It’s a truth universally acknowledged that when any (in)famous Christian commentator posts something about singleness on social media, our algorithmic overlords will ensure it appears in my feed.
Please see below for the latest case in point.
Look, this tweet is nothing new. I dare say we have all heard it before. Many times, in fact. It goes something like this:
“Adam was sad and lonely without a wife. Which means marriage is the solution to loneliness and loneliness. Which also means singleness is bad.
But, well, it’s awkward. You see, 1 Corinthians 7 exists, and that chapter of the Bible makes it challenging to keep insisting on the badness of singleness. I mean, here we are having decided that singleness isn’t good and then comes the apostle Paul who not only says singleness is indeed good, but perhaps even better. Horror!
What is the solution to our quandry? Hmmm. Let’s think about this for a bit. What if we… maybe… yeah! That works! Paul was talking about “Celibacy”, not “Singleness”. Singleness is bad. But “special singleness” (i.e., celibacy) is good. Problem solved!”
Patridge’s tweet is just another version of the same old, tired singleness narrative that courses through our evangelical veins. And so, I wasn’t any more surprised to read him saying it than I was when I heard John Macarthur or Albert Mohler or Mark Driscoll or Doug Wilson or [insert your name of choice here] say the same thing.
But here’s the problem
Our familiarity with this narrative can tempt us to miss how deeply unbiblical it is. We can be so used to its insistent retelling that we fail to recognise how it is both propped up by and itself props up a range of foolish assumptions about God’s character, his actions towards us, what it means to have been made in his image, and ultimately the gospel of grace.
We’ve dug ourselves in to a deep, dark hole on its way to nowhere. And the worst of it is that we don’t even realise that we’re neck deep in the dirt.
And so in the words of Chief Wiggum, it’s time for us to “Dig up, stupid”… one shovel load at a time.
Shovel #1: The Nature of Gifts
“Your singleness is a gift” is one of the biggest lies in the church. I haven’t met one Christian single who wants that gift. - Dale Partridge
Dale has never met one solitary unmarried Christian who wants that gift?! Really?
Dale, my friend, you need to get out more. Or, more to the point, you need to look at the single Christians around you and really see them as 3D dimensional individuals.
More to the point though, he argues that because he’s never met a Christian single who wants the “gift of singleness” (more on that in a moment), then it cannot be true that their singleness really is a gift.
But why is something only considered a gift if someone wants it?
Picture this. It’s your birthday. You’ve just blown the candles out and are enjoying an exceptionally fine piece of chocolate cake when your spouse, a good friend, your parents, a sibling, take your pick, approaches you with a beautifully wrapped gift. They tell you “I thought long and hard about what to give you. It may not be what you are expecting, but… well, here’s my gift to you”.
You open it, take one look at what lies inside, scoff and say “Ha! You’re right. I wasn’t expecting this! Why did you think I would actually want it?! You call this a gift?!”
My goodness. The arrogance.
Gifts are gifts because they have been given to us by someone else. By their very nature, they are things we have not selected or obtained for ourselves but which have been bestowed upon us by a gift-giver.
And the ultimate—indeed, the perfect—gift giver is God.
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with him there is no variation or shadow due to change
(James 1:17).
Imagine God—the one who knows us inside out and upside down—gives an unmarried Christian person the “gift” of being unmarried, only for that fallible, fragile, fallen person to throw it back at his feet, scoffing “You thought I would want this?! I don’t want it! And because of how I feel about it, there is no way this is a gift!”
How we feel about any gift God has chosen to give us has nothing to do with whether it is indeed a gift from the divine giver of all perfect gifts. To think otherwise is to assume a position of absolutely appalling arrogance.
It’s time to start digging up.
Shovel #2: The Purpose of Spiritual Gifts
1 Corinthians 7 is not teaching that singleness is a gift but that celibacy is a gift. - Dale Partridge
We will take a closer look at the “celibacy” shovel in a moment. But for now, let’s just assume Dale is right (he’s not) and that 1 Cor 7:7-8 is talking about some special spiritual empowerment to contented and godly sexual abstinence in singleness (it isn’t).
In other words, let’s take it at face value that “celibacy” (i.e., “special singleness”) is a spiritual gift.
Friends, in 1 Cor 12 and 14, what does Paul say is the purpose of the gifts God bestows on individual church members? I’ll give you a hint: it has nothing to do with helping the individual Christian live what they think will be their happiest and most contented life.
