00:00:00
What is good my ex-homies? It is your boy Jacob Gooden and we are back for another week of the exhomeschoolers
00:00:05
club. This week we're finishing up our series on this book right here. I kissed
00:00:10
dating goodbye by the wonderfully uh uninformed Joshua Harris. And uh if you missed the last couple parts on this, go
00:00:17
back and give those a listen cuz they are a terribly good time. Um but this week we're touching on the last section
00:00:24
in the book which is called Now What? It's going to be like marriage commitment, right? We're we're finally
00:00:29
there. We're walking down the aisle. We're saying I do. Uh we're putting the
00:00:34
rings on. That kind of a thing. So, that's what we're touching on this week.
00:00:38
Without further ado, let's get into it. We're going to kick things off in
00:00:47
chapter 12 titled Redeeming the Time. The main focus of this chapter is making the most of our singleness. And uh it
00:00:55
kicks off like many of the chapters in this book with a story and Josh is talking about coming home, finding his
00:01:02
mom going through the mail and opening up a wedding invitation for a for a girl he grew up with. And uh she hands it to
00:01:09
him and Josh's response is something like this. He says, "I can't believe
00:01:13
this. Jenny is getting married. This is impossible." His mom responds by saying,
00:01:18
"What do you mean it's impossible?" And he goes, "I liked her in the eighth
00:01:22
grade. how can she be getting married? She responds, "She met a nice guy and
00:01:27
they're they're getting married. It happens all of the time, right? Completely normal." And uh he whines
00:01:33
back to her. He says, "Why is this happening to all of the girls I used to like?" And uh his mom goes on to say,
00:01:40
"You haven't even talked to or thought about Jenny for years, so let's not be
00:01:44
wistful all of a sudden." And he finishes by saying, "I'm not." and he
00:01:49
looks down at the invitation and he looks back at his mom and he goes, "Mom,
00:01:53
I think my biological clock is ticking." A few things I'm going to quickly say
00:01:58
about this intro story. Josh, quit complaining. First and foremost, quit complaining that uh people went off.
00:02:05
They did the thing that uh that you're not allowing yourself to do, right? They
00:02:09
went off and they found a partner. They've been dating. They've been exploring. And now they're finally at
00:02:14
the commitment point. Okay. Uh, also like super weird that you feel this kind of like ownership over somebody just
00:02:23
because you liked them in the past or maybe you dated them in the past. Just feels a little bit like strange. We're
00:02:30
talking about girls that you liked 6 years ago, four years ago, uh, something like that, and you weren't even dating
00:02:36
them. So, like what what gives you the right uh to kind of feel that way? He immediately then goes in on this chapter
00:02:45
into a story about turning 21. And I guess it's tradition at the Harris household when you turn when it's your
00:02:52
birthday that uh everyone in the family writes you a note. This year he notices a theme uh in those notes. His mom says
00:03:01
something along the lines of, "I know it will be hard to let you go when you meet
00:03:04
the one you're waiting uh that we're all waiting and praying for." his uh little
00:03:09
brother, who's like 11 at the time, says something like, "I really treasure
00:03:13
sharing a room with you, knowing that someday soon uh you'll be sharing a room
00:03:17
with someone else." And his dad wraps it all up by saying, "Expect to meet her
00:03:23
someday soon if you haven't met her already." When you know you found her,
00:03:28
be patient. You needn't rush, but neither should you uh feel the need to delay things. marry her within the year
00:03:35
and count on God to help take care of her. I wrote in my notes after this. I said, uh, what's with all the pressure?
00:03:43
Uh, that being said, I I kind of experienced something similar right around when I turned 21. So, let me set
00:03:50
the stage for you a little bit. Right around when I turned 21, so I was my birthday's in August. Um, but the May uh
00:03:57
before my birthday, I had just graduated college. I had also just had surgery on
00:04:02
uh on my lower back and was recovering from that. Uh and one of the most loved people in my life, my grandma, was dying
00:04:09
of Lou Garri's disease. And so just a lot of things going on in life, right? A
00:04:15
lot of emotions. And so that summer was really spent mostly with her. A lot of my family was at my grandparents for the
00:04:23
majority of that summer. Uh it it was emotional, right? It was hard. uh it's
00:04:27
hard to watch the person this person that you love so deeply uh dying and um anyway but during that summer one of my
00:04:36
family members who like I said it's an emotional time it's a little distressed
00:04:41
and uh comes to me and is like hey I think you should marry your girlfriend uh by your your grandma's bedside and
00:04:49
you know wouldn't she'd probably just love being able to see her oldest grandson like get to that point in in
00:04:56
his life, right? Marriage. And I'm so thankful for my mom who immediately like
00:05:03
heard this and then came to me and was like, "Do not do this." Um, and do not
00:05:08
like feel pressure uh to do that because like you got a lot going on. Don't be
00:05:15
rash about this decision. And uh and even talking to my grandma. So even though she couldn't really talk cuz if
00:05:22
you don't know Luke Garrick's disease, uh it affects your motor skills. is it
00:05:26
affects how your body operates and basically it shuts things down. So you you start to not be able to like have as
00:05:32
much control over your hands and for her she couldn't she couldn't talk anymore.
