How should we think about singleness?

I did not particularly plan to write anything about singleness, but I was asked to lead a seminar on it at church recently. A number of people remarked that helpful things had come up that they hadn’t heard before, so I’m putting the material online in the hope that it might be useful to others.

Singleness is a topic on which our culture is hopelessly confused, and bang out of step with the Bible. So you might expect that Christians would think and talk about it a lot – as we do, for example, with marriage. But my experience is that, while I’ve heard a fair bit of practical advice for singleness, I haven’t heard much by way of underlying theory. With marriage, we talk a lot about the practical stuff. We also talk a lot about the theory: what marriage is, how we should think about it, why it’s important. With singleness, we don’t seem to do so much of the work on “what is it? How should we think about it?” Perhaps the assumption is that once you’ve thought about marriage, you’ve done all the work you need to do.

So, this post is my attempt to do some of that theory. We will, of course, see plenty of practical applications along the way, and I’ll stop and draw some of those out occasionally. On this topic, even the theory is relentlessly practical! But I won’t focus on those applications: the aim is to get to grips with the theory. I’ve found that careful work on how to think about singleness has made far more difference to my actions than all the tips I’ve heard on what to do. And it’s also been more help to my heart.

This is a long post: 7500 words, or 12 pages of A4. Can I suggest that, even though it’s long, you make it longer by looking up the Bible passages as you read? Especially the five passages in bold. My analysis will probably miss things, and I may get my emphases skewed. If you’ve got your nose in the Bible, you’re more likely to be helped by what’s right, and less likely to be harmed by what’s wrong or unbalanced.

Roadmap

Here’s where we’re going. I’d like to suggest a Biblical theology of singleness. I don’t mean anything very grand by that: simply that I want to go through the Bible and see how teaching about singleness unfolds and changes with God’s unfolding plan of salvation. So we’ll have sections on singleness: (a) before the fall (b) after the fall (c) in the kingdom of God (d) in the New Creation. Since (c) is where we are currently, that will of course be where we spend most of our time.

It’s worth saying that this is not meant to be the last word on the topic.  A Biblical theology is, I think, a helpful starting point: it helps us get a broad picture, and (importantly) helps us get a feel for how various parts of Scripture fit into that broad picture.  But the “systematic” job of soaking up that big picture, filling in the details, tying it all up, comes later.  As does the pastoral job of working through the many applications! There’s a bit of both in this post, because I couldn’t help it, but if I was trying to do a thorough job this would be a lot longer.

Before we dive in, a brief remark. We will of course talk quite a lot about marriage; you can hardly help it while thinking about singleness. Who knows, you may even learn new things about marriage too! But that’s not the aim. So let me state briefly that my basic reading of marriage is that it is a terrifically good thing, because it is created by God first and foremost as a picture of salvation, of Christ’s marriage to his bride the church. If that’s new to you, you’re probably better off thinking about that than reading this. Go read Genesis 1-3, Song of Songs, Ezekiel 16, Hosea 1-3, John 2, Ephesians 5 and Revelation 21-22. Or even just the introduction to the marriage service in the Book of Common Prayer (https://www.churchofengland.org/prayer-worship/worship/book-of-common-prayer/the-form-of-solemnization-of-matrimony.aspx).

With all that said, let’s get started.

1. Singleness before the fall

We can do this one pretty quickly. In Genesis 2:18, after a chapter and a half of God making things and calling them good, we get the first “not good”: “Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.’” And so God makes out of the man’s side the first woman, Eve. And the significance is summed up in Genesis 2:24: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” Which, of course, Jesus quotes as the Bible’s fundamental verse on marriage, as we’ll see later.

People have written tomes on this stuff, but I’d just like to identify one thing and then move on. Firstly, Adam being alone is not good. And God’s solution is to make him a wife. Now obviously this is a special case; there’s literally nobody else in the world, and if Adam doesn’t have a wife, no more humans. But the thing is, Genesis 2:24 takes God’s provision for Adam and makes it a model for all marriage. In other words, it massively downplays the “special case” aspect of this, and massively scales up the “how humans generally work” aspect.

So, how do we read v18? What isn’t good? Well, clearly loneliness isn’t good – friendship, fellowship, they’re important. But given that God’s solution, held up as a general example, is marriage, we can definitely go further. Before the fall, singleness is not good. And why would it be? Human beings are designed for marriage.

