An Amen November 6, 2006
Posted by larrylaz in Links, Recommendations.trackback
Joe,
This is overdue, but I took your advice and brought CJ Mahaney’s Sex, Romance and the Glory of God with me on my retreat last week and gave it a read. For those who may be reading the blog, Joe had recommended this book here. This book gave me a greater admiration for the wonder of marriage, and I believe God used it to give me some practical, Christ-exalting ways to make my marriage more central in my life. I suppose Michelle will be able to tell you for sure whether it has made any impact!
For those who may like to listen to messages more than read books (and both are of great value), you can listen to Mahaney preach much of the content from this little book here.
Of course, this book is for the husbands among us. If there are any single people who read this blog, your life can be mightily used for the glory of God in a way that married men may not be able to. These verses in 1 Corinthians 7 were a great source of encouragement to me during my years of singleness:
“33But the married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife, 34and his interests are divided. And the unmarried or betrothed woman is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit. But the married woman is anxious about worldly things, how to please her husband. 35I 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. 36If anyone thinks that he is not behaving properly toward his betrothed, if his passions are strong, and it has to be, let him do as he wishes: let them marry—it is no sin. 37But whoever is firmly established in his heart, being under no necessity but having his desire under control, and has determined this in his heart, to keep her as his betrothed, he will do well. 38So then he who marries his betrothed does well, and he who refrains from marriage will do even better.”
The Church is not celebrating the gift of singleness nearly enough. So please do not take our recommendation of a book on marriage to be a suggestion that marriage is necessary to glorify God. Emphatically, Paul teaches that singleness is a precious gift from the Lord which brings immense spiritual rewards.
Larry
greetings,
i check in with your web site every now and again. love the new design!
as for these words of wisdom on marriage, i’m wondering what you or readers would say to ted haggard if he were reading this right now? how would you console him, or help him make sense (or meaning) of his “transgressions?”
have a spiritual day,
dave
Dave,
I think we might have already answered this (at least a bit), but it seems to me that a combination of consolation and exhortation are usually in order in such times like this. It also must be mentioned that how we respond to somehow who has sinned (however grievously) is usually dependent upon their frame of mind and heart. For thos who are repentant and broken, the grace and mercy of God available through Jesus must be emphasized. For those who are not broken, more fervency to expose the heinousness of the sin is probably in order. It takes discernment. Thankfully, it seems like Ted Haggard is quite repentant. For that I give thanks and trust that the Lord will use it mightily to display the riches of His glorious grace! Thanks Dave.
Joe
Larry,
As much as it’s admirable that you want to offer encouragement to singles, please don’t do it by calling singleness as gift!
First of all, there is no such thing as “the gift of singleness”, which is actually a catchphrase invented by the writers of The Living Bible in the 70s. 1 Cor 7:7 reads something in the original Greek to the effect of “I wish that all could abide as I am, however, each has their particular gift of God, “some like this, some like this”, and we’re realizing now that this unspecified, hypothetical use of the word “gift” most likely points toward some kind of divine ENABLEMENT or proclivity towards singleness, NOT CIRCUMSTANTIAL SINGLENESS.
Secondly, the passage you’ve quoted above must be understood in the historical terms of “the present crisis” mentioned in verse 26. Somehow, I don’t think that Paul would approve of the widespread protracted singleness we are seeing in the church today (that is caused mostly by the absence of young men in our churches).
This is not to minimize God’s sovereignty in our lives, but to arrive at a more correct understanding of the verses that have been used (misused) to the effect of unwittingly creating an erroneous, man-made rogue doctrine on singleness that has only served to mask the problems associated with why so many young believers are having such a hard time finding their way to marriage these days.
My intent is to write a personal email with a longer explanation to the person who left the above comment, but I thought it would be helpful to mention that when I use the term “gift of singleness”, I am not speaking of it as a spiritual gift such as teaching, prophecy, healing, etc. Singleness is not the biblical norm, but it is still something to rejoice in for those who have been called to it. That is what I mean when I call it a gift.
My aim was to simply lift up singleness as a good, God-glorifying path to life for many people. Speaking about a book called, ‘Sex, Romance and the Glory of God’, I wanted to make sure that it was clear that marriage is not the only path toward the glory of God. I do think that is clear in Paul’s teaching in 1 Corinthians 7 and also the words of Jesus in Matthew 19:10-12.
I am appreciative of the comment above in helping me to see how my words may not have been clear in the original post.
Larry
No one is “called to singleness”. In Matthew 19:10-12, Jesus makes absolutely sure that the disciples know that singleness for the sake of the kingdom is A CHOICE (please excuse the caps, I don’t mean to shout: I’d use italics if I knew how!). For example, he contrasts those who did not have a choice (those “born eunuchs” and those “made eunuchs by men”) with those who DO HAVE A CHOICE: “those who MADE THEMSELVES EUNUCHS” for the sake of the kingdom. What’s more, Christ also states TWICE, at the beginning and the end of the passage that “not all men can receive this teaching”, it’s for those who are able to receive it.
Note that Jesus does not consider those “born eunuchs” to be made that way by God. And he does not implore either them or those “made eunuchs by men” to “use their singleness” to the “glory of the kingdom”– no chirpy contentment sermon here! The passage is to encourage the third type: “eunuch by choice”, if you will, and not “for a season” as some singles writers cheerfully say, but for a lifetime. Even then, the singleness of that third kind is not a gift, but rather the proclivities that would render them capable of such a choice would be– and a rare gift indeed, since the overwhelming majority of Christian singles do hope to eventually marry.
The “eunuch by choice” for a lifetime does not need to be told to rejoice in their singleness– if anything, they set an example for everyone else of the joy of surrender and sacrifice. But those today who are “eunuchs, but not by choice” have been hit over the head with messages about how wonderful their singleness is and how content they should be with it. I don’t think that’s what you’re trying to do here, but it would be good to know that many are feeling weary with that message.
You are right, Larry, that there can be advantages to singleness when it comes to serving God, and it is also true that we are called to rejoice in whatever circumstance we find ourselves in. However, unwanted prolonged singleness is not a gift, but a grief and loss issue, just like infertility (and it is a kind of infertility, an eventual certainty for women in particular). To be able to frame a specific adversity as “a gift” is a highly personal thing (regardless of what John Piper might say!), it’s a process, and one that doesn’t occur overnight.
Indeed, singleness can be a good (“KALOS”, as Paul wrote in the original Greek in 1 Cor 7:8), God-glorifying path to life for those who choose it. And it’s very good that you have reminded us of this because there have been some messages out there that declare singleness to be a sin and marriage necessary to be fully mature in Christ. Although I consider those extreme messages wrong, they do raise the long-masked reality that not all singleness is “God-honored” or “God glorifying”. As Paul suggested in 1 Cor 7, the chances of falling into sin are ever-present. With our increasing age for first marriage catching up with the secular world, less than a third of Christians remain abstinent until marriage and use of pornography is rampant.
So the current trends of encouraging people towards marriage is a good one, after all, the Bible almost always speaks of marriage in terms of personal initiative and agency (as opposed to sentimental notions of divine matchmaking and glorious Christian singleness that doesn’t match the larger reality– or biblical teaching for that matter). And we need to look at the possibility that some of the “better to remain single” messages have made some people feel as if excercising any personal effort is “leaning on your own understanding”. This seems a far more urgent matter than making sure those exceptional individuals who have chosen “singleness for the sake of the kingdom” don’t feel invalidated.