Over the past 50 years, the U.S. has been transformed from a very married nation to a place in which married people are becoming a minority. Of people 15 and over (I know that’s a weird age, but it’s the one they use), 49% are married, and 51% are never married, divorced, or widowed. If you are around the age of 30 and have never been married, you share that status with about half of the people your age. It is not unusual to be about to turn 40 and have never been married. In the most recent data from 2023, more than a quarter of adults between the ages of 35 and 44 had never been married (26%).
The fastest-growing household type since 1980 is the single person. In fact, more than 38 million adults live alone. This is a record number. By comparison, in 1967, only about 9 million adults in the US lived alone. And yet the church remains very traditional-family-centric. In some cases, Christians see singleness as a problem to be solved or an affliction to be addressed and not a gift to be enjoyed. We need a renewed biblical perspective on singleness. This four-part blog series will address
- A Biblical Introduction to Singleness
- The Spiritual Benefits of Being Single
- The Spiritual Pitfalls of Being Single, and
- Four Challenges to the Church Regarding Singleness
Statistics cited from Bella DePaulo in Psychology Today.
A Biblical Introduction to Singleness
I remind you at the outset of this blog series that Jesus, John the Baptist, the Apostle Paul, Mother Teresa, and many more ancient and modern saints have something in common… they were all single.
The world’s view of singleness that tells you it’s all about you. It’s a time to experience sexual freedom, chase all your ambitions unencumbered, and enjoy your rugged independence. But exploring God’s way of being single leads you to understand it’s an occasion for worship, it’s an occasion for joy and a time to find great purpose in life and sufficiency in God. In spite of this, sometimes singles feel awkward in the church because Christians can see singles as second-class citizens. Too often, the church has created an atmosphere of trying to marry off singles instead of painting a picture of biblical singleness and encouraging singles to live into their God-ordained potential regardless of whether marriage is in their future.
1 Corinthians 7 paints a picture of Paul’s thoughts on marriage and singleness. He kind of rambles through this chapter, touching on various issues dealing with singleness and marriage. And our ears should perk up right away when Paul starts the whole chapter with the words, “It is good for a man not to marry.” He seems to be saying that it’s good to be single. The reason it should perk us up is that it seems to contradict some other teaching in scripture.
Maybe your mind goes to Genesis 2:18 where God approaches Adam and says “It is not good for man to be alone.” Or, to put it positively, “it is good for a man to be married.” Now, does scripture contradict itself? It is good to be single; it is good to be married. Which is God’s higher calling?
This debate has swirled around in the Church, what is the higher calling? Is the higher calling being single or being married? And there have been proponents who have said that the truly devoted Christ follower is the single Christian. Because they don’t have to deal with the distraction of marriage, which is a lesser calling, and so it’s really, really holy to be single. And you can be the most effective on the mission field; you can be the most good for God’s Kingdom if you are a single person untethered by the shackles of marriage.
On the opposite end, there’s a brand of teaching that says a person does not become an adult until they are married. Marriage is like a rite through which true adults must pass. A person cannot be a real man or a real woman until they are a married man or a married woman. And thus, we have both sides stating that you can’t be a fully devoted follower of Christ unless you’re single or unless you’re married. The debate rages on, which is God’s higher calling?
But I think we need to keep reading Paul’s point in I Corinthians 7. When you arrive at verse 17, he reaches a kind of conclusion to his ramblings. In verse 7, he said, “Yet I wish that all men were even as I myself am. However, each man has his own gift from God, one in this manner, and another in that.” So, he says the Lord assigns gifts, and by gifts, Paul is referring to people’s marital status. Then, in verse 17, he says, “Only, as the Lord has assigned to each one, as God has called each, in this manner let him walk.” So, which is the higher biblical calling? Marriage or singleness? The unsatisfying answer is “yes.” Paul is saying whichever you are, be fully there. Wherever you are, be there to the glory of God.
He’s saying, “Singles, get up and walk in the Lord. You are not crippled because you are single. You are not lacking if you are single. You are not overlooked if you are single. If you are in Christ, you have everything you need, so get up and walk. Don’t just cope with being single. Don’t just wait until you finally get into the marriage part and get on with your life.” But he’s also saying to married people, “Get up and walk in the Lord. Your spouse is not cramping your style. They’re not holding you back from the fullness of what God has for you. If anything, they’re God’s gift to you. If you are married, be married to the glory of God. Get up, enjoy God’s favor in where you’re at.”
Go to Part 2 (available soon) to discover what it looks like to walk in the Lord when you’re single, as we Explore the Spiritual Benefits of Being Single.