So, let’s have a little table:

	Marriage	Singleness
Before the fall	Good	Not good

2. Singleness after the fall

In Genesis 3 everything goes to pot. Complete disaster. Humanity sins. And the rotting fingers of that sin get everywhere, including marriage. So God says to the woman: “Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.” (Genesis 3:16). Well, the exact interpretation of that verse is pretty contentious to say the least! Getting into the details is beyond the scope of this post. But the point is, marriage is deeply marred and broken as a result of the fall.

Rather than look at the details, you can see that simply from the structure. In Genesis 2, God gives the man phenomenal gifts: life, work, and marriage. Children don’t appear, but Genesis 1 tells us that they are a great gift that naturally follows from marriage. And the whole thing is wrapped up in Eden, where the man and woman can know God. In Genesis 3, all those come up again in reverse: childbearing is painful, marriage is marred, work is frustrating, and life ends in death. And finally the man and woman are kicked out of Eden, cut off from God. None of the good gifts are completely lost; all of them are cursed, deeply disfigured.

So, marriage is broken. And of course we see that played out all through the Old Testament – abuse, hatred, scheming, animal lust and deep grief litter the pages. And yet, for all that, the Bible remains basically pretty positive about marriage. If you read Proverbs, for example, you’ll find plenty of advice on avoiding the worst of the curse (“It is better to live in a corner of the housetop than in a house shared with a quarrelsome wife”, Proverbs 21:9) but at the same time strong affirmations like Proverbs 18:22: “He who finds a wife finds a good thing, and obtains favour from the Lord.”

The writer of Ecclesiastes goes further than mere goodness: “Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your vain life that he has given you under the sun, because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might, for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going.” (Ecclesiastes 9:9-10) To our observation that marriage is broken, the writer wants to add that it’s also become deeply temporary. And yet he still wants to say that it should be enjoyed, and committed to – like with work, in fact, one of the other great creation gifts that is marred by the fall. Both marriage and work are not what they should be; but both are still good, both are to be enjoyed and God is to be praised for them.

But what about singleness?

The short answer is, no change. There is no sense that the brokenness of marriage has made singleness any more attractive. The very thought seems entirely alien to the Old Testament! In fact, it is striking that singleness is barely discussed. In OT case laws, in OT narratives, in the wisdom literature, it is generally simply assumed that everyone is married (or, in the case of young people, on their way there). The singles who appear most often are widows and eunuchs, and nobody is queuing up to be one of those. In fact eunuchs are not even allowed in the temple.

Strikingly, there is no concept of the religious celibate. Abstinence is seen as a holy thing for periods of time (cf. 1 Samuel 21:4-5), but there is no thought of deliberately not marrying. The Nazirite of Numbers 6 is someone who voluntarily goes without a number of creation blessings, but marriage is not one of them.

In other words, singleness has received no leg up from the damage done to marriage. There is no sense of “now that marriage isn’t so great, might be worth staying single.” Singleness is rare, a hardship and a grief.

And yet, there is a hint that things will one day change.

That comes in Isaiah 56:3-5. We picture a eunuch saying, “I am only a dry tree.” Which is, from the pervasive outlook of the Old Testament, a pretty fair thing to say. Where is his fruitfulness, his future? Gone in a single cut. Yet God has something different to say: to those eunuchs who keep his covenant, he will give “in my house” (in the temple, that they’re not yet allowed into) “a monument and a name better than sons and daughters”; in fact, “an everlasting name that will not be cut off.” This is very much a future promise in Isaiah; it goes along with a promise to foreigners that is obviously not fulfilled before Pentecost. But there it stands, a promise of a day when there will be available to eunuchs a greater blessing even than the blessing of children.

And there is one more thing in the life of Jeremiah.  It would be a stretch to call it a hint of change – it is more a one-off incident that becomes important in hindsight. Jeremiah, uniquely in the OT, is called to be single; and the reason is given in Jeremiah 16:1-4. Why does God call Jeremiah to singleness?

The answer is because judgement is coming. The future for those in Jerusalem is death. So don’t get married, don’t have kids, says God: they’ll just die. But we’ll get this passage wrong if we think it’s just a bit of insider trading, God giving some hot tips to his good pal Jezza so he can live his best life now. Jeremiah is a prophet, and his singleness is part of his prophecy. It is a message to Jerusalem. As the people see God’s prophet deliberately not marrying, deliberately cutting off his own future, he is a living statement to them: there is no future for Jerusalem.

