BOY MEETS GIRL

Josh Harris
A book on relationships… hang on this is a blog on singleness. Let me explain, one problem for single Christians is that they can become obsessed about relationships and finding “the perfect one”. Also adding to this, single Christians do end up in relationships, therefore teaching on relationships is needed, either as a clarification for singles’ miss-conceptions on relationships or as preparation for the future.

Why did I find this book useful as a single Christian? Well the aim of the book is to make the readers view relationships as “God centered”. He uses the bible clearly to show biblical principals for God centered relationships, the most important being that marriage is serving God together. First this helps you see past the self centeredness that so often can cloud peoples approach to relationships. Second, it is scary! In reading this book the first time it made me think through how I viewed relationships and the commitment involved. It made me realizes the amount of sacrifice involved. Why should singles read this book, well it might just scare you so much that you end up embracing your single status.

Well my experience of the book aside, it does make you think seriously about relationships in many helpful ways. It helps you get out of the mindset of “he/she is a Christian, he/she is single, therefore he/she is a potential husband/wife”. When you relies the commitment involved and that marriage is to serve God it makes you re-think what you are looking for in a partner, in terms of godly compatibility and outlook on ministry.

Harris looks at the importance of basing relationships in friendship, keeping your relationship to the appropriate level where you are, at not where you want to be at. Again purity features heavily, it seems to be a trend in American literature, but again this is an important discipline so don’t neglect it. Also is an excellent chapter on dealing with the past and experiencing God’s forgiveness, as I have mentioned increasing numbers of believers have had past sexual experience and often it holds them back or drags them down in guilt, the challenge here is to face up to the past in a relationship and accept God’s forgiveness.
Again many people have “issues” with Josh Harris, as I say, take his principal then look at the application. For a book on relationships and how to approach them, I recommend this one, warm and biblical, it will give a good grounding in what relationships are there for and what they are about, vital points that are often forgotten in the craze of media, peer pressure, fallen nature and barrages of hormones.