What to Expect from a Young Man Who Fears God

The last chapter talked about how you should treat the young men in your life.

This one is about how they should treat you.

Both chapters matter. But this one is going to ask something different of you. The last chapter asked you to examine your own heart — to look at the way you carry yourself around young men and to take responsibility for it. This chapter is going to ask you to look at them — clearly, honestly, without flattering yourself about what you are seeing.

Because here is the truth that nobody seems willing to tell young women anymore:

You are going to hear, over and over, that you should not be too picky. That nobody is perfect. That you are going to have to compromise. That if you wait for a young man who actually meets the standards God lays out in His Word, you will wait forever.

That last one is a lie — and it is the kind of lie that has wrecked more young women’s lives than almost any other.

You will not wait forever. But you may have to wait. And you definitely have to be willing to walk away from anything less than what God says you deserve.

What Scripture Actually Says About How He Should Treat You

Let me show you what the Bible says about how a young man who fears God will treat a young woman. This is not my opinion. This is not a list of preferences I made up. This is what is in the text.

Paul wrote to a young preacher named Timothy and told him how to treat the women in the church. Listen carefully:

“Do not sharply rebuke an older man, but rather appeal to him as a father, to the younger men as brothers, the older women as mothers, and the younger women as sisters, in all purity.”

— 1 Timothy 5:1–2 (NASB)

This is the same verse the last chapter used. But notice now what it requires of the young man. He is to treat younger women as sisters. In all purity.

A brother does not use his sister. He does not pressure her. He does not flatter her to get something from her. He does not test her boundaries to see how far she will let him push. He protects her. He honors her. He treats her with the kind of respect a man gives to family.

If a young man cannot treat you the way he would treat his own sister, he is not treating you the way Scripture commands.

Pure Hearts and Self-Control

Paul wrote to Timothy again — this time about Timothy’s own life — and gave him instruction that applies to every young man:

“Now flee from youthful lusts and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.”

— 2 Timothy 2:22 (NASB)

Flee. Not manage. Not balance. Flee.

A young man who fears God does not test how close he can get to sin. He runs the other way. He does not try to see how much he can get away with. He does not flirt with what God has told him to avoid.

Paul wrote to the church at Thessalonica with the same standard:

“For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God; and that no man transgress and defraud his brother in the matter because the Lord is the avenger in all these things, as we also told you before and solemnly warned you.”

— 1 Thessalonians 4:3–7 (NASB)

Read that carefully. Sanctification and honor. Not lustful passion. And notice the warning: no man transgress and defraud his brother in the matter.

When a young man uses a young woman for his own desires, he is defrauding someone else. He is taking what does not belong to him. He is acting like the people who do not know God — and the Lord is the avenger of those things.

A young man who reads those verses and takes them seriously is going to treat you very, very differently from a young man who has never read them — or has read them and ignored them.

You are looking for the first kind. The second kind, no matter how charming, is dangerous to you.

The Picture of a Husband

Look ahead with me for a moment. The Bible tells us what kind of man a husband is supposed to be — and even though you are not thinking about marriage right now, this matters. Because the young man you spend time with now is becoming the kind of man he will be when someone marries him. And the way he treats you now is preparing him to treat someone the same way later.

Paul wrote to the church at Ephesus:

“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless. So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church.”

— Ephesians 5:25–29 (NASB)

That is the standard. A husband loves his wife the way Christ loved the church — sacrificially, completely, with the goal of her holiness, not his own pleasure.

Peter, writing to husbands, said it just as plainly:

“You husbands in the same way, live with your wives in an understanding way, as with someone weaker, since she is a woman; and show her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life, so that your prayers will not be hindered.”

— 1 Peter 3:7 (NASB)

Honor. Understanding. Recognition that she is a fellow heir of the grace of life.

The young man who one day marries you should already be practicing this. Not perfectly — nobody is perfect. But the direction of his life should be toward this. You should be able to see, in the way he treats you now, the kind of husband he will eventually become.

If what you see is selfishness, pressure, dishonor, or pride — you are looking at the kind of husband he is going to be. Do not deceive yourself into thinking marriage will fix him.