We’ll come back to Jeremiah. But, with what we’ve seen, we can now fill in the next row of our table:

	Marriage	Singleness
Before the fall	Good	Not good
After the fall	Broken & temporary – but still good	Still not good, but…

3. Singleness in the kingdom of God

As Jesus appears on the scene, so does the kingdom of God; with the arrival of the king comes the kingdom. And with it comes a dramatic shift in the way we are supposed to see singleness. Jesus himself is single, of course, but that fact needs to be interpreted by clearer statements, so we’ll come back to it. Let’s start instead with Matthew 19:3-12.

In this passage Jesus is answering the Pharisees on divorce. He starts by alluding to Genesis 1 (v4), quoting Genesis 2 (v5), and using that to proclaim a far higher standard of faithfulness than they hold to (v6). In v7-9 he explains that laws allowing (though never commanding) divorce in the OT were simply because of hardness of heart. In all this he affirms very forcefully the goodness of marriage and the continuity of his teaching with God’s design for marriage right back to Genesis 1. And we might as well say straight out: the value set on marriage in the kingdom of God is pretty much the same as before. It is broken, it is brief, but it is still good. Both the briefness and the goodness come into clearer focus in the NT (the goodness in Ephesians 5; the briefness we’ll see later). But the basic principles have not changed.

But singleness has changed. In v10 the disciples say something outrageous. Faced with the prospect of compulsory faithfulness (which, as Jesus has just said, is not a new demand anyway), they exclaim that it’s better not to get married at all. Quite obviously they cannot imagine surrendering their freedom quite so much – though no doubt they would casually demand it of their wives! It’s a pretty pathetic response, and as we read it we expect Jesus to give them a proper rollicking. Instead, he effectively says: you’re right (but not for the reasons you think).

Here is his response in v11-12:

Not everyone can receive this saying, but only those to whom it is given. For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let the one who is able to receive this receive it.

It’s worth spending a bit of time on this. The key central statement talks about those who do not marry, using the vivid language of eunuchs, and splits them into three categories. There are those who are by nature unable to marry (those born eunuchs); there are those who cannot marry, not because of their choice but because of the choices of others (those made eunuchs by men), and finally those who choose not to marry “for the sake of the kingdom of God”. This last one is obviously the focus. The first two categories are nothing new; the OT is very familiar with them. But the third is new, and it is Jesus’ response to the disciples’ outburst of v10. Jesus is announcing a new thing: voluntary singleness for the kingdom.

He doesn’t give much detail as to why the kingdom might call for such singleness. That will come later in the NT. But he does give several crucial details in other directions. Firstly, it should be very obvious that this new singleness is not universal. “Not everyone can receive this saying.” Secondly, it is more than an option, it is encouraged: “Let the one who is able to receive this receive it.” And thirdly, singleness has not suddenly become a cake walk. That should be obvious from the word Jesus uses: eunuch. Partly that’s a reminder that sex isn’t for single people (it’s hard to be more chaste than a eunuch). But it’s more than that: it also speaks of the single experience. There’s nothing nice about being a eunuch! It’s painful, it’s humiliating. Jesus could hardly have picked a less attractive metaphor. (It is a metaphor, by the way: don’t start planning your amateur operation!)

I find this profoundly moving. Jesus understands that singleness can be very hard. In nearly all our churches there are those who would love to be married but are not; and here Jesus names and knows their grief. He is truly a high priest who sympathises. Throughout history there have been Christians who have deliberately stayed single; Jesus calls that a noble sacrifice. Although he is very brief, he is not dismissive or shallow in the way he speaks.

But let’s move on. Next up is the NT’s magnum opus on singleness, 1 Corinthians 7. Let’s start at the end, with v25-40.

This is a long passage, and I don’t want to get into all the details. Do that on your own! I would like to pick up just three fairly basic observations.

Firstly, Paul says singleness is better than marriage (v38). Neither is sinful; both are good choices. But singleness is better. Coming after Jesus’ “Let the one who is able to receive this receive it”, this shouldn’t be a surprise.