To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good
(1 Corinthians 12:7)
That verse summarises everything chapters 12 and 14 say about why God has apportioned “spiritual gifts” amongst his people. It’s not so we are empowered to have a right merry time of life ourselves. It’s not so we can flourish in our individual situations. It’s not so we can live our very best lives.
No, it is so that individual members can build up the body of Christ to maturity. Gifts are not given for the individual good but for the common good.
And so, even if we do take 1 Cor 7:7-8 to be speaking about some special spiritual gift (it’s not), the question of whether I want, desire or am happy with that gift is utterly redundant. Because the gift isn’t for my sake. It’s for yours.
It’s time to start digging up.
Shovel #3: There is no such thing as “special singleness”
1 Corinthians 7 is not teaching that singleness is a gift but that celibacy is a gift. - Dale Partridge
I’ve written a three-post series about the (so-called) “gift of singleness”, here, here and here. I won’t rehash all the details, but in a nutshell:
Before the Reformation, the “gifts” (NB. plural) of 1 Cor 7:7-8 were thought to be the situations of being married or unmarried.
Key Reformers (such as Luther and Calvin) decided that the gift of 1 Cor 7:7-8 was a special spiritual empowerment to sexual abstinence. This was because they had determined humans are biologically compelled to have sex, and so if the long-term unmarried person was not going to fall into heinous sexual sin, they either needed to marry and so they could have sex, or they needed a special booster shot of the Holy Spirit to help them withstand sexual temptation indefinitely.
In this vein, the contemporary evangelical church has started talking about ungifted singleness as “singleness” and gifted singleness (i.e., special singleness) as “celibacy”. Keep your eye out for it. It’s everywhere.
But there is nothing in 1 Cor 7:7-8 that urges us towards that reading. And no, 1 Cor 7:9 doesn’t take us there either. In fact, such a reading flies in the face of lots of other parts of Scripture that talk about sex having been made to serve the purpose of marriage (rather than humans being made to have sex and marriage being the way they get to have it) and the importance of us being people who exercise (sexual) self-control.
Friends, here’s what the bible says about having or not having sex:
If you are married, have sex with your spouse because God has designed sex to serve the purposes of marriage. Get on with serving Jesus.
If you are not married, don’t have sex. Exercise self-control. Get on with serving Jesus.
I mean, it’s pretty straightforward, right?
This notion that there is ordinary “singleness” and then there is a special spiritually empowered type of superior singleness called “celibacy” is unbiblical.
Let me say it another way. The notion that there is this mysterious other thing out there called “celibacy” that a special few unmarried Christians are gifted for/called to… and then there are the rest of us poor, tragic, doomed singles is not biblical. It is man-made nonsense.
Are there some singles who have a lower libido? Absolutely! Is the fact that they don’t endure the same depth of sexual temptation as other singles a blessing for them in their pursuit of self-control? It sure is! Do some people choose to remain single? Yep!
But are they a special breed of singles? Do they have “more” of the Holy Spirit? Are they wonderfully set apart above and beyond all the rest of us ordinary unmarried Christians? Are they called to some sort of superiorly different life of singleness than we are?
No.
All of us who are unmarried are compelled by the same gospel of grace to live sexually obedient lives of self-control. It’s the exact same call for all of us.
And guess what? The good news is self-control is a fruit of the Holy Spirit (Gal 5:22-23)! And guess what else? The extra good news is that the same Holy Spirit dwells within each and every one of us (1 Cor 3:16).
So tell me, why on earth would the same author who wrote both Gal 5:22-23 and 1 Cor 3:16 suggest in 1 Cor 7 that being able to exercise ongoing sexual self-control means we need something more than the very presence of God himself dwelling within us? Why on earth would Paul claim that some get an extra special dose of the Holy Spirit? Where does he say that singles can be divided into those who are “specially gifted” and those who are not? The elites and the plebs? The singles and the celibates?
He doesn’t.
It’s time to start digging up.
Shovel #4: Aloneness vs Loneliness
In Genesis, God said, “It’s not good for man to be alone.” When Adam was lonely, God didn’t say, “I’m enough for you, Adam.” No, he gave him a wife! - Dale Partridge
Honestly, I’m just so done with this argument. It is just so shallow, self-serving, and silly.
