The Grace of Singleness and Marriage
Although being single or married both have unique challenges, the word of God demonstrates that they are both gifts from God. In the past, many had a positive view of marriage and a negative view of singleness. In more recent times, many have a negative view of marriage and a positive, albeit distorted, view of singleness. One way this is reflected in society is that many today get married much later in life and choose co-habitation instead of marriage. Others view prolonged singleness as brokenness or something that has to be fixed. In light of these distorted views of marriage and singleness, it’s vital that we consider what God’s word has to say about it.
God gives the grace of singleness to secure undivided devotion to Christ and His cause. After explaining that our bodies were made for God and not for sexual immorality, Paul seeks to answer some questions about singleness. He writes: “Now concerning the matters about which you wrote: “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman” (1 Corinthians 7:1).
When Paul says it’s good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman, he’s not dealing with sexual immorality per se, but with whether it’s preferable to be single or to get married. And because of a number of factors that he addresses in this chapter, Paul makes an appeal for singleness as a preferable option for some. It’s important that we define what Paul means by "singleness" or "unmarried."
You see, for many people in our society and in the culture of Corinth, choosing to remain single or unmarried doesn’t mean also choosing sexual abstinence, like the Apostle Paul clearly had in mind. Moreover when Paul says that singleness is good, he doesn’t mean that it will be easy. One major reasons singleness is difficult is that it requires sexual abstinence, which is implied in the subsequent verse: “But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband” (1 Corinthians 7:2). Paul is not saying that the only reason to marry is for sexual intimacy. What he’s pointing out is that one of the challenges to purposeful singleness is the temptation of sexual immorality. Someone who is burning with the desire for sexual intimacy and has the opportunity to marry biblically is free to do so (v.9).
Let me add, if the opportunity to marry is not available, there’s grace available from God to overcome the desires of the flesh and be content in the Lord (Galatians 5:16). God’s grace is enough in every season of our lives (2 Corinthians 12:9). In fact, knowing the sufficiency of God’s grace in relationship with Christ is a prerequisite for marriage. That is to say, you don’t get married because Christ is not enough, or is incapable of giving you contentment in singleness. You get married because God provides the opportunity and the gift to be married to a biblically suitable mate.
Marriage is one way but not the only way that God meets our human need for relationship (Genesis 2:18). God designed us with a need for intimacy and we can experience it without being involved in a romantic or sexual relationship. Our greatest need is to be in an authentic, close, and intimate relationship with God. And intimacy with God enables us to be content in every area of our lives, including our marital status. Apart from God meeting the deepest needs of our hearts through relationship with Him, we will be hard-pressed to find true and lasting contentment in singleness or marriage.
In his book, Seven Myths About Singleness, Sam Allberry wrote, “Paul’s point is that those who can marry appropriately are free to and, if their sexual desires risk distracting them from a wholehearted focus on the Lord, are encouraged to.” After expressing his good desire for the Corinthians to choose singleness over marriage, Paul adds, “but each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another” (v.7). When Paul speaks of two kinds of gifts from God he’s speaking of them in the context of singleness and marriage. In other words, both singleness and marriage are to be viewed as good gifts from God to be embraced for our good and for the sake of God’s kingdom.
Paul didn’t say marriage is a gift and singleness is something to endure until you find an appropriate mate. Your season of singleness should not simply be something you endure. Instead, singleness is to be viewed as God’s goodness in your life and is to be utilized to grow in your intimacy with God and leveraged in service to the kingdom of God.
Your first priority in your singleness is not to be consumed with finding an appropriate marriage partner. Your first priority is to pursue God, and find in Him your all and all. We don’t pursue God to find a spouse. We pursue God for God and in the process of seeking God first and His kingdom all others things that God purposes for our lives will be added unto us (Matthew 6:33).
Concerning one of the blessings of singleness, Paul explains in verse 35, “I say this for your own benefit, not to lay any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord." The Apostle Paul didn’t want the church to view the gift of singleness as simply a special ability from God that enables us to “endure” not being married, but rather as a blessing from God.
