I hope I'm not repeating myself too much, I apologize if I am. I was single until I was 34, so maybe I can compare. When I was single I could easily avoid anything unpleasant or difficult, as humans are wired to do. But once I got married I was forced to do things I didn't want. I can't stress enough how involuntary this was. Since the level of stress was involuntary, it changed me more than I could have by myself. I believe this is a dynamic God created with marriage.
The impossible tension of wanting and needing a relationship but having it stress you in ways you'd normally not put up with, and therefore make changes in you that would normally never happen, or that you couldn't do for yourself, even if you were told to. I was never willing to subject myself to so much soul-searching as a single person.
I don't doubt that marriage will have a positive affect in a person's life, but I think saying that God created the dynamic of marriage to build up the Christian, as it seems you have implied and I apologize if that is not what you intended, doesn't seem to be Biblical.
We should find that the relationships in the church play that role just as much as marriage if not more. Now to do that, it requires that we be in the lives of our fellow believers whome we are in fellowship with. If we reduce our Christian fellowship to sitting in a building hearing a message together and then go home to our own life or our own family, we limit the ability of the Church to be "the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love."
I think each member when in close relationship are those joints that supply each other. As such, I find that living not alone but with fellow believers as a single person, first a family and now with another single brother, have played the same role that you describe. And if not living together then at least a constant fellowship through out the week, getting in each others lives and speaking into them.
I’m convinced God did create the dynamic of marriage-witness the fact that one of the first things He did for Adam was create a wife for him. To me, that’s an indication of God’s intentions. All the changes that have happened to me due to marriage are changes God wanted. I understand not everyone will be married, and other forces will be used in other lives. But marriage is unique in providing great pleasure but also more responsibility than a sane person would willingly tackle.
I myself lived the single life for 13 years or so, [got married at 33] so I understand how singleness is good too. Singleness let me do lots of cool things, go cool places.
And, to be fair, marriage is difficult. Wouldn’t, in some ways, recommend it for the same reasons I wouldn’t encourage anyone to enter a snake pit.
However, once I got married the character flaws I ignored until then got corrected. Not that she was so wise, but rather I had the moral support and help to handle more difficulty. And when I got in over my head, which happened a lot, I asked her and God for help. New responsibilities arose, and changes happened due to those responsibilities that I couldn’t possibly make myself. Being married made life more difficult but also healthier. I think God wanted it that way.
Hi guys - thanks for your thoughtful interactions here. I've appreciated having the opportunity to read them. Gaving, some thoughts from me on some of what you have written:
1) You wrote: " I believe this [i.e., sanctification] is a dynamic God created with marriage." Brother, this puts the cart before the horse because it doesn't reflect the reality that marriage was created before the Fall (i.e., before there was any need for men and women to be sanctified). Sanctification was not one of the original purposes for which God created marriage (even as he knew that the marital relationship would become one arena in which sanctification would occur). It's very important for our theology of both sanctification AND marriage that we not get this order topsy-turvy.
2) These comments are offered with gentleness and genuine respect, so I hope you'll receive them as such. The life of easy avoidance of difficulty/unpleasantness and abundance of cool things to do and cool places to go you lived when you were single is a representation of how *you* chose to live out your singleness (and so an expression of your heart and mind then) rather than a reflection of how many others live out theirs (or an expression of their heart and mind). I'm genuinely thankful that God worked in and through your relationship with your wife to lessen your sinful inclinations towards self-indulgence and selfishness. But again, that was his work in areas *you* clearly struggled with. Not every unmarried person struggles in the same way - especially the older they get and the more challenges and complexities they face, the more responsibilities they develop and the more relationships they are invested in.
Similarly, the fact that it was only when you married that you were confronted with your character flaws suggests to me that you didn't have or develop other relationships (including deep friendships) with godly and mature Christian brothers and sisters who a) knew you well enough and b) were courageous in their love towards you to challenge and help correct you in those areas of godliness. I'm so glad your relationships with your spouse meant that you were able to turn to her for support and assistance in these things. But again, this seems to be an indication that you either didn't have or weren't willing to turn to other members of God's family with that need before your marriage (and perhaps even after it, given your comments seem to imply that you have found it almost exclusively in your marriage).
