In their first article at Visionary Daughters, the sisters share their thoughts on treating one another as brothers and sisters in Christ.
Standards and rules of decorum should be regarded. The trouble is, they don’t ultimately fix the problems. Only treating the attitudes of our hearts – cultivating agape love, wisdom, thoughtfulness, and the perception and intuition to discern the need of the moment – will help us act like the sisters in Christ we should be.In a subsequent post, they answer a 14-year-old's question about whether friendships between boys and girls should be different from those between girls.
Try to act like a sister, not a prospect. Don’t be obsessed with your own eligibility, or theirs either, for that matter. Selfless, honest interaction with young men has the potential to edify, stimulate, educate, inspire and encourage both parties.
The danger here isn’t just boy-girl relationships. It’s fool-fool relationships. There is this danger in friendships between girls, too. Yet age shouldn’t really be the basis of “discrimination” either, any more than gender. The issue is spiritual maturity.Finally, they address the topic of whether guys and girls can be "just friends" without emotional entanglement.
In my opinion, each of these posts presents a lot of wisdom. They are worth reading in full.
Few of us have ever seen friendships between young men and women conducted in an entirely pure and honorable way.
We believe the problem is not with friendship, but with sin. Sadly, sin and selfishness are what drive most the relationships of today’s youth.
My 15 year old daughter is friends with teen boys and teen girls. She is not allowed to date (yet) but because she is an active member of her youth group and where there are usually 4-6 adult chaperones for the group of about 40 senior high teens who attend faithfully, she is forming wonderful friendships. The boys are never allowed to be alone with the girls and that includes the youth leaders. (our pastor's rule for the entire church and ministries). Courtney is forming close friendships and staying pure because we not only expect her to, she has a desire to since she has given her life to Christ. Does this make her perfect? no. But...I think because we have high expectations and we talk freely with her about purity, modesty, etc. she is getting the right idea. They do things as a group and in my opinion, this is healthy. Good articles...thanks for directing us to them! God bless you!
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