Welcome back to the Aspesterjohn Podcast with a long time author and pastor John Piper.

Thank you to everyone who sends in questions.

We appreciate those emails, so we get to three of them a week so we can't get to all of

them.

I wish we could.

But the next email that we are able to address comes to us from a listener named Mary.

Hello Pastor John, this question is a follow-up to episode number 365.

Will you marry a couple already living together?

How would you respond to a group of professing Christian leaders who teach or who imply

that it's okay for couples to move in together and to engage in sex as long as the wedding

date is set in stone?

I would respond by recording an Aspesterjohn podcast to say how tragically wrong they

are.

That's how I would respond.

It's not okay for couples to have sex outside the marriage covenant engaged or not engaged

marriage date set or not.

It's not okay to pretend that setting a marriage date is the same in God's eyes as making

the marriage vows in the presence of God's people with the symbolic cultural sanctions

rings and vows and pronouncements and licenses.

It's mere fleshly pragmatism to treat and intention to get married as the same as being

married.

Let me say that again.

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