Friends living together

Sin is involved with the situation you describe. Rather than distancing themselves from temptations to engage in premarital sexual activity (1 Corinthians 6:18), people living together before marriage are putting those temptations in front of themselves every day. If people think they would be able to withstand those temptations, Scripture offers a warning (1 Corinthians 10:12).

If a man and a woman living together without being married say they are refraining from sexual activity, they are still in a position of causing offense to others (Matthew 18:6-7) and emboldening them to sin. Love for God certainly drives our desire to live godly lives. Love for others is another strong motivator.

Even if friends of the opposite sex did refrain from sexual activity in a live-in situation, they would need to ask themselves if their lives were in line with the admonition that “among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality” (Ephesians 5:3). Two people of the opposite sex living together create more than a hint.

Living together before marriage may be all too common in our society today, but it does not honor marriage as God commands (Hebrews 13:4).