Missionary Dating

What do you say to a believer who is contemplating dating an unbeliever? This article will certainly put a few things in perspective. It starts out with this funny (but tragic) skit from Seinfeld.

"In an episode of "Seinfeld" that lays bare the characters' secular sensibilities, Elaine is shocked to learn that her on-again, off-again boyfriend, Puddy, is a believing Christian. "So is it a problem that I'm not really religious?" she asks him upon realizing their differing worldviews. "Not for me," he answers. "I'm not the one going to hell." Though Elaine herself acknowledges that she doesn't believe in an afterlife, she becomes increasingly angry with Puddy for not caring more about her eternal damnation. Finally, she explodes: "You should be trying to save me!"

When the Scriptures warn of certain behavior and actions our human nature kicks in overtime to look for a loophole. It's as old as the Garden of Eden experience of Adam and Eve. They were told they could eat from every tree except one. The serpent emphasized the "every tree" and tried to disavow the importance of the exception to the rule. The result was a plunging of the human race into the spiral of sinful behavior and its subsequent effects.

Paul warned that believers are not to be unequally yoked with unbelievers, and for good reason. Nowhere is this more important than in the area of romantic relationships. Some have tried to get around this principle by the concept of "missionary dating." An attempt is made by the believer to justify the relationship by trying to bring the unbeliever to faith. The tragic result, more often than not, is that the believer waters down his faith and often is drawn away from practicing his faith with heartbreaking results.