Of course, there is something wonderfully unique about the way the coventnal relationship of marriage provides opportunities for the kind of relational sanctification you have spoken about. But I gently encourage you to recognise that 1) your pre-married life is descriptive of *you* rather than prescriptive of all single Christians both before and after your age of marriage and 2) you don't know what circumstances, contexts and relationships in your life God might have chosen to use to make you more like Jesus in unexpected and exciting ways had you not gotten married.
So, by all means, rejoice in the way God has been at work in and through your marriage to sanctify you. But please, brother, have enouch confidence in *his* promises to believe that he is at work in and outside of the marriage relationship to make his children more like their Saviour. Having lived *your* single life until the age of 33 does not make you an authority on how God works in the single life of countless others both before and after that age.
You’ve assumed I didn’t have good, close Christian relationships before marriage and the exact opposite is true. In fact, my wife commented at being amazed at how different I turned out than my 3 brothers, who didn’t have such good single adult relationships. So, if God wanted to change me, that would certainly have been the time. There were plenty of good influences. In fact, He changed me a lot.
Your comment that marriage was created before the fall is correct and insightful. However, an important event is that, after the fall, God used sex to allow a child to be conceived, which hadn’t happened before and is an inevitable part of many marriages, and, to be frank, the biggest impetus for change.
My claims about marriage mostly apply when folks need God, and the moral support of their spouse, because they attack life. But I didn’t attack life before marriage. And you can’t attribute this to a personality change. I suddenly needed more, because there were more responsibilities and fewer people to meet them, but I wasn’t really more courageous or reckless.
I’m trying to point out the involuntary nature of the change: but it’s not like most involuntary things, that you can avoid if you want. When I was single I could easily quit, with harm to no-one. But the vows of marriage mean you’re not supposed to quit.
I realize much of this is a moot point, because some people aren’t married not because they don’t want to be, but simply because no-one’s asked. This is how it was with my wife, who was 26. What I’m suggesting is that we acknowledge the influence marriage can have. But obviously, as you point out, God uses other methods too. I’m just concerned that singles may sometimes fail to make use of the change God offers through marriage, disguising their disobedience with the excuse “God uses other ways too.”
I find your concern for other singles sincere and appreciated but it still makes a general assumption that that not being married is disobedience as if a person can just order a bride... okay, I guess one can do that but still, I have have strong doubts that doing such things is truly trusting the Lord and the working of his will for someone to be married. It is hard for me to read 1 Cor 7 where it says do not seek to be married as a caution that one should not go out of their way to get a wife but to live fully for the Lord and if its in His will for you, then you will see the opportunity for marriage.
I guess the thing I have trouble understanding is what is the scenario that one chooses to not be married when the Lord is willing it? The only thing that I can think of is if you are engaged and then abandon that otherwise how can a person disobey the call to be married if there is no woman to marry. I worship in a small house church and there are only two single women, neither of which want to marry me yet I would like to be married. Am I disobeying the call of God to be married by not doing online dating? I am sincere in wanting to understand better how you envision the disobedience.
Sorry if it came across that I think singleness is disobedience. I never meant that. I meant lots of the selfishness-unwillingness to commit, unwillingness to provide, unwillingness to be stable, those can be a sign of selfishness, which, unfortunately, sometimes coincides with no-one wanting you. On the other hand, you can simply be enjoying your freedom. I’m sorry if you’re surrounding people who are pressuring you to be married. It’s no picnic. On the other hand, I lived “illegally” [The owner knew about it. The city didn’t.] in a condemned house with no running water when I met my wife. So you never know. [Fortunately, this coincided with also having plenty of work, which reassured her parents.] The main thing is to nurture good qualities you should have no matter what-some that make you a better spouse, others just a better person. My attitude is, just focus on being a good person and let the chips fall where they may.
