More than a week ago, I shared my counsel with a lady who was in love with a man, who had told her that he couldn’t move forward with the relationship if kissing was off the table. My counsel to her, based on my understanding, was that I personally believed kissing is okay before marriage, but that she also needs to pray to God about it, and if and when she would engage in it.
When I initially shared my counsel with her over email, I was glad that it was private, because I knew that a lot of people would challenge that belief – but I was sure that they were wrong, and were simply being religious. I felt prompted by God to share it publicly on my Reader Questions series, and of course the outcome was a lot of opposition. I argued my point using – and abusing – scripture. I took Paul’s reference to giving holy kisses out of context, because it was the only reference to legitimate kissing in the Bible.
One of the things that challenged me most was the discussion I had with my friend, Goke, on the matter. His perspective is that you can’t give…
Read more at https://ufuomaee.blog/i-was-wrong-about-kissing-before-marriage/
It's kind to share :)
Categories: Editor's Pick, Repost
Grace and Truth 
Lovely write up. Keep it up
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Thanks Vinx!
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You are welcome
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I worry where such concepts eventually lead. You can’t kiss. You can’t hug, You can’t hold hands. You can’t be too emotionally invested, etc. There are a lot of churches out there that told kids to not be emotional cheaters on the future spouse whom God had set aside for them, so they weren’t supposed to have crushes or form relationships that weren’t meant to last. This is a teaching called “Soul ties”; that every crush, every kiss, every hug, even feeling an attraction to someone was giving them a piece of your emotional heart. Eventually the relationship you have with that person would end (even if it didn’t ever venture into doing anything at all) and they would rip pieces out of your heart because of that soul tie. So when a crush rejects you; you lose a piece of your heart and it will no longer be “whole” or “pure” for the spouse whom God had planned for you to marry. Look at that idea of “setting aside a place for the flesh” that could be interpreted as: “giving into his lustful emotions and her desire to love and please”.. These churches talk about love as if it were a quantity, the more you love the less you have. It’s a topic that has been twisted and turned into a legalistic monster that has destroyed relationships – so I think that Christians would do well to remember Jesus’ teaching; love God and love others; he never once specified how dating relationships were supposed to be or how far was too far because for the most part, all of them were arranged marriages and love had little to do with it.
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I really love your contribution, because it shows the struggle I had with accepting the teaching that kissing is a sin. It was this very mentality that I was running from, and my reasoning led me to write THE FOLLY OF “DO NOT, TOUCH NOT” RIGHTEOUSNESS. Please read it, it is linked.
I wrote that piece as a way of supporting my belief that kissing isn’t a sin, but what it did was reveal to me what a sin was, and when I sincerely saw it, I could no longer justify pre-marital kissing. Hugs, cuddles, holding hands, falling in love, I have nothing against doing these before marriage. I believe very much in romance and I believe romance can be godly, (I also wrote a piece about that on this debate). What we shouldn’t be is legalistic. It would be legalistic to say that kissing is NEVER a sin. The definition of a sin has to do with RELATIONSHIP with God and honouring Him. So, whatever does not please God, whatever is not done of faith is SIN! Even marriage that is entered into in disobedience or fear is sin, but all and such are forgiveable, and God is able to teach us His love. That’s what He wants to do. To get us to trust Him more, and to depend on His counsel.
I would encourage singles not to kiss before they marry, because it is good godly counsel. But what makes for sin is what’s in the heart, and therefore, our judgement and counsel of any situation is always limited by our knowledge of the person’s heart.
Thanks for contributing!
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