Welcome to The Heart of Dating Podcast. Hey, it's Kate. I'm so glad you could join us this week as we try to entangle the ever-so ambiguous world of dating as a Christian. Over here on Heart of Dating, we get real as we answer some tough questions and uncover transformative ways to approach Christian dating. Oh, and you better believe we have some laughs along the way because last time I checked, the struggle is hashtag real. You don't wanna say it? Now, let's get to the heart of the matter.
Hey friends, Kate Warman here and I am so happy to have you today for a summer flashback series answering some of your top dating questions. Here's a thing, y'all send us in questions all of the time and we do our best to answer as many of them as frequently as we possibly can. But sometimes what happens is that you're asking us questions that we've already covered.
So we decided why not bring up these questions and share with you some bite-size-able content answering them for a reminder, further clarity, something really, really easy that you can listen to quickly. Not only that, but some of you guys here are newer to our community. And if that's you, hey, welcome. So, so, so happy you're here. We're just getting started. We get so many new people each and every week in our heart of dating community and we love
it. So for you newcomers, this summer flashback series will be a perfect start for you. We hope you enjoy this summer flashback series where we've taken key nuggets from previous interviews with incredible guests and are bringing it to you in a bite-size-able, shareable way. So be sure to share the series with a friend or two because you know they probably also have these questions. You guys can easily listen to it on a short drive or getting ready,
so many different things. It's going to be perfect and easy to listen to. So let's do it. So our series is continuing today with an interview from one of my favorites, John Mark Comar answering the question, how do I have strong physical boundaries and resist masturbation? Yep, we are going there today, you guys. In this conversation, we're addressing a hot topic, boundaries, sex, and masturbation. Yep, I asked a pastor about masturbation. That's true.
We're just going to go there. So buckle up as John Mark Comar's for you some awesome wisdom on this topic. I know it's going to help you guys in this area. I want to talk to you quickly about boundaries. And this is a topic that's discussed frequently and it seems that everyone kind of has their own view on what is right and what is wrong. And some ways I guarantee that people are hesitant to admit to a pastor like yourself,
that's really going on. But to be honest, we all talk about it and we all struggle with it. And it's different for different people. Some people decide to not kiss until they're married. Some people do decide that that's okay for them before getting married. How do you feel that we should navigate what is right for us as Christians in physical relations and boundaries within the context of a dating relationship? Yeah. And of course, there's not a right or wrong answer.
Yeah. Some things are clearly seen and other things are, I don't know, very few people that would have an issue with handholding or something like that. Right. So there's a whole lot of ground in between sex and handholding. And so I think basic principles, that each couple has to flesh out. There's not a part of the reason there's not an answer for that is because everybody, every couple is different. And a lot of it
has to do with the veracity of that person's will or self-control. So like my wife and I had to draw really strict boundaries around us. But that was because of our immature, not because of our maturity. It was because our lack of self-control, not because we were so self-controlled. So if that makes sense, it's much easier to just not kiss than it is to kiss and have to advocate self-control. Does that make sense? Yeah, totally.
The more self-control you have in theory, the more freedom that you are able to take in your physical expression of relationship together. But I think that my maturity and lack of self-control in that area is not rare. I think that is more the norm than the exception of the rule. So, yeah, but I think as a couple of basic principles, one is your first question shouldn't be what can we do? It can be how holy can we make this relationship? That sounds cliche,
but that should be the overarching philosophy. It's not. What can we get away with without having to repent on Sunday? It's how happy we make Jesus with this relationship. How can we honor Jesus, each other and our own bodies as created in the image of God and holiness through this relationship? That needs to be the question that drives all of this. I think a second kind of rule of thumb is don't do anything that causes a rousal. So if you're
doing something and it's causing a rousal, don't. That's just a marriage thing. That's not a dating thing. And that's the beauty of none of this is a don't. It's all not now. It's just a wait, not a don't. And so that to give you excitement and anticipation for the future. I think anything that leads to a rousal is just taking you down. Bung Pat. Third thing I'd say is talk about it openly and honestly and as non-romantic
as it sounds, get it up there and agree to some kind of, to agree to boundaries. Then the guy I have once said the boundaries in mind of the gal and other. And we can stereotype who's going to say what? But those stereotypes are not all that helpful. But it can be done in a creative romantic way where you're doing it to honor each other and honor the mystery and keep that mystery alive and the sanctity of your relationship and your sexuality.
