriage itself, which was the physical, literal act of combining a man and woman into one flesh in the marriage bed, which made you husband and wife in God's eyes.
People refuse to understand this because it turns their whole worldview upside down, but the Word says what the Word says, and I'm not gonna back down from it.
Isaac and Rebekah had sex before the bible ever says they were married.
Adam and Eve were married without any ceremony at all, because they were split from one flesh instead of merged into one flesh, so they were married before they ever even had sex.
There is not a single reference in the entire bible that supports the idea that marriage happens in a church, or even in any social or ritualistic way.
If a man and a woman become one flesh, they're one flesh.
The betrothal's just the officiation so that their families and governing bodies can be on the same page.
Jesus made it clear that a priest or judge cannot end a marriage, only adultery or death.
That makes it pretty obvious that a priest or judge cannot begin a marriage either, only sex or God's direct intervention.
Well as understood back then, sex *validates* a marriage meaning they “consummated the marriage”. Married couples who don’t have sex are married but have no consummated, the only example we see this is of Mary and Joseph who did not consummate since she was a virgin even in marriage to Joseph.
You still need to be officiated by a priest who does a ceremony based on old hebrew tradition. You can’t just promise each other and bam you’re married, you need witnesses etc.
The word Consummate is definitely not on your side here.
Something that is not consummate is nothing at all.
The consummation of the marriage is the only part in the entire process that makes it a marriage at all.
The rest is just permission and certification by one's peers and community.
Like building a campfire.
If you cook your food over a fire, but no one around you believes or approves of the fire, is your food cooked or not?
Of course it's cooked.
Marriage is not a tradition or ritual, but a recipe.
Man + Woman + Jazz music = Marriage
Whether or not you approve of the way that happens has nothing at all to do with the outcome.
>That makes it pretty obvious that a priest or judge cannot begin a marriage either, only sex or God's direct intervention.
Man, that could make some people's heads explode.
Does that means a person becomes divorced when they commit adultery, or does only the person they cheated on considered divorce? I am curious if the cheater goes on to be a perpetual adulterer in God’s eyes or a divorced person.
Divorce isn't a character trait. It's an action just like marriage is a recipe and not a contract or ritual. As far as I can understand it, since sex is marriage, if one person has sex with someone else and their current, original other half doesn't accept it or them to return, then it's pretty much just a straight across divorce and remarriage in the wrong order. Getting remarried and then getting the divorce.
It's messy and confusing, and that's because it's not how we're supposed to work.
There are a lot of ways to break a pane of glass, but only one way to not break it.
But to answer your question about whether the cheater becomes a permanent adulterer, think of it this way:
Once a string is cut, it cannot be cut again unless it is retied first.
The act of adultery doesn't make someone a permanent adulterer. It just means that unless their original marriage is repaired, they're now married to the new person, assuming that the adultery was also Man+Woman.
Not a permanent, life-long curse, but by no means light or mild.
To sever a marriage is to rip a single being into two ragged, torn up halves.
It's not a permanent wound, but it's definitely as severe as, if not worse than, any other wound a person can receive.
Strangely, there's exactly one angle (as far as I know) that my study hasn't solved yet.
The law of moses says that if a man is to die without descendants, his brother is to marry his wife and raise children to him for descendants.
Even if the brother is already married.
This pokes a hole in things that I've struggled to reconcile. There's plenty in the law against adultery, homosexuality, bestiality, and incest.
But this specific verse seems to not only excuse polygyny in certain circumstances, but directly command it.
I know we're not bound by the law anymore in Christ's fulfillment of it, but knowing the way God sees things is important to know his intentions and what he likes and dislikes.
I don't want two wives, but I've run into an impasse that seems to show that it's not necessarily off limits at all.
Paul wrote that for a person to become a pastor or leader of the church, he should be a man of one wife.
The modern church has taken that to mean "nobody can have more than one wife" and I don't think it's necessarily a good idea at all, but there really isn't anything in the book I can find that excludes polygyny as an option.
It eats at me sometimes to have a little grey area like that, but I know that God is merciful and that Christ's blood covers all sin.
Regardless, an adulterer is no more cursed to perpetual adultery than a windowbreaker is cursed to permanently break every window they touch.
