When my son was a teenager he used to read the Sunday cartoons, and I heard him laughing out loud one day. He called out to me, "Hey, Dad, come here. They got this one right!" He could really relate to this particular cartoon, and knowing that this was something that would help my intellectual development, he let me read it.

There's a young man standing at his locker in school and he says, "Could it be? I'm almost certain that she did! I'm sure that new girl, Angie, smiled at me when I passed her in the hall just now!" See, my guys could relate to this. Then this guy says, "Then again, maybe she's just friendly and smiles at everyone like that." Then he says, "Or maybe she was smiling at someone else and not at me at all." And then in the final panel he says, "(Sigh) - I wish girls came with instructions." They do.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Girls Come With Instructions."

Now, our word for today from the Word of God comes from 1 Timothy 5:2. It's part of a passage that gives us instructions on how a Christian man should treat various groups. And then, we get to how he should treat the women; especially the younger women. Here's what it says, "Treat the younger women as sisters with absolute purity."

Well, what do you know? Girls do come with instructions. And the instructions are, "Treat them as sisters with absolute purity." I'll tell you, that's a pretty revolutionary concept for modern male/female relationships. We men are raised to treat women as conquests, not sisters; as someone to know mostly on a physical level, it's just programmed by our culture. Not as a person in a family kind of relationship.

Interesting! Sometimes you'll hear someone describing something that's relatively unexciting in this way, "Oh, it's sort of like kissing your sister." You know, a relationship with your sister is not primarily physical - it's a family deal. The point of what Paul is saying is, "That's what we ought to be seeking as men in our relationships with women."

The bonds between a brother and sister aren't based on a physical relationship; it's a friendship - a bonding based on something much deeper, shared experiences, laughing together, crying together, shopping, eating, arguing, and celebrating.

Relationships between men and women become much more complicated, much more tense, much more unnatural, when they're dominated by a romantic agenda or a sexual agenda. If only we could turn in our hunting license and quit looking for girlfriends, and start looking for girls who are friends.

One characteristic of a brother's love is protection. Man, I'll tell you, a brother won't let anything happen to his sister. Well, you know, it's time we men start to protect every woman around us from being used, from being cheapened by physical involvement, to begin to give them the royal treatment and the loyal treatment that a sister deserves. And it's time women begin to tell men that they want real relationships that are centered in Christ and committed to purity; to tell them that by the way they dress, and the way they move, and the way they talk.

Men and women? Well, they're always going to be a mystery to each other, but we've made it much more confusing than it needs to be. Start looking for sisters to build up, not lovers to conquer; people to minister to and encourage.

That's how we were created to be with each other. I know that, because I've read God's manufacturer's book, and girls do come with instructions.