“Marriage” series: (post #3)
(Note from the author: This blog post was originally written as part of a series on the subject of marriage. I wrote the post to answer the question, “What if I don’t want to get married?” However, in the years since I published the post, I’ve noticed that many of the comments have come from people asking the question, “What about the person who wants to get married but can’t?” The post really doesn’t speak to that question, but several of the comments, as well as my replies to those comments, do. So if that’s the help you are looking for, take the time to read through the comments and replies. And be sure to click on the “older comments” to access them as well. We’ve had a pretty spirited debate on the whole subject over the years, and my prayer is that God will use it all to help you find the answers you need. Thanks for reading, and God bless you.) Pastor Russell Mckinney
Is it God’s will for each person to get married? The Bible’s answer is, no. However, the reason the Bible names for remaining unmarried is an interesting one. It has to do with the single person being able to devote more time, energy, and resources to service to Christ.
The passage on this is 1 Corinthians 7:25-40. In those verses, the apostle Paul presents the advantages of remaining, as he puts it, “without care.” He says of the man:
But I want you to be without care. He who is unmarried cares for the things of the Lord — how he may please the Lord. But he who is married cares about the things of the world — how he may please his wife, (1 Corinthians 7:32-33, N.K.J.V.)
Then Paul applies this same thought to the woman, as he says:
There is a difference between a wife and a virgin (Paul’s term for an unmarried woman). The unmarried woman cares about the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit. But she who is married cares about the things of the world — how she may please her husband. (1 Corinthians 7:34, N.K.J.V.)
Needless to say, we shouldn’t take these verses as an indictment against married people. After all, God’s ordained way of propagating the human race is through marriage, and a person can certainly be married and still serve the Lord. But Paul’s point is a good one. Anyone who has been married for one week knows that married life carries many responsibilities with it, and those responsibilities will eat away at time, energy, and resources that could be spent on matters that are more obviously spiritual.
I purposely use that word “obviously” because the fact is that every aspect of a Christian’s life is, in a very real sense, “spiritual.” This same Paul wrote in Colossians 3:17:
And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him. (N.K.J.V.)
He says basically the same thing in 1 Corinthians 10:31:
Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. (N.K.J.V.)
Those two verses remind me of that little story about the woman standing at the sink, washing the dishes. A sign above her sink reads, “Divine service rendered here three times daily.” You see, even a marriage responsibility such as washing the dishes can become “divine service” when it is done to the glory of God.
Nevertheless, what Paul is saying in the 1 Corinthians chapter 7 passage is that single people can do certain things for the Lord married people just can’t do. I was a pastor before I got married. Back in those days I could sit up all night working on sermons and not worry about bothering anybody else in the house. Do you know what made that possible? It was the fact that there wasn’t anybody else in the house.
Similarly, I could pray out loud while I laid in bed. I could plan my pastoral visitation schedule with no thought whatsoever to what was going on with my wife’s day. I didn’t have to concern myself with the cares of grocery shopping for anyone other than myself. I didn’t have two boys to get to their ball practices. I didn’t have a mother-in-law or a father-in-law to include in my plans for the holidays. I was, to use Paul’s words, “without care,” except the care I put into serving Christ.
In Matthew 19:12, Jesus gives this same teaching. He says:
“For there are eunuchs who were born thus from their mother’s womb, and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake.” (N.K.J.V.)
With these words, Jesus describes three different types of eunuch. First, the eunuchs who were born eunuchs would be those people who shouldn’t get married because of physical or mental problems from birth. Second, the eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men were men who were castrated in order to serve in royal service to a king. (In the East, it was common practice to castrate certain servants, particularly those who were placed in charge of kings’ harems.) Third, the eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake are those who have voluntarily committed themselves to celibacy and remaining unmarried in order that they might completely give themselves over to service to the Lord.
And so, we see that there is nothing wrong with remaining single. However, if you are going to go that route in life, you must ask yourself the question, “Why do I want to remain single?” Is it because you don’t want to be “tied down” to one person? Is it because you want to be free to “play the field”? Is it because you are far too self-absorbed and self-centered to ever think about sharing your life with someone else? Or is it because you want to keep yourself free so that you can devote 100% of your time, energy, and resources to Jesus?
If that last one is your motivation, then you are in the good company of Christians such as Paul, people whom God is able to use in ways that are different than the ways in which He uses married people. You see, remaining single is certainly nothing of which you should be ashamed. You just need to make sure that you take the time, energy, and resources that you would spend on a spouse (and potentially children) and spend them exclusively on Jesus.
The Disciple's Road 
Being a single lonely guy all the time isn’t fun at all for me especially when i see couples walking and holding hands which makes me even more very miserable since it feels like God has really cursed me for some reason. Being married with a wife and family to share my life with is what i really wanted since the single and lonely life really very much sucks big time.
same here
I’ve always found it a rather interesting point that single people are able to devote more time/energy/resources to serving God. Christians often say that to single people to try to be encouraging. If this is the case, though, why are all the pastors/ministry leaders/worship leaders, etc. married? How many unmarried pastors have you ever met? I don’t think I’ve ever met a single one.
Is it God’s will for you to either marry or stay single? Who knows? Who knows how much God really involves Himself in these things?
From reading 1 Corinthians 7, it seems like we have the freedom to choose either marriage or singleness. But, of course, we have to bring God into it.
