“Hold The Phone”

Thursday, February 11, 2016

I am a christian and so is my boyfriend of seventeen months, and the question I have is: when you’re in a relationship, do you have relationships with the opposite sex?  I say absolutely not, but my boyfriend feels there is nothing wrong with talking to a girl on the phone.  Why would one want to or have the need to speak to the opposite sex on the phone?  I am baffled by this; am I being a bad christian by not allowing this?  It appears that I don’t trust him, but I feel that talking on the phone with a friend could turn into more if allowed.  Your thoughts on this…

Sincerely,
On The Other Line

Dear On The Other Line,

If you are so concerned that a phone conversation will result in your boyfriend leaving you, you’ve got bigger problems than the phone.  The Bible points out that we will always have interactions with people of the opposite gender.  The key is to make sure those interactions are done in a way that is holy and blameless.  Paul told Timothy (who as a preacher would have had many interactions with women he was not married to) to treat “older women as mothers and younger women as sisters, with all purity” (1 Tim 5:2).

Christians should interact with all people, male and female, in a way that is above reproach (1 Tim 6:14).  Living above reproach means that you are careful to act in a way that shows integrity and avoids all appearances of evil (1 Thess 5:22).  We must always be careful to act with propriety towards the opposite gender as we interact with those in the world and our brothers and sisters in Christ.

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