Is it ok to Live Together First?

A growing trend is for people to live together before getting married.  This almost always implies that a couple is having sex before they are married.  There are good, moral reasons to wait to have sex.  But even ignoring the moral implications of sex before marriage, there are also practical reasons to not live together before marriage.

The reason often given for living together is that it is a trial to find out if the couple can live with one another.  The justification is that it is better to find out before they are married than have to go through a divorce.  While this would sound practical, evidence does not back up this theory.

Instead of having a lower divorce rate for couples who live together first, it is noticeably higher than average.  Different studies have found that couples who live together before marriage have a divorce rate between 70-80%.  Considering the average divorce rate is 50%, couples who live together first are 50% more likely than average to get divorced.

While there may be numerous reasons for this problem, two stand out.  First is that nothing changes with marriage.  The couple can file their taxes together and that is about it.  Everything else is the same.  The question becomes, “Why did they get married?”

The second reason is closely related to the first.  While living together, the couple did not act like a married couple.  They were simply trying things out, seeing if they would work.  If it turned out it didn’t then it proved it was a good idea to live together first and the relationship is broken off.  There is no reason to work through problems because the relationship is ultimately disposable.  The purpose of living together was to find problems, not try to solve them.

The same lax attitude that takes place while living together gets carried over into the marriage.  Because nothing has changed, the couple still acts the same as they did when they weren’t married.  When problems arise, they do not know how to handle them.  Because the relationship wasn’t as serious when they were living together, it isn’t serious as a married couple.  These couples are unable or unwilling to solve their problems and often end up going their separate ways.

Why Did God Create Marriage?

Genesis 2:18-24

18 The LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”

19 Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. 20 So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field.
But for Adam no suitable helper was found. 21 So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

23 The man said,
“This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called ‘woman,’
for she was taken out of man.”

24 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.

Analysis

As God looks down on Adam, He notes that it is not good for him to be alone.  Then species after species of animal paraded past Adam and he named them.  As Adam saw all of the animals it dawned upon him that he was the only one of his kind.  All other creatures had a mate but there was none that was suitable for Adam.

One of the reasons God gave Eve to Adam – and thereby beginning marriage – was as a helper and companion.  God did not want man to live his life alone and so He created someone who was compatible for Adam.

Solomon writes about the benefits of having another person as a companion in Ecclesiastes 4:9-12.

9 Two are better than one,
because they have a good return for their work:

10 If one falls down,
his friend can help him up.
But pity the man who falls
and has no one to help him up!

11 Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm.
But how can one keep warm alone?

12 Though one may be overpowered,
two can defend themselves.
A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.

Another purpose of marriage is procreation.  Obviously marriage is not required in order to have children.  However it is God’s will that two people be married before having children.  For more on this, see the article “Why Should I Wait Until Marriage for Sex?”

We are told to be fruitful and multiply.  This applies in a physical sense but also in a spiritual sense.  Parents pass on their wisdom, morals, and faith to their children.  This is done most effectively within a close knit family.

Pruning

I happen to like gardening.  I can’t pretend that I’ve been very successful with it outside of planting some flowers but there is something about growing your own food that is appealing to me.  There are tons of gardening principles that apply to the Christian life.  A remember a few years ago I even thought about writing something regarding the similarities between gardening and our Christian walk.

I can’t guarantee that I’ll ever get around to writing all that I had planned on writing regarding gardening and Christianity but the topic of pruning has crossed my mind recently.  I’m working fervently on updating not just this website but many of the sites that I operate across the Spreading Light Network.  This has been a time consuming process to say the least.

Part of my updating has involved letting some things go.  At one point I believe that I was operating 40 or more websites.  Not all of these were a part of the Spreading Light Network but nevertheless there were a ton of sites.  And I owned the names to probably twice as many as were designed.  A lot never got built.  But there are some sites that I put considerable time into that I decided to let go.  The main reason is that they no longer fit the focus of my online ministry.  Or in several cases I’ve been able to combine them into other sites and reorganize things.