Secondly, and this is new, Paul explains what has changed. What is different about the kingdom compared to what went before? That now we see “the present form of this world is passing away” (v31). “The appointed time has grown very short.” (v29) We start to see why the arrival of the kingdom has made a difference, for in the OT God communicated with his people by shadows, teaching eternal truths by this-world things. Even his future promises were couched primarily in this-world terms. But now the reality has come, and our eyes are lifted beyond this world. We see eternity bearing down on us. The Old Testament knew that marriage was temporary, but we suddenly see that far more sharply. It’s not only marriage that’s temporary, but the whole world in which marriage exists!

It’s hard not to remember Jeremiah at this stage. His singleness was a prophecy to the people round him: there is no future here! Jerusalem will fall! In just the same way, a single Christian is a living prophecy to the watching world. He or she says in stark terms, there is no future here. This world is passing away. And that is very powerful! Our world has no category for this. What our culture thinks of as singleness is actually just serial unfaithfulness. When it faces real, chaste singleness, it cannot help but see someone who is living for something beyond this world. And it shudders, because it knows it hasn’t reckoned with anything beyond this world.

Thirdly and finally, Paul explains the value of singleness. Why is it now a good choice? Because it allows you to be singleminded (v32-34). Marriage brings all sorts of this-world concerns; singleness leaves you free to pursue the Lord’s concerns. Again, this distinction wouldn’t really have made any sense in the OT. But with the revelation of the kingdom, it really does make sense. It’s not in any way that marriage or children have been downgraded as blessings: rather it’s that greater, eternal blessings have been revealed, like mountains that were once obscured by cloud. Those blessings are for all, but the single person can devote their heart and energies towards them in a way that a married person cannot.

Again, it’s hard not to remember Isaiah. As he received the prophecy of Isaiah 56, that great prophet must have wondered what blessings could so far outstrip the blessings of fruitfulness and family. But now we know: the final harvest, the crown of glory that will never pass away, the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

However, we are not done with 1 Corinthians 7. We need to look at the start of the chapter, at verses 1-9. This is important background to the stuff at the end.

The whole chapter begins with the Corinthians’ own statement: abstinence, they say, is good in and of itself (v1). Towards the end of the chapter, as we’ve seen, Paul will be resoundingly positive about singleness. But before he gets to that he gives what we need to see as his “default” response in v2: no, Corinthians, it’s good to be married and to have sex within marriage. In fact, he commands married couples to have sex, with the only exception being periods where that time and energy is – by mutual agreement – set aside for prayer.

Paul’s reason for this is very simple and perhaps to some of us might sound a bit unromantic! It’s this: marriage is good and helpful for avoiding sexual immorality. And there’s a great deal of sexual immorality (v2), so “each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband”.

He then remarks that he wishes everyone was able to be productively single, like him (v6) – but the Lord in his wisdom hasn’t granted that to all. “Each has his own gift from God.” We’ll return to the topic of the “gift of singleness” a bit later, but here I just want to note that Paul speaks entirely in accord with Jesus in Matthew 19: singleness is a good choice, even a preferable choice – but it’s not for everyone.

And in v8-9, Paul underlines that by making a very concrete application from the principle of v1-5. Yes, it’s good to stay single (v8): but if you lack self-control, you should marry (v9). The language and context make it pretty clear that he’s thinking of sexual self-control, at least primarily. If you are too weak to cope with the temptations of the world as a single person, you should marry. Marrying isn’t sinful; sin is sinful. There’s no contest. On its own, v2 could perhaps be read as only applying to people who are already married, but v9 makes clear that the principle applies more widely. Because of the threat of sexual immorality, it is good for people to get married. More than that: a desire to avoid sexual immorality is a good and godly reason to pursue marriage.

An aside before we move on to our final passage: note how even-handed Paul is here. Everything is applied equally to men and women. For those of us who believe (like I do) that the Bible speaks of difference between the sexes, it’s worth noting that Paul talks here about sexual temptation but says nothing about gender difference at all. On this topic, where our distinctions often go into overdrive, Paul is far more interested in where men and women are the same than in where they differ.