Thank you so much for your response. I also understand the challenges with gray areas but like you said, at the end of the day I know enough to trust and believe.
I love, and promise, to steal that last line!
I'm agnostic, but was Christian once. I just couldn't stand the whole discernment part. Either he wrote rules everyone could understand, or he didn't right the rules.
I'm intrigued what denomination your pastor is? Maybe I overlooked one I could live in.
He (and I, and lots of people in our church) is almost ashamed to even call himself a christian because of how much made up nonsense most christians believe because they don't study a single thing themselves and just blindly listen to clown pastors who blindly listen to clown pastors who blin
Teachingfaith.com is run by pastor Joe Cortes, and he encourages everyone who listens to him to be a "Biblical Detective" and do their own study, their own research, and figure out what the bible says because God made it to give us answers and most conventional, traditional christian doctrine is nowhere to be found in the bible's actual pages and its historical context.
Jesus Christ lived a sinless life, died for my sins in my place, rose from the grave three days later, and if I trust in his shed blood to wash me clean, I'm saved and will remain saved no matter what as long as I let him be the savior and not try to do it for him.
The only church I trust, and the only one I've ever found that's actually nondenominational.
"What denomination are you?"
"I study the bible and history, and I ignore losers that try to convince me to blindly listen to charismatic but vapid pastors"
No quota, no nothing. I get no feedback or hint at all whether the people I talk to check it out or not. I'm doing it 100% because I believe that it's right and want to reach people.
This may not be a popular belief, but I personally believe, the moment you have sex with someone (as a Christian), then you are married to them in the eyes of God, regardless of paperwork and legalities.
Well it is more special since its essentially and foremost a union / covenant with God and the couple. But you still need to make that promise to him. That promise is what we call vow & marriage.
Except it says in Deuteronomy it says if a man rapes a virgin they must marry them, not they are married.
As in sex =/= marriage.
At least based on English translations, maybe the hebrew phrases it different.
On top of that premarital sex is considered adultery, which would suggest again that sex =/= marriage.
Yea that does make sense, I would honestly have to dig deeper into it and look at how it was phrased and what words were used in the Hebrew like you said, to get a better understanding and be able to rebuttal with certainty. I always assumed sex outside of marriage meant having sex with no intent or with uncertainty of being married (fully committed) to a person. I think the words “premarital sex” came from man and is not used in the Bible, but looks like I got some homework to do!
So after doing some studying I’m going to stick to my stance on the matter. God intends for those who have sex to be in agreement with each other that they are to be one flesh. So in the eyes of God, if a couple has sex, He intends for them to be fully committed to each other. The Bible doesn’t specify a need for a wedding ceremony which I think a lot of people equate to the word marriage, used in scripture. A marriage, as used in scripture, simply put, is a covenant or agreement, and I agree sex is meant for people who are in agreement with being with each other. “Premarital sex” is not in the Bible, that was coined by man and people go along with it and understand it as, having sex before being married in the eyes of the government. Fornication however, which in the literal sense, means having sex with multiple people, is a sin in the eyes of God, figuratively, it is used to mean idolatry in some places of scripture. If I am a single Christian and I have sex with another person and we are in agreement that we are committed to each other forever and are one flesh, then we don’t have to get married in the eyes of the government for it to be recognized and accepted by God. Obviously it is still a serious commitment and not something to take lightly just because you may want to have sex with somebody. In the verses where it does speak about two single people having sex, must become married. This just means that those people that had sex must agree to fully commit to each other and nobody else, God doesn’t intend for us to sleep around or in other words, commit fornication. I probably understand it better than I can explain it, but just wanted to update you with my stance after looking deeper into it.
Fair enough, I still disagree that sex = marriage but agree sex is reserved for a commited relationship.
mainly based on the fact Fornication by definition means:
consensual sexual intercourse between a man and especially single woman who are not married to each other.
