Topic: (Cohabitation & Marriage) Based on your text, class slides, and the three part video series on cohabitation & marriage, discuss your own opinions on these options. How important are these changes, not only for couples, but for society as a whole? Do you agree with the therapist who suggests to couples that they move in together once they are engaged? Why or why not? Does the Bible inform your conclusions about these questions? Why or why not? PA I observe as I photograph families and couples that many of the feelings that one person has for another comes out in their photographs. Such as, when a man is annoyed that he has to come to a session, this will come out in his face as he "subjects himself" to the torture known as photography. Lucky me, I get to figure out how to make his wife like his fake smile face, and all the emotions they bring to the session with them as they have argued on the way to the session. This comes out in your photos people! On another note, as I photograph couples, I am a part of a conservative church, who openly preaches and strives to walk out not having sex, or even dating outside of groups before you are engaged or married. They encourage prayer about who to marry and a trust that comes from following God to that person and believing that He brought the couple together. As a result of this being my church, I get to photograph many of the weddings between the couples who are choosing openly to remain sexually pure and live apart before their wedding. There is a distinct difference in the way that these couples photograph, in comparison to a couple that is living together before their wedding. One is very emotionally driven and the other is just showing up for some photos and trying to look in love. Guess which is which. So, when I read this question and this topic I have some opinions that range from my belief that the Bible tells us that having sex with anyone who is not your spouse is sin. Which would mean you don't live with them until you are married. And what I see in people as I photograph them and the connection that is there with couples who are choosing not to have sex being much stronger. I believe that many of the changes that we have viewed in the past 50 years in our world are related to a turning away from the Biblical beliefs that most families in the United States were founded on. To say which decision led to which one is impossible, but the turning from doing things the way that God says in the Bible that we are to do things has not had a positive result on the statistics of our marriages or our children. A few Scriptures that are the basis of why Christians believe that sex is for marriage only and only with your spouse after marriage. " Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral." -Hebrew 13:4 "But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people." Eph 5:3 My Reply Food for thought. "Marriage should be honored by all." As I stated in my post, what is the absolute biblical definition of marriage? "marriage bed kept pure" What is the marriage bed, can one have sex outside of the marriage bed, therefore, keeping it pure? "adulterer and all the sexually immoral" Isn't this just referring to the women? Women were property in biblical days, bought and sold, a virgin brought more money than a non-virgin. Isn't adultery the act of a married woman sleeping with another man? What about concubines? Multiple wives? Sexual immorality the act of committing a sexual act that is against the law. What law? Some say this also only applied to women, as it was not against the law for men to sleep with unmarried women, but it was against the law for a woman to sleep with anyone once they were married. Once the became the property of a man, they were forbidden to have sex with anyone but him. Nonvirgins were unable to be married but still could be concubines. This is all just things to think about; I am not saying you are right or wrong. Just posing other viewpoints on scripture, Before someone says to read it for how it is written without alternative interpretation, I say that this is reading for what it says, but putting it within the context of the laws and customs of the day. I think it is cool though how you can tell cohabiting couples and those that are not in their photos. I can see how that makes sense. PA I've never heard anyone say that any of God's laws were for women and not men. Husbands are to love their wives as Christ loved the church, Christ didn't love multiple churches and He preached against serving other masters and Idolatry. The law is the ten commandments and were directed at everyone, especially men in that culture. As far as One wife goes, those in the Bible who had more than one were usually old testament, before Christ came with the new law. Romans 7:6 "But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code." Titus 1:6: "An elder must be blameless, faithful to his wife, a man whose children believe and are not open to the charge of being wild and disobedient" 1 Tim 3:2 "Now the overseer is to be above reproach, faithful to his wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach" I am not a Bible Scholar, I don't pretend to be able to debate this. My Final Reply - Subject Went Dead After This Husbands are to love their wives as Christ loved the church, Christ didn't love multiple churches, and He preached against serving other masters and Idolatry. I do not disagree. I never said a husband should not love his wife. There are two sets of laws, God's laws (Ten Commandments) and Moses Laws (The Ceremonial Law). Moses law was entirely 100% abolished at the cross, but the ten commandments do remain true unto this day. There was also Levitical law, which is not even remotely relevant to this conversation in my opinion. Romans 7:6 needs put in context with the entire chapter and even with chapter 6. If you read verses 1-3, you will see where Paul is talking about a married woman who is "...bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage. ..... But if her husband dies, she is free from the law, and if she marries another man, she is not an adulteress." Then in verse 4, he says "Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead...." Verse 5 "While we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death.” Then six which we know already. But here is the key verse. Romans 7:7 "When then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, "You shall not covet." In short by dying to the law, we are dying to the guilt and shame it produces as Christ has taken that for us. Let us not forget ver 12 though "So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good." Jesus said: "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law (the Old Testament) or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke or a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law (the Old Testament) until everything is accomplished. “ Matthew 5:17-18 Titus 1:6: "An elder must be blameless, faithful to his wife, a man whose children believe and are not open to the charge of being wild and disobedient." 100% agree with this verse, but this is saying to be an elder within the church you have to meet these standards. The standards for church leadership are consistently high; they have not changed over the years or location, Paul wrote pretty much the same thing to Timothy which you referenced in 1 Tim. 3:2 There are no places in the New Testament that allows explicitly or speaks against polygamy. It though is against the requirements for any leadership within the church. I used to be a staunch fundamentalist when it comes to Christianity and the Bible, over the years and through my studies through Bethany Seminary (Admittedly a very very liberal seminary), I have seen several things that have changed my way of thinking. I am more on the progressive side of the aisle than the conservative side. I like to provoke thoughts and to make people think, and hopefully, through that thinking, they study and become more aware. This made me think and research some as well. You had me on the ropes and thinking about somethings as well. I am also not always right, and with my wife, I am never right. I am human and can easily misinterpret things as well, that is why the debate is good. I do believe on this discussion, neither of us will change the opinion of the other, so let us agree to disagree on this. I, however, do believe one husband, one wife, for goodness sakes more than one wife would be horrible, I would have a hard enough time keeping one happy and having time with her. (Sorry felt this needed some humor to close in.) I also am far from a bible scholar.