What's wrong with living together?

Case Study Assignment, for Vanguard 7000 LEADERSHIP What's Wrong with Living Together Unmarried? Christopher Ash, Director of the Cornhill Training Course in London "So, can you show me from the Bible that it's wrong for me to be living with my girlfriend?" It comes to light that a Christian young man in your church is living with his girlfriend unmarried. When you challenge him about this he responds with the question above. He is not aggressive, though perhaps a little defensive. But he really does seem to want to know the answer. He has not been a Christian long. All or nearly all his non-Christian peer group are living together, and really it hasn't seriously occurred to him that it is wrong, let alone scandalous. So what is his pastor to say? It will not do simply to show him New Testament texts forbidding "fornication" (most English versions) or "sexual immorality" (NIV), as he will quite reasonably ask how we know that these texts forbid faithful public living together unmarried. Actually I am sure the Greek word porneia translated "fornication" or "sexual immorality" does in general refer to all sexual intimacy outside marriage. But to demonstrate this is not a trivial matter. "And after all," our young man may say, "we are living as if man and wife, and the marriage certificate is "just a piece of paper." And there really doesn't seem to be anything convincing in the Bible which makes a marriage ceremony essential. So what we are doing is morally responsible, and not at all like fornication or sexual immorality. I am not paying her for sex, as a man does with a prostitute. We are not breaking marriage vows by having an affair. We are not sneaking off for secret assignations in a covert and shameful way. On the contrary, we have quite openly moved in together. We love one another, and we are faithful to one another. So what's wrong?" It is important for we who are pastors to consider our answer. For this young man's questions are not trivial. We are not saying he ought to marry because we are social conservatives who prefer the old way of doing things. We have no simple and convincing Bible proof text to quote. I myself doubt if there is an answer that can be condensed into a sound bite.