I hope I'm not repeating myself too much, I apologize if I am. I was single until I was 34, so maybe I can compare. When I was single I could easily avoid anything unpleasant or difficult, as humans are wired to do. But once I got married I was forced to do things I didn't want. I can't stress enough how involuntary this was. Since the level of stress was involuntary, it changed me more than I could have by myself. I believe this is a dynamic God created with marriage.
The impossible tension of wanting and needing a relationship but having it stress you in ways you'd normally not put up with, and therefore make changes in you that would normally never happen, or that you couldn't do for yourself, even if you were told to. I was never willing to subject myself to so much soul-searching as a single person.
I don't doubt that marriage will have a positive affect in a person's life, but I think saying that God created the dynamic of marriage to build up the Christian, as it seems you have implied and I apologize if that is not what you intended, doesn't seem to be Biblical.
We should find that the relationships in the church play that role just as much as marriage if not more. Now to do that, it requires that we be in the lives of our fellow believers whome we are in fellowship with. If we reduce our Christian fellowship to sitting in a building hearing a message together and then go home to our own life or our own family, we limit the ability of the Church to be "the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love."
I think each member when in close relationship are those joints that supply each other. As such, I find that living not alone but with fellow believers as a single person, first a family and now with another single brother, have played the same role that you describe. And if not living together then at least a constant fellowship through out the week, getting in each others lives and speaking into them.
I’m convinced God did create the dynamic of marriage-witness the fact that one of the first things He did for Adam was create a wife for him. To me, that’s an indication of God’s intentions. All the changes that have happened to me due to marriage are changes God wanted. I understand not everyone will be married, and other forces will be used in other lives. But marriage is unique in providing great pleasure but also more responsibility than a sane person would willingly tackle.
I myself lived the single life for 13 years or so, [got married at 33] so I understand how singleness is good too. Singleness let me do lots of cool things, go cool places.
And, to be fair, marriage is difficult. Wouldn’t, in some ways, recommend it for the same reasons I wouldn’t encourage anyone to enter a snake pit.
However, once I got married the character flaws I ignored until then got corrected. Not that she was so wise, but rather I had the moral support and help to handle more difficulty. And when I got in over my head, which happened a lot, I asked her and God for help. New responsibilities arose, and changes happened due to those responsibilities that I couldn’t possibly make myself. Being married made life more difficult but also healthier. I think God wanted it that way.
Hi guys - thanks for your thoughtful interactions here. I've appreciated having the opportunity to read them. Gaving, some thoughts from me on some of what you have written:
1) You wrote: " I believe this [i.e., sanctification] is a dynamic God created with marriage." Brother, this puts the cart before the horse because it doesn't reflect the reality that marriage was created before the Fall (i.e., before there was any need for men and women to be sanctified). Sanctification was not one of the original purposes for which God created marriage (even as he knew that the marital relationship would become one arena in which sanctification would occur). It's very important for our theology of both sanctification AND marriage that we not get this order topsy-turvy.
2) These comments are offered with gentleness and genuine respect, so I hope you'll receive them as such. The life of easy avoidance of difficulty/unpleasantness and abundance of cool things to do and cool places to go you lived when you were single is a representation of how *you* chose to live out your singleness (and so an expression of your heart and mind then) rather than a reflection of how many others live out theirs (or an expression of their heart and mind). I'm genuinely thankful that God worked in and through your relationship with your wife to lessen your sinful inclinations towards self-indulgence and selfishness. But again, that was his work in areas *you* clearly struggled with. Not every unmarried person struggles in the same way - especially the older they get and the more challenges and complexities they face, the more responsibilities they develop and the more relationships they are invested in.
Similarly, the fact that it was only when you married that you were confronted with your character flaws suggests to me that you didn't have or develop other relationships (including deep friendships) with godly and mature Christian brothers and sisters who a) knew you well enough and b) were courageous in their love towards you to challenge and help correct you in those areas of godliness. I'm so glad your relationships with your spouse meant that you were able to turn to her for support and assistance in these things. But again, this seems to be an indication that you either didn't have or weren't willing to turn to other members of God's family with that need before your marriage (and perhaps even after it, given your comments seem to imply that you have found it almost exclusively in your marriage).
