The way a couple enters marriage shapes the marriage they will have. The decisions made in the courtship season — about character, calling, family involvement, physical boundaries, and the commitment itself — set the trajectory of the marriage that follows. This part treats the courtship season biblically, practically, and with full honesty about the modern context.
4.1 Biblical Patterns
Scripture does not give a single prescribed courtship method, but it gives several patterns from which principles can be drawn.
Isaac and Rebekah (Genesis 24). Abraham sends his servant to find a wife for Isaac from his own people. The servant prays for guidance; he watches for character (Rebekah waters his camels — an act of significant labour and hospitality); he meets the family; the family agrees; Rebekah herself agrees (“I will go”, Genesis 24:58); they marry. The principles: family involvement and counsel, character assessed in action, the woman’s consent, the calling of the household considered.
Jacob and Rachel (Genesis 29). Jacob travels to his uncle’s household, falls in love with Rachel, works seven years for her, is deceived into marrying Leah, works another seven years for Rachel. The pattern includes proven commitment over time, parental involvement (though here corrupt), and labour invested in advance of marriage.
Boaz and Ruth (Ruth 1–4). Ruth, a young widow, demonstrates remarkable character in her commitment to Naomi. Boaz, an older man, recognises her character and acts to protect and provide for her. The kinsman-redeemer process is followed. The marriage that follows is honoured at the city gates. The principles: character demonstrated, age and life-stage carefully considered, public process followed, both parties exercising agency.
Mary and Joseph (Matthew 1). A betrothal, more than modern engagement — a binding commitment that required formal dissolution to break. Joseph, finding Mary pregnant, considered ending the betrothal quietly to protect her, and was redirected by an angel. The principles: courtship and engagement are serious commitments, and the protection of the other party matters even when there is reason to step back.
From these and other passages, several principles emerge that we will develop in the sections that follow: families and trusted believers should be involved; character should be carefully observed before commitment; both parties should freely consent; the calling of the future household should be considered; physical intimacy is reserved for marriage; and the whole process should be conducted in a way that honours the other person.
4.2 Character and Calling Assessment
The most important question in a courtship is not “do we feel chemistry?” — though that matters. It is: “is this a person whose character and calling fit me to walk under Christ for the rest of my life?”
Character. Watch the person’s character over time, in different circumstances, with different people. How does she speak about her mother? How does he treat the waiter? How does she handle disappointment? How does he handle being challenged? How does she relate to her siblings? How does he respond to spiritual challenge? Character is not what people perform when they are trying to impress; it is what they do when they think it does not matter. The courtship season is the time to observe character before commitment.
Walk with the Lord. Is this person walking with Christ, or merely going to church? Are they pursuing the Lord on their own, or only when accompanied? Do they pray? Read scripture? Confess sin honestly? Engage with the gifts and the work of the local body? Are they growing? A future spouse who is not actively walking with the Lord will not become one through marriage; if anything, marriage will reveal the gap.
Calling. Where is the Lord taking this person? What gifting do they carry? What burden has the Lord laid on them? Are these compatible with the gifting and burden you carry? Two Saints called to different parts of the world, two Saints with profoundly different visions of household life, two Saints with conflicting senses of vocation — these are not impossible matches, but they require honest conversation before commitment. Marriage is a yoke (2 Corinthians 6:14 in its broader principle); two Saints yoked together must be able to pull in the same direction.
Spiritual gifts. Document 3 (The Self-Assessment Guide) and Document 4 (the Spiritual Gifts Assessment) of this series equip individuals to discern their gifts. Two Saints who have done this work can usefully share their gift profiles in the courtship season. Where the gifts complement — a teaching-gifted Saint with a pastorally-gifted one, an administration-gifted one with a mercy-gifted one — the marriage is strengthened. Where the gifts overlap heavily but lack key complements, the household will be unbalanced unless additional gifting is found elsewhere.
Practical compatibility. Family backgrounds, financial habits, attitudes to children, attitudes to extended family, work patterns, geographic flexibility, cultural assumptions. These are often dismissed as “less important than character” — but in practice they generate enormous friction in marriage. They should be discussed honestly during courtship, not after.
4.3 Family Involvement and Counsel
Modern Western courtship has typically privatised the process — two people decide, often without significant family or church input, and announce the result. This is a relatively recent cultural pattern. The biblical and historic Christian pattern has been one of family and community involvement throughout.
Why family involvement matters. Families know the person being courted in ways the courting partner cannot yet. Parents see the patterns of childhood and adolescence that shaped the young adult before them. Siblings see how the person treats those closest to them. Wise families bring decades of perspective to a decision the courting parties may be making in months.
