By: Annagail Lynes
“Is living together after when you get in college okay? Is it a sin,” I read on a Christian message board recently, and I had to blink to make sure I was reading it correctly.
When I was younger, my uncle was living with a female roommate, and as far as my family was concerned, it was a taboo topic. We weren’t allow to speak about it to anyone because it just wasn’t done. That value system was instilled in me from very young. Years later when my ex-boyfriend announced that he was moving in with a female roommate, I didn’t take the news very well. And she was only his female roommate. They weren’t even sleeping together.
For me, though, the concept of living together had always been a sin, like pre-marital sex. It was a cut and dry situation. But I didn’t know why. And you probably don’t know why either.
Until the 1990’s in many states, including Arizona, it was illegal for a male and a female who were not related, or married, to live together. Why? Because people believed that living together was a sin. Where did they get this idea?
Remember the woman at the well? Jesus was tired and thirsty. He asked a woman who came to the well for some water. She had a lot of excuses. Why are you talking to me? I am a Samaritan. You don’t have anything to dip with. He told her, “Whoever drinks this water will get thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will provide him with life-giving water and give him eternal life.”
“Sir, give me that water,” she demanded.
“Go and call your husband and come back,” Jesus instructed her.
“I don’t have a husband,” she objected.
“You are right when you say you don’t have a husband. You have been married to five men, and the man you with now is not really your husband,” Jesus interpreted.
The one she was living with was not her husband. Just by the sound of the words Jesus used, it sounds like He didn’t really approve of her living with a man she was not married to.
Living together, even in separate bedrooms, leads to some awkward situations.
Have you ever watched Three’s Company? You know the show with Janet and Chrissy lived with Jack. The women lived in one room while the guy had a bedroom of his own. Yet there are still awkward moments like Jack walking in on one of the girls in the bathroom. Or the girls walking in on Jack dressing.
These type of situations happen all the time when people are living together. You learn things about people that you wouldn’t learn by just dating. Their eating habits, their sleeping habits, how well they keep house. You also learn how they think and what makes them tick.
Being together in one place for many hours a day tends to bring people to a new level in their relationship.
Take the reality shows like Big Brother or the Real World, for instance, where people are forced to live together. In the matter of time that they are in the house, these people develop friendships and relationships that are closer than those gained on the outside. Why? Because they spend twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week with these people.
But when they exit the house, most of the relationships and friendships they developed are distant, at best. It is a rarity for a couple to survive because they are no longer spending every waking moment together. Indicating that the relationships were not built on a solid foundation but rather on circumstance and orchestrated events.
Whether you intend it to be that way or not, living together, even as roommates, will bring feelings into the mix. The girl might develop a crush on the guy, or vice versa. And eventually, there will be hurt feelings.
The Bible tells us to avoid all appearance of evil. Now a man and a woman living together appears evil. How? It is implied that when a man and woman are living together that they are sleeping together.
The Bible didn’t say avoid sleeping together if you live with a person of the opposite sex. It said to avoid the appearance of evil.
A solid relationship requires commitment. And if a man wants to live with you without marrying you, he is not committed to you. He wants to try you out before he buys and knowing most men today, they will find some excuse not to commit.
You see all these court shows today where one person is suing the other person because they were living together and the relationship went sour. Now they are saddled with unpaid bills and several kids to support.
Where did the commitment go? It flew out the window when the person tired of being with the other person.
You deserve more than that. You deserve to be in a relationship with a person who loves, respects you and is committed to you no matter what. A person who is committed to God and to His teachings. This type of person will not violate God’s Word by asking you to move in or to have sex before getting married.
God’s Word says to avoid the appearance of evil and the temptation of sexual immortality. Not only commit to not living together because God said so but because you respect yourself enough not to do it. Respecting yourself will help you avoid mistakes that will have painful consequences.
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