Of course, there is something wonderfully unique about the way the coventnal relationship of marriage provides opportunities for the kind of relational sanctification you have spoken about. But I gently encourage you to recognise that 1) your pre-married life is descriptive of *you* rather than prescriptive of all single Christians both before and after your age of marriage and 2) you don't know what circumstances, contexts and relationships in your life God might have chosen to use to make you more like Jesus in unexpected and exciting ways had you not gotten married.
So, by all means, rejoice in the way God has been at work in and through your marriage to sanctify you. But please, brother, have enouch confidence in *his* promises to believe that he is at work in and outside of the marriage relationship to make his children more like their Saviour. Having lived *your* single life until the age of 33 does not make you an authority on how God works in the single life of countless others both before and after that age.
You’ve assumed I didn’t have good, close Christian relationships before marriage and the exact opposite is true. In fact, my wife commented at being amazed at how different I turned out than my 3 brothers, who didn’t have such good single adult relationships. So, if God wanted to change me, that would certainly have been the time. There were plenty of good influences. In fact, He changed me a lot.
Your comment that marriage was created before the fall is correct and insightful. However, an important event is that, after the fall, God used sex to allow a child to be conceived, which hadn’t happened before and is an inevitable part of many marriages, and, to be frank, the biggest impetus for change.
My claims about marriage mostly apply when folks need God, and the moral support of their spouse, because they attack life. But I didn’t attack life before marriage. And you can’t attribute this to a personality change. I suddenly needed more, because there were more responsibilities and fewer people to meet them, but I wasn’t really more courageous or reckless.
I’m trying to point out the involuntary nature of the change: but it’s not like most involuntary things, that you can avoid if you want. When I was single I could easily quit, with harm to no-one. But the vows of marriage mean you’re not supposed to quit.
I realize much of this is a moot point, because some people aren’t married not because they don’t want to be, but simply because no-one’s asked. This is how it was with my wife, who was 26. What I’m suggesting is that we acknowledge the influence marriage can have. But obviously, as you point out, God uses other methods too. I’m just concerned that singles may sometimes fail to make use of the change God offers through marriage, disguising their disobedience with the excuse “God uses other ways too.”
I find your concern for other singles sincere and appreciated but it still makes a general assumption that that not being married is disobedience as if a person can just order a bride... okay, I guess one can do that but still, I have have strong doubts that doing such things is truly trusting the Lord and the working of his will for someone to be married. It is hard for me to read 1 Cor 7 where it says do not seek to be married as a caution that one should not go out of their way to get a wife but to live fully for the Lord and if its in His will for you, then you will see the opportunity for marriage.
I guess the thing I have trouble understanding is what is the scenario that one chooses to not be married when the Lord is willing it? The only thing that I can think of is if you are engaged and then abandon that otherwise how can a person disobey the call to be married if there is no woman to marry. I worship in a small house church and there are only two single women, neither of which want to marry me yet I would like to be married. Am I disobeying the call of God to be married by not doing online dating? I am sincere in wanting to understand better how you envision the disobedience.
Sorry if it came across that I think singleness is disobedience. I never meant that. I meant lots of the selfishness-unwillingness to commit, unwillingness to provide, unwillingness to be stable, those can be a sign of selfishness, which, unfortunately, sometimes coincides with no-one wanting you. On the other hand, you can simply be enjoying your freedom. I’m sorry if you’re surrounding people who are pressuring you to be married. It’s no picnic. On the other hand, I lived “illegally” [The owner knew about it. The city didn’t.] in a condemned house with no running water when I met my wife. So you never know. [Fortunately, this coincided with also having plenty of work, which reassured her parents.] The main thing is to nurture good qualities you should have no matter what-some that make you a better spouse, others just a better person. My attitude is, just focus on being a good person and let the chips fall where they may.