What Pursuit With Honor Looks Like

The Bible gives us examples of men who pursued women the right way. Let me show you two.

The first is Jacob. He fell in love with a young woman named Rachel — and her father, Laban, told Jacob he would have to work seven years for her. Seven years. No shortcut, no payment, no other way around it. Just patient labor for the woman he loved.

And here is what Genesis says about those seven years:

“So Jacob served seven years for Rachel and they seemed to him but a few days because of his love for her.”

— Genesis 29:20 (NASB)

A few days. Seven years felt like a few days because he loved her.

That is what real love does. It waits. It works. It does not demand to take what it has not earned. It does not pressure for shortcuts. The young man who loves you the way Jacob loved Rachel will be patient — because patience is what love does.

The second example is Boaz, the kinsman-redeemer in Ruth’s story. When Ruth came into his fields gleaning, Boaz noticed her — but watch what he did.

He spoke to her kindly (Ruth 2:8). He gave her his protection — telling his young men not to touch her (Ruth 2:9). He provided for her beyond what was required (Ruth 2:14–16). And when Ruth came to him alone at night, in vulnerability, asking him to be her redeemer — when he could have taken advantage of her — he did the opposite. He praised her character. He covered her. He told her to wait until morning.

“Now, my daughter, do not fear. I will do for you whatever you ask, for all my people in the city know that you are a woman of excellence.”

— Ruth 3:11 (NASB)

He could have done what most men would have done. He did not. He honored her. He protected her. And he did things in the right way — through the proper channels, in front of witnesses, with no shortcuts.

That is what a young man who fears God looks like. He notices. He provides. He protects. He does not take. He waits. He honors.

Find one of those. Settle for nothing less.

What Scripture Names as Disgraceful

Now I have to talk to you about something hard.

The Bible does not pretend that all young men are good young men. It does not pretend that everyone who claims to follow God actually does. And it gives us — preserved for us, for thousands of years — the words of a young woman who was being treated in a way that no young woman should ever be treated.

Her name was Tamar. She was the daughter of King David. And she was being violated by her own half-brother — a man who should have protected her.

You can read the full account in 2 Samuel 13. It is a hard chapter. But what I want you to see is what Tamar said when it was happening:

“No, my brother, do not violate me, for such a thing is not done in Israel; do not do this disgraceful thing! As for me, where could I get rid of my reproach? And as for you, you will be like one of the fools in Israel.”

— 2 Samuel 13:12–13 (NASB)

Read those words again. Tamar named what was happening. She did not minimize it. She did not pretend it was something other than what it was. She called it a disgraceful thing. And she named what her brother was becoming in that moment — one of the fools in Israel.

God preserved her words. He preserved them for thousands of years so that you, sitting where you are right now, would have a category and a vocabulary for what is being done to you when somebody is doing it.

When a young man pressures you to do what God has said no to — that is a disgraceful thing.

When a young man tries to take what is not his to take — that is a disgraceful thing.

When a young man treats you in a way that you know, in your gut, is wrong — even if you cannot fully articulate why — Scripture has already given you the word. That is a disgraceful thing. And the man doing it is a fool.

You are not required to be polite to a fool. You are not required to soften the language. You are not required to make excuses for him or to wonder if maybe you misunderstood. Tamar did not soften her language, and Scripture honored her by preserving every word.

If a young man is doing what Tamar’s brother did — or pressuring toward it, or hinting at it, or testing you to see how far he can push — get away from him. Tell a trusted adult. Do not be alone with him. Do not give him another chance to wear you down.

This is not paranoia. This is wisdom.

The Test That Tells the Truth

So how do you actually tell the difference between a young man who fears God and one who is just good at sounding like he does?

You watch him over time. And you look for fruit.

Paul wrote to the churches in Galatia and gave them a list — a checklist, really — of what the Spirit of God produces in a person’s life:

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.”

— Galatians 5:22–23 (NASB)

Read that list slowly.

Love. Joy. Peace. Patience. Kindness. Goodness. Faithfulness. Gentleness. Self-control.

Those are not feelings. They are not moods. They are observable patterns in a person’s life. You can see whether someone is patient or not. You can see whether someone is kind. You can see whether someone has self-control — particularly when nothing is going his way.