My point in all of this is that there will be times that we need to cut things out of our life in order to make room for new and better things.  We all have a limited amount of time, space in our house, friends we can keep in contact with, etc.  I had to carefully take stock of where I was at, what was working for me, and what could be let go of.  In my instance, letting go was literally a lot of work.

Pruning things out of our life shouldn’t be painless.  Cutting things out isn’t without its costs.  Spending more time with your family could mean getting passed over for a promotion.  Devoting yourself to studying the Bible more might mean less time in front of the television.  But what we need to remember is that we are pruning, we aren’t cutting down.

When you prune a plant there are typically two reasons.  The first is like one might do to a bush.  It has grown to a size a shape that you are pleased with and anything more than that is too much, so you cut it back and remove the excessive growth.  The other time to prune is to promote more growth.  On many kinds of plants there will develop what are sometimes called “sucker” limbs.  These are limbs that shoot off from the main trunk but nothing good will come from them.  They won’t bear fruit or they won’t leave the bush looking as nice.  The bigger issue, aside from just not being productive, is that these sucker branches steal valuable nutrients away from the rest of the plant.  But if you cut them off, the plant can spend that much more energy into growing bigger fruit or more flowers.

We all have some sucker branches in our life.  They are things that steal away our energy from doing something more productive.  And cutting these things out won’t necessarily be easy or painless.  But rather than thinking of it as cutting something out, consider it making room for something greater.  If you did something relatively simple such as cut out an hour of tv, think of it as an hour that you could spend exercising  reading a book, praying, or even catching up on sleep.  When you cut something out it means that you have room for something new.

I encourage everyone to take a look at their life and determine what could use pruning.  But before you start to cut that out, decide what you want to fill that area with.  This will give you motivation as you struggle with the loss of whatever you’re cutting out.  Remember, it’s all to strengthen another area of your life and improve it.

Welcome to Spreading Light Ministries

Welcome to the new, and hopefully improved, Spreading Light Ministries website.  Aside from a new look and a design that is hopefully easier to maintain on our end, the website is clearly broken up into five distinct sections.  In addition to this main section, you’ll also find sections on Bible study, sermons, prophecy, and theology.  We have also branched out into an audio format with our own podcast.  You can listen to our podcast, Spright, on our website, on youtube, or through iTunes.

This new format is easily searchable – just use the box at the upper left corner.  In addition, you can see how articles have been tagged so you can quickly find something that focuses on a particular topic of interest.

This section houses some of our oldest articles regarding issues that the church often debates about but aren’t necessarily thought of as theology.  You’ll find them under the category heading “church issues.”  You’ll also find answers to some common Bible questions.  These were previously on another site and have been moved here.  Feel free to ask us any burning Bible questions that you may have by contacting us or by leaving a comment on any page.

One of the great things about this new format is that it provides a place to learn what is going on in Spreading Light Ministries across its network of sites.  This is your first stop to find out what’s new.  Of course you can really stay on top of things by following our Facebook page.  This will have a post anytime there is something new to report.

What’s even better, at least in our opinion, is that this site is now a showcase for what was once a separate site in A Pastor’s Thoughts.  Now, right on our homepage, you’ll get updates from Pastor Mike regarding what is going on in his mind and what his take is on things.  You’ll get a view from the pulpit, hopefully without feeling like you’re being preached at.

Whatever your reason for stopping by today, we hope that you are blessed and that you come back and visit us again.  And if you are blessed, the best way that you can help us, aside from your prayer support, is by telling your friends to check out the site as well.  Go ahead and click one of the share buttons below.  It’s just like ringing the bell on your way out of the restaurant if you got great service. 🙂

Spreading Light through the years

On New Year’s Day 1999 I vaguely recall being on the computer, using an old dial up modem while staying at my grandmother’s house for reasons that now escape me.  I couldn’t begin to tell you why I remember any of this but I’m kind of glad I do because it marks the beginning of Spreading Light Ministries in my mind.  I distinctly remember working on the first Spreading Light website then although I can’t be certain if that was when I was still on geocities or if I had just purchased this domain.  Whatever the case, January 1, 1999 marks the unofficial beginning of the site and something that has grown far beyond my imagination.

