to not understand Christians who have sex/live together before marriage then marry in church?

[onlytwo]

Posting here because I am genuinely confused and not trying to offend anyone.

I keep seeing couples who describe themselves as Christians who have been living together for years, sometimes with kids, then they get married in church with all the religious vows etc. I thought one of the key Christian teachings is no sex before marriage yet it seems really common that people ignore that part but still have a big church wedding.

AIBU to think it is hypocritical?

I’m pretty sure “judge not lest ye be judged” was one of jesus’s core teachings.

Don’t remember his sermon on premarital sex though.

I think you might want to look inwards OP.

Do explain

Fornication was actually about using prostitutes /illicit sex. As with everything language evolved , changed and it ended up meaning what the powers that be wanted it to mean.

No one uses gay as a synonym for happy anymore, do they?

The 'judge not lest ye be judged' statement has been misunderstood - it doesn't mean never judge anyone for anything, ever. It means don't judge someone for a sin that you yourself are committing!

It is hilarious hearing religious people banging on about "core teachings" which are, of course, the bits they choose to believe in, while disregarding the other problematic stuff.

It's like hearing someone on here talking about their absolute wretch of a husband, who's tearing their family apart, but is, in their words, "a good dad." That's their "core teaching"!

respectfully, you clearly don’t understand the Bible.
There are indeed some very difficult to understand and explain verses in the Bible. The Bible is the God breathed word of God, written by man. It has to be read and understood properly, as with any book, picking out verses is meaningless and sometimes conveys a meaning that wasn’t intended. It also has to be understood in the historical context of the day.
I could pick out hundreds of seemingly offensive or strange verses in the Bible, but when you unpack them, understand the context and the time in which they were written, it becomes clear.

The alternative is presumably to continue to live without marriage, which, without making an assumption, you could find worse?Presumably your priest is happy to conduct these services; have you sought counsel from him?

If you disagree with your church’s teaching you may prefer to find a more conservative, fundamentalist practice which aligns more to your views, but I would personally hope you instead recognise that modern life is increasingly complex and most people are just figuring it out, perhaps in a slightly out of sync way, but always to their best efforts. But again, I respect your personal choice and views.

Fwiw, the purpose of a wedding is, in my view, to make a statement of intent for the future. I hope that all those getting married do so with joy, hope and good intentions. Those who come to it with children, divorced, are still compatible with that and may or may not choose to atone/confess/crack on with their lives as they prefer (but that is their own choice to make before God).

Are you a Christian Op? Remember everyone is a sinner and luckily God is patient and continues to forgive.
I read a comment/ statement somewhere that said something along the lines of “everyone commits sins that they are comfortable with and judge those who dare to commit the sins that they themselves are not comfortable with”. This sounds quite like that.

Corinthians and Galatians are both New Testament!

As are the instructions for women to cover their heads when praying and to obey their husbands.

Other things Christians do that the Bible says they shouldn't:

• Suffer witches to live
• Eat shellfish
• Set their slaves free
• Wear clothes made of both linen and wool
• Sit where a menstruating woman has sat

Almost like you're picking and choosing what to "not understand" OP...

Yeah, I agree with this. 'Society moving on' isn't an answer. If it's a rule it's a rule, people not wanting it to be is irrelevant.

And I say that as someone who reluctantly believes in God but is unmarried with 2 kids.

I know a LOT of people who waited until marriage, and a lot of people who didn't, all purporting to be Christians. Both sides have their pros and cons I think in the society we live in.

But, strictly speaking, it doesn't matter. Christians are called to be in the world but not of the world. That applies to everything, not just sex - and all humans fail at it. All of them. It doesn't make it right, but targeting sex before marriage is only one in a multitude of things to say "I don't understand why Christians do X when the bible teaches Y" about. The answer is because they're fallible, that's pretty much it.

St Paul. ‘Flee from sexual immorality’. Also taught that you should refrain from sex completely but if you have to, then get married.

What does it mean then?

Bullshit. It doesn’t mean you have to be committing that specific sin. It means you have to be free from all sin. Which no human is otherwise we wouldn’t have needed Jesus to absolve us of them.

They don't claim it is fine to do so and the scriptures don't allow it.

And Rebekah lifted up her eyes, and when she saw Isaac, she alighted from the camel, 65 and said to the servant, “Who is the man yonder, walking in the field to meet us?” The servant said, “It is my master.” So she took her veil and covered herself. 66 And the servant told Isaac all the things that he had done. 67 Then Isaac brought her into the tent,b] and took Rebekah, and she became his wife; and he loved her.

I mean… we could always go back to the truly olden days as described in the Bible and just go into a tent. Oh wait…

Anti-Semitism - anti Jewish racism - is a pernicious and often invisible racism. People are much happier to attribute behaviours or practices to "the Jews" than they ever would today to "the Blacks" or "the Asians".

The casual use of language around "the Jews", including long-held tropes about how they displeased the Christian God, feed into Anti-Semitism.

The book and TV documentary Jews Don't Count are a helpful introduction to the topic

Abraham had a concubine
Guess he shouldn't have done that

Nice use of language there. Did you need to use profanity?

I think attitudes have shifted over time.

Like many of my peers I was brought up in a Christian household with the view that we should wait until marriage to have sex. I recall hearing sermons saying sex was for marriage not before. Many of us did wait until marriage. There were a few that didn’t.

I disagree with @Gwenhwyfar who stated “Basically, someone who won't have sex before marriage, won't find anyone so it's extremely difficult to follow in real life.”. It is subjective, people think it’s unlikely but in my peers and my experience we found that we were respected for having chosen to wait. All of us ended up getting married.

Some may argue that Christians may rush into marriage to have sex. That may be the case for some. However looking around me the majority of my Christian friends are still married 20 odd years later.

i know of younger Christians who plan to wait. However think most churches now are not hardline about it. Tend to recommend to wait but doesn’t condemn those who don’t.

I am sure the same posters who are criticising have spoken about issues themselves but are busy telling me to mind my own business!

AIBU should disappear then!

The word means sexual immorality.

Whether sex before marriage is immoral is a matter of interpretation. But the word doesn’t mean specifically sex before marriage.

The Greek word means something like sexual promiscuity. Jesus uses it when talking about a hypothetical married couple in Matthew 5:32: it’s the only permissible reason for divorce. So it doesn’t really make sense to assume that the word means specifically sex before marriage.

Again, this is part of the Levitical law that Jesus came to fulfil.

How would you know everything he said?

"I disagree with ** who stated “Basically, someone who won't have sex before marriage, won't find anyone so it's extremely difficult to follow in real life.”. It is subjective, people think it’s unlikely but in my peers and my experience we found that we were respected for having chosen to wait. All of us ended up getting married."

That's just for your group and it does also depend on age and on how long people are together before marrying. Evangelicals getting married in early twenties after six months together is not the same as older people expecting someone to wait 3 years.