Hot Button Issues Part 2

AND BABY MAKES THREE

A couple comes to see if you will marry them. However, you know the man’s history. This would be his third marriage—and he refused your advice when his second wife wanted to save their marriage. Though he claims to be a Christian, he displays little change and doesn’t seem to have matured since then.

As you begin to tell them you would feel uncomfortable about marrying them, they reveal that they are expecting a child in six months. They tell you, “We think the right thing to do before our child comes is to commit ourselves to each other in marriage.”

Your associate recommends sending them to the justice of the peace, but you have nagging doubts about that approach: How can you speak redemptively into their lives if you can’t walk with them through their problems? How can you encourage them to attend church after they are married if you could not help them before they are married?