Quoting Tim Keller, Sam Alberry writes: ‘“The “gift-ness” of being single for Paul lay in the freedom it gave him to concentrate on ministry in ways that a married man could not. Paul may very well, then, have experienced what we today would call an “emotional struggle” with singleness. He might have wanted to be married. But he not only found an ability to live a life of service to God and others in that situation, he discovered (and capitalized on) the unique features of the single life (such as time flexibility) to minister with very great effectiveness.’ This is good news. As Vaughan Roberts says, it means that “none of us is missing out.” All of us get something of the goodness of God. It doesn’t deny that there are challenges with both marriage and singleness. But it serves to remind us that, even in the midst of those challenges, we can taste something of the goodness of God. It protects us from the kind of despair that comes from thinking we’ve been locked into something that is utterly unbearable, or that God has made a huge mistake.”
Often the reason many today do not experience the grace of singleness is because they utilize this liberty to fulfill their sinful desires and interests, which leads to bondage, rather than capitalizing on their singleness to devote themselves to the Lord and the service of His kingdom. Being single is not easy even when you have a biblical perspective on it. However, when you maximize your singleness to live a Christ-centered life, you will know a joy and contentment that will bless you and even prepare you for marriage.
God gives the grace of marriage to show the undivided devotion between Christ and His church. Having explained that although singleness is preferable but not always feasible, especially because of sexual temptations, Paul continues, “The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise, the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does” (1 Corinthians 7:3-4).
Although sexual intimacy is an important aspect of marriage, it’s not the only reason to get married. Paul is dealing with an aspect of marriage (sexuality), that when viewed from a self-centered perspective, will lead to exploitation. We know from all that the bible has to say about marriage, that the purpose of it extends way beyond self-fulfillment. Marriage is to be a picture of the oneness and devoted love between Christ and His church (Ephesians 5:25-32). Marriage is a covenant relationship through which a Spirit filled couple can minister God’s committed love to each other and in doing so display His faithful love and grace before a watching world to the glory of Christ (Ephesians 5:18-32).
God gives the gift of singleness to secure undivided devotion to Christ. But that does not mean that if you’re married you have an excuse to be lax in your devotion to Christ. What he’s teaching is that married life with all that comes with it, (i.e. providing for the household, raising children, etc.), makes devotion to God much more challenging.
Our devotion to our spouse, or to a career or even to church ministry should never supersede our devotion to God. In fact, our devotion to God is so vital to our spiritual well being that Paul made sure to emphasize that depriving one another in the marriage bed is acceptable if the purpose is to give ourselves to God in prayer. “Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control” (1 Corinthians 7:5).
There may be other unhealthy reasons that cause couples to deprive each other of sexual relations, like unresolved conflict. But whatever the reason, Paul warns that sexually depriving each other can place spouses in vulnerable positions and lead to acts of compulsiveness enticed by the temptations of the devil. A lack of intimacy with your spouse is not an excuse for giving into sexual temptation, but add to this---sexual deprivation and a lack of devotion to God, then you have a recipe for marital infidelity. It’s important to note also that lack of intimacy or oneness in marriage is often the result of a lack of intimacy with God.
Committed love is the outflow of a dynamic love relationship with Jesus. As Adrian Rogers put it, “God must be first in your life and hers. If God is first in your life, your wife will be even more secure in your love. You can love her more by putting her second than you ever could by putting her first.”
Are you just enduring singleness or marriage or enjoying your singleness or marriage? If you’re just enduring, it could be that you have a distorted view of what the bible calls gifts from God and this distorted view could be the result of a lack of devotion to God that leads to looking for satisfaction in all the wrong places and in all the wrong ways. Choosing to remain single or to get married to find self-fulfillment is the wrong motivation. Marriage or singleness can never do for you what a life of devotion to knowing and serving Jesus can do.
