In the Old Testament, God repeatedly warned Israel about marrying outside of their own people.   In Deuteronomy 7, God says, ” ¹“When the LORD your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations more numerous and mightier than yourselves, ² and when the LORD your God gives them over to you, and you defeat them, then you must devote them to complete destruction.  You shall make no covenant with them and show no mercy to them. ³ You shall not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons, ⁴for they would turn away your sons from following me, to serve other gods. Then the anger of the LORD would be kindled against you, and he would destroy you quickly.

God’s concern is clear:  they will turn Israel away from following God.  His command was never an issue of race, but an issue of relationship with God.

This principle is restated in the New Testament in 2 Corinthians 6:14,  “Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?”

The most important question of dating and marriage is this:  does the person you are dating love Jesus more than you?  Do they believe Jesus died, in their place, for their sins, on the cross?  Have they committed their lives to Jesus?

This blog is for questions related to the Hot Topics sermon series.  For those of you reading who do not attend Grace Community Church in Marion, NC, these questions come from people who attend worship services and then text them to me after the service.  I have already answered these questions from the stage.  If you want to hear the sermon related to the question, then check out graceforall.org.  Click on the Hot Topics button to download the sermon (or you could visit itunes!).

Well, this is the first official post to digging-in.com. Our plan–to dig into God’s Word together, discover real answers for real questions, all in order to do what God has called us to do here at Grace: exalt Christ, transform lives, and embrace a community.