00:05:36
Uh and then eventually it shuts down your organs on the inside. And so anyway, but one of the things that she
00:05:41
could do was on her iPad she had a program and she could push these buttons and make sentences and she punched in
00:05:48
there and basically was like I love you and I love your girlfriend but like it's
00:05:54
not time. And so her and I had a whole conversation about that and it wasn't
00:05:58
time. I wasn't even 21. I was 20 at the time, like just about to be 21. So I'm
00:06:03
really thankful. You know, the story does end with me marrying that girl um at 22. Uh and my grandma wasn't there to
00:06:10
see it, but that's okay. Um it it wasn't the right timing. So I totally understand that pressure. I think u I
00:06:20
had a lot of friends in college kind of a similar deal at very young. there was this pressure to like get married and
00:06:26
figure out life and do all those things and uh you know to each their own. We all we all work on our own time
00:06:32
schedules. We're going to jump a little forward in this chapter and talk uh about a section that Josh calls the
00:06:38
practice now section. And uh he lays out a couple things that uh you should be practicing right as you're preparing for
00:06:44
marriage. So those things include practicing intimacy, practicing seeking God with others, practicing financial uh
00:06:51
literacy, and practicing parenthood. Oh, and lastly, practicing practical life skills. Now, I'm only going to touch on
00:07:00
a few of these, uh, but we're going to talk about practicing intimacy. Now, if
00:07:05
you remember back a few chapters ago, and maybe maybe it was part three, it might have been part two, I don't quite
00:07:10
remember, but uh Josh already did talk about intimacy in this book. And in it, he kind of outlines that intimacy is
00:07:17
this thing that is between two uh romantic partners, right? And um and he kind of equates it to sex a little bit.
00:07:26
Um but it's like this closeness thing. And and earlier in that chapter he says
00:07:31
friendship is about something other than the two people in a relationship where uh as opposed to excuse me intimacy is
00:07:39
about each other. In a true friendship something outside of the two friends brings them together. The key to
00:07:46
friendship is a common goal or object or object of which both uh companions focus. It can be an athletic pursuit, a
00:07:54
hobby, faith, music, but it's something outside of them. As soon as two people
00:07:59
uh involved focus on their relationship, it has moved beyond friendship. And what
00:08:06
I wrote after this, I said, maybe I'm missing what he's trying to say here,
00:08:10
but I think that you can have friendship that isn't always focused on something
00:08:17
outside of like the relationship. Okay? Right? Uh if we look back at like an actual dictionary definition of
00:08:25
intimacy, we see that it's close familiarity or friendship, it's a closeness with somebody, right? And so
00:08:32
we share intimacy with a bunch of different people in our lives, right? From our loved ones, our family members,
00:08:39
our friends, all these different people in our life, mentors, and it looks different, right? There's different
00:08:45
levels of intimacy and closeness that we build with each of those people. And so
00:08:50
it's really funny because in that earlier chapter, Josh is like super anti-intimacy amongst
00:08:57
anybody that's not your romantic partner, but all of a sudden now we're talking about it. And he goes on in this
00:09:03
current chapter, chapter 12 of the book, and he says, "While we want to avoid pre
00:09:07
uh premature intimacy and romantic relationships, we should practice intimacy in other committed
00:09:13
relationships, starting with our families." He goes on and he shares a story of a
00:09:18
young girl he knows who he's friends with and he says that uh she struggles to like communicate with her parents.
00:09:24
Okay? And so after dinner, she just goes up to her room or she doesn't tell them
00:09:29
about the things that are going on in her life. And so he says this, "Whenever
00:09:33
they tried to talk to her, she would clam up and refuse to share her feelings. So to reverse this trend, my
00:09:39
friend now works hard to build intimacy and openness with her folks. Instead of retreating to her room after dinner, she
00:09:45
hangs out and talks with them. Instead of shutting them out of her life, she invites them in. Now, I don't want you
00:09:52
to think that I'm going to sit here and be like, "That's bad, and she shouldn't
00:09:55
do that." Like, closess with your family is very important, and it's something I
00:10:00
value. It's something I have. And your family tends to be the people who know
00:10:04
you the best, especially uh when you're younger, right? Cuz most of the time we
00:10:08
live with them for 18 plus years. And um but what I think is missing here is like
00:10:14
the context of why does she feel this need to like be closed off with them or not share her personal life with them.
00:10:22
So I think there's a piece missing there that like intimacy is something that is to be
00:10:27
earned, right? It's trust. It's that closeness. It is an earned thing. And so
00:10:33
why doesn't she feel worthy to give uh to give it? I also think that this section kind of goes to illustrate some
00:10:41
of like the halfbaked ideas or like the conflicting ideas of this book, right? Because like I said earlier in this
00:10:47
book, back in chapters like five, six or seven, something like that, Josh talked
00:10:53
about intimacy only being between romantic partners. Now all of a sudden we have intimacy
00:11:00
with close family members. Let's jump ahead just a little bit more and we're
00:11:05
going to talk about practicing parenthood. Now again on the surface a lot of these
00:11:12
things that he talks about practicing I'm not against them. Okay. Yeah. As we
00:11:16
get older we need we need these things in our life right we have to practice uh you know if you want to be a parent
00:11:22
someday it's probably a good idea that you spend some time around kids. if you
00:11:26
uh you know I don't think it's a terrible idea to practice some uh financial literacy and then also just
00:11:32
like practical life skills, you know what I mean? Like I think it's important
00:11:35
that we have some things in our life that we work on, right? And we get better at. But
00:11:42
here's why I struggle with this one. Josh tells a story of Jeanie and um how
00:11:48
she was the youngest sibling in her family. So she didn't grow up with younger siblings to look after, to care
00:11:53
for, and so she didn't have a lot of time around babies and toddlers, okay? And so she volunteers with a family from
00:12:00
church who has seven kids. And she goes over once a week and she takes care of the kids and she cooks and she cleans
00:12:06
and she does household stuff, right? She's learning the way of the house. There's two things here
00:12:15
that I I just question. Okay, one, why is she doing it for free? Now, if you want to volunteer your time that way,
00:12:22
that's I don't have an issue with that. Um, you'll understand why the free thing
00:12:25
in a moment. Um, the other thing that I wonder about this scenario is that it's
00:12:32
painted as a girl doing these things, which stereotypically inside of the church, women stay home, they do all the
00:12:38
cooking and the cleaning, they raise the kids, that kind of a thing. I wonder what he would have to say about a guy
00:12:44
doing this. Maybe he's on board, maybe he's not. I don't really know. It's not
00:12:48
painted that way. So again, just a question I had. Now, why this kind of stuck out to me the way it did is that
00:12:56
in the homeschool community, a lot of the families are larger, right? My family is a little bit of an anomaly,
00:13:04
you know, two kids. Uh I had friends who 12 kids, six kids, seven kids. It was not a normal uh unusual for like parents
00:13:13
to be outnumbered. And so I have a friend who she basically ended up raising her younger brother and
00:13:22
it was frustrating because she's my age and she was my friend, right? And we
00:13:28
when we were in high school, we wanted to do friends stuff. We wanted to go to the movies and we wanted to hang out. We
00:13:34
wanted to invite her to a pool party. We wanted to whatever. And she never had time to hang out with us because she was
00:13:39
always taking care of her younger brother and essentially being mom. And that was frustrating. She also, as far
00:13:45
as I know, wasn't like paid or compensated for it. And I'm again, that's my own,
00:13:53
you know, why would you do this for free? I babysat. I did things um sometimes for free, but usually for a
00:13:59
little bit of money. But what we found so annoying about that scenario was, like I said, she wasn't ever free to be
00:14:05
a kid. She was kind of forced into this momhood thing really early. and it I would argue robbed her of her childhood.
