Are there practical consequences of pre-marital sex for future marital happiness?

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4 Responses

  1. Bill R. says:

    Hi Tom, the link in your post appears to lead to a white paper on the use of social media in marketing… is that a mistake, or is the info buried in there somewhere?

  2. Tom Gilson says:

    Oops. That was another pdf I was looking at. I’ll fix it right away!

  3. Jim says:

    These reports are always strange to me. I want to say, “so what?” What if the research discovered that couples who live together before mariage are LESS likely to get divorced. What if we leaned that having multiple sex partners before marriage led to a more fulfiling life in marriage? Would we then say that the Bible’s teaching on sexual morality is wrong?

    It’s convenient for us to find reasearch that back up what we belive, but regardless of what such research discovers, we still need to let the Bible be our authority.

  4. Tom Gilson says:

    This is not so irrelevant. First, for those who believe in Christ and his revelation, we know that God’s commands concerning right and wrong are not given into a vacuum. They are to protect us, preserve us, and provide for us, not only for eternity but also for now. This research confirms what we knew, that following God is good. Disconfirming information would be confusing, to say the least.

    For the unbeliever who thinks that following another path is more fulfilling than following Christ, this tells them otherwise in terms they are often more likely to accept. If by this they can see that rebellion from God isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, maybe they’ll be more opening to exploring Christ further. At least it should help crack one major barrier they might raise againt Christ. It might help motivate them toward making better choices, too, which is especially relevant when it comes to public policy decisions.

    Finally, Christianity, as I’m sure you know, is not confined to other-worldly realms. By God’s creating the world we live in, and Christ’s incarnation (among other things), we know that there is an intimate connection between the spiritual and the physical, the internal and the external. There is truth revealed in science like this, and it is truth, even though its direct source is not Scripture.