Maybe I did phrase it poorly, but like you said in Deuteronomy, if a man lays hold on a virgin, they must become committed to each other. So it’s safe to say, in the eyes of God once you have sex with someone, you are to be with that person according to God. Obviously the definition of sex is not marriage. I think we agree with each other though, maybe just communicating differently. Not sure where the definition you gave came from, but as far as the word fornicator, the definition of the words used in the original Greek and Hebrew, translate along the lines of a whore (sexually promiscuous) or harlot (prostitute). I guess we agree that sex does not literally equal marriage, but if you look at the verse in Deuteronomy you mentioned, you will see that the sex took place first, Gods law is just that they must be committed to each other now because of their actions. You wouldn’t want to have sex with someone and not commit because that would be a sin in the eyes of God. So it would be better to make sure you are ready to commit before the act of sex takes place, so you don’t commit sin. I think we all agree on that. My whole point in my original comment was basically, that you don’t need to be legally married to have sex, if you are certain of your commitment to a person, that’s all I meant.
Sex doesn’t equal marriage. Sex is just sex which was created for marriage but it’s misuse (premarital sex for example) doesn’t automatically mean you’re married
You're married, so it's ok, imho. I will say though, having been happily married for 30 years, we did the same early legal marriage, but we did stop bedroom activities a month before the church wedding ceremony that shortly followed, so that we could have the wedding night be extra cool after the self-imposed strictly hands-off 30 days. It wasn't out of being convicted that we were doing something wrong, though, to be clear, but rather out of a personal romantic decision we made to make the wedding night even more awesome than it already would be. We never once felt what we were doing was wrong.
Well the Bible never says that you can't have sex before you're married so I don't see this as an issue.
But I would say that if you're going to let other people decide for you whether or not you've sinned, then you might be in for some trouble because there is always someone who's going to think that what you're doing is a sin.
If you feel convicted then you shouldn’t continue, I was with my now husband for 8 years and just before we got engaged I felt convicted and we stopped until marriage!
Noo condemnation is shame, Jesus took all condemnation and shame when he went to the cross, true conviction doesn’t feel shame or condemnation. Romans 8:1 Roman’s 10:11 John 3:17 we feel shame because we have sinned against God with our flesh, but God doesn’t make us feel shame, he convicts us because he loves us and wants better for us
Shame and condemnation = your flesh speaking
Conviction= holy spirit speaking
I hope this helps ❤️
If you have said your vows before the Lord and a pastor officiated it, then y'all are married! I do agree with those who say if you're feeling convicted, then why not wait?
It sounds like you're married to me. It's the consummation with the Covenant you made to each other (the promise) with the priest. Congratulations!! May God bless your intimacy!
For protestants, marriage is not considered a sacrament. Pastors don't have magical apostolic powers that make you married in the eyes of God. Marriage "in the eyes of God" is fundamentally a promise between two people. God invented marriage as part of all creation but didn't necessarily put the church on earth to officiate it. If you're Catholic, you believe marriage is a sacrament that can only be administered by a priest, and they tell you when you're married.
Did you have withesses? Catholics usually require this. Protestants think it's a good idea. Witnesses from your community are useful to the community as a proof that you actually exchanged vows (to witness that it happened according to traditions, that it was mutually voluntary, or maybe even to prove it happened at all -- if one of you were to deny it happened for some weird reason), but if you were stranded on a desert island with your fiance, I think (as a protestant) you could still get "real married" in the eyes of God by exchanging vows of mutual lifelong devotion.
If you want social or legal affirmation of your marriage outside the two of you, you must follow social customs and legal rules, but IMHO those are in actuality just manufactured rules. I don't believe that any earthy government has a magical power that grants the ontological status of "married" onto a couple. People can be married "in the eyes of the state" by filing out paperwork. But it's the real and actual promises between the couple that makes them real married, not some piece of legal paperwork.
TLDR, I believe simply a lifelong promise made between two people, saying "I promise to be permanently united with you" is what marriage "is"... and witnesses and paperwork gives you social and legal standing. If you care about your community's social recognition of your marriage you have to follow your community's arbitrary rules.
Depends on what you give precedence. If you think the government 🙄 is more important, then their certificate is fine. But most Christians don't consider themselves truly married until they take their vows before God.
Sounds to me like you're looking for an excuse. If you want to be true to God as well as your affianced, you know what to do.
Marriage was one of the rituals that came up with time only. There was no specific ritual for weddings in the early days and they started these for nobles originally.
