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What do you think are the biggest misunderstandings about the book?

A lot of people think I'm saying don't date and then just walk up to somebody and say, "Hey, the Lord told me we were supposed to get together." I'm not saying dating is sinful, and I'm not saying a guy and a girl should never spend time alone together. I'm saying let's wait until we can be purposeful, so there's a reason behind our relationship, and we're not just stirring up passion for the sake of a good time.

So what are some of the problems with dating?

Other people must assume I'm even against marriage. When they discover I have a wife now, they say, "Oh, you're married!"—as if I had broken some promise.

Take my own mistakes: I separated the pursuit of romance from the pursuit of commitment. I think that's the root problem. We've bought into the idea that romance is in itself something we all need when we're young. We need to be able to pick the right spouse, so we need to experience multiple relationships, so it's fine to pursue romance and that kind of passionate, intimate relationship even if you have no desire or intention of becoming more committed.

Some people say, "What's the big deal? You go giddy and then you fall out of love, and that whole process is a lot of fun."

Yes, but where does that mentality stop? Sure, you can learn from making mistakes. But the emphasis in Scripture is on being obedient to God in the first place. Proverbs tells us to listen to what wisdom has to say, listen to the pain that you can avoid if you do the right thing.

You relate a story in your first book about a woman's deep disappointment when she discovers her husband had numerous dating relationships before their marriage. She says, "I thought your heart was mine." This is presented as one reason to avoid dating. But isn't this woman being selfish to expect that her husband, even before they had met, would have reserved his heart for her alone?

We've got to become aware of our habits: the way we view the opposite sex, the way our hearts can get involved and then disengage. All these things we learn in high school we will carry with us into marriage. One woman wrote me and said, "I used to be really flirtatious with guys. And I thought that would just turn off after I got married, but it doesn't."

I included that story because most people don't realize the emotional ties that are formed in those early relationships if they share that kind of intimacy with different people. There is something that's taken away from their future marriage—the degrading of intimacy.

Some in the Christian community think of this only in terms of sex. But we don't take the next step and say, "No, if I'm going to be married to someone one day, is it really being true to pursue all these emotional relationships when I know I'm not going to be with that person, when I'm just doing it for the sake of the moment?"

Some say that your philosophy works for youth, for those who are emotionally immature, but by the time people reach their mid-20s, they should be mature enough to handle dating relationships.

In my latest book, I challenge people to have a godly perspective on sex, but I also talk about grace in accepting a partner who hasn't been pure. Both my wife, Shannon, and I had regrets about how we lived before we met each other, but we've experienced God's redeeming love.

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June 11 2001, Vol. 45, No. 8