May the love of Christ overflowing in our hearts lead us to embrace singleness as a gift to secure undivided devotion to Christ and His cause and marriage as a gift to show the undivided devotion between Christ and His church to the glory of His name.
In your service,
Pastor Marco
God gives the grace of singleness to secure undivided devotion to Christ and His cause. After explaining that our bodies were made for God and not for sexual immorality, Paul seeks to answer some questions about singleness. He writes: “Now concerning the matters about which you wrote: “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman” (1 Corinthians 7:1).
When Paul says it’s good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman, he’s not dealing with sexual immorality per se, but with whether it’s preferable to be single or to get married. And because of a number of factors that he addresses in this chapter, Paul makes an appeal for singleness as a preferable option for some. It’s important that we define what Paul means by "singleness" or "unmarried."
You see, for many people in our society and in the culture of Corinth, choosing to remain single or unmarried doesn’t mean also choosing sexual abstinence, like the Apostle Paul clearly had in mind. Moreover when Paul says that singleness is good, he doesn’t mean that it will be easy. One major reasons singleness is difficult is that it requires sexual abstinence, which is implied in the subsequent verse: “But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband” (1 Corinthians 7:2). Paul is not saying that the only reason to marry is for sexual intimacy. What he’s pointing out is that one of the challenges to purposeful singleness is the temptation of sexual immorality. Someone who is burning with the desire for sexual intimacy and has the opportunity to marry biblically is free to do so (v.9).
Let me add, if the opportunity to marry is not available, there’s grace available from God to overcome the desires of the flesh and be content in the Lord (Galatians 5:16). God’s grace is enough in every season of our lives (2 Corinthians 12:9). In fact, knowing the sufficiency of God’s grace in relationship with Christ is a prerequisite for marriage. That is to say, you don’t get married because Christ is not enough, or is incapable of giving you contentment in singleness. You get married because God provides the opportunity and the gift to be married to a biblically suitable mate.
Marriage is one way but not the only way that God meets our human need for relationship (Genesis 2:18). God designed us with a need for intimacy and we can experience it without being involved in a romantic or sexual relationship. Our greatest need is to be in an authentic, close, and intimate relationship with God. And intimacy with God enables us to be content in every area of our lives, including our marital status. Apart from God meeting the deepest needs of our hearts through relationship with Him, we will be hard-pressed to find true and lasting contentment in singleness or marriage.
In his book, Seven Myths About Singleness, Sam Allberry wrote, “Paul’s point is that those who can marry appropriately are free to and, if their sexual desires risk distracting them from a wholehearted focus on the Lord, are encouraged to.” After expressing his good desire for the Corinthians to choose singleness over marriage, Paul adds, “but each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another” (v.7). When Paul speaks of two kinds of gifts from God he’s speaking of them in the context of singleness and marriage. In other words, both singleness and marriage are to be viewed as good gifts from God to be embraced for our good and for the sake of God’s kingdom.
Paul didn’t say marriage is a gift and singleness is something to endure until you find an appropriate mate. Your season of singleness should not simply be something you endure. Instead, singleness is to be viewed as God’s goodness in your life and is to be utilized to grow in your intimacy with God and leveraged in service to the kingdom of God.
Your first priority in your singleness is not to be consumed with finding an appropriate marriage partner. Your first priority is to pursue God, and find in Him your all and all. We don’t pursue God to find a spouse. We pursue God for God and in the process of seeking God first and His kingdom all others things that God purposes for our lives will be added unto us (Matthew 6:33).
Concerning one of the blessings of singleness, Paul explains in verse 35, “I say this for your own benefit, not to lay any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord." The Apostle Paul didn’t want the church to view the gift of singleness as simply a special ability from God that enables us to “endure” not being married, but rather as a blessing from God.