We have one more passage to look at: 1 Timothy 5:3-16. For my money, this is a sadly neglected passage when thinking about singleness. It’s not hard to see why it’s neglected: Paul is speaking to a particular first-century situation that doesn’t map very obviously to our experiences of singleness today. But Paul’s detailed practical instructions yield a great deal of practical application, if we only take the time to understand them – and they’re all the more valuable because we might find some of them surprising. I think we’ll see that careful study of 1 Timothy 5 will be an important safeguard for us when reading 1 Corinthians 7.

The topic under consideration is how the church should look after its widows. An obvious concern for Paul is that it is the family, not the church, which should be the first port of call (v4,8,16); as important as that is, we’ll leave it to one side for our purposes. When the church does take on widows and support them, Paul seems to have in mind a formal, official arrangement: there is to be an official list of widows that the church supports, and to get onto that list the widows must make vows to Christ, which apparently include a vow of singleness. It seems pretty likely that the widow, thus supported by the church, would then essentially be a sort of women’s worker, devoting herself full-time to prayer, to teaching the younger women, and to acts of mercy.

I would like to draw out two main things from this passage. We find the first in v3: there is such a thing as a “true widow” (and so, by implication, such a thing as a “false widow”). Partly, true widowhood is about being genuinely destitute: that’s v4. But it’s not just about the widow’s circumstances but about how she reacts to them. The true widow is one who sets her hope on God and devotes herself to prayer (v5). But it’s possible to be a widow who goes instead for self-indulgence, and she is dead even while she lives (v6). In other words, it’s possible for widowhood to be a soil in which godliness flourishes; it’s also possible for it to be a soil that produces only weeds. The widowhood is not the thing, it’s what grows in it that matters.

That’s graphically illustrated in v13. Paul describes younger widows who are using the relative freedom of widowhood to become idlers, gossips and busybodies.

Now widowhood is of course one particular kind of singleness. Looking at 1 Corinthians 7 through the lens of this “true widow” idea of 1 Timothy 5, I think we can see a broader principle at work. I’d put it like this: singleness is only as valuable as the use you make of it. Singleness is not a good thing in and of itself (as marriage is); in fact, it’s still a loss, not good in itself. It’s a sacrifice. What makes it good is that it is an opportunity. Singleness provides a freedom to be uniquely singleminded. But that is only valuable if you are singleminded in the right direction! And we don’t have to look very far to see that there are many, many single people who use the freedom they have not to please God but to please themselves. They cherish the freedom of singleness, but only because it means they can spend their money how they like, and use their time on themselves and their desires. Such singleness is not helpful, it’s actively harmful.

That leads me on to my second main observation, which is Paul’s startling command in v9-14. He issues a straightforward instruction: don’t enrol a younger widow (and by younger, he says, he means under 60!). Instead, they should marry (v14). After reading 1 Corinthians 7, it might come as a surprise, but there it is: Paul issues blanket advice for all widows under 60 to get married!

His reasoning is pretty straightforward. To enrol, they must vow singleness. For many of them, as we’ve seen, singleness will just be disastrous in and of itself (v13). But there’s another problem, which is that they’ll probably change their minds. They’ll want to marry (by the way, unlike in 1 Corinthians 7, Paul does not specify that these desires are sexual. The sins of v13 are not sexual either. This is a broader picture). And having taken a vow, they’ll be between a rock and a hard place. They’ll find it really hard not to marry – in fact, Paul expects them to crumble and go for it – but if they do marry, then they’ve broken their vow! That’s incredibly serious (take note, anyone thinking of making vows): to break such a vow incurs “condemnation”, and they’ve “abandoned their former faith”. The issue is very clearly not with marriage, because Paul’s solution involves getting married! The issue is breaking the vow (possibly with a side salad of marrying a non-Christian, which would be the most likely option if all the guys in the church know they’re not meant to marry you). And so Paul says, just don’t make the vow in the first place. Get married.

Before seeing the general point, I’d like to press home Paul’s specific application. If you’re young, don’t vow singleness! Don’t commit yourself to it in a binding way. It’s fine, even good, to stay single; that much is very clear. But you don’t know how your circumstances or desires may change. If you plan to stay single, great – but let it be a plan and not a commitment.

