Corey Van Vliet
Christian Marriage and Family per. 4
1/23/13
Dating and Loving Essay



There are many reasons why teenagers date. They could be dating for good reasons or for bad ones. It is important to know the consequences of dating for bad reasons, and to know the great benefits that dating can bring if you keep God in the center of your relationship and are dating for the right reasons.

Some of reasons that teenagers date are for attention and seeking love in the face of trials in their life. Teenagers may also date because they are neglected and feel that the only way to feel loved again is through an intimate and physical relationship to fill a void in their life. These are the wrong reasons to date. A very good reason why teenagers date is to find a potential marriage spouse that has a personal relationship with Christ and can bring your relationship with Christ closer together.

There is many differences between extreme courting and extreme dating. Extreme dating is a relationship that is based on worldly views and is very selfish. The couple will have a very physical relationship and they will always be unsupervised by parents. Extreme courting is always being supervised by the girls parents and is strictly for the goal of finding a marriage spouse. Courting is based on Biblical views and is always seeking to benefit the relationship as a whole, not a selfish relationship. Christian dating is a very great way to date because it is very close to courting but still gives you some freedoms. In a Christian dating relationship, you don’t stay in same room alone unsupervised, but you still have the freedom to go out on your own and enjoy dating at its best.

There are four types of love. The first type of love is agape love. This is unconditional love and is truly only seen in the relationship between God and Man. The next type of love is phileo love. This type of love is seen in a strong friendship, but not family. A good example of this type of love would be fond in a group of close-knit friends that have been together their whole lives. The third type of love is called storge love. This love is familial love. The type of love that you have for your close family and can also include very close friends that feel like family. The fourth and final type of love is eros love. This love is a very intimate and passionate love that could be sexual, but could also just be the type of love that resembles connectiveness and security. This is the kind of love that would be found in a strong marriage.

Everyone has an emotional love tank. The level of someone’s love tank effects how they will show love to others and will effect their overall mood and how they look at life. If a child always has had parents that have shown him love and praising him for all the good things he does, he has a full tank and will now be able to disperse love to others and will therefore receive love from others due to his positive attitude. But when a child has always been neglected and has never received love from his parents, that child will grow up and be possibly shy and disconnected. The child will most likely not be able to show love to others because he doesn’t know what love looks like. He will go through his life being a negative and angry person. It is very important to keep your spouse with a full love tank to keep the marriage alive and to ensure a healthy relationship.

There is a difference between falling in love and choosing to love someone in a relationship. If you fall in love, and later don’t feel the intensity of the love anymore, you have many options. Some of the options you have would include breaking up and finding someone else and repeat the same cycle, or you could live in a dead marriage. These choices would be a prime example of falling in love or infatuation. But the other wise option you have is to figure out how to love them every single. Not to say that this would be easy, because it is not, but it is the right way to strive to keep your marriage alive. The difference between falling in love and choosing to love someone is that when you fall in love and that’s all, you are thinking of a temporary relationship and you are not thinking about the other person. When you choose to love someone, you are striving and trying your hardest to keep the marriage alive and also trying to avoid the ultimate consequence, divorce.