“How do you deal with couples who’re living together and think it is fine?” A Tanzanian pastor recently asked me this question when I was visiting him. But it obviously isn’t an issue that’s specific to East Africa. Back in South Africa, where our church is, we are experiencing the same issue; and many people are reporting a similar trend around the world. Countless Christian couples the world around are cohabitating and see no problem with it. Cohabitation before marriage has become so normalised in many cultures that professing believers are surprised when they receive pushback about their living arrangements.
This should be a concerning trend.
Without a doubt, African Christianity is strongly influenced by trends in the US. And according to a survey by Barna back in 2016, 65% of Americans thought cohabitation was a good thing. When the survey was narrowed to practising Christians, still 41% had no issue with it. What Barna also found is that each progressive generation (from Elders, to Boomers, to Gen Xers, through to Millennials) considered cohabitating more and more normal. When Barna asked the reason why people cohabited, over 85% of respondents stated it was to test compatibility. For anyone trying to hold to a biblical worldview, this should be a concerning trend.
Below, we’ll consider briefly why cohabitation isn’t compatible with biblical Christianity, given that marriage is covenantal. Finally, I’ll suggest a pastoral approach to try and win people over.
Is Cohabitating Actually Wrong?
I’ve had several Christian couples ask this question in our church. While it’s easy to find Bible verses about sex before marriage (see 1 Corinthians 7:2; 1 Thessalonians 4:3), finding verses that speak about living together is harder. This is partly because it was so unheard of in Jewish and early Christian cultures that the authors of the Bible didn’t really need to write about it. Apart from Hebrews 13:4, where the author states the marriage bed should be “undefiled,” the only other example I can find is the woman at the well (John 4:1-45).
Having had more marriages than a Hollywood A-lister (five was her count), Jesus prophetically identified that the man she was living with was not her husband (John 4:18). She was cohabitating. Even in Samaritan communities, this was socially shunned at the time, and was probably the reason she was drawing water alone (John 4:7, 28). But these passages are hardly a strong foundation to build a theology from. To do this, we should look at the issue in relation to the theological concept of covenant.
Marriage as Covenant
The real issue with cohabitation goes much deeper than testing compatibility before marriage. Cohabitation strikes against everything a marriage is. For marriage is fundamentally a covenant. That is, it’s a binding agreement to stick together through thick and thin (Proverbs 2:16-17). That’s why we have the famous vows: “for richer, for poorer, for better, for worse, in sickness and in health, until death do us part.” Cohabitation is the polar opposite of this. Its mantra is ‘let’s give this and try and see if it works for both of us.’ There is no commitment. No promises.
Cohabitation strikes against everything a marriage is.
Those cohabitating often live with all the benefits of marriage—shared house, shared finances, shared bed, sexual intimacy, raising children, etc.—but without any of the commitments of marriage. The level of commitment is akin to a one-night stand that keeps getting extended. This can occur for years. And once this starts to look like a marriage, there is little perceived benefit to then make vows to each other.
While many secular people find the absence of a covenant a non-issue, for believers, this presents a real challenge. Why? Because our faith is deeply rooted in the concept of covenant. To become a believer, a person enters into a covenant with Jesus (Hebrews 8:8-13). And then in Ephesians 5, Paul parallels this covenant with the marriage covenant.
Would we want a tentatively-committed Jesus to agree to rescue us from future judgment? As long as it still works for both of us? Jesus’ pursuit of his bride is one of the most wonderful images in scripture (Revelation 19:7-9; 21:1-2). But it only occurs because there has been a commitment. And that commitment occurs upfront.
That’s always been the deal with marriage. Covenantal commitment creates the security for couples to be vulnerable and naked—both emotionally and physically. Without that security, sex becomes a performance that has to be maintained to keep the other person from looking for someone new or something else. While some people would find that appealing, it’s a situation that induces anxiety and uncertainty. Ironically, it’s also a recipe for bad sex. In contrast, the security created by lifelong vows fosters the conditions for true, meaningful intimacy.
Covenantal commitment creates the security for couples to be vulnerable and naked.
Think about it. We don’t take this approach with our children: ‘Let’s see what your school marks are at the end of the year to see if you will be living with us next year.’ So, why do it to the person on earth we supposedly love the most? If committed love creates the best environments for our children to flourish, it’s likely the same situation is best for our romantic relationships. The data backs this up: Cohabiters are more likely to be unfaithful, more likely to divorce (once they are married), earn significantly less than their married counterparts, and more likely to suffer from depression. Both regeneration and marriage were designed to start in a moment, not develop gradually—and for good reasons.
Disciple Those Who Don’t See Any Problem
In my pastoral ministry, I have made several mistakes in this area. I’ve seen couples leaving the churches I have led suddenly and upset when confronted on this issue. It took an older, more experienced pastor to get alongside me and advise our eldership that we don’t present this as an issue of church policy. Instead, we should present it as a discipleship issue. This simple change of language has borne much fruit.
We should present cohabitating as a discipleship issue.
Recently, we had a couple who were living together start attending our meetings. While our membership is governed by biblical criteria, our Sunday meetings are public and open to anyone. As this couple were loved and welcomed, the Holy Spirit convicted them of their situation, and they asked me how they could correct it by getting married.
We had another couple arrive at our church, where the woman was heavily pregnant. They attended on Sundays and came to our membership class. When I met up with them, I probed their understanding of the gospel. Neither had assurance of salvation. Nor were they ready to submit to Jesus’ lordship. They journeyed with us for a number of weeks, and at the follow-up meeting, they told me, with tears in their eyes, that they now understood what Christianity was about.
They then told me how, out of their own conviction, they had moved into separate bedrooms and were abstaining from sex. I asked if anything was stopping them from getting married now, and they didn’t think so. So, we made arrangements for them to get married also.
Lead with the Gospel and Not Church Policies
While there will be many opinions on the specifics of handling the situations mentioned above, I want to focus on the bigger picture of exploring with cohabitating couples their knowledge of the gospel, before calling them to align their behaviour around living arrangements. By doing this, I’m following the adage: believe, belong and then behave.
Believe, belong and then behave.
My experience has been that when people have genuinely understood the gospel as a regenerative work with the subsequent requirement of submitting to Jesus as Lord, they then are open to receive conviction from the Holy Spirit about their living arrangements—leading to repentance.
Through this process, I am now convinced that cohabitating is best presented as a discipleship issue, rather than a church policy issue. Yes, we should have a church policy. But that isn’t what we should present upfront to those who’re cohabitating. It’s far better to let them wrestle with what Jesus requires of them and then explain that it’s out of our understanding of his requirements that we have created our church policies. While it’s unlikely that every couple that comes to our church will come under biblical conviction on this issue, we should strive for as many as possible to do so.
This issue isn’t a small issue. It’s an issue deeply rooted in the gospel (Ephesians 5:22-33).