00:14:15
And so anyway, I hope that now she's gotten an opportunity to like kind of maybe regain some of that. Uh I don't
00:14:24
know. I'll have to ask her. But um the other thing I wanted to say was that I know I come from a little bit of
00:14:34
a privileged place when it comes to I only have one other sibling and so my parents were able to spend a lot of time
00:14:42
with me and you know we didn't outnumber them. I also know from firsthand experience because my family tried to
00:14:50
adopt uh two kids and while they were with us, I saw the shift in how my parents' attention went from being
00:14:58
solely on my sister and I to all of a sudden also needing to give attention to two more kids and most of the time
00:15:04
actually give them the majority of the attention. And that hurt our relationship, right? It was like
00:15:12
it was like a good bad thing. It was a big learning experience for all of us. Um, but I definitely saw the dynamic
00:15:19
shift and it became pretty evident pretty quickly that if those kids had stayed with us, um, I wasn't going to
00:15:27
get the time with my parents. Now, like I said before, I al I'm not against practicing stuff. I also grew up
00:15:36
volunteering. I did child care for people. I babysat with my sister. where we would tag team some of those larger
00:15:42
homeschool families right where we were severely outnumbered. Um I also worked I
00:15:48
did junior high ministry. I did children's church. Uh heck a couple years ago I even worked at a toy store
00:15:54
and ran birthday parties for you know eight-year-olds. There's something to be
00:15:57
said if you're interested in being a parent or you enjoy being around kids. Yeah, there's practice that that you
00:16:03
know has to take place uh for that kind of stuff in the same way that we practice financial literacy and other
00:16:09
life skills like cooking and cleaning and all those other things. Uh right like there's a level to that and when
00:16:15
you are gearing up for marriage, some of those things can probably be good to practice. Moving right along into
00:16:22
chapter 13. This one's called Ready for the Sack but not for the sacrifice. How
00:16:27
to have a biblical and realistic vision of marriage. So, I'm gonna lay out a
00:16:31
bunch of what's in this chapter before I get into my thoughts on it. But, here's
00:16:36
kind of the gist of the first few pages of this chapter. Okay. Josh kicks it off. He tells a story of his wedding
00:16:43
videography, photography business. He talks about shooting a wedding the day of, right? And capturing all the
00:16:49
wonderful moments of the bride and groom getting ready and walking down the aisle
00:16:53
and the first looks and the exchanging of the vows and the rings. He talks about the party afterwards and
00:16:58
highlighting the dancing and the festivities and the smiles, right? And the hugs and the love, right? And then
00:17:04
he talks about the editing process, right, after the event. And you know, he's like, you know, you do a little
00:17:10
trimming here. Maybe you cut somebody who made a funny face out of this photo and you photoshop in a photo of them
00:17:16
smiling. Uh maybe you cut part of the video where you in the background you can see two ants fighting over who
00:17:22
ordered the chicken and who ordered the beef for dinner and things like that, right? You fix a tie knot that was
00:17:28
twisted kind of funny on one of the groomsmen. All this kind of stuff. And he goes on and says, "Unfortunately,
00:17:34
many young people have a view of marriage as limited and unreal as the wedding videos that I create. These
00:17:39
people think of married life as one grand thrilling moment after another and that the everyday mundane parts of
00:17:45
marriage are safely edited uh from the picture. He then goes on and talks about young people's perspectives on marriage
00:17:53
and he you know he talks about young girls and he says that you know they obsess over bride magazines and um you
00:18:00
know maybe they don't fully understand the reality that marriage is a lot more
00:18:03
than just the day of the wedding. But the thing that I want to highlight a little bit more is that he also talks
00:18:09
about guys reducing marriage down to a single aspect that being sex. And he says this, "I'm shamed I'm ashamed to
00:18:17
admit that I struggle with the tendency to equate marriage with sex. When I picture being married, I almost
00:18:23
immediately picture going to bed with my wife as if that's all that married people do." The book then goes on to a
00:18:29
section called Duly Considered. And uh Josh is going to share a part of a sermon that says, "Marriage is not to be
00:18:36
the enterprise lightly or wantingly to satisfy man's carnal lusts and appetites, but reverently, discreetly,
00:18:44
advisedly, soberly, and in the fear of God, duly considering the cause for which matrimony was ordained."