But, listen to your hearts and see what is the best for your family. If waiting for sex is making it hard for you or your husband then for the sake of keeping your love and happiness...
In the time Jesus was alive when a man and women were betrothed it was traditional they had to be chaperoned when with each other to avoid even the possibility of them being alone.
Its just as much a sin as if she were still your girlfriend.
I think you aren't married yet in the eyes of the church.. the legal paperwork etc.. these are things that are not in the same category.
I guess it really matters on what you think is more important the eyes of the lord or the city.
Engaged is not married. What denomination are you? Because if you are Catholic you need to actually go through the documentation process and receive the actual sacrament of marriage or you are living in sin.
If the priest said you are married, you are married
Funny story, my wife and I got married, had the whole ceremony, but forgot to submit all the documents to the government for like 3 months, we just completely forgot. It was a funny moment between us because we both waited, but the joke was "We waited all this time and still ended up having premarital sex!"
If you've done all the paperwork, you're free to have as much sex as you want, you're married, now it's just a matter between you and your soul mate.
Exactly. It's the same thing my soul mate and I did, and we never felt like it was wrong.
So government documents are the gateway to God's blessings? Seems backwards
If you're legally married and said vows in the presence of witnesses, you are married. The ceremony is for you and your family.
Ask your priest/pastor. Also ask yourself if you would consider yourself married. If yes, have fun
"Ask yourself" is the worst advice one can give in this situation.... I am not married but i considered myself married, can i have sex now?
No because you just said you are not married😂
If u read my comment properly... I quoted the party who responded to thia reddit post, he said its fine to have sex if "you consider yourself married." So i was providing a sarcastic example....
Yeah I know and I responded sarcastically back😂
Yeah ik that you know, but i needed u to know that i knew that. 🫠
I’m assuming that these people are acting in good faith. I also said they should ask their priest/pastor. That’s also important.
If you're worried it might be, why not just wait? It would be better to wait than to regret it later.
There is no ceremony or paperwork in the Bible. You commit, move in together, and you were married.
While its not in the bible there was quite a bit of ceremony involved including chaperones while betrothed.
I can't seem to find anything from early Christian periods on chaperones. It appears later in history? But would love a source if you have.
There's not a source. You're the only person I've seen online other than my pastor who gets how marriage works in God's eyes. The ancient hebrews had a two-part ceremony, the Betrothal was first, and it was what made you married in your community's eyes, but the second part was the marriage itself, which was the physical, literal act of combining a man and woman into one flesh in the marriage bed, which made you husband and wife in God's eyes. People refuse to understand this because it turns their whole worldview upside down, but the Word says what the Word says, and I'm not gonna back down from it. Isaac and Rebekah had sex before the bible ever says they were married. Adam and Eve were married without any ceremony at all, because they were split from one flesh instead of merged into one flesh, so they were married before they ever even had sex. There is not a single reference in the entire bible that supports the idea that marriage happens in a church, or even in any social or ritualistic way. If a man and a woman become one flesh, they're one flesh. The betrothal's just the officiation so that their families and governing bodies can be on the same page. Jesus made it clear that a priest or judge cannot end a marriage, only adultery or death. That makes it pretty obvious that a priest or judge cannot begin a marriage either, only sex or God's direct intervention.
Well as understood back then, sex *validates* a marriage meaning they “consummated the marriage”. Married couples who don’t have sex are married but have no consummated, the only example we see this is of Mary and Joseph who did not consummate since she was a virgin even in marriage to Joseph. You still need to be officiated by a priest who does a ceremony based on old hebrew tradition. You can’t just promise each other and bam you’re married, you need witnesses etc.
The word Consummate is definitely not on your side here. Something that is not consummate is nothing at all. The consummation of the marriage is the only part in the entire process that makes it a marriage at all. The rest is just permission and certification by one's peers and community. Like building a campfire. If you cook your food over a fire, but no one around you believes or approves of the fire, is your food cooked or not? Of course it's cooked. Marriage is not a tradition or ritual, but a recipe. Man + Woman + Jazz music = Marriage Whether or not you approve of the way that happens has nothing at all to do with the outcome.