If you watch a young man’s life — not just how he acts when he is trying to impress you, but how he acts when he is frustrated, tired, angry, or alone — and you do not see this fruit, then the Spirit of God is not at work in him. It is that simple.

A young man who claims to follow God but cannot control his temper does not have the Spirit’s self-control.

A young man who is harsh with people who cannot do anything for him does not have the Spirit’s kindness.

A young man who cannot wait — for anything, ever — does not have the Spirit’s patience.

You do not need a degree in theology to read his life. You just need to pay attention. And you need to be honest with yourself about what you are seeing.

The Truth You Have to Hear

There is one more thing that has to be said, and it is the hardest thing in this chapter.

You cannot change him.

It does not matter how much you love him. It does not matter how much potential you see in him. It does not matter how convinced you are that under all of his selfishness or arrogance or pressure, there is a good young man waiting to come out — if only the right young woman will love him into it.

That is a story the world tells. It is not a story God tells.

Only God changes a person. Only God’s Spirit produces the fruit we just talked about. You do not have that power. You were never meant to. And every young woman who has tried to be the redeemer of a young man who refused to be redeemed has paid for it — sometimes for the rest of her life.

If a young man is not walking with God now, you cannot walk him there. If he does not honor you now, your love will not teach him how. If he is cruel, careless, dishonest, or selfish now — when he should be at his best, when he is trying to win you — that is the floor of who he is, not the ceiling. He will not get better when he is comfortable. He will get worse.

A young woman who marries a young man hoping he will change is making a bargain that almost never works. The man you marry is, in nearly every case, the man you will be married to until one of you is buried.

So choose carefully. And do not flatter yourself about your power to fix what God alone can fix.

A Word About Walking Away

If you are reading this and realizing that the young man you are interested in — or the one already pursuing you — does not meet what Scripture describes, here is what you need to know:

Walking away is not failure. Walking away is wisdom.

You are not betraying him by stepping back. You are not being heartless. You are not being too picky. You are obeying God’s Word, which has told you, in a hundred different places, what kind of man is worth your trust.

The young man who is right for you will not require you to lower your standards. He will rise to meet them — because he is already trying to meet God’s.

Anyone who asks you to compromise what Scripture has told you to hold onto is not the right one. Not because he is not a nice person. Not because he does not have good qualities. Because the standard is not yours to lower.

Wait for the young man who already fears God. Watch his life. Look for the fruit. Pay attention to how he treats you when nothing is on the line. Pay attention to how he treats other people — his mother, his sisters, the cashier, the friend who cannot do anything for him.

That is the young man worth your time.

Pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.

For Further Study

These are the passages this chapter was built from. Read them slowly, and let them settle.

• 1 Timothy 5:1–2 — Treating younger women as sisters, in all purity
• 2 Timothy 2:22 — Flee youthful lusts; pursue with a pure heart
• 1 Thessalonians 4:3–7 — Sanctification and honor, not lustful passion
• Ephesians 5:25–29 — How a husband is to love his wife
• 1 Peter 3:7 — Honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life
• Genesis 29:15–20 — Jacob’s seven years for Rachel
• Ruth 2–4 — Boaz: noticing, providing, protecting, doing things the right way
• 2 Samuel 13:1–22 — Tamar’s words; the disgraceful thing; the fool in Israel
• Galatians 5:22–23 — The fruit of the Spirit as a litmus test

“Now flee from youthful lusts and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.”

— 2 Timothy 2:22 (NASB)

Reflection Questions

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1.Think of a young man who has shown interest in you — past or present. Without flattering him or yourself, hold his life up to the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22–23) and to the way Boaz treated Ruth. What patterns do you actually see — particularly in moments when nothing is going his way?

2.Has anyone ever pressured you toward what Scripture forbids — even subtly, even once? Read 2 Samuel 13:12–13 again. What would it have looked like to use Tamar’s vocabulary in that moment, and what kept you from naming it that clearly?

3.Be honest with yourself: what have you been hoping a young man would change about himself once the relationship was ‘right’? Are those changes yours to bring about, or God’s? What does it mean to step out of the redeemer role you were never meant to carry?