Quoting Tim Keller, Sam Alberry writes: ‘“The “gift-ness” of being single for Paul lay in the freedom it gave him to concentrate on ministry in ways that a married man could not. Paul may very well, then, have experienced what we today would call an “emotional struggle” with singleness. He might have wanted to be married. But he not only found an ability to live a life of service to God and others in that situation, he discovered (and capitalized on) the unique features of the single life (such as time flexibility) to minister with very great effectiveness.’ This is good news. As Vaughan Roberts says, it means that “none of us is missing out.” All of us get something of the goodness of God. It doesn’t deny that there are challenges with both marriage and singleness. But it serves to remind us that, even in the midst of those challenges, we can taste something of the goodness of God. It protects us from the kind of despair that comes from thinking we’ve been locked into something that is utterly unbearable, or that God has made a huge mistake.”
Often the reason many today do not experience the grace of singleness is because they utilize this liberty to fulfill their sinful desires and interests, which leads to bondage, rather than capitalizing on their singleness to devote themselves to the Lord and the service of His kingdom. Being single is not easy even when you have a biblical perspective on it. However, when you maximize your singleness to live a Christ-centered life, you will know a joy and contentment that will bless you and even prepare you for marriage.
God gives the grace of marriage to show the undivided devotion between Christ and His church. Having explained that although singleness is preferable but not always feasible, especially because of sexual temptations, Paul continues, “The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise, the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does” (1 Corinthians 7:3-4).
Although sexual intimacy is an important aspect of marriage, it’s not the only reason to get married. Paul is dealing with an aspect of marriage (sexuality), that when viewed from a self-centered perspective, will lead to exploitation. We know from all that the bible has to say about marriage, that the purpose of it extends way beyond self-fulfillment. Marriage is to be a picture of the oneness and devoted love between Christ and His church (Ephesians 5:25-32). Marriage is a covenant relationship through which a Spirit filled couple can minister God’s committed love to each other and in doing so display His faithful love and grace before a watching world to the glory of Christ (Ephesians 5:18-32).
God gives the gift of singleness to secure undivided devotion to Christ. But that does not mean that if you’re married you have an excuse to be lax in your devotion to Christ. What he’s teaching is that married life with all that comes with it, (i.e. providing for the household, raising children, etc.), makes devotion to God much more challenging.
Our devotion to our spouse, or to a career or even to church ministry should never supersede our devotion to God. In fact, our devotion to God is so vital to our spiritual well being that Paul made sure to emphasize that depriving one another in the marriage bed is acceptable if the purpose is to give ourselves to God in prayer. “Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control” (1 Corinthians 7:5).
There may be other unhealthy reasons that cause couples to deprive each other of sexual relations, like unresolved conflict. But whatever the reason, Paul warns that sexually depriving each other can place spouses in vulnerable positions and lead to acts of compulsiveness enticed by the temptations of the devil. A lack of intimacy with your spouse is not an excuse for giving into sexual temptation, but add to this---sexual deprivation and a lack of devotion to God, then you have a recipe for marital infidelity. It’s important to note also that lack of intimacy or oneness in marriage is often the result of a lack of intimacy with God.
Committed love is the outflow of a dynamic love relationship with Jesus. As Adrian Rogers put it, “God must be first in your life and hers. If God is first in your life, your wife will be even more secure in your love. You can love her more by putting her second than you ever could by putting her first.”
Are you just enduring singleness or marriage or enjoying your singleness or marriage? If you’re just enduring, it could be that you have a distorted view of what the bible calls gifts from God and this distorted view could be the result of a lack of devotion to God that leads to looking for satisfaction in all the wrong places and in all the wrong ways. Choosing to remain single or to get married to find self-fulfillment is the wrong motivation. Marriage or singleness can never do for you what a life of devotion to knowing and serving Jesus can do.
May the love of Christ overflowing in our hearts lead us to embrace singleness as a gift to secure undivided devotion to Christ and His cause and marriage as a gift to show the undivided devotion between Christ and His church to the glory of His name.
In your service,
Pastor Marco