Apparently, for the first few thousand years of human history, it was “God’s plan” for young people to be joined in arranged marriages in their late teens. Then God changed his mind to around 18 or so, with close involvement and vetting from each other’s parents. Then He changed it to be more inclusive of other races and social classes. Then, in the modern age, God decided to change it for many people to the late twenties and early thirties, with little involvement from parents, at least initially. What is going on?
Another strange point about the belief that God ordains people to be single or married: According to many Christians God will introduce you to “The One” at “the right time.” To make things even more confusing, we send a mixed message of how if you do everything right (like don’t have sex) as a single, God will reward you with a happy marriage with the “soulmate” He prepared just for you. So you don’t “earn” it, but you do “earn” it, but it’s all in His timing….or something.
And then we wonder why so many Christian singles are confused, hurt, bitter, unmarried, or struggle with marriage. The Bible doesn’t teach us anything about “soulmates” or “The One.” It’s not even hinted at.
The Bible doesn’t teach us anything about “soulmates. In 1 Corinthians 7, it sounds like God gives us the freedom to choose to marry, and to choose a spouse.
Besides, dating is a fairly recent phenomenon. People didn’t “date” in biblical times. Marriages were arranged by families in some way or other for a very long time in human history. I doubt people fretted as much about “soulmates” and “The One” and “trusting in God” and waiting on “God’s timing” back then. These days, in the modern dating world, we do. But are those biblical ideas?
The Bible doesn’t have all that much to say about marriage. The standard passage is 1 Corinthians 7.This passage doesn’t say that God will bring you a specific spouse. It does lay out some principles for us. The passage also says that God gives us the freedom to choose to marry, and thus gives us some principles over how to decide. Think about it this way: if God divinely ordained me to marry one specific person, can it really be my own conscious choice to love them despite all the difficulties?
In Matthew, Jesus also clearly states that some people won’t get married (19:10-12) The Bible has good things to say about both marriage and singleness. When Paul talks about this (1 Corinthians 7), he writes that, if you’re single and struggle to control sexual desires, you should try to get married. In this case, the Bible encourages marriage. It does not, however, promise that it’ll work out for you if you do decide to pursue it. Paul does say that not everyone has the gift of singleness. But I’m sure that there’s many who lack this gift who, despite everything, still don’t find mates. There’s also married Christians who suddenly find themselves single due to freak accidents and unspeakable tragedies.This all sounds cruel and messed up, but we live in a cruel and messed-up world. It’s not necessarily God’s “plan” or God’s “fault.” It’s just a harsh world we live in.
According to some Christians, if you’re single and never marry in your lifetime, it’s because of God’s will and calling (they often say this in an attempt to make you feel better). I don’t know about that. How are we supposed to know that for sure, exactly? Sometimes people will say this will only be revealed to you through long sessions of “prayer/meditation/contemplation,” or something like that. I’ve prayed over this for years, I still desire a relationship leading to marriage, and I still haven’t experienced success in this area of life, and I still haven’t “heard from God” on which path He supposedly wants for me. Maybe we just over-spiritualize the whole thing. And maybe God isn’t all that concerned with it. Maybe He just leaves the choice up to us, chance, and worldly circumstances.
I may be rambling a bit here (OK, I probably am). I just find modern Christianese ideas about singleness/dating/marriage a bit strange some times. Maybe they were less confusing in ancient times, when everyone was betrothed at a young age and had less freedom to confuse them, haha.
I’ve also read that there’s generally more Christian women in the world than there are men. If that’s broadly true, it means not every Christian woman will find someone to marry. Is that part of “God’s plan” as well?
Another interesting point has to do with the classic “free will vs. God’s sovereignty” problem. A lot of Christians assume that they’re married (or single) because God wants it that way, which, depending on what they want, can make them wither very happy and grateful, or very upset, angry, and confused.
However, as humans, we aren’t puppets. We can make decisions, and we live in bad, sinful world that affects our lives and sometimes limits our choices. Many Christians assume that, if they marry, it happened because it was “God’s will” and because God wanted to bless them. That answer is easy. If you want to marry and end up not marrying, obviously you’ll struggle with more, and harder, questions. But, apparently, you remain unmarried because God didn’t want you to marry. But that leaves out all sorts of factors.
It also absolves us of responsibility. People are single for all sorts of reasons. Sometimes it’s just bad luck. Sometimes it’s for bad reasons, like lack of maturity, poor financial stewardship, things like that, bad social skills, inability to deal with the opposite sex, etc. Sometimes we just don’t have any candidates around us whoa re marriage material, even if they’re Christians.
These days, lots of people wait longer to get married. Is that a plan that God devised? God “used to” do that when you were 16-22 years old, but now He, in His infinite wisdom, has decided to test us further by letting us all wait an extra ten years or so. Right.
As Christians we often have the shaky idea that anything and everything happening in our lives is God’s will. Sure. What if I’m currently homeless, or unemployed, or being abused? Are those things happening because God wants these things for my life? I get that we to honor God’s sovereignty and all that. It seems like the proper, “spiritual” thing to do. But we can’t understand this, at the end of the day. Unless good things happen, of course, like marrying on our timeline. Those things are obviously God’s will, right? Sure. It’s certainly easier to “thank God” for them.
Maybe God does bring partners into our lives. I don’t really know. But this idea that He delivers the perfect soulmate at exactly the right time seems counterproductive sometimes, as well as shaky. It sounds great, and it’s comforting, but that’s about all it does.
Yes, God is good. But we live in a fallen world that is not good. And you might not be single because God wants it that way. It could just be bad luck.