We have an email from Sarah in Fort Wayne, Indiana. She writes, "Hi Pastor John, in the previous episode, 'How Far is Too Far Before Marriage?'" which was episode 73, "you answered questions about sexual boundaries before marriage. I'd also like to know how far is too far emotionally and spiritually before marriage.

I've heard from several people that praying together and reading scripture together can be dangerous to do as a couple before marriage. What are your thoughts?" Physical sexual intercourse is the natural, appropriate, longed-for completion and consummation of emotional and spiritual union. I'm starting with that conviction. That's why it is so wounding and tragic for men and women to have purely physical one-night stands or experimental sexual encounters or serial relationships.

Women are made to long for the man she gives herself to to know her and love her for who she is more than merely her body. A woman feels used and abused, even in marriage I would say, if she believes this intercourse is just this man's animal appetite rather than the suitable consummation of a profound affection bonding, a soul bonding, a personal bonding.

And men are made by God to wield their strength gently and harness their appetites and make them serve higher and greater things, like deep love for this woman as a person and a rich union of souls and minds. So sexual union is meant to be the completion, the climax, the consummation of personal, emotional, spiritual union.

It should be an event in the body. The sexual intercourse should be an event in the body that corresponds to an event in the soul, in the heart, in the mind. It doesn't become less physical. I don't give the impression that I'm over-spiritualizing sexual intercourse, but I believe with all my heart.

I've experienced, I think I could warrant it from the nature of human beings and from aspects of one fleshness in the Bible. It doesn't become less physical when you think of it this way. I would say it becomes more physical by being an organic connection with the totality of personhood.

That's the goal, which is why adultery and fornication and one-night stands and serial relationships are just so heartbreaking and tragic and damaging and wounding to the souls of men and women. So now here's the question. What are the implications of that for soul bonding before marriage? That's what the question is as I understand it.

Here's my answer. A man especially needs to stay awake to what's happening emotionally and spiritually and personally in the relationship. Don't take yourself, man or a woman, into a depth of spiritual emotional bonding that will not consummate in marriage and sexual union. Be alert that every step deeper into emotional and spiritual union with a woman's soul is a step toward physical union, that is towards marriage.

Don't take her there. Don't go with her there if this is not moving towards marriage relationship. It will deeply wound her and you if you awaken depths of oneness with each other emotionally and then try to just walk away, walk away from it. Those depths are meant to lead somewhere, namely sexual intercourse in marriage.

So that's why I think, Tony, casual dating, serial dating is either frustratingly superficial or emotionally painful as each one is awakened and then the heart is dropped and the thing is broken. So my advice is once you're on a path of sharing your soul with a future soul mate and both are realistically moving toward marriage and the consummation in sexual intercourse, that's where you're heading, a growing soul union towards sexual relations in marriage, I don't think there are any emotional or spiritual limits for the engaged couple.

In fact, I think it would be a sign of danger if either said during engagement, "There are things about me or emotions that I experience that I can't let you know now." That I think would be a sign of mistrust and a sign of hiddenness which should give them pause.

But here's the thing that needs stressing. I am distinguishing the physical display of emotion from the emotion itself, and the guideline then would be don't awaken in each other desires for union beyond what you can control. This is different from hiding things. You're not hiding anything. This is a wise, mature, sober judgment about locations and situations that you know are too explosive for you and your emotions because they could destroy your restraints and then defile the very purity of the gift that you both want to give each other on your wedding night.

So my answer is no, I don't think there are emotional, spiritual limits, provided a couple is on their way in growing commitment toward a wedding and a physical union, and they know the limits of where they can go with themselves before the emotion takes control and forces them into bed with each other.

Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you for listening to this podcast. Please email your questions to us at askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org. At desiringgod.org you will find thousands of other free resources from John Piper. I'm your host Tony Ranke. Thanks for listening!