Chapter Six: Retrieving Singleness in Biblical Exegesis

My upcoming book, The Meaning of Singleness, will be published by InterVarsity Press on May 9, 2023. In the lead up to its release, I’m sharing a short weekly excerpt, chapter by chapter.

You can order or see more information about the book (including its full contents page, endorsements & a free sample chapter) here.

Chapter Six: Retrieving Singleness in Biblical Exegesis

“Commentators in the earlier Christian tradition recognized the key New Testament passages discussed in this chapter as proffering the makings of a theologically thick and pastorally nourishing construct of the unmarried Christian life. They consistently understood the Sadducean pericope not only to speak to the earthbound nature of marriage, but also the anticipatory celebration of the teleological destiny of the unmarried resurrected life. Meanwhile, the ethical exhortations in Paul’s seventh chapter of his first epistle to the church in Corinth were long understood to signal eschatological ambition and even urgency. The reception-history analysis of this chapter has revealed that from the outset, the church’s response to and engagement with these passages contains a great depth of eschatological riches that are ripe for retrieval.

Yet for all the exegetical accord of biblical commentators who affirm that in certain passages of Scripture “eschatology touch[es] upon single people in a special way,”¹ the consequence and import of these texts has, over time, become more and more obscured and even minimized within evangelical orthodoxy and orthopraxy. Even where a passage such as 1 Corinthians 7:25-31—a text which Rodney Clapp argues commends the “superiority of singleness for awkward times”²—is understood as transoccasionally and eschatologically relevant, or when Matthew 22:23-33 (and its Synoptic parallels) speak to an eternity in which no Christian individual will be married to another (thereby granting the non-married earthly life a certain teleological dignity and integrity), its applicability within contemporary Christian ethical teaching often remains unexplored or even discounted altogether.

Such a contemporary propensity stands in stark contrast to the teachings of the historic church that enthusiastically espoused these passages of Scripture as pointing to great eschatological blessings inherent to the unmarried Christian life.”

Taken from The Meaning of Singleness by Danielle Treweek. Copyright © 2023 by Danielle Elizabeth Treweek. Published by InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL. www.ivpress.com.

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1. Roger Repohl, “The Spirituality of Singleness,” America 135, no. 17 (1976): 366.

2. Rodney Clapp, Families at the Crossroads: Beyond Tradition & Modern Options (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993), 98.