00:18:52
He then goes on, because it's a bunch of big churchy heavy words, right? Seems
00:18:57
like an old an oldtimey sermon uh to say the least. But he goes on and he's going
00:19:01
to break down those terms. So, reverence, a profound respect mingled with awe, discretion, discernment, or
00:19:09
good judgment. Advisedly, uh, with careful consideration, and sober, to be well balanced, unaffected by passion,
00:19:18
excitement, or prejudice. Now, if you're like me and purity culture made up a big
00:19:23
chunk of the puberty years of your life, um you know that like sexual sin was this like super ambiguous term thrown
00:19:32
around a lot. Um I've talked about it in previous episodes, not only about this
00:19:36
book, but just like in general previous episodes, but I was taught this very specific thing that was sex outside of
00:19:44
marriage is bad. Sex inside of marriage is good. Sexual feelings I had were bad because those feelings should only be
00:19:51
had for the person you're married to. Masturbation was bad because it led to
00:19:54
sexual fantasies and sexual feelings towards people and that was bad. Basically, anything and everything
00:20:01
sexual in nature was bad until it was within the context of marriage. Here's my problem with that thinking.
00:20:09
The human body gets horny, right? It's going to have an emotional, a chemical, a physical response to stuff.
00:20:18
And when you think about all that stuff as being bad, it results in a lot of shame and a lot
00:20:24
of guilt. But these reactions don't just stop because we say they're bad. The
00:20:29
human body gets horny. So, how do we fix it? Well, we get married. And so I'm not
00:20:35
really all that surprised that young people equate marriage with sex because for many of us that's the message that
00:20:42
we hear over and over and over again. Sex is awesome and the only way to have it is in marriage. So then we can't be
00:20:50
surprised when people rush into marriage because well they need sexual fulfillment, right? And once they get in
00:20:57
the rosecolored glasses pop off, right? The hormone goggles disappear and you start to question. you start to ask
00:21:04
questions. What have I gotten myself into? Uh maybe their partner is actually awful, right? And but because we had,
00:21:11
you know, those goggles on, I ignored red flags along the way. Maybe we're not
00:21:17
a good fit, you know? And I find this I'm gonna say funny, but I honestly find
00:21:23
it I think more sad because I watched this happen time and time again with people I grew up with, with people I
00:21:30
went to college with. Uh cuz I went to a small Christian college and I watched these people get married super young,
00:21:36
probably for the reason of I'm horny. I want sex. The only way to get sex is to get married. I know that
00:21:45
I'm probably coming off as somebody who's like pro premarital sex and I just
00:21:51
think it's a choice. Have it, don't have it. I don't really care. That's up to
00:21:56
you. That's up to your decision of what you want to do with your life. What I
00:22:01
care more about and what I'm talking more about is the fact that I think people should have a healthy view of
00:22:07
what sex is, right? I'm pro sexed, if you will. I don't feel like I was 100%
00:22:13
afforded that and I would have valued a legitimate sex talk, right? The Christian environment that I grew up in
00:22:22
villainized sex to the point where I today wouldn't be surprised if Christian
00:22:29
couples are not having sex because of the guilt and the shame because I know that feeling, right? It's this habit
00:22:37
that got built up inside of us that sex is bad and this understanding of what sex is and how sex is bad. And that
00:22:45
doesn't just flip a switch overnight, right? It doesn't just turn to sex is
00:22:51
good just because I'm married. No, our brains don't operate that way. It's like
00:22:55
a bad habit. You learn a bad habit and it takes a lot of unlearning to get you out of that bad habit.
00:23:02
Another thing I wanted to highlight about this this book or at least just remind you of is the fact that this is
00:23:09
written by a 21-year-old guy. Okay. And he probably it came out when he was 21. He probably started writing it in 1920 I
00:23:19
would I would assume. And while he did go on soon after this to get married, it was still a few years and then he
00:23:26
released his marriage book. But I just find it so interesting that we put this single guy as the expert on what godly
00:23:36
relationships leading to marriage should look like. Somebody who has not experienced that. So I just want to
00:23:42
remind you of that. Let's get into chapter 14. It's called What Matters at
00:23:47
50? The character qualities and attitudes that matter most in a life partner. Josh starts off by saying this.
00:23:54
He goes, "As I ponder the foreverness of marriage, one question keeps rattling
00:23:58
through my mind. What qualities should I look for in a wife? When I think of that
00:24:03
question, I know the answer entails many deep internal characteristics. But in everyday life, I still find it difficult
00:24:09
to get past the superficial. A cute girl walks in the room and all my common sense evaporates. How many times have I
00:24:16
made a complete fool of myself by falling head over heels for someone simply because of their charm and
00:24:22
beauty? too many times. As we move along in the chapter, we get into a section called glimpses of true character. And
00:24:29
uh Josh has us look at three areas of a person's life. And those are how a person relates to God, how a person
00:24:36
relates to others, and a person's personal discipline. Say that three times fast. So, let's just go down the
00:24:43
list starting with how a person relates to God. The book says this. Look for and
00:24:48
work on becoming a man or woman who as a single seeks God wholeheartedly putting
00:24:53
him before anything else. Don't worry about impressing the opposite sex. Instead, strive to please and glorify
00:24:59
God. And along the way, you'll catch the attention of people with the same priorities. You know what's funny about
00:25:06
this whole don't be worried about what others do, but also this little caveat
00:25:11
at the end of like, but don't worry, you'll get the attention of the right
00:25:14
people uh as you do this, right? as you as you strive to make your whole life about God. I find it really funny
00:25:22
because I worked in churches. I know a lot of people who went to churches and specifically with the guys, I know that
00:25:30
we sometimes would put on the good Christian guy outfit of like say this, do that, act this way during worship,
00:25:39
take communion at this time, do these little things, um quote this scripture, you know, all these different things.
00:25:46
And it was like very performative because it was just kind of that like we knew that that would be attractive to to
00:25:54
the girls. The other thing that I find kind of weird about this is this idea and I think we all know people like this
00:26:01
who make their whole identity like this obsession of like God. Um or it seems obsessive about like God and they only
00:26:11
ever want to talk about God and they only want to talk about church and the Bible and Christianity and all these
00:26:16
different things. And then you start to like dive into who they are as people and ask them about hobbies and they have
00:26:22
nothing else. And I find that really weird because I talked about this on I think the last episode.
