Should Couples Live Together before Marriage?

should couples live together before marriage that's what we're going to talk about today on the beat hey what's up everybody welcome back my name is Alan Parra so we know that living together before marriage or what I call slick shacking is becoming more and more popular as our society is becoming more and more skeptical of the institution of marriage so as a result it's led many people including relationship experts to believe that living together before marriage provides the couple an opportunity to try before you buy it or test-drive the car but the question is does this really work interestingly the statistics actually prove otherwise dozens of secular studies were performed and thousands of couples were carefully observed and they all consistently report the same thing one study showed that couples who live together have a 46% higher likelihood of getting a divorce when compared to those that don't another study showed that over 60% of couples who live together before marriage will actually not even make it to marriage but of the 40% that actually do get married five out of six of them will be divorced within three years and they also show a higher level of adultery and across the board a lower level of sexual satisfaction in the marriage but the real question that we must ask is why why are these statistics so outrageously high when it makes so much logical sense for a couple to live together before marriage one of the reasons is because oftentimes men view living together as a convenient way to have sex and also a way to test drive the relationship before they make a lifelong commitment whereas women tend to see living together as the next step before marriage and so what ends up happening is this couple makes a financial emotional investment and the investment is so big that the longer they stay in the relationship the more difficult it is for them to get out of the relationship and so what ends up happening is they end up sliding not deciding into marriage a second reason is that oftentimes people who choose to live together before marriage tend to have less conservative views about the biblical institution of marriage and so when things get difficult when troubles come they may be more prone to bail on the relationship as opposed to sticking to the Covenant that they may before God finally living together before marriage can create a mentality that says I've got a back door I've got an exit plan strategy if I need or if I become discontent at any time with this contractual agreement that we have set up I can throw up the deuces and say P's you go your way I go mine and if not careful that same mentality will follow that couple in to their marriage relationship finally what does the Bible have to say if anything at all about this topic of living together before marriage or shacking up well interestingly enough the Bible doesn't have a specific scripture that says it's a sin but like many other things there are principles that we should apply that will help guide our decision first of all the Bible says do not be conformed to the pattern of this world so whenever we see couples living together before marriage we as Christians should not allow our minds to be influenced by what the world is doing instead we should be influenced by what the Word of God says second of all the Bible says that we should not put ourselves in sexually tempting situations it says flee or run from immorality third of all it says that we should not just avoid evil but it says we should avoid the very appearance of evil so let's say you're living together and you're not having sex for all intents and purposes people looking on the outside are going to assume that you are which leads me to my final reason why I believe that it is not a good idea for Christians to live together because when we do we are sending a message to the world that basically says sex before marriage is okay living together before marriage is okay and those that may be looking up to you may follow your behavior and as a result of your decision you may actually be causing them to stumble into sin so I know this video was really controversial there's so many different views on this subject and so I would love to hear your thoughts please feel free to leave them in the comment section below also if you found it helpful please share with a friend if you haven't done so already head over to my youtube channel and subscribe hey thank you all so much for watching and I'll see you next time on the beat

Channel: THE BEAT by Allen Parr

Views: 106,023

Keywords: Should Couples Live together before marriage?, Cohabiting, What does the Bible say about shacking up?, Jefferson Bethke, What does the Bible say about Cohabiting?, should couples live together before marriage jefferson bethke, is living together before marriage better dnews, should christians cohabitate, should christians shack up

Id: KnjQQVJ2Tqk

Length: 4min 56sec (296 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 17 2016