We have an email from Sarah in Fort Wayne, Indiana, she writes,

Hi Pastor John in the previous episode, How Far Is Too Far Before Marriage,

which was episode 73. You answered questions about sexual boundaries before marriage.

I'd also like to know how far is too far emotionally and spiritually before marriage.

I've heard from several people that praying together and reading scripture together

can be dangerous to do as a couple before marriage. What are your thoughts?

Physical, sexual intercourse is the natural, appropriate, longed for completion and consummation

of emotional and spiritual union. I'm starting with that conviction.

That's why it is so wounding and tragic for men and women to have purely physical

one-night stands or experimental sexual encounters or serial relationships. Women

are made to long for the man she gives herself to to know her and love her for who she is,

more than merely her body. A woman feels used and abused even in marriage I would say.

If she believes this intercourse is just this man's animal appetite rather than the suitable

consummation of a profound affection bonding, a soul bonding, a personal bonding, and then

are made by God to wield their strength gently and harness their appetites and make them serve

higher and greater things like deep love for this woman as a person and a rich union of souls and

minds. So sexual union is meant to be the completion, the climax, the consummation of personal,

emotional, spiritual union. It should be an event in the body, the sexual intercourse should be

an event in the body that corresponds to an event in the soul and the heart and the mind.

It doesn't become less physical. I don't give the impression that I'm over-spiritualizing

sexual intercourse, but I believe with all my heart I've experienced, I think I could warrant it

from the nature of human beings and from aspects of one fleshness in the Bible. It doesn't become

...