00:26:29
The importance of like having something else, right, that's interesting about who you are as a
00:26:37
person besides just I'm a Christian. Do you like music? Do you like movies? Do you have a special hobby, a special
00:26:44
gift, a special whatever that you enjoy and can talk about for hours and hours and hours? Right? We as humans, that's
00:26:51
just like something that we we find attractive in other people is their interests. Let's take a look at
00:26:58
how a person relates to others. Okay. Josh talks about looking at four different categories, if you will, of
00:27:04
people uh in someone's life and how they interact with them to evaluate your
00:27:09
future partner. Okay, those four categories are authorities, parents, the opposite sex, and companions. Now, I'm
00:27:16
only going to look at one. Okay, I'm going to look at authorities. And he says this in the book. He says,
00:27:22
"A guy who can't follow legitimate orders will have difficulty holding a
00:27:26
job or receiving pastoral correction when needed. A girl who can't respect a
00:27:31
teacher or a coach's authority will have difficulty honoring her husband." Right
00:27:35
off the rip, you probably know where I'm about to go with this. I find it so
00:27:39
interesting that when it comes to a woman being able to submit to authority, Josh talks about her being able to
00:27:47
submit to a husband. However, when he talks about a man being able to submit to authority, there's no mention about
00:27:53
him being able to submit to his wife. So conveniently inside of Christianity, we
00:27:59
take the Bible verse that's uh you know a woman is supposed to submit to her
00:28:04
husband and we leave conveniently out the second part of that verse which is and man is also supposed to submit to
00:28:10
his wife. I wrote in my notes I said she's also deserving of respect because when you're
00:28:17
in a relationship it's a partnership. It's not a dictatorship. Her voice has
00:28:22
power uh and it matters. Okay. Neither partner can control everything. It just isn't going to end well. And I don't
00:28:30
just mean she's in charge of the house, like cleaning, cooking, all that type of
00:28:35
stuff. What I do mean is you learn to play to each other's strengths. Okay? That to me
00:28:42
is a very important part of your life. I enjoy cooking more than Maddie does. So,
00:28:47
I do a lot of cooking. I just enjoy it. That's a part of who I am as a person.
00:28:52
Maddie is better at doing other things that I'm not as skilled at or I just don't want to do or whatever. We play to
00:28:58
that. That is a part of us figuring out in our relationship the things that work
00:29:03
the best together. It's a partnership. We have to communicate and talk and figure it out together. The last thing
00:29:12
as we work our way through character qualities is personal discipline. And Josh says this, "We are examining
00:29:19
whether a good potential spouse fosters habits that are disobedient to God or revealing of a deeper disregard for
00:29:26
others." He lays out then a couple of areas to look at, including things like
00:29:30
how a person spends their time, how they handle money, and how they take care of
00:29:34
their body. I'm just going to focus on the body because in there is the clothing, is the modesty piece of it.
00:29:42
And he says this geared towards women. He says, "A girl who dresses immodestly
00:29:48
may catch a guy's attention, but what does her clothing say about her heart?"
00:29:54
And I put in my notes, I'm like, "I'm so tired of the modesty thing." Okay, I'm
00:29:58
so tired of it. Of course, he doesn't spell out what modesty is. He leaves it
00:30:03
up for interpretation. And as we just discussed when we're looking at uh a godly woman, she is one that uh will
00:30:10
submit to authority. So when our when her pastor says girls wearing spaghetti straps uh spaghetti strap tank tops is
00:30:18
sinful uh and you really should only be leaving the house wearing a long sleeve top. It's reinforcing this idea that men
00:30:25
cannot control their thoughts or their actions towards women and that it's a
00:30:29
woman's responsibility to keep men pure. It's also reinforcing this thought that
00:30:34
women can't think for themselves. Now, Josh doesn't leave the dudes out on this
00:30:38
one because he has this to say about men and their clothes. He says, "A guy who
00:30:43
spends his money on the latest style may have the appearance of togetherness, but
00:30:47
his infatuation with fashion could mean he's too preoccupied with what people
00:30:51
think of him, and that he may make poor decisions with this money." Now, this
00:30:56
one hit home for me because while I maybe don't as much anymore, I used to be really into fashion and I took a lot
00:31:03
of risks. Uh, some of you who've known me for a long time know some of those
00:31:08
risks. Not going to show pictures. Go search them up. Remember for yourselves. But for me, fashion and clothes was very
00:31:17
much like a hobby. I was interested in it because for a couple of reasons. One, I like the history of it. I like
00:31:24
understanding what kind of made timeless fashion as opposed to something that was
00:31:27
trendy. But also, I've always kind of been of the mindset that when you look
00:31:32
good on the outside, you feel good on the inside. So, Josh, your argument, I think, is just kind of dumb. Just being
00:31:40
honest. There's one last thing I want to touch on in this chapter, and that is
00:31:44
knowing if they're the one. Josh tells a story at the very end about a guy who
00:31:50
emails him and wrote this in the email. He said, "How could I possibly get to
00:31:54
know a person well enough before marriage to know if they're right? It seems like getting married is like
00:31:59
jumping off a cliff. This struck a chord with me because when I was a teenager, there was a very big push in my circles
00:32:06
of friends, in the church I went to of this like knowing God's will for your
00:32:12
life. And a lot of my friends took it to this extreme of like knowing having to be so certain of
00:32:22
of the things that they're going to do with their life. to where they're going
00:32:25
to go to college and what they're going to study as a career and what they're
00:32:28
going to the person they're going to date and all these different things and
00:32:31
they had this like they needed to know the answer uh before like living life, right? I think that that ruins a piece
00:32:40
of like what life is about, which is making mistakes and learning lessons, right? Got one more thing in my notes
00:32:47
that I want to share on this and that's that I think that the purity culture
00:32:50
movement was so set on having kids and young adults get it right on the first try that they missed the point of life
00:32:57
which is living. The constant bombardment of doing the right thing, keeping ourselves holy, resisting sin
00:33:04
forced us to forget that our sins were paid right our debt was paid. If you believe that Jesus Christ died on the
00:33:10
sin, died on the cross to pay for our sins like we were forgetting that. I think because we were so worried that by
00:33:17
doing something that was against the will of God, we would be entering into sin and that was bad. When the reality
00:33:24
is we make choices in life and there's consequences to those actions, they're
00:33:29
good or they're bad consequences, right? For every action there's a reaction.