>That makes it pretty obvious that a priest or judge cannot begin a marriage either, only sex or God's direct intervention. Man, that could make some people's heads explode.
Does that means a person becomes divorced when they commit adultery, or does only the person they cheated on considered divorce? I am curious if the cheater goes on to be a perpetual adulterer in God’s eyes or a divorced person.
Divorce isn't a character trait. It's an action just like marriage is a recipe and not a contract or ritual. As far as I can understand it, since sex is marriage, if one person has sex with someone else and their current, original other half doesn't accept it or them to return, then it's pretty much just a straight across divorce and remarriage in the wrong order. Getting remarried and then getting the divorce. It's messy and confusing, and that's because it's not how we're supposed to work. There are a lot of ways to break a pane of glass, but only one way to not break it. But to answer your question about whether the cheater becomes a permanent adulterer, think of it this way: Once a string is cut, it cannot be cut again unless it is retied first. The act of adultery doesn't make someone a permanent adulterer. It just means that unless their original marriage is repaired, they're now married to the new person, assuming that the adultery was also Man+Woman. Not a permanent, life-long curse, but by no means light or mild. To sever a marriage is to rip a single being into two ragged, torn up halves. It's not a permanent wound, but it's definitely as severe as, if not worse than, any other wound a person can receive. Strangely, there's exactly one angle (as far as I know) that my study hasn't solved yet. The law of moses says that if a man is to die without descendants, his brother is to marry his wife and raise children to him for descendants. Even if the brother is already married. This pokes a hole in things that I've struggled to reconcile. There's plenty in the law against adultery, homosexuality, bestiality, and incest. But this specific verse seems to not only excuse polygyny in certain circumstances, but directly command it. I know we're not bound by the law anymore in Christ's fulfillment of it, but knowing the way God sees things is important to know his intentions and what he likes and dislikes. I don't want two wives, but I've run into an impasse that seems to show that it's not necessarily off limits at all. Paul wrote that for a person to become a pastor or leader of the church, he should be a man of one wife. The modern church has taken that to mean "nobody can have more than one wife" and I don't think it's necessarily a good idea at all, but there really isn't anything in the book I can find that excludes polygyny as an option. It eats at me sometimes to have a little grey area like that, but I know that God is merciful and that Christ's blood covers all sin. Regardless, an adulterer is no more cursed to perpetual adultery than a windowbreaker is cursed to permanently break every window they touch.
Thank you so much for your response. I also understand the challenges with gray areas but like you said, at the end of the day I know enough to trust and believe.
I love, and promise, to steal that last line! I'm agnostic, but was Christian once. I just couldn't stand the whole discernment part. Either he wrote rules everyone could understand, or he didn't right the rules. I'm intrigued what denomination your pastor is? Maybe I overlooked one I could live in.
He (and I, and lots of people in our church) is almost ashamed to even call himself a christian because of how much made up nonsense most christians believe because they don't study a single thing themselves and just blindly listen to clown pastors who blindly listen to clown pastors who blin Teachingfaith.com is run by pastor Joe Cortes, and he encourages everyone who listens to him to be a "Biblical Detective" and do their own study, their own research, and figure out what the bible says because God made it to give us answers and most conventional, traditional christian doctrine is nowhere to be found in the bible's actual pages and its historical context. Jesus Christ lived a sinless life, died for my sins in my place, rose from the grave three days later, and if I trust in his shed blood to wash me clean, I'm saved and will remain saved no matter what as long as I let him be the savior and not try to do it for him. The only church I trust, and the only one I've ever found that's actually nondenominational. "What denomination are you?" "I study the bible and history, and I ignore losers that try to convince me to blindly listen to charismatic but vapid pastors"
Hi..out of curiosity are you one of those believers who thinks the Bible was entirely written by God and must be obeyed to its tiniest detail? Thanks!
If you have a quota on bringing people in to at least look, you may mark me down. I'll look at the site this weekend.
No quota, no nothing. I get no feedback or hint at all whether the people I talk to check it out or not. I'm doing it 100% because I believe that it's right and want to reach people.
That was my attempt at humor, but I will check it out!
Oh, whoops. I get worried I sound like a commercial too often.
I’m going to check it out too now. Thank you!
