Is Premarital Counseling A Bad Idea?

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People are tired of hearing nothing but doom and despair on the radio.

The message of Christianity is that salvation is found in Christ alone, and any who reject

Christ therefore forfeit any hope of salvation, any hope of

heaven.

The issue is that humanity is in sin, and the wrath of almighty

God is hanging over our heads.

They will hear his words, they will not act upon them, and when the floods of divine judgment, when the fires of wrath

come, they will be consumed and they will perish.

God wrapped himself in flesh, condescended and became a man,

died on the cross for sin, was resurrected on the third day, has ascended to the right hand

of the Father, where he sits now to make intercession for us.

Jesus is saying there is a group of people who will hear his words, they will act upon them, and when the floods

of divine judgment come in that final day, their house will stand.

So Tim, the question for today is, is premarital counseling a bad idea?

Yes.

Okay.

Why is premarital counseling a bad idea?

I mean, it's mostly a bad idea, okay?

Okay, all right, all right.

Why is premarital counseling mostly a bad idea?

Yeah, it's mostly a bad idea, because essentially by that, most people who

come to a pastor and ask them to marry them, at that point a pastor has

some sort of feeling that if he's going to sign off on this thing, he's going to approve this thing, that he wants to

at least do the best he can to prepare them for what's coming their way.

But then part of the problem is that most people are coming to him after they have their hearts set on,

like, we're going to get married.

So there's not an option to say, hey, maybe this is a bad idea.

In fact, this is obviously a wonderful idea, and you better approve of it, and you better marry it, right?

Or else you're a hateful bigot, and the worst kind of person in the world.

You're an unloving pastor.

Unloving pastor.

I mean, you're basically Hitler, right?

So you have two individuals who are making probably one of the most important

decisions of their life who are coming to you, theoretically asking you for

help and advice and to validate and approve of what they're doing.

They're asking for counsel.

That's what they're supposed to be doing, right?

But then what they're actually doing is saying, the only counsel you're actually allowed to give me

is the counsel that I've already decided, right?

Right, yeah.

And then that request, then, can you marry me, is then done

in the context of, we've already most likely decided on a wedding date.

We've put a bunch of money into this, right?

Because we're already forking out a bunch of money to make this wedding happen.

So then whatever counsel you give us is going to be done in a context where

we're all driving towards one and only one outcome.

And then during that time, most of the time they're so busy at that point planning a wedding that they

really aren't able to process some of the things that you're able to do that could actually help them.

And then putting all that in the pot together, then

it makes for a bad kind of arrangement in general.

And it's not doing nearly as much good as it could be done if it were done in a different kind of way

under different kind of circumstances.

Yeah, it seems almost like you're basically going into this thinking like, so

it's supposed to be premarital counseling, meaning you're going to someone to get counsel.

You're going to someone to get basically like an outside opinion on what's going on.

But then I think functionally what it ends up being for most people is just like a, hey,

give me a bunch of helpful tips for when I get married.

And then I'm probably going to forget most of them, and I probably don't

agree with the rest of them.

And so it ends up being like this pretty unhelpful thing in terms of

really in terms of helping people find someone who is going to help them pursue

Christ in a faithful way.

So what it becomes for the pastor is it becomes this thing where, he's actually put in a situation

where he has a gun to his head and there's only like one proper outcome that can

happen here.

But then if he can say that he did premarital counseling, then at the very least, it's a way of talking him into thinking

this is a better idea than he might otherwise think.

And so it's like, well, at least we did premarital counseling, man.

And then on their end, they're looking at it like, well, we're obviously two responsible people because we did premarital

counseling with our pastor, which we probably were completely and totally uninterested in.

And mostly it's just a check mark for them.

Not only it's a check mark for them, but then it's the kind of thing that's like, it becomes like a badge of honor for them.

And then for the pastor, it's kind of like a ease my conscience kind of thing.

Well, I did the best I could, right?

I did premarital.

I washed my hands.

I washed my hands of whatever happens there.

So it's just, I think it could be more helpful if you have a couple in the early

stages of dating who are coming and saying, hey, we're considering marriage.

We don't have like a timetable there.

I think I'm a much bigger fan of what you might describe as like pre -engagement counseling than I am for

premarital counseling in general.