But the main conclusion I’d like to draw from this is very simple: marriage should be the norm for Christians. It’s possible, I think, to read Matthew 19 and 1 Corinthians 7 and end up thinking that marriage is passé in the kingdom, that it’s only still allowed because some Christians are weak; and that really singleness should be the expectation for “keen Christians”. That conclusion doesn’t sit very well with 1 Corinthians 7 anyway; but it makes no sense at all of 1 Timothy 5. Marriage is so much the expectation that Paul can tell all widows under 60 to go for it. And note that the reasons he gives are not about cultural expectations, not about circumstances, not about parental pressure or financial need; no, they are about the widows themselves, their desire to marry (v11) and the likelihood that they will use their singleness badly (v13). Those factors are not specific to first century Ephesus, or to widows. Marriage should be the norm for Christians.

With 1 Timothy 5, we’ve seen all the major passages I’d like to look at. However, we still need to think about a couple of things that often work their way into this discussion: the singleness of Jesus and the so-called “gift of singleness”.

The singleness of Jesus.

Jesus was, of course, single. And so of course he shows, by example, many things about singleness. He shows that it’s possible to be perfectly godly while single: marriage is not God’s only school of righteousness. He shows what single-minded devotion to God in singleness looks like: not locked away from the world, it’s dramatically active and engaged in real life. And so on.

But I think we can go further than that. You’ll often hear people say something along the lines of “Jesus was single, and he was the perfect human, so we should have a very high view of singleness.” In one sense, of course, this is absolutely true. But I feel quibbles bubbling within me. For one thing, it’s not the whole picture to say that Jesus was single; he was engaged. There’s a difference. Jesus’ life and death is all about his marriage. So to treat Jesus’ singleness as somehow downgrading marriage would probably be to miss the point.

And there’s another thing. Jesus was, indeed, the perfect human. But I wonder whether we hear that and somehow hear that he was perfectly fulfilled, perfectly blessed, or whatever. That is not the way the Bible presents him. He is “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.” He knows the full length and breadth of human suffering. He is poor, homeless, rejected, unjustly treated, subjected to appalling physical suffering, left all alone, killed. In all that suffering he calls us to join him. No Christian will experience the full depths of that; yet there will be Christians who are poor because they follow Christ, Christians who are rejected, Christians who are killed. I think it makes most sense to see Jesus’ singleness as part of that framework. It is part of his sorrows; for those Christians who follow him in singleness, that is part of taking up their cross.

Incidentally, I think that’s also how Paul sees his own singleness. He clearly sees it as a very good thing; yet in 1 Cor 9:5 he talks about not having a wife as a deliberate sacrifice for the sake of the gospel. It is part of the list of his deliberate self-denials. Singleness for Paul is very good, but not because it is a blessing in itself. The New Testament never talks like that. Singleness is still, in itself, not good; but it is a sacrifice worth making.

So the example of Christ should be a great encouragement to single people.  But it is not a sign that the single life is going to be particularly enjoyable or fulfilling, any more than the poverty of Christ is a sign that poverty is enjoyable or fulfilling.  It is, however, a sign that singleness is worthwhile.

The gift of singleness.

In 1 Corinthians 7:7 Paul is answering his own pipe dream of having all Christians be single. Replying to himself, he says that everyone has his own gift: one person has one gift, one has another. Because of that verse, people sometimes talk about a “gift of singleness”. The Bible never uses that exact phrase, and yet clearly the idea of God’s varied gifts is meant to be one that helps us think this topic through. In particular, it should be an idea that helps us avoid a “one-size-fits-all” mentality; at least, that’s what it did for Paul! But how exactly does it do that?

Let’s look at two views on this.

Here’s the first. Paul is saying: God has given some people a special, Holy-Spirit-empowered ability to be single that he simply hasn’t given all Christians. If you have this gift of singleness, then you can (or, possibly, should) serve God by staying single. If you haven’t got the gift, though, then you better get married.

That seems simple enough, but two rather pressing questions emerge when putting it into practice. The first is, how do I figure out if I’ve got the gift? And the second is, what if I don’t have the gift of singleness but nobody wants to marry me?

The second view is very different. Paul, says this view, is not talking about ability but circumstance. The “gift” is simply the situation that God has put you in. So if you’re single, you’ve got the gift of singleness. If you’re married, you’ve got the gift of marriage. By definition. And so no more introspection, no more wondering if you’ve got the gift: it’s obvious. Just get on with living out what God’s given you.

