Last updated on November 2, 2020
Question:
I have been in a relationship for more than a year. We got physically attached, I know it is a sin, and I tried many times to avoid it, but in the end, I just let him do it. I consoled him, but we got out of control.
I am 18 and he’s 19. We’re still pursuing our studies. Moreover, my parents don’t like him because of his community. I thought it’s fine since he’s a Christian too, but my parents want me to marry into the same community as ours. I am struggling a lot. We’ve been praying that our parents will come to accept us.
What’s making me doubt is that I am getting baptized tomorrow. I don’t know if I should stop doing the sins I’ve committed and favor my parents’ interest. I don’t want to go against them, but will I be okay if in the future I get married to another person? My parents have no idea about it. I deceived everyone. Should I break up with my boyfriend, or should we ask God for forgiveness and wait for the right time for them to accept him?
Please help me. I’m in desperate need of help, and I don’t have the courage to talk to anyone about it.
Answer:
From what I gathered from your note, you have been dating a boy and shortly from the start, you’ve been having sex. You know that fornication is wrong and that your parents would disapprove if they knew, but you are more interested in keeping your boyfriend than pleasing God or your parents. Thus, you’ve been hiding the fact that you’ve been sinning.
Baptism would do you no good at this point because you have no resolve to live for Christ. Your boyfriend is more important to you and if he wants to have sex, you are willing to give it to him. Baptism is based upon faith in God and repentance from sin. “Peter said to them, “Repent, and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38). However, you think you can continue sinning and be a Christian. The truth is that your boyfriend is only pretending to be a Christian. “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God” (I Corinthians 6:9-10). He has been encouraging you to sin to satisfy his flesh. “But these, like unreasoning animals, born as creatures of instinct to be captured and killed, reviling where they have no knowledge, will in the destruction of those creatures also be destroyed, suffering wrong as the wages of doing wrong. They count it a pleasure to revel in the daytime. They are stains and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions, as they carouse with you, having eyes full of adultery that never cease from sin, enticing unstable souls, having a heart trained in greed, accursed children; forsaking the right way, they have gone astray” (II Peter 2:12-15).
God has to come first. That means no more sex, lewd acts, sexual touching, or lust until you are married (Romans 13:13-14; I Corinthians 7:1). Most likely, if you stop allowing yourself to be used, your boyfriend will leave you, which will prove that he was only interested in free sexual favors. If he stays, then insist on getting married before any more sexual behavior.
From the Bible viewpoint, there is only one Christian community. “Now I exhort you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment” (I Corinthians 1:10). The idea that there are alternative teachings that are all acceptable is false. “I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel; which is really not another; only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed! As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed! For am I now seeking the favor of men, or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bond-servant of Christ” (Galatians 1:6-10).
If I had to guess, I suspect that your parents don’t like your boyfriend because they can see by his behavior that he is focused on sex and not on God or on treating you with respect. Rather than pick a direct fight, they chose to say he is not the right sort of boy for you.