00:33:34
Chapter 15 is uh called principled romance and this is Josh laying out his new structure, right? the new principles
00:33:42
that will guide you from friendship to matrimony. Okay? And he says this, he says, "This is a new pattern for
00:33:49
relationships that can help us avoid the problems that are often encountered in traditional dating." So what is the
00:33:56
pattern? We go from casual friends to deeper friendship, from deeper friendship to purposeful intimacy with
00:34:04
integrity, and from purposeful intimacy to engagement. Notice how there's no
00:34:09
dating because at this point we've kissed dating goodbye. So, right into it, we don't even talk about casual
00:34:16
friendships in this chapter. He drives straight into deeper friendships. And he says this. He uh he uses this kind of
00:34:23
like story of his little sister. And he says, "One spring day, my four-year-old
00:34:27
sister was so excited to see the first flowers pushing up out of the soil that she plucked a handful of the unopened
00:34:34
buds and proudly gave them to our mom. My mom was so disappointed by my sister's impatience that she said, "You
00:34:41
picked them too soon. They're a lot prettier when they're they've been
00:34:45
allowed to bloom." He goes on to say, "We're often guilty of the same
00:34:49
impatience in our relationship. Instead of waiting until friendship fully blooms, we rush into romance. Our
00:34:56
impatience not only costs us the beauty of friendship as singles, it can also place our future marriages on shaky
00:35:03
ground. Strong marriages are built on a solid foundation of the mutual respect, appreciation, and camaraderie of
00:35:09
friendship. Controversial take here, but I kind of don't disagree that strong
00:35:14
marriages are built on uh on friendship. My marriage is built on friendship. Uh a
00:35:20
lot of people I know who have very strong relationships, it's built on friendship. So, I don't I don't disagree
00:35:26
on that. How we get there is where we're going to disagree. So, when it comes to
00:35:30
relationships, Josh is so concerned that we rush into romance and that it obscures a person's ability to see
00:35:36
someone for who they truly are, right? Our hormones and our infatuation, they overwhelm and uh we see things more in
00:35:43
like a honeymoon kind of a way. And this is what he's been saying for the majority of the book. We leave out the
00:35:49
romance, we leave out the physicality, we leave out the hormones and the infatuation and all of that stuff. We
00:35:56
leave all that out. We build friendship that gets us ultimately to marriage. Now, here's where we disagree a little
00:36:04
bit. I think that the romance aspect can work in tandem with the building of the
00:36:09
friendship aspect. Okay? They can both be there. The fun date nights, the buying the
00:36:15
gifts, the cutesy texts, the love notes, all the stuff that he says has to wait until you're married.
00:36:22
All of that can be happening and you can still show an interest in getting to know who that person is.
00:36:30
What are the things that light them up, right? What are the things that they value? It doesn't have to be separated.
00:36:37
As we move on in the chapter, Josh gives us the green lights, right? That mean we
00:36:42
can start to pursue marriage. Okay? And those green lights include, are we seeking God's word and is our partner
00:36:48
seeking God's word? Are we marriage ready? Do we have the approval and support from
00:36:54
the community? Uh, right, our families, our loved ones, and do we feel the peace
00:36:59
of God? As he goes through these, he lists out some of the things that would make instant nos, right? If a person
00:37:05
isn't a Christian, not the one. Uh, if you aren't spiritually mature, emotionally mature, or financially
00:37:11
mature, not ready. If your family doesn't approve, don't get married. If
00:37:17
your stomach don't sit right, you're not ready. So I do agree that there's a
00:37:21
level of I think maturity that people should be at. They should have some common ground on their values.
00:37:28
Personally for me, my family's input is important to me and was important to me
00:37:32
when I was getting married. So while I agree with some of these things, I think the black and white nature of what he's
00:37:40
doing is where it's a little bit dangerous. Okay. If it's not this, then
00:37:44
no. If it's not that, then no. Um, maturity can mean a lot of things, right? I got married when I was 22 and I
00:37:53
felt like at the time I was ready to get married. Uh, looking back, maybe I was,
00:37:59
maybe I wasn't. Uh, I'll never know if I wasn't because, well, I don't get to go
00:38:05
back in time and not do it. But I've grown up a lot since then. Okay, seven years since then. A lot's changed.
00:38:15
I've changed a lot as a person. Mattiey's changed a lot as a person. We evolved, right?
00:38:21
The other thing I wanted to say is that at the end of the day, your relationship
00:38:24
is your relationship. Sure, it's great to have the approval and the support of
00:38:29
loved ones, but ultimately at the end of the day, you know what's best for you.
00:38:34
Nobody else gets to make that decision for you. Sprinkled throughout this chapter is kind of a bunch about uh
00:38:40
parental involvement and participation and approval and all those kind of things. So, I I kind of I'm lumping them
00:38:46
all together in this section. And uh he says this at one point in the book, uh talking about somebody who was kind of
00:38:54
gearing up to basically pursue somebody. He says, "But before he went into action, he chose to give proper honor to
00:39:01
Shel's parents first by asking their permission to grow closer to their daughter and for the purpose of pursuing
00:39:08
marriage." So, I knew this girl in college who uh she wouldn't date a guy
00:39:13
until they had called her dad and gotten permission. And I will never forget the
00:39:17
look on her face when I said, "If I ever ask you out, I'm I'm not getting on the
00:39:21
phone with your dad to ask his permission. That's like a waste of my time. It's a waste of his time. If you
00:39:26
don't trust yourself uh to make that decision, then you're probably not somebody I want to date anyways." And
00:39:32
the look of shock on her face was absolutely crazy. I just believed and I still do
00:39:40
that like when it comes to dating we need to enable people to have agency over their body and feel like they can
00:39:49
make decisions for themselves. Okay. And you know a a side note to this is then it kind of leads to also that like well
00:39:58
do you ask for a parents permission for marriage? And that's a little bit more
00:40:02
of a traditional thing. I'm not going to lie. I did ask permission. My mother-in-law was like, "Are you crazy?