And then the last thing I'd say is just once you come up with some boundaries, of course to brainstorm those boundaries with your community and then have your community hold you to it. So have your community regularly checking in asking how are you doing? Are you staying inside the boundaries that you set with our counsel and advice kind of thing? I think if you're asking those kinds of questions, you're going to be doing good for. And then
just be really careful not. The last thing I'd say is just don't put yourselves in situations of temptation. You know, temptation is not a sin. But how the decisions we make can set us up for against temptation. So you know what I mean? So it's something that you have to have sex with somebody that you're falling in love with or dating or attracted to. But if you go to the department, let me alone and there's mood lighting on and you know, the audience is playing with the bathroom.
Funny there. Or be honest there. Okay, yeah. Okay, we'll go there. And you're like, well, I just fell in and like, you didn't. You walked straight into it. Like that was a series of unwise decisions that created an environment. Oh, well, means temptation and no accountability. So you don't want to, you don't want to, of your own free will, place yourself in environments, whether it be an apartment alone or whatever,
where temptation goes up and accountability goes down. You want to do the opposite. You want to place yourself environments where temptation goes down and accountability goes up. Totally. Those are really amazing. And it's hard because like, I know you probably get asked that question by people in your church community a lot, but I think us as Christian singles, we still, we still need that direction. So a question for you on that, on that point is,
let's say the couple is doing very, they're very best to not cross boundaries. But let's say they mess up. They fall into some sort of sexual sin or they potentially even end up having sex. What, what's the recommendation for the couple moving forward? Because that's a conversation. I've also been privy to in so many of my friendships. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, absolutely. Again,
there's no formula for any of this. The first thing they need to do is confess that sin. So don't, they can't, if you just keep it to yourself and you say sorry, we'll try harder next time. That's a winning formula to make the same thing again. And of course, once you've gone, down that road, it will be easier, not harder to go down that road again, or it will be harder to not go down that road than it was before. Not, not easier. So the formula of, oh, we just feel guilt
and shame. Sorry about that, honey. Let's not do that again. Harder. That's a, that is a surfer formula for failure, not for success. And there's no formula. But I think, you know, patterns, healthy parallels would be confession right off the bat, confess to your community. If there's a spiritual authority in your life that we feel safe with a pastor or a parent or a mentor, somebody with authority in your life, ideally them as well, bring that out in the open.
So confession, repentance, a new commitment to holiness, and then any freedom that you were taking, I would then suspend those freedoms of your own free will and religion. So let's say you were allowing yourself to, you know, kiss on the couch or whatever, just take away that freedom, at least for a period of time, because the key thing isn't just not having sex again.
The key thing is building a relationship on trust. And that's what, that's what so many people who are dating forget as non-romantic as it sounds to not have sex or not whatever what you're doing is you're both strengthening your willpower, which is a core aspect of our apprenticeship Jesus, like opening our willpower to the Holy Spirit to strengthen it as a muscle. What you're, what you're trying to do is build strengthening that willpower and build trust that you have control
over your bodies. And that trust has to be built otherwise for the rest of your marriage anytime one of you's gone on a, you know, business trip or conference, there's always that question in the back of your mind. And, you know, when you're dating, you tend to just have all this passion
and sexual attraction toward each other. But as the years go by, as children might come and go, your body might be changed for the woman or for men, there's obviously like the familiarity that comes with relationships, actually, which, which changes the sexuality relationship, doesn't make it worse, just makes it different. And so my point is, you need to know how to have
that sexual desire and be in control of it, not controlled by it. And your partner needs to know that your spouse needs to know, this is somebody I can trust to control their sexuality as an act of love. And that's why it's so key. So that's when a couple of months is up. It's not just, oh, it's not sex again, so we don't go guilty. It's about let's lay a foundation of trust in our
relationship that lasts a lifetime. Here's a married man, you know, I'm not a no relational guru. So it took me, I didn't go into this realizing that he trust is, but as a married man, let me tell you trust is literally the foundation of the relationship. And, you know, and most of us can figure that out, we're only really vulnerable with people that we deeply trust. And it's only when we're really
vulnerable that we actually experience real love. Because real love, the kind of love that transforms us, the love of Christ, the love that my wife has for me, it's not a, I think, you're high, and I want to have sex with you a lot. And I really like you. That doesn't transform us. That makes us feel good. It doesn't transform us. Love that transforms us is I see everything that's ugly and impure and wrong about you. And I still love and even like you and put your will ahead of
my own. That's the love that transforms us. And that requires in order to experience that kind of transforming love, we have to be ruthlessly vulnerable with each other. And that's why trust is that the key part of the relationship. Oh my word. Okay. Just throwing it down there, John Mark. Just throwing it down. So good. I want to go to another really kind of difficult topic. So I just want to go there with you. Okay. Are you ready to just go there right now about this question?