What family involvement looks like. Early in the courtship, both parties introduce one another to their families — not for approval, but for relationship and counsel. Through the courtship, regular conversations with both sets of parents. Honest welcoming of family observations — even uncomfortable ones — as gifts. At the point of engagement, formal blessing sought from the parents.
What family involvement is not. Arranged marriage, in the controlling sense. The biblical patterns include real agency by both parties (Rebekah’s “I will go”). Parents who attempt to dictate the marriage without the consent of the young adults are not following the biblical pattern. The pattern is involvement and counsel, not control.
When the family is broken or absent. Many courting Saints come from families that cannot helpfully play this role — unbelieving families, abusive families, absent families, families in conflict. In these cases, the church family steps in. The eldership, mature couples in the body, the courting Saint’s pastor, a trusted spiritual mother or father — these become the family the Saint does not naturally have. The courtship is no less protected; it is differently protected.
When the family’s counsel is wrong. Sometimes families are mistaken. A family that disapproves of a courtship for cultural, racial, financial, or class reasons that are not biblical may be wrong, and the courting Saints may need to proceed against the family’s wishes. This is not the normal case, but it does happen. When it does, the eldership of the church should be involved in helping the Saints discern carefully and proceed with honour where they can.
4.4 Physical and Emotional Boundaries
The cultural moment in which this document is written has aggressively normalised sexual intimacy before marriage — in films, music, advertising, online life, peer expectations. The biblical teaching cuts straight against this current.
Hebrews 13:4
“Marriage should be honoured by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.”
1 Thessalonians 4:3-5
“It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control your own body in a way that is holy and honourable, not in passionate lust like the pagans, who do not know God.”
Sexual intimacy is the gift of marriage and is reserved for marriage. This is not because the body is bad or because pleasure is suspect — marriage itself includes the fullness of sexual joy (1 Corinthians 7:3-5; the whole of the Song of Songs). It is because sexual intimacy creates a one-flesh bond that belongs only inside the covenant of marriage. To enter the bond physically without the covenant is to fracture what God has joined.
Practical wisdom for courting Saints:
Decide boundaries before the moment, not in it. Have honest conversations about what physical expressions are appropriate for the season — hand-holding, an arm around the shoulder, a hug, a kiss. Decide these before being alone together. The moment is not the time for negotiation; the moment is the time for already-decided.
Avoid the situations that defeat the boundaries. Couples who spend long late nights alone in one of their homes, who travel together unaccompanied, who share a hotel room “innocently”, who text in the small hours, are creating situations that overwhelm the best of intentions. Wisdom is keeping the situations from arising.
Emotional intimacy outpaces commitment too. Modern courtship often produces emotional intimacy at depths the relationship has not yet earned — deep self-disclosure, dependence on the other for emotional regulation, the merging of identities. This too is a form of premature one-flesh-ness, and it produces deep wounds when relationships end. Wise courtship grows emotional intimacy at a pace proportional to commitment.
Honest accountability. Both parties should have an older mentor of the same sex — a spiritual father or mother, an elder couple — to whom they are accountable on this and other matters. Where they have stumbled, they confess; where they are tempted, they ask for prayer; where the relationship is going wrong, they listen to the counsel.
When the line has been crossed. Many courting Saints, even very committed ones, find themselves having crossed lines they intended to hold. The biblical response is confession to God, confession to each other, restoration of accountability, possibly a season of slower courtship or even separation to regain ground, and walking forward by grace. This is not the end of the courtship necessarily — the gospel is grace upon grace. But it is treated honestly, not minimised.
Pornography and the digital age. Most Saints today have been exposed to pornography — some from very young ages. A future spouse’s history with pornography is not automatically disqualifying; many faithful Saints carry this history and are walking in freedom. What matters is honesty, ongoing accountability, and active pursuit of purity. A courtship that cannot have this conversation is not yet ready for marriage. A pattern of ongoing concealed use is a serious warning sign and should be addressed before engagement.
4.5 Compatibility and Warning Signs
Some warning signs in a courtship require careful attention.
A pattern of disrespect for the other’s parents. A future spouse who routinely dismisses, mocks, or undermines their own parents will likely treat their future spouse and children similarly.
A pattern of unaddressed anger. Outbursts, sustained resentment, intimidation patterns — in the courting season, not yet under the pressures of marriage. If the pattern is present now, marriage will not heal it; it will reveal it more.
Refusal to bring the relationship under spiritual authority. A Saint who will not be accountable, who resists eldership counsel, who does not welcome family involvement, who isolates the relationship — this is a warning sign about how that Saint will function within the marriage and the local body.
Significant deception, even small. Lies about finances, lies about past relationships, exaggerations that turn out not to be true — these are character markers. A pattern of even small dishonesty in courtship will not heal in marriage.