I have long since lost count of how many page views I’ve had over the years.  I only know that it numbers in the millions now.  Honestly, I don’t even know how many domains I’m operating now without looking it up.  The only thing I am certain of is that my current plans call for about twenty more sites and I’m confident that I’ll have several more unplanned sites before all of those are finished.

I am currently in the process of the largest overhaul of Spreading Light since I moved it to its own server.  And back then, moving six pages can hardly be considered an overhaul.  Now I have over 300 on this domain alone that I have to manually update (which is why I’m making the change, so that hopefully I’ll have have to do this again.)  On top of the major overhaul of the main site, I am working on my biggest project, or technically set of projects, since launching in 1999.

So while I take a few minutes off from switching and updating files that I’ve been doing for the last eight hours or so – with no end in site – I decided to reminisce a bit and look at my old site designs.  Some look rather quaint, but do remember that computers and the internet were a different thing 14 years ago.  On the other hand, some I still like to this day and kind of miss.  So while I am greatly looking forward to the future and praying that God would take this ministry even further beyond my imagination in the next 14 years, here’s a look back at Spreading Light from years ago.

light This was the original logo from the site.  I have maintained the same tagline all of these years.  The name Spreading Light didn’t mean anything when I registered it.  I don’t remember what names I tried to register first but they weren’t available.  Spreading Light was the best sounding thing at the time.  Knowing what I now know about search engines I probably wouldn’t have ever picked Spreading Light and instead bought something like christiantheology.com but I don’t regret it.  Spreading Light has become a part of who I am now and I can’t imagine that it would be the same with a name chosen for other purposes.

test3This logo actually looked better with the rest of the site than it does by itself, I swear.  My file is dated as September 2000 which seems about right in my mind.  I really don’t know why I ever went with a brown color.  In all honesty, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen another brown site in my life.  By this point I had expanded beyond my original controversial issues into theology thanks to my Bible college training.  Theology continues to be one of the biggest areas on the site.

blackmovesigAt one point Spreading Light had a message board.  This was one of the signatures that I used.  I’m think that this had to be in 2001 or 2002 but I can’t be certain.

toppic

This is my favorite of all of the site designs.  I really like the colors in this.  I’m not 100% certain why I moved away from this site design but I believe that it was because the pages were black with white lettering.  Either I realized that this was hard to read or I discovered through research that people didn’t like it.  Of course this was still better than my terrible yellow lettering on black background that I had.  Yes, you’re right that it was just as terrible as it sounds.  But the internet was an ugly thing in the early 2000’s I promise.

 

heartbanner

In 2003 I was back to ugly brown colors.  Heartwarmers marked the first branching out of the ministry.  This collection of stories became christianlifestories.com.  In 2003 I also launched Spreading Light School.  This never became quite what I had hoped but it transformed into mychristianeducation.com

 

slm logo2

This is one of my latest designs.  The picture of Jesus was taken from my home church.  This ran for probably 5 years from 2005 – 2010.  Even the current version isn’t changed much from this.  It still contains stained glass images from my home church and this if what I use as my facebook page profile.

In 2007 I started launching several sites a year.  Onlinebibledevotions.com was the first to start this but after that, there was a new site almost every month for a while.  In 2011 I was given over two dozen Bible studies by my mentor Bob Conway.  Currently only five of these have been made into their own sites.  I do have a good reason however: most of these Bible studies are over 100,000 words and the total word count is over 3 million.

In 2012 I started shutting down a few sites.  In short, I had spread some things out too far and there were too many sites to link to.  I’m still in the process of compiling the pages into new locations.  95% of the pages are remaining up, some will just be on a new site that better fits their themes.

2013 will be my 15th year doing websites and I hope to have some huge releases.  Keep an eye on this site and follow the facebook page for all of the latest updates as they come out in 2013.