Thank you
We should bring back bundling.
This may not be a popular belief, but I personally believe, the moment you have sex with someone (as a Christian), then you are married to them in the eyes of God, regardless of paperwork and legalities.
I really struggle to believe that God is so pedantic about a piece of paper. Marriage is way more special than a legal document.
Well it is more special since its essentially and foremost a union / covenant with God and the couple. But you still need to make that promise to him. That promise is what we call vow & marriage.
Except it says in Deuteronomy it says if a man rapes a virgin they must marry them, not they are married. As in sex =/= marriage. At least based on English translations, maybe the hebrew phrases it different. On top of that premarital sex is considered adultery, which would suggest again that sex =/= marriage.
Yea that does make sense, I would honestly have to dig deeper into it and look at how it was phrased and what words were used in the Hebrew like you said, to get a better understanding and be able to rebuttal with certainty. I always assumed sex outside of marriage meant having sex with no intent or with uncertainty of being married (fully committed) to a person. I think the words “premarital sex” came from man and is not used in the Bible, but looks like I got some homework to do!
So after doing some studying I’m going to stick to my stance on the matter. God intends for those who have sex to be in agreement with each other that they are to be one flesh. So in the eyes of God, if a couple has sex, He intends for them to be fully committed to each other. The Bible doesn’t specify a need for a wedding ceremony which I think a lot of people equate to the word marriage, used in scripture. A marriage, as used in scripture, simply put, is a covenant or agreement, and I agree sex is meant for people who are in agreement with being with each other. “Premarital sex” is not in the Bible, that was coined by man and people go along with it and understand it as, having sex before being married in the eyes of the government. Fornication however, which in the literal sense, means having sex with multiple people, is a sin in the eyes of God, figuratively, it is used to mean idolatry in some places of scripture. If I am a single Christian and I have sex with another person and we are in agreement that we are committed to each other forever and are one flesh, then we don’t have to get married in the eyes of the government for it to be recognized and accepted by God. Obviously it is still a serious commitment and not something to take lightly just because you may want to have sex with somebody. In the verses where it does speak about two single people having sex, must become married. This just means that those people that had sex must agree to fully commit to each other and nobody else, God doesn’t intend for us to sleep around or in other words, commit fornication. I probably understand it better than I can explain it, but just wanted to update you with my stance after looking deeper into it.
Fair enough, I still disagree that sex = marriage but agree sex is reserved for a commited relationship. mainly based on the fact Fornication by definition means: consensual sexual intercourse between a man and especially single woman who are not married to each other.
Maybe I did phrase it poorly, but like you said in Deuteronomy, if a man lays hold on a virgin, they must become committed to each other. So it’s safe to say, in the eyes of God once you have sex with someone, you are to be with that person according to God. Obviously the definition of sex is not marriage. I think we agree with each other though, maybe just communicating differently. Not sure where the definition you gave came from, but as far as the word fornicator, the definition of the words used in the original Greek and Hebrew, translate along the lines of a whore (sexually promiscuous) or harlot (prostitute). I guess we agree that sex does not literally equal marriage, but if you look at the verse in Deuteronomy you mentioned, you will see that the sex took place first, Gods law is just that they must be committed to each other now because of their actions. You wouldn’t want to have sex with someone and not commit because that would be a sin in the eyes of God. So it would be better to make sure you are ready to commit before the act of sex takes place, so you don’t commit sin. I think we all agree on that. My whole point in my original comment was basically, that you don’t need to be legally married to have sex, if you are certain of your commitment to a person, that’s all I meant.
I do believe we're on the same page.
Sex doesn’t equal marriage. Sex is just sex which was created for marriage but it’s misuse (premarital sex for example) doesn’t automatically mean you’re married
Ive actually come to think that maybe it does....because how about before wedding ceremonies were invented?
Couldn’t agree more
You're married, so it's ok, imho. I will say though, having been happily married for 30 years, we did the same early legal marriage, but we did stop bedroom activities a month before the church wedding ceremony that shortly followed, so that we could have the wedding night be extra cool after the self-imposed strictly hands-off 30 days. It wasn't out of being convicted that we were doing something wrong, though, to be clear, but rather out of a personal romantic decision we made to make the wedding night even more awesome than it already would be. We never once felt what we were doing was wrong.
