Occasionally people email me asking for my opinion on various personal or church issues. I recently received the following question which I have reprinted below, followed by my response.
EMAILED QUESTION:
Bob, if you had a daughter living with a guy without marriage, how would you respond? This is her second such relationship. She professes to be a Christian as does her partner. What is the proper attitude on your part toward this daughter, who is unwilling to depart from this lifestyle?
ANSWER:
It’s sad to see so many youth who grew up in the church get sucked into the temptations of this age. It’s heartbreaking, but Jesus predicted that would happen. He said, “Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold” (Matthew 24:12).
If I had a daughter who was living with a man who was not her husband, I’d be very disappointed, but I hope I’d handle the situation as Biblically and lovingly as possible.
Matthew 18:15-17 tells us to go to the fallen Christian individually and explain our concern. (Galatians 6:1 tells us to do this gently…not in anger.) If they refuse to listen we are to take one or two others who agree with us and confront a second time. If they still refuse to listen and they are members of the church, the church is to be informed (elders) and the church leaders are to follow up.
Jesus said, “If they refuse to listen even to the church then treat them as you would a pagan or tax collector” (Matthew 18:17). That sounds harsh, but how do we treat a pagan or non-believer? We treat them with kindness and gentleness, hoping to influence them for Christ. The difference is you don’t treat them as a fellow-believer. Most young women who grew up in a Godly family and the church will sense the difference.
In 1 Corinthians 5 the Apostle Paul suggested the church should withdraw fellowship from a believer who was living in flagrant immorality. That becomes more complicated when it applies to a family member. I think you need to maintain contact with a family member and treat them as you would a son or daughter who had never become a Christian. By that I mean that you still have fellowship with them and love them.
Three other thoughts come to mind. First, once you have expressed your concerns and had an open dialogue about it, I would avoid making it an ongoing issue. Seldom does anything good come out of nagging.
Secondly, I would make it clear upfront that while you want a continued relationship with your daughter and you will treat her boyfriend with respect, they will not be permitted to stay in the same bedroom in your home. It’s one thing to love people in spite of their sin, it’s another to accommodate it.
Thirdly, I would encourage any woman cohabitating with a man to read a secular book, Men and Their Marriage by George Gilder. Gilder is not a Christian writer but he makes a very clear point that since men marry for sex, a woman who moves in with a man is eliminating the primary motivator for marriage. There are other, more recent books that quote stats proving that living with a man before marriage actually decreases the possibility of a happy, lasting marriage.
If my daughter were living with a man she wasn’t married to, I’d keep praying for her and never give up on her. God isn’t finished with her yet. – Bob
P.S. Since you mentioned that both the woman and the man in this scenario claim to be Christian, here is a link to a previous blog post I wrote about pre-marital sex.
– Bob
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