More on Courtship

"The first word it the word “court”. That’s where we get our word “courtship”. The word “court” means this: “Devoted attention in order to win favor”. Now, we use that word “court” in many ways, but of course the way we’re using it here, today, is in the area our relationships. “Devoted attention in order to win the favor of a young lady” is the context that we’re giving it in, and that is the historical context of the word “courtship”. If you trace it back, that is the way that is was used. Alright, the next word we want to look at in definition is the word “flirt”. I’ll just give the words in the dictionary, they are very revealing. I had to think as I was studying this word “flirt”. I don’t think any of the young people are going to want to do this anymore, or want to have anything to do with the word “flirt”. It means, “To court triflingly,” and courtship is a very serious thing. It means “to express emotions of love without serious intent”. It means, “to play at love”. It means, “to toy with love”. Those are very interesting definitions, aren’t they? And that’s exactly what it is! Young people who flirt, they make a game out of one of the most serious relationships of life.


They make a game out of it. They turn it into a toy; they think it is something that they can play with. (I.E.) “Let’s see how this happens, and let’s see what this is, and let’s see how this feels, and let’s see how she reacts to this”. They are making a game out of the most serious relationship of their life. I don’t think you want to do any flirting.""Alright, the next word we want to look at is the word “dating”. And some of these words are just modern American words, but we have to look at our definitions so we can decide whether we like these words or not, and whether we want to use these words, and whether we want to enter in what these words mean. “Dating” is “a temporary romantic relationship”. It happens all the time in the world. Some that are sitting in this room know what I’m talking about. It gets pretty close to what whole area of “flirting”. (I.E.) “I want to see what love is all about. I want to play with it for a while, so I’m going to enter into temporary romantic relationships”. And I know that in this room, we don’t have much of a problem with that. That’s freely done in the world as they get together, but in God’s people, this is often done in a more of a secret way. The young people, they often have temporary romantic relationships, also, but they do it a little bit more secretly because they know it’s allowed to be done like the world does it. They do it through thoughts, little looks, notes, little talks, long stares across the room, sparkling eyes, that’s how they do it. They ride in the same car when the young people are going to a certain place, they just “end up” in the same car, and I could expound on that one quite a bit today, but I think you know what I’m talking about. Often he young people say, “Oh, we’re not dating”, or maybe if the pastor comes an says to the parents, “What’s going on here?”, they say, “Oh, they’re not dating. They’re not dating”. Well, we have to question that."



"A few scriptures here, Matthew Chapter 5, as relating to this matter of Godly courtship, and all that surrounds it. You don’t need to turn to these, I’m just going to read them to you quickly. “Blessed are the pure in heart”. Second one is in 1st Timothy 5:12 where it says, “Young men, treat the younger women as sisters, with all purity”. Now, what that means to me is, “Young men, you treat all of these sisters over here, except the one that you feel like God would have you to court and marry, just like you do your sister.2nd Timothy Chapter 2, verse 22 says, “Flee also youthful lusts”. Stay away from them. There are lusts which the youth are tended to that as you grow older, you’re not so tended to them. God says in His word admonishing you to flee those youthful lusts. That means as we have so clearly have heard this week already, you stay away from them. Don’t you get near them."Denny Kenaston