Profound disagreement on the foundational matters. Whether they will have children; whether the wife will work outside the home or not; where they will live; what faith pattern they will hold. Some disagreement is normal and resolvable; profound, immovable disagreement on a foundational matter is a sign that the marriage will be deeply strained.
A different gospel. If, in the course of courtship, it becomes clear that one of them holds a different gospel — a prosperity teaching, a denial of Christ’s sufficiency, an open challenge to the authority of scripture — this is more than a difference. It is a foundational division. The courtship should not proceed.
Inability to repent. When a courting Saint cannot say “I was wrong, please forgive me” — when conflicts are always the other party’s fault — the marriage will be unable to repair. Inability to repent is a structural problem, not a temperamental one.
4.6 Decision and Engagement
When character has been seen, calling has been clarified, family and church have counselled, the foundational conversations have been had, and both parties are confident this is the Lord’s direction — the engagement is the next step.
The proposal. In most modern Christian contexts the proposal is made by the man to the woman, following the parents’ blessing (or with the parents’ blessing already received). It is a public commitment — not yet marriage, but a binding intention toward marriage. The biblical betrothal carried significant weight, and modern engagement still does in practice.
The engagement season. A defined period — typically six to eighteen months — to plan the wedding, complete premarital preparation, integrate families, and walk together into the marriage that follows. The engagement is not a postponement; it is preparation.
Premarital preparation. The eldership of the church or a wise mentor couple walks the engaged couple through the foundational topics: theology of marriage, the Ephesians 5 passage in depth, finances, communication patterns, expectations about children and parenting, sexual intimacy in marriage, conflict resolution, dealing with extended family, spiritual practices for the home. Template C in the Appendix gives a structure.
Confronting the harder questions before the wedding. Most struggles a marriage will face for the first decade are predictable from the engagement season. The premarital season should surface them — not in a way that prevents marriage, but in a way that helps the couple enter marriage with honest understanding and agreed strategy.
4.7 When Courtship Reveals the Match Is Not Right
Sometimes the courtship reveals what the early excitement could not see — that this is not the marriage either party should enter. This is one of the harder pastoral moments, and it must be handled with honour.
How to recognise it. Sustained sense, in one or both parties, that the Lord is not in this match. Compatibility concerns that do not resolve over time. Character concerns that crystallise into clear no-marry signals. Eldership or wise counsel warning against the marriage. The Spirit’s witness in one or both Saints, peace lifting, conviction settling.
The honest no. When the no comes, it should be spoken — not avoided, not stalled into engagement, not turned into a slow fading. The courting Saint who senses it speaks it to the other, with kindness, with honest reasons, with care for the other’s dignity. The conversation should usually be in person, with prayer beforehand.
Honouring the other party. The party receiving the no carries real pain. The party speaking it carries the obligation to honour the relationship that existed — not gossiping about the reasons, not undermining the other in the body, not minimising what the season meant. The other party is a Saint, and an honoured Saint, even when not the one to marry.
After the no. Both Saints typically need a season of healing, time apart, and recovery. The body of Christ surrounds both. Many faithful Saints have walked through a difficult ending and gone on to a much better next chapter — sometimes much later, sometimes with another person, sometimes in faithful singleness. The Lord redeems even broken courtships when they are walked through honourably.
4.8 The Wedding and the First Year
The wedding is the inaugural day of the household. It is not the goal; it is the beginning. The first year of marriage sets patterns that will hold for decades.
The wedding itself. A covenant before God, before the body of believers, before the families. The vows are spoken to each other under the Lord. The couple seals what they have committed to in the courtship. The body witnesses. Where possible, the eldership of the local church participates in the ceremony, reinforcing the connection of the marriage to the body of Christ.
The first year. Deuteronomy 24:5 gives an unusual instruction — a newly married man is not to be sent to war or assigned other duties for one year, but is to be free to stay home and bring happiness to the wife. The principle: the first year is special. It is the year in which the patterns of the marriage are set. Couples should not overburden the first year with major life upheavals, demanding careers, additional responsibilities. Where possible, the first year is a year of building the marriage itself.
Practical patterns for the first year. Establish family devotions. Establish the weekly Sabbath rhythm. Establish the prayer pattern between husband and wife. Establish the budget pattern. Establish the household rhythms — meals, sleep, hospitality, time with extended families. Find your places in the local body. Discuss children. Discuss vocation. Pray about the next decade.
First-year conflicts. The first year reveals the early gaps. The patterns of family origin show; the differences in expectation surface; the practical compatibility is tested in real life. This is normal. Couples who walk through the early conflicts honestly, repent specifically, forgive specifically, and adjust patterns, are building the marriage that will hold for the decades that follow.