I spend a whole chapter exploring and exploding this myth in my forthcoming book. So for now, I’ll keep it simple.
Genesis 2 says absolutely nothing about Adam being lonely. He may have been lonely. He may not have been lonely (eg. how do you know you are lonely if you’ve never known anything but being alone?). We don’t and can’t know.
Simply put, Genesis 2 doesn’t give us any insight into how Adam was feeling. It is God who diagnoses the not goodness of the situation, not Adam and his feelings.
The not goodness God diagnoses was not that Adam was feeling lonely. It was that Adam was alone. Adam was literally the only human person in creation. But because God made humanity in his own image, Adam was never meant to be human alone. This is why his aloneness was not good.
God solved the not goodness. Not by “giving Adam a wife”. But by making Adam a helper.
A key part of the way Eve fulfilled her role as a helper was as a wife to Adam. But she was more than just a wife to him. She was a friend, a colleague, a partner. Likewise, her female descendants were much, much more than just wives to men.
God’s answer to Adam’s aloneness was not marriage. It was human community. Yes, marriage is a fundamental aspect of human community in this creation. However, it is not the total sum or the definition of human community.
And so… for the (literal) love of God can we please stop saying that because it was not good for Adam to be alone, singleness is bad?!
This shouldn’t need to be said. And yet, apparently, it does.
I’ve always been single.
But I’ve never been alone.
I have a rich, vibrant, wonderful relational life.
So, stop telling me that I’m alone.
Because I’m not.
And you insisting I am makes you a fool.
It’s time to start digging up.
Shovel #5: Don’t be content
Yes, be content while you wait, but don’t be content being single. - Dale Partridge
Let me parse Dale’s comment for you:
Be content while you wait to no longer be single.
But don’t you dare be content while being single.
It is precisely this kind of nonsensical comment that leaves me utterly convinced that the (invariably) married male pastors and leaders who utter such nonsense do not actually see, know or understand the single people in their churches—and especially the single women.
So let me introduce you to one of them. Her name is Edith.
Edith has always wanted to be married. Like most young girls, she grew up dreaming wistfully about her wedding day to come. In her teens, she found it exciting to daydream about the young guy God might have set apart to be her husband. She and her friends secretly shared their crushes with each other.
By the time high school drew to a close, one by one, all of Edith’s friends had started being asked out on dates. Then, one by one, they announced they had a boyfriend. Then, one by one, they announced they were engaged. Then, one by one, they sent out their wedding invitations. Then, one by one, they had their bridal showers. Then, one by one, they made their vows. Then, one by one, they went on their honeymoons. Then, one by one, they came home to fill their new house with all the wedding gifts people had given them. Then, one by one, they announced their pregnancy news. Then, one by one, they did their gender reveal. Then, one by one, they had their baby showers. Then, one by one, they made their birth announcements.
But Edith was never one of those ones.
She prayed. She waited. She tried online dating. She prayed. She waited. She tried “lowering her standards”. She prayed. She waited. She tried being set up by her friends. She prayed. She waited. She tried not to want it too much. She prayed. She waited. And. It. Never. Happened.
And Edith hurt. And she wondered if her time would ever come. And she wondered what she was doing wrong. And she wondered what was wrong with her.
All the while, people offered her sage advice like “It’s when you stop trying that God will give you a husband”, and “Don’t worry, God still has someone in store for you, I just know it”, and “I just don’t understand why a lovely girl like you is still single!” and “Have you tried XYZ? It worked for my cousin’s best friend’s sister”. And Edith nodded and smiled and then went home and cried.
But despite this, Edith still found the courage to actually turn up at church, alone, week by week. She listened to the endless talk about marriage courses, couples retreats, family events. She sat through sermons full of illustrations about husbands, wives, and parents.
And then, on the exceedingly rare occasion when her pastor did make some sort of comment about her situation as an unmarried woman it was this:
“Be content while you wait for marriage. But don’t be content being single”.
And that’s when Edith knew her pastor did not see her. Or know her. Or even particularly care about her.
For Edith’s sake, it’s time for us to start digging up.
Singleness can be hard. But it is not a tragedy.
Singleness can be painful. But it is not a pity.
God’s word calls the unmarried life a good gift from a good God. So tell me Dale, who are you to say otherwise?
Dig up, Dale.
Dig. Up.
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