This picture was googled up under the name cohabitation. "Nooo, that's not what necessarily happens in cohabitation!" One may protest. Granted the benefit of the doubt. But tell me if this image does not appear in people's minds when we say two people are cohabitating. This is exactly why defensive explanations always arise whenever cohabitation is discussed among those who practice it. This is exactly why Christians shouldn't be found in it. This is precisely the picture I'm trying to paint.
What I find most disappointing is this: When people appeal to a higher authority for advice, sometimes we get really bad answers. Or when look up to someone older to model after, sometimes the older ones are not of exemplary behaviour.
While cohabitation is not as explicitly stated as the warning against murder, the consistency of the Bible points against it. The prompting of the Holy Spirit is the best guide that one can have when Scriptures is opened to guide our lives. But at times, we feel a great lack of human guidance.
What do pastors have to say about the issue of cohabitation? Has the issue of unmarried couples living together become a “private family matter” that cannot be interfered with by the church? If a church has “marriage counseling” programs, what are the counselors saying? If two people are behaving unbecomingly towards one another before marriage, are pastors still marrying them in “holy matrimony” in their own church? Has turning to hasty marriages become the most convenient way to reduce pre-marital sin?
I'm hoping that in the heart of every godly leader, there has always been a desire to be a prophetic mouthpiece of God. I’m hoping that the lack of opportunity (or permission) for encounter is the only factor that is holding them back.
But then, when we look to Nehemiah, what did he do? He pulled off people’s hair, whether or not people allowed him to. Who would allow their hair to be pulled off anyway? It is needless to say that nobody really wants to hear corrective rebuke. Jesus did not ask permission from the temple synagogue to overturn the tables, did He? Neither did He see it wrong to interfere with other people’s business. He just went and put them out of business.
When pastors are short of hands to provide sound counsel to young couples, we hope that other people will have good examples to show to those who seek them. But sometimes, we use the wrong examples as our reference point. It is the non-exemplary, cohabitating couples who set models of justification for cohabitation. And people silently look up towards them as a source of encouragement or assurance in what they are doing. I can count the number of such examples that I know of in one hand. I'm hoping that I won’t need two hands to count them.
Even sadder is, when couples who struggle in the issue of cohabitation look towards their own families, they get even more confusing ideas. It becomes near impossible to convince someone otherwise if “family business” is already approved by family.
Is cohabitation a matter of culture? Let’s take a look at culture then. Even secular culture that holds on to some sense of morality tells us that physical proximity with the opposite sex is improper. What more for unmarried couples to live together.
Take a look at the hostels in our universities and colleges. Students of different genders are housed in separate blocks. Residents are not even allowed to walk along the corridors in the opposite gender’s block. Any entry into the opposite gender’s rooms, however brief, is forbidden. Whenever there is any form of governance, people from opposite genders are always prevented from being close to one another in private places. Even the police patrol public places to curb overly-amorous behaviour.
And we Christians revel in our God-given liberty by living together, without a single pang in our conscience. It is us Christians who should be the most ashamed.
Let’s take a look at the matter of personal taste. Yes, what we choose to do is indeed a matter of personal taste, if we do not hold on to an absolute standard of truth. If we reason without any reference to an absolute truth, pre-marital sex is a matter of personal taste. What’s so wrong with having sex with the one we love, if we are already going to get married soon anyway? So is drinking. What’s so wrong with consuming as much liquor as we want, as long as we do not cross the line of getting drunk? So is smoking. Aren’t medical reports about smoking directly linked to lung cancer flawed, since some people have chain-smoking grandmothers who lived to a ripe old age? So is gambling. What’s so wrong with placing bets with my own hard-earned money, as long as the bets are not too high?
So is cohabitation.
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