I think it'd be a lot more helpful if this is two people who are coming to their pastor and saying, hey,

I like her enough to know that I wanna see if this is

the wisest thing, the best thing, the godliest thing.

Like there's enough interest here to I'm not wasting your time, right?

But then there's not just like I'm totally sold out on

this has to go exactly the way I want it to go with money attached, family plane tickets attached,

all this, like it has to go a certain way.

If it could just be like pre -engagement, I think that could be a lot more helpful and

a lot more beneficial for a couple at that point who is really actively seeking

like actual counsel.

Like we wanna make the wisest decision.

You're a spiritual leader in our life.

Can you help us to think through some of the things that we should be looking for in each other to make a good decision, right?

And then give us your advice, your counsel, your wisdom on us pursuing each

other too in that way.

And I mean, there might be, there's plenty of situations in that kind of framework where the

guy has met the attractive girl who basically is a pagan

and he's attracted to her for a long reasons that you might actually be a help to him in that way if he

came wanting your help, or the opposite kind of situation where you have the

desperate girl who is dating the scoundrel guy because he's

the one who's pursued her, where you give her, or even two

mature people, I think they could benefit the most from counseling in that way if it

weren't given with a gun to your head, so to speak.

Yeah, I like that.

I like that a lot because I think,.

Assuming, yeah, like you said, assuming you have two people who are willing to actually hear your answers, even if it's

not what they want to hear, then you really are protecting people from getting into

lifelong relationships that obviously they affect the rest of your life.

And not only that, but then when you get into the engagement period, all of a sudden,

like you said, you have people planning things, there's money invested in this date now,

in a wedding date, families traveling, conversations have already happened

with specific family members a lot of times, and people are trying to travel

to come and see you.

You're trying to merge bank accounts and all of these things.

And so there's a lot of like, if someone were to get told in the middle of that process,

hey, you don't need to marry this person, there's a very big pressure to

ignore that advice just because like, hey, it's going to look really bad.

And there's a lot of things that you've got to untangle now that are going to be difficult to untangle.

And it would have been better to just, never get involved in the first place.

And so, I mean, for most people who are, for most guys who are mature,

one of the steps that they take before they get engaged is to say, hey, let me go talk to

this girl's dad.

I want to get like permission from the father before I, I want to get his blessing

before I go and ask his daughter to marry me.

Now, I think there's some wisdom in saying like, hey, I also want to talk to my pastor and not

necessarily get like a, well, I guess I hesitate to say like,

whatever my pastor says goes, right?

But then there is like a certain kind of like, hey, so the whole point of like

being at a church is you've found a church where you trust the leadership to shepherd you,

right?

And so it should just be a part of your regular decision making, I

think in general, but especially with this sort of big decision

when it comes to picking someone that you're gonna spend the rest of your life with, it makes a lot of sense to say,

hey, why don't I go talk to my pastor before this and why don't we go together

and talk to my pastor and just, I want to know what he thinks because

I genuinely value his wisdom and I think I can trust that.

And so that makes a lot of sense for me.

And hopefully people are hearing that and saying, unmarried people are hearing what we're saying and thinking

maybe this is how I should actually go about it so that I don't end up somehow getting married to like the contentious

woman or something, right?

Yeah, well, the Bible says the one who isolates himself seeks their own desire.

So in the multitude of counselors, there is safety and I think more that you can actively involve people.

Early on in the process, before you just have all the emotions totally sold

and on this outcome, I think the better off you're gonna be and the wiser decision you're gonna

make.

And so I think there are some like sinful choices you can make.

The Bible says, marry whom you will, only Mary and the Lord, I think.

I mean, there's plenty of times where you have a couple and you think one of them is probably not saved.

And so that can happen.

But then I think you can make a wise marriage choice or make a foolish marriage choice.

And if you wanna make a wise marriage choice, there's just so much to marriage that you might wanna get some people

who have been married before and know the pitfalls, know the dangers, know the difference between like

real warning signs and just

Immaturity.

Yeah, immaturity.

It can help you sort through some of these things.

I mean, there are certain character traits that a person can have that will make your life significantly

harder than it needs to be.

And those who have ISTC and ears to hear, they have a much better understanding

of what some of those things could be.

So if you wanna make a wise decision, get people involved earlier on in the process with less pressure,

I think that's the main point.

All right, fair enough.

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