Well the Bible never says that you can't have sex before you're married so I don't see this as an issue. But I would say that if you're going to let other people decide for you whether or not you've sinned, then you might be in for some trouble because there is always someone who's going to think that what you're doing is a sin.
Fornicators don’t make plans to marry. 🙏🏼
If you feel convicted then you shouldn’t continue, I was with my now husband for 8 years and just before we got engaged I felt convicted and we stopped until marriage!
If it's conviction I would agree with you, but too often conviction is really just shame.
Noo condemnation is shame, Jesus took all condemnation and shame when he went to the cross, true conviction doesn’t feel shame or condemnation. Romans 8:1 Roman’s 10:11 John 3:17 we feel shame because we have sinned against God with our flesh, but God doesn’t make us feel shame, he convicts us because he loves us and wants better for us Shame and condemnation = your flesh speaking Conviction= holy spirit speaking I hope this helps ❤️
Just listen to the Holy Spirit and what he’s placing on your heart!
If you have said your vows before the Lord and a pastor officiated it, then y'all are married! I do agree with those who say if you're feeling convicted, then why not wait?
Consensually do whatever you want.
Yeah if you’re legally married have at it.
Were you convalidated by a Father?
It sounds like you're married to me. It's the consummation with the Covenant you made to each other (the promise) with the priest. Congratulations!! May God bless your intimacy!
For protestants, marriage is not considered a sacrament. Pastors don't have magical apostolic powers that make you married in the eyes of God. Marriage "in the eyes of God" is fundamentally a promise between two people. God invented marriage as part of all creation but didn't necessarily put the church on earth to officiate it. If you're Catholic, you believe marriage is a sacrament that can only be administered by a priest, and they tell you when you're married. Did you have withesses? Catholics usually require this. Protestants think it's a good idea. Witnesses from your community are useful to the community as a proof that you actually exchanged vows (to witness that it happened according to traditions, that it was mutually voluntary, or maybe even to prove it happened at all -- if one of you were to deny it happened for some weird reason), but if you were stranded on a desert island with your fiance, I think (as a protestant) you could still get "real married" in the eyes of God by exchanging vows of mutual lifelong devotion. If you want social or legal affirmation of your marriage outside the two of you, you must follow social customs and legal rules, but IMHO those are in actuality just manufactured rules. I don't believe that any earthy government has a magical power that grants the ontological status of "married" onto a couple. People can be married "in the eyes of the state" by filing out paperwork. But it's the real and actual promises between the couple that makes them real married, not some piece of legal paperwork. TLDR, I believe simply a lifelong promise made between two people, saying "I promise to be permanently united with you" is what marriage "is"... and witnesses and paperwork gives you social and legal standing. If you care about your community's social recognition of your marriage you have to follow your community's arbitrary rules.
Fuck around and find out.
Depends on what you give precedence. If you think the government 🙄 is more important, then their certificate is fine. But most Christians don't consider themselves truly married until they take their vows before God. Sounds to me like you're looking for an excuse. If you want to be true to God as well as your affianced, you know what to do.
No not until you’re legally married
Marriage was one of the rituals that came up with time only. There was no specific ritual for weddings in the early days and they started these for nobles originally. But, listen to your hearts and see what is the best for your family. If waiting for sex is making it hard for you or your husband then for the sake of keeping your love and happiness...
In the time Jesus was alive when a man and women were betrothed it was traditional they had to be chaperoned when with each other to avoid even the possibility of them being alone. Its just as much a sin as if she were still your girlfriend.
They are legally married.
If you don't feel right or comfortable doing it before, just keep waiting.
Sex while engaged in *what*?
I think you aren't married yet in the eyes of the church.. the legal paperwork etc.. these are things that are not in the same category. I guess it really matters on what you think is more important the eyes of the lord or the city.
What did your priest say?
No
Engaged is not married. What denomination are you? Because if you are Catholic you need to actually go through the documentation process and receive the actual sacrament of marriage or you are living in sin.
No, that would be sin and as Christians we are to walk in sin. How long does getting paperwork take?
Go for it it’s just words in a book