00:40:09
Of course you have permission. Like, you didn't even need to ask." I do
00:40:13
understand that one a little bit more. I don't view it so much as a permission
00:40:17
ask just a letting them know, giving them the intention of like this is something I'm
00:40:23
going to do. Uh I would like your blessing uh to pursue that. But, you know, I'm personally somebody who even
00:40:33
if they said no, maybe it would have given me some pause to think about it. But I I knew pretty well in my heart
00:40:39
that's what I wanted to do. He goes on to talk about uh how now that we've
00:40:43
asked permission to pursue or to get closer and with the idea of pursuing for marriage. He says, "At this point,
00:40:51
invite the girl's parents to ask pointed questions. What kind of plan do you have
00:40:56
to support our daughter? what kind of activities will you pursue as you attempt to win her hand in marriage? And
00:41:03
uh he goes on to talk about like this testing, right? And it's very like stereotypical
00:41:10
like dad being against the boyfriend like how are you going to, you know, provide for my daughter and what are you
00:41:16
going to do for her and you're never going to be good enough and like all this kind of stuff. And it's just really
00:41:24
weird. It plays again into that stereotype that all the boys want out of a girl is sex. Uh they could never want
00:41:31
just like an actual healthy relationship from them. But I also wondered this I wondered how does this
00:41:40
make girls feel? Like do you feel like you have choice over your body? Do you feel like you have choice over who you
00:41:48
can date? Do you feel trusted by your parents to actually make good decisions? Do you not? like it's very weird
00:41:55
behavior. The other thing as it goes on, he talks about being put on trial, right? And
00:42:02
being grilled and prodded like a wild animal. And uh and he says this about like how he thinks parents will react to
00:42:09
this. He says, "Unfortunately, I think many parents won't really care. They may
00:42:14
think you're being melodramatic or taking things too seriously." And I said
00:42:17
this, "Uh yeah, no [ __ ] Sherlock. uh you're being over the top, right? You're
00:42:23
putting this heavy emphasis on having all these questions answered, these big life questions. As you get to know
00:42:30
people, right? When you're dating somebody and you get to know their family and you get to know the people
00:42:35
that surround them and their loved ones, naturally, they're going to ask you
00:42:39
questions that are about your job and what you do and what you value as a human because you you're becoming
00:42:46
friends with them. you're building an intimate relationship also with those people where there's a closeness and a
00:42:52
comfortability with those people. So those things are naturally going to come up. But by forcing them to be at such an
00:42:59
early stage sometimes, right, where it's like you don't even know if you like
00:43:04
this person yet a lot of times, right? you just are taking it a you have an interest so you're taking it a step
00:43:11
above but you're like now you're just demanding that their family grill you
00:43:15
and quiz you and ask you all these questions as if it's like I have to get an A+ on my test um so that I get
00:43:23
approval to you know move on to the next letter grade. It's like no it's not like
00:43:30
that. It's not a test of like you know will you pass or not. It's a very much a
00:43:35
it's a discovering time. It's a learning time together. All of this asking for
00:43:41
parents permission and the involvement of family leads into his next point which is about bringing romance home.
00:43:49
And he says this about it. He says, "One of the most unfortunate aspects of
00:43:53
contemporary dating is the way that it has removed the process of romance from the warmth and reality of the home. Find
00:44:00
creative ways in your own relationship to keep focus on learning, testing, and growth, not just reveling in romantic
00:44:07
love. There's a little bit of yada yada in the middle of that. But what I think is so weird about this is
00:44:16
like I knew too many kids that they ended up in courtship situations. Their parents were heavily involved. they went
00:44:21
on every date with them or a sibling went on a date with them and there was like this very like handholdy like we
00:44:26
don't trust you uh kind of a thing and oh man I just like cannot imagine having
00:44:35
dated in a scenario like that. I think it would have just been god awful and I probably would have like sworn off
00:44:41
dating forever because ultimately at the end of the day when you partner up with
00:44:47
somebody and you decide to live with them, to get serious with them, to marry them, whatever it may be, you're living
00:44:55
with that person. you're not. Yes, there's a degree to which you have to
00:44:59
live with the in-laws and you have to live with the siblings and all those types of things, but at the end of the
00:45:03
day, there's you and one other person in that relationship. And it's like
00:45:11
it's overwhelming when you start to get all of these other people involved. Uh,
00:45:17
and it just becomes like I'm dating six people instead of I'm just dating one
00:45:21
person. As we get near to the end of this chapter, he has a section that I have titled, "Let's get physical dot dot
00:45:29
dot or not." And he says, "I've committed to waiting even for a kiss
00:45:34
until I'm married. I want my first kiss with my wife to be on our wedding day. I
00:45:39
know that sounds archaic to many, and truthfully, I would have scoffed at the idea myself four years ago. But I've
00:45:46
come to realize how sinful and meaningless physical intimacy can be apart from the commitment and purity of
00:45:53
marriage. What did he just say? That physical intimacy outside of marriage is sinful
00:46:00
and meaningless. It corrupts the purity of marriage. And I was really heated when I wrote this and I said, "Fuck
00:46:06
off." Again with this narrative of anything sexual, anything deemed a sexual sin, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad,
00:46:16
vows happen, marriage happens, we commit everything sexual, good, good, good, good, good. The human mind doesn't work
00:46:24
this way. It doesn't pingpong back and forth. It requires work, dedication, and
00:46:29
unlearning to break the habit. The values of purity culture are building bad habits when it comes to
00:46:37
physical romantic relationships and sex. I had to pull out the book for this last
00:46:41
part because I have so many highlighted things on this last page. I think it's
00:46:45
the worst advice in the entire book. And it says this, where physical progression begins, depth
00:46:54
progression ends. In other words, as soon as we begin to focus on the physical side of our relationship, the
00:47:00
spiritual and emotional side ceases to deepen. Make a commitment to God, parents, Christian mentors, friends, and
00:47:06
your partner to let your passion sleep, stirring up your desire for the marriage
00:47:10
bed. It will awaken with joy at the proper time. My reaction to this was this. This is pure laziness. It's not a
00:47:18
you can have one or the other, but not both. Like, you can have both. It just takes work and dedication and effort.
