Christian Dating Age Gap: 4 Tips About Dating/Marrying Someone Older or Younger

is it okay for Christians to date someone older or younger and how old is too old when it comes to this you know mismatch between Ages in Christian dating in this video I’m going to give you a few tips on this topic hey everybody I’m Marc from apply God’s Word calm a place where we apply the Bible to your life so the first thing I think that’s worth pointing out is that when this conversation comes up I think three different terms often get confused and kind of jumbled together in the conversation there’s your physical age we all know what that means like the day you were born until now how long was that then there’s your spiritual age when you actually became a Christian how many years ago was that but then there’s also your spiritual maturity and so if I was to rank these things of importance when it comes to a guy in a girl getting together in a Christian relationship I would say spiritual maturity is the most important thing to consider then spiritual age and then your physical age so I’m not saying that your actual age like on earth isn’t important in a relationship it’s definitely something to consider but I don’t think it should be given as much weight as the other types of maturity go really what you want to do is you want to look at how compatible are two people with spiritual maturity so you’re gonna be a lot happier with somebody who might be five years younger than you but is spiritually on the same level versus somebody your same age but this person is a baby Christian or they’re just been a Christian a long time but just having grown and they’re not on the same level as you spiritually so my first piece of advice is spiritual maturity is more important than the actual H one good example of this in Scripture is found in Ruth chapter three verses 10 through 11 and you know this is a if you if you don’t know the story of Ruth you should go just read the book because it’s awesome story in the Bible but Ruth is a young than Boasson and this is what Boaz says when Ruth kind of lets him know that she’s interested it says the Lord bless you my daughter he replied this kindness is greater than that which you showed earlier you have not run after the younger men which whether rich or poor and now my daughter don’t be afraid I will do for you all you ask all my fellow townsmen know that you are a woman of noble character so look Boaz emphasizes her character over her age she’s he’s okay with the age mismatch because he knows she has noble a character and Ruth is the same way she’s looking at Boaz like even though he’s older he’s a great guy and so they’re not too scared off by the age difference point to the greater the age difference the greater the sacrifice that will be needed in the relationship so if you’ve watched the video where I share the story of how my wife and I became friends and dated you know that my wife is five years older than me and one of the things I talk about the in that video is that there was a sacrifice there that we were totally willing to make but it’s a sacrifice that I think people need to consider when you’re gonna date somebody or marry somebody with a significant age difference if you’re if you have a age difference you need to recognize that there’s going to be a sacrifice on both ends so in our relationship me and Bethany I both realized you know we’re gonna have to compromise together based upon our age difference I was just starting college when we got together and I was about halfway through my undergraduate studies when we got married and then I went on to pursue my master’s and pastoral counseling I went to seminary and all that so she was already in RN and a registered nurse and had graduated when I met her so there was this definitely mismatch in life seasons and so long story short you’re gonna the younger person needs to know that they’re gonna need to speed up a little bit and and and go through some seasons of life a little bit faster to meet the older person where they’re at and the older person is going to need to no they’re gonna have to slow down a little bit and not meet some of those life standards that normally happen at a certain age because they need to go a little bit slower for the person that they’re with so her and I both kind of had to compromise I wanted to finish you know we both wanted me to finish school so I can be the main provider once we had a family so she had to wait a little bit longer and then once I graduated we like jumped right into full-blown Parenthood you know I finished my bachelor’s and then we had our first child and I was finishing up my master’s as we had our son and I was working it was just busier so that’s a sacrifice you’re gonna have to make based the bigger the age difference the more of a sacrifice they don’t be there my third point is that it’s helpful to know that the younger person has more transitioning to do and more changing to do than the older person in general so I remember when before me and my wife actually got married I was getting some counseling from a really good counselor just to kind of work through some things and prepare myself to be the best husband I could be at that point and one of the things I remember the counselor pointing out to me is like yeah I think it’s totally fine that you know she’s five years older than you but just know you both to know that you have a lot more changing to do than she does you know I was 22 when we got married she was 27 and as a 22 year old you know he was right I had a lot more transitioning to do and a lot more things I didn’t know about myself versus when I was 27 you know you’re a little bit more of the person you’re gonna be a long term so I’ve changed more over the years not bad or good just change as an adult you know the more I’d become an adult the certain things change about me like me and her both didn’t know I was so introverted like I enjoy people but after being around large crowds with people for a while I need to go take a break like that’s something I didn’t know until I got a little bit older and didn’t realize by myself so that’s just like one example of of things that changed about me or that we realized about me so in general just know that the younger person still has more transitioning and changing to do than the older person the older person is gonna be more of who they are long term 0.4 is you know people ask me about socially like socially acceptable what what was it like is it okay to date somebody will people think it’s weird so two things to say about this number one you know part of you just want to say you know who cares if you are in love and you want to be together then just go for if you feel released by God there’s no sin involved you’re both adults and just one of yous a little bit older than the other one then who cares what other people think and that’s true and I agree with that but I do think it’s it’s good to know what you’re signing up for and what it’ll be like socially me and Bethany haven’t had any problems I’ve always kind of hung out with people a little bit older than me and so it’s been pretty natural to find friends and people that we both enjoy but I do think it’s something to consider that you might really like someone who’s younger or you might really like somebody who’s older but you both might not like each other’s friends like maybe sometimes their friends might be kind of immature and this other person’s friends might be kind of boring or like in a different life season than you so you just don’t have a lot in common so socially it can be a little bit of a struggle if you’re dating somebody who’s of a different age than you because of the friendship dynamics you two might really get along but you might not vibe as much with socially with the social circles that you already have all right in closing how old is too old you know like I said in general I think the Bible basically just says as long as you’re two adults then you know I don’t think there’s a like a law or a rule that would forbid two grown adults from being together I in my just personal opinion I think the closer you get to like a decade the more of a big challenge it’s gonna be to be together for a variety of reasons you know like when you get over ten years you start getting into like 15 years um you know you might have a lot of fun right now like you’re 40 and the other person’s 15 years younger but what happens when one person told her persons like seventy or like you know sixty or sixty-five then the age difference might not it might be a bigger deal you know so it’s just something to think about I’m not saying you can’t do that if you feel led by God to do that it’s just something you just want to weigh the cost before you commit to somebody you want to think of the future too so in my opinion if you wanted to you know pin me down and make me give you an answer on how old is too old I would say around the decade is getting kind of risky I think five years is pretty normal pretty acceptable I haven’t personally struggled with it it’s been fine for us I think it would just be a little bit harder if it was a decade or more well I also have an article on this same topic so I’ll leave a link in the description of this video if you want to dive in a little bit deeper than we talked about here if you just want to kind of go over these topics a little bit slower you can read that article I have some more information there again if you haven’t hit that subscribe button make sure you do because we’re making new videos like this every week and this is a great time to join this growing community on YouTube we’re trying to make videos about how to glorify God in your relationships your singleness you know the nuances of life sometimes it’s hard to find Christian teaching on these minut little questions about relationships and I just think that the Bible is so amazing it can be applied to all the questions we have so that’s something we try to 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