That second view is, at least in my experience, by far the dominant view in British conservative evangelicalism – and so I suspect the view of most people who’ll read this post, and my own view for a long time. But I’ve come to disagree with it quite sharply, and I’d like to explain why.

The issue is not what the second view affirms, but what it denies. It affirms a lot of good things. God really has put you in the situation you find yourself in. He really does call you to live faithfully in the situation you’re in. More than that: God really does sustain us, and really never does tempt us beyond what we can bear. So if I feel ill-equipped for singleness, would like to get married, and yet for whatever reason it’s not an option, I don’t need to panic: I have promises of help that I can rely on. All this is good, helpful, and true.

But this second view denies something very important. It denies that ability has anything to do with it. It says, in theory, singleness is for everyone. And that denial is deeply misguided.

Let me give some quickfire reasons. First, consider the logic of 1 Corinthians 7:7, which is where the word gift is used. Paul says, “I wish that all were as I myself am” (ie, single). Does he really then content himself with going, “but I observe that some of you are, in fact, married”? That doesn’t seem like it actually answers the problem posed in the first part of the verse. Second, why would Paul use “gift” here to refer to circumstance when he never uses it that way elsewhere? Third, if we succeed in denying that Paul says singleness is for some and not for others, what are we going to do with Jesus – who says exactly the same thing in Matthew 19? And pastorally, what are we actually going to advise people? If singleness is better (which both Jesus and Paul are clear on), but we won’t admit that it’s not for everyone (which both Jesus and Paul are clear on), shouldn’t we be telling every single Christian to stay single?

Far better to simply admit: Paul is talking about a genuine difference between Christians. Some are equipped for singleness in a way that others are not. This allows us to affirm that singleness is a better choice than marriage, all things being equal – and then to observe, with the apostle, that very often all things are not equal.

But then of course those pressing questions pop up again. How do I tell if I’ve got the gift? What if I don’t have the gift and marriage isn’t an option? So let me suggest my modification of the first view. Here it is: we shouldn’t see “the gift” as a binary, on/off thing. In 1 Cor 7:7, Paul is not introducing a new, mysterious idea but simply naming a familiar reality: we’re not all the same. Some of us will find singleness harder than others in various ways.  All sorts of factors will shape that, including external circumstance and internal ability. But the end result is not a binary reality but more of a spectrum.

A quick analogy might help: the gift of teaching. Again, this is a God-given gift, and again, we’re not all the same. Some men can be pastors; others, however godly, cannot. But it’s not a binary thing, is it? There’s a whole range of ability, from the fairly hopeless, through to the Whitefields and Calvins. But most of us are in between. Decisions about whether to take teaching roles are not a matter of identifying which side of a binary divide you are on, but wisdom decisions about ability. And in fact, many Christians with seemingly little ability will find themselves needing to teach (for example, teaching their children) and will then need to faithfully steward the ability they’ve been given.

Similarly, I suggest, for singleness. There is no binary divide. There are some for whom singleness is clearly fitting: they are happy with it, they cope well with the attendant temptations, they are using singleness well. There are others for whom marriage is clearly the best option – like those widows in 1 Timothy 5. And there’ll be the whole spectrum in between.

So – how can I tell if I have “the gift”? I suspect a better question is simply: how am I doing as a single person? (Which, by the way, is not a question you need ask alone; as with the gift of teaching, it may well be better assessed by others.) For some, asking that question will lead to a godly determination to stay single for the moment (or, for some older folk, to stay single permanently). For others, it will lead to a determination to get married if possible.

And what about if I don’t think I’m doing well as a single person but can’t get married? There’s no getting around it: this is a very painful situation! But I think seeing things as a spectrum helps. You should seek help from those around you (like a parent with little teaching ability, faced with parenting); you should pray and trust God, who does not give us more than we can bear; and you should seek to faithfully steward what you have. To adapt a parable, if there are 5-talent single people and you’re a 1-talent single person, you still want to put that 1 talent to use.

There is no doubt far more we could say about the gift – and in fact about the whole New Testament picture. I’ll offer two general reflections in a second. But let’s have a look at our table:

	Marriage	Singleness
Before the fall	Good	Not good
After the fall	Broken & temporary – but still good	Still not good, but…
In the kingdom of God	Broken & temporary – but still good	Still not good, but a sacrifice worth making

Let me draw out two applications: one for our attitude, and one for our practice.