00:47:26
Okay, as we go down the page, he hits on privacy. Part of keeping this kind of commitment involves avoiding settings
00:47:34
given to temptation. This doesn't mean you can never have privacy, but two people can have privacy and time alone
00:47:40
without completely isolating themselves from parents and friends. When you do have activities that involve just the
00:47:46
two of you, make sure you carefully plan your time. Avoid a sensual focus and atmosphere and let someone know where
00:47:53
you'll be and when you'll be home. I wrote down what do you mean privacy
00:47:59
while being around other people. The definition of privacy is the state or condition of being free from uh being
00:48:06
observed or disturbed by other people. Like you literally can't that can't
00:48:11
happen when you've got people around. And this solution of being accountable
00:48:15
to only being out a certain period of time, having people know exactly where you are. It refuses to allow people to
00:48:21
have agency over themselves. We're not trusted to make smart decisions. And that's ultimately what a lot of this
00:48:27
book boils down to. You can't trust yourself. And so you need to trust others to make decisions for you. As we
00:48:34
move down the page, he says this. Remember, by delaying sexual involvement, you're storing up passion
00:48:39
and making sexual love within your marriage that much more meaningful. Don't allow impatience now to rob you of
00:48:45
an undefiled, passionate sexual relationship in marriage. Josh claims that by delaying sexual involvement,
00:48:52
you're storing up passion and making sexual love within your marriage that much more meaningful. So sex outside of
00:48:58
marriage is meaningless. Huh? It has no value. I know what he's getting at. It makes us
00:49:05
less of a person because we're giving ourselves away. I now choose to view it
00:49:12
as a learning experience. There's plenty of me to go around. It doesn't make me
00:49:17
less of a person because I chose to give of myself. Again, make your own decision
00:49:23
of whether you want to have sex before marriage or not. I don't really care.
00:49:28
But this messaging that save yourself, save yourself, save yourself, save yourself because as soon as you have
00:49:35
sex, you've given that piece of yourself away and you never can get that back.
00:49:39
It's this very dangerous narrative that there's like only so much of you to go around, that there's only
00:49:47
so much, that your value is wrapped up in your sex life, that your value is wrapped up in how many bodies you've
00:49:53
been with, that your value is wrapped up in da da da da. It's just [ __ ] and
00:49:58
it leads to this really screwed up way of thinking about how you view your body, sex, and relationships. The last
00:50:07
thing that he says in this chapter is the new pattern we've discussed is only
00:50:11
an outline. As with anything, a couple can manipulate it to fulfill only the minimal requirements. But I believe such
00:50:19
manipulation will rob a couple of experiencing God's best. My response was this. Bro, what do you know? You're 20,
00:50:28
not married. You're a stupid idiot that hasn't even kissed someone. But more
00:50:34
importantly, these sentences highlight why when I was 14 reading this, I didn't
00:50:40
want to stray from it. Because if I did, I'd be robbing myself of God's best.
00:50:45
What a croc of [ __ ] I have really nothing to say about chapter 16 because chapter 16, I think, is a complete waste
00:50:52
of time. He basically goes on to tell his parents' love story, which equates to
00:50:59
them seeing each other at a coffee shop, his dad asking his mom out. She says, "No." Uh, he says, "Maybe I'll call you
00:51:07
sometime." She says, "Maybe." And then him, his dad hearing a voice, uh, the
00:51:13
voice of God apparently, telling him not to call her. And that's literally where the book ends. We still
00:51:20
have no clue how his parents got together. We really don't know their love story. It's meant to be this story
00:51:26
of listening for the voice of God, right, and waiting until the timing is right and all those things. But we don't
00:51:36
even know how it like got started to be honest. So, it's just I don't even think
00:51:41
it's worth talking about to be honest. That's it. We made it. Made it through the book
00:51:49
finally. Um, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. if you made it this far. Um, first
00:51:53
and foremost, secondly, I hope you got something out of this. Um, this has been a brutal experience for me. Um, I know
00:52:01
based on a couple comments from you guys and messages that I've received, I know
00:52:05
that reliving some of this has not been fun. Uh, it's not fun for me either. Um,
00:52:10
it's brought up things that I didn't even remember that I maybe blacked out
00:52:14
of my life. But, um, but I think it's been good. I think it's been a little
00:52:18
therapeutic. This is a topic that I want to I'm going to continue to talk about.
00:52:22
I'm going to continue to educate myself on. These are important topics and I
00:52:26
think it's it's something I'm passionate about. Hopefully that comes across. Uh I
00:52:31
want to continue to learn and educate and make myself a better human. Um and talking about it is one way that I do
00:52:38
that, sharing my experience uh with people. So that being said, I got really nothing
00:52:45
else for you guys. Do me a favor. If you made it this far, do all of the internet
00:52:49
things that you know how to do. Like, comment, subscribe, share it with a friend. Uh, you know, if you don't feel
00:52:56
like leaving a comment, that's cool. If you want to shoot me a DM, you totally
00:52:59
can. Exhub on Instagram, threads, Tik Tok, or you can shoot me an email at [email protected].
00:53:08
And uh, I do my best to try to respond to you guys. Uh, but yeah, that's I think all I got for you. Until we uh,
00:53:15
meet again. Peace. [Music] [Music]