I don't know if anyone's coming, but I have no idea what's coming and you just built it up to now nervous. But all right. No, no, you got it. You got it. Okay. So this topic is frankly not discussed frequently, but I'm just going to go out and say it. You know, what do you think the boundaries are with with less and then in masturbation? Oh, yeah. Nothing to be embarrassed about. I mean, okay. That's that's just like that's a bit of a tricky one because the scriptures don't
speak directly to masturbation at all, but they speak directly a lot about lust. So, you know, theoretically, there's a world where you could masturbate and not lust. In my personhood that I don't see the physicality of that, but I'm told by other people that I respect that. And I don't know that this is true for a man, but some men can masturbate with a lust. All I can say is there is a rhyme and a phrase for some people, not for me, where you masturbate without lust, not for the
purposes of sexual gratification, but for sexual release. And I think that's key. If you're doing it for the pleasure of that feeling, then you're, you know, you're on the road to lust if not at the destination. Alternative would be if it's a form of sexual release in order to allow your mind to be more holy and more focused on what God is doing in true life. So, I just want to create space for if there's somebody, if there is a man, I don't think this is true. Forgive me,
but of the way that females ideology were different. If there's a man that, yeah, you know, is able to masturbate without looking for the purpose of release on gratification. I think the scriptures don't speak to that. I'm at the gray area and it's freedom that if you have peace to take,
you could take. But I think for what an indigent man, I'm just going to be a majority of men, I don't know if the majority is 51% or 99% but whatever I'm in the majority here, I think that you can't masturbate without lust and the line between gratification and relief is really fuzzy. So, I think my encouragement would be more of a strong warning against that and allow your body to work out sexual release through dreams and night and its natural practices as set it
by God. But challenge, what this is hitting on, a great challenge of our day and age is that human beings become sexual around 13 or 14 and now we may be in our late 20s or under context, usually in our late 30s. So, you know, in historic cultures when you were married by 14 or 15, you know, you might have a year or two which is sexual with this and marriage.
Now, that's how most cultures around the world still aren't in this day and definitely is down through history and just physiologically that's when a man and a woman's sexuality got in most fertile and most edit speak and the body is young, flexible, and pliable and physiological factors that are just science that you're just working
with. But all that to say, very different than a Mary mother in Jesus who maybe was sexualized a year or two before she married Joseph and somebody now who might not get married until a third date might have, you know, two and a half decades between puberty and marriage. So, it's a whole other and it doesn't really can't be done. Jesus was single, Paul was single,
and advocated for sale and celibacy. It can be done and it's a beautiful place for it, not only in society, but in the kingdom of God, but it is an acute problem that I don't do think should lead people to think seriously about marriage, you know, Paul's whole thing in Lithuanian, is in the marriage and to burn. If you can't, you know, control yourself sexually, if your better way is that if you're just overrun by sexual desire, then his advocacy is
and find a partner as the context for you to enjoy and express your sexuality. Yeah. So, just in keeping in line with everything we've been discussing in terms of physical relations, boundaries and sex, what do you personally think is an appropriate time to be vulnerable in relationship and talk about sexual paths with the dating partner? Yeah, I don't think there's an exact answer to that. It's different for each person based on their sexual history, the sexual history or lack
thereof of their boyfriend or girlfriend or fiance. And so there's no answer to that. There's just, you know, do it in community, do it with listening to our open to what the spirit is saying, what your community is saying, wisdom, discernment. Obviously, too much, you don't want to drop your whole sexual history on date one, two or three in the name of honesty. Neither do you want to mislead somebody down a path of a relationship with a whole part of who you are and what's been in part
of your past, you know, hidden to them. You want to know secrets. So, and for some people, it looks like kind of layers kind of dripping that information over the months as a relationship progresses. Like, you know, maybe letting somebody down the front end, there's a history of this in past, that you worked through and moved on. And if you continue the relationship, then let's talk about
it more down the road kind of thing, you know. But again, that just depends on who the person is, how sensitive, what's their disposition, peppermint, is this an area of deep wounding for them, where, you know, their father had an affair or their mother had an affair and it broke their family apart into the deep wound, or is it, you know, not in the same way for them. So again, not a right answer
there. I just think that's a wisdom question. Wisdom in knowing when in the right time to be vulnerable, but probably not on date three, it's likely, but yeah. Yeah, it's, but it's, it's not a moral or theological question. That's a wisdom question, you know, totally. Yeah, but it's helpful just to even have your input on that. It's so helpful. All right, y'all, that is it for Summer Flashback series today, answering some of your top dating questions. I hope you enjoyed this insight in wisdom.
And if you did, don't forget to share it with a friend or two. By the way, we'd love to share with you that if you want further dating insights, we put together an incredible free resource for you. The seven resources that change the dating game will help you with further clarity and insight and wisdom as you continue to be guided along in this journey of dating. You can access it for free by visiting hardupdating.com or slash seven resources. Love y'all. See you next week.