Firstly, on attitude. Here’s the headline: marriage and singleness are both good, but in different ways. This may seem a little odd, since I just said singleness was not good. What I mean is: marriage is good in itself, although it is marred by sin and death. Singleness is the opposite, not good in itself, but good because in the light of the kingdom it brings great opportunities. Marriage is a naturally good thing with disadvantages. Singleness is a naturally bad thing with advantages.

Obviously the key thing to hear is the first half of that headline: marriage and singleness are both good. Some of us will be tempted because of our individualistic culture (or our misreading of 1 Corinthians 7) to despise marriage. Perish the thought! No: marriage should be the norm, it is a great gift of God, and it will be the best and most godly choice for most Christians. So let’s honour and celebrate it. Some of us will be tempted by our this-world culture (or our this-world church) to despise singleness. Perish the thought! Chaste, faithful singleness is a noble sacrifice Jesus honours, a great gift from God to his church, and the best choice for some. So let’s honour it and thank God for it. If we struggle to honour both, because we ourselves can only have one, we’ve probably failed to recognise that the body has many parts and I am only one of them.

But once we hear the first half of the heading, we do also need to hear the second half. Marriage and singleness are not good in the same way. Singleness is not good in itself. Although some may, by God’s gift, find singleness fairly easy, the general experience will be that singleness is hard and burdensome. If we try and deny that, we will quite quickly find ourselves flagging (why don’t I feel blessed?) and see others end up rejecting our teaching as it completely fails to chime with reality. People have said that the church in the West needs to recapture the expectation of sacrifice in the Christian life. It is certainly true that unless we recognise singleness as sacrifice, our thinking on it will always be lopsided.

Secondly, on practice. I would like to flag up once again that principle I mentioned earlier: singleness is only as valuable as the use you make of it. Speaking personally, this is what challenges me most in all this. Some of us will be relatively cheerful singles, others will hate it. Some will be heading for marriage, others indefinitely single. But whatever the exact situation, if we’re single, we need to ask ourselves: how am I using my singleness? I have fewer things in this world claiming my heart. Am I using that to be more in love with God? I probably have more freedom with money than I would if married. How am I using it? I will probably have significant amounts of free time. How am I using it? If you don’t think that’s true, by the way, then go to a married person in your church, preferably with kids. Ask them: what do your mornings look like? What do your evenings look like? What do your days off look like? And then go away and ask yourself: how am I using my singleness?

For many of us, and I include myself in this, our singleness is all too often sadly wasted. God has given us a great opportunity in singleness to serve him, to work in a singleminded way on what will last forever. Yet so often we fritter away our time, money and affections on purely worldly things. How are you using your singleness?

But we’re not quite done.

4. Singleness in the New Creation

Matthew 22:30 tells us that earthly marriages are truly temporary; in the New Creation, they will have passed away. In that sense, we will all be single in the New Creation! But to leave it there would be hugely misleading; it would mean forgetting what the New Creation is. Because the New Creation is all about marriage. In fact, let’s jump the gun slightly and complete our table:

	Marriage	Singleness
Before the fall	Good	Not good
After the fall	Broken & temporary – but still good	Still not good, but…
In the kingdom of God	Broken & temporary – but still good	Still not good, but a sacrifice worth making
In the New Creation	Swallowed up in the True Marriage

Let’s turn to Revelation.

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. (Revelation 21:1-2)

The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come.” And let the one who hears say, “Come.” And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price. (Revelation 22:17)

I love Revelation 22:17. By the Spirit, the Bride of Christ is calling for her Bridegroom. And that great corporate longing sweeps up the individual: let the one who hears say “Come.” And it is a longing that invites others in; all are called to be part of the Bride, so that the Spirit might satisfy their thirst with a longing that will one day be eternally satisfied. It’s all about the True Marriage.

So while it is in one sense true that we will all be single in the New Creation, it is far more true that we will all be married, together as the Bride married to the incomparable Bridegroom. And how glorious that will be! The goodness of earthly marriage should teach us to long for it. The brokenness of earthly marriage should teach us to long for it. The sacrifice of earthly singleness should teach us to long for it. Come, Lord Jesus!

 

I don’t have comments on this site, but that doesn’t mean I want to close down discussion: see here.

This post was edited on 21/08/2017.