Review

• Enjoy your single life (in the Lord).
• Treat ordinary people well.
• Secure a quality group of friends, acquaintances and advisors.
• Take dating life seriously.
• Spend quality time with people from your local church on a regular basis.

Making Church Matter Relationally

Be Doers and Not Just Hearers

 

James 1:22–25 (ESV): ²² But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. ²³ For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. ²⁴ For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. ²⁵ But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.

Private Revelation and Public Accountability

1 Corinthians 14:2–5 (ESV): ² For one who speaks in a tongue speaks not to men but to God; for no one understands him, but he utters mysteries in the Spirit. ³ On the other hand, the one who prophesies speaks to people for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation. ⁴ The one who speaks in a tongue builds up himself, but the one who prophesies builds up the church. ⁵ Now I want you all to speak in tongues, but even more to prophesy. The one who prophesies is greater than the one who speaks in tongues, unless someone interprets, so that the church may be built up.

1 Corinthians 14:26–29 (ESV): ²⁶ What then, brothers? When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up. ²⁷ If any speak in a tongue, let there be only two or at most three, and each in turn, and let someone interpret. ²⁸ But if there is no one to interpret, let each of them keep silent in church and speak to himself and to God. ²⁹ Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others weigh what is said.

1 Corinthians 14:29 (NASB95): 29 Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others pass judgment.

Romans 15:1–2 (ESV): ¹ We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves. ² Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up.

Galatians 6:1–2 (ESV): ¹Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. ² Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.

Hebrews 10:24–25 (ESV): ²⁴ And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, ²⁵ not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

Titus 2:2–6 (ESV): ² Older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness. ³ Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, ⁴ and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, ⁵ to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled. ⁶ Likewise, urge the younger men to be self-controlled.

• “High-value women can reject attention all day, every day. Compliments mean nothing. Attention means nothing because they look for something more valuable than that. And they know that talk is cheap. So high-value women: . . . you can’t buy them, and you can’t get them through just words. They have to be attracted to who you are as a human being. So, if you are a man who is such a mess, and you’ve got no self-control. You’ve got nothing going on in your life and you’ve got a beautiful woman, she’s still not high-value [be]cause if she was truly high-value, she wouldn’t have selected you. High-value women would be looking at your choices in your life and they would be choosing a man who makes really good decisions, has really good self-control, treats her really well, so they have (a) really high selection process. . .They take care of themselves, they have a really high selection process and you can’t buy them through attention and money.”–Sadia Khan (https://youtube.com/shorts/wnv3OkKbZiY?si=-nvRk8Dt48-rxHi1)

Galatians 4:19 (ESV): ¹⁹ my little children, for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you!

Matthew 13:22 (ESV): ²² As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.

Resources

1. Boundaries in Dating: How Healthy Choices Grow Healthy Relationships (Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend)
2. Four Things Women Want from a Man (Dr. A.R. Bernard)

© Joshua D. Smith, Ph.D., 2024