Hello Sonnet!:) Well I would first like to congratulate you on your courtship! May you be richly blessed in it as you find God’s will! Right now I myself am in a relationship with a wonderful man of God. We discussed our guidelines.. etc a few months ago after my dad told mr that he asked. We decided that we would allow holding hands in our relationship but nothing more and to leave the rest until after marriage. My opinion on this is do whatever you feel the Spirit leading you! Ask yourself, do I start to think impure thoughts if he holds my hand? Gives me a hug? Kisses me?

In the new testament Paul writes that we should abstain from all appearance of evil. If you hold hands and think nothing impure or lustful in your mind than I dont believe anything is wrong with it! Personally, if my boyfriend starting to give me hugs then I know I wouldnt think on whats pure.

Its different for everyone. Not everyone gets convicted the same way. Some people get lustful and impure thoughts at just the touch of a hand and some dont when hugging. From what I hear from married couples who decided to have a courtship, many have said that they werent direct enough about “hands off.” So they gradually started holding hands, a month or too later hugging and not long after kissing. If you do decide to allow handholding make sure both of you want it to remain at handholding! Because if not then a little calls for a little more!

If you have Christian parents (the both of you) then it would be most fitting to ask them. Ask what they think would be appropriate and when they were dating what their standards were. If they were hands on maybe they could say when those feelings come. If its when they held hands or hugged or kissed. Our parents both agreed that we could hold hands. It is a wonderful blessing to have Godly parents who can tell you what is right or wrong in their eyes. Pray about it and seek Gods will! Hope this helped! God bless you:)