Dear single Christian sister

by Dan Phillips

Dear single Christian sister,

Probably you, like most single Christians, dream of getting married. Your ideas of marital bliss are fed by the high regard the Bible holds for the institution, by your friends, and probably by your church culture. It's easy to feel like the "odd man (or woman) out" in a church built around the assumption that most or all of its members — or, at least, the ones who count — are married.

But I wanted to be a good brother to you and put some thoughts before you that any Christian who loves and cares for you would want you to consider. I'll be brief and pointed; my aim isn't to detain you, but to help you, and perhaps even to save you a great deal of heartache. So here are cautionary thoughts on marriage:

First, there are worse things than dying a virgin. That I even have to say this is a reflection of our culture, most of whom would hoot with derision at the suggestion. But as Christians, while we see marriage as a sacred and blessed institution, and a wonderful opportunity to serve and glorify God, we should know better (1 Cor. 10:31). Paul either never married, or was unmarried through his apostolic labors. Wouldn't you agree that he had a meaningful life? He saw singleness as having its own advantages for the service of God (1 Cor. 7:7-8, 32-35).

"But I want to get married!" you say? That's absolutely fine, and I say "go for it." But I also say "—don't go for it at all costs." Remember: there are worse things than being single.

Second, you don't owe marriage to any man you're not married to. What seems obvious to you may not be obvious to all, so I stress this: perhaps you've been dating for a year, seven years, whatever; perhaps you've talked about this and that. Perhaps you know he's got his heart set on marrying you, and he's counting on it. Yet, if you haven't married him, you needn't marry him. Particularly if one of the next considerations persuades you that it'd be unwise.

Third, master everything the Bible says about marriage, particularly about the wife's obligations. Study Genesis 1—2, 1 Corinthians 7, Ephesians 5, 1 Peter 3, all the passages. I'd recommend to you my series on marriage, where I try to help single (and married) people to do just that. Also use chapter seven, "Skill in Godly Marriage," in my book on Proverbs.

"But I'm not even engaged yet," you say? Perfect! There is no more strategically-vital time to get this understood. Because once you are married to a man, you are morally obligated before God to perform and be everything the Bible calls you to do and be, to do so heartily as unto the Lord, and to do so as long as you are married. You are obligated to respect him from the heart (not just externally), to subordinate yourself to his leadership, and to back his plays unless doing so requires you to sin. You are obliged to do all this if he turns out to be a wise, godly, loving, caring saint; and you are equally obliged if he turns out to be a fickle, surly, selfish, childish, uncaring, hypocritical jerk.

"Yikes," you say. "You're scaring me." Terrific. I mean to. See #1, above.

This leads me to...

Fourth, if he wasn't already showing a years-long pattern of Christian commitment and involvement in a local church you could gladly attend before you met him, you probably shouldn't marry him. I say "probably" because there will be exceptions — but be very slow to claim to have found one.

What I mean is: do they all know him at his church? Has he served, faithfully and a lot? (Best training for being a leader is being a follower.) Has he invested his greater energy and free time as a single to serve to further the ministry of the church and help the needy within it?

Does the pastor know him well? Would he vouch for this man? Is your fella a once-a-week-at-best-skimmer, barely known or unknown to most of the pillars and doers, or is he deeply committed and involved? Has he read his Bible through? Can he explain the Gospel well, from the Bible? Ask him to read TWTG, and tell you his thoughts — you'll be able to tell a lot by that (his view of the nature of God, of man, of Christ, of the Gospel, of the sovereignty of God, of sanctification; his worldview, etc.). Can he explain his own convictions and values and aspirations in Biblical terms — that is, does he show signs that he's gotten it from Scripture, or vetted it by Scripture, before he set his heart on it?

Can he demonstrate the ability to think things through, and make decisions, Biblically?

You see, this man is going to be making the decisions for your family. If he's wise and godly, you'll get truckloads of input — but the final call will be his. You will need not only to accept his final decision, but to dive in and do your best to make it work. Under God, your life will hang on his judgment. Can you trust him? With the rest of your life, and with your children's lives, can you trust him?

Now you see my point.

(If you and he attend different churches, be sure to let your pastor meet and get to know him, interrogate him, put him under the hot white lights. He's the man who has care for your soul, so he will be motivated to care for you and go the extra mile to be sure you're making as wise a decision as a person can make.)

Now, if we're talking about a man who is not a Christian at all, then he's not even a candidate, and you shouldn't be involved with him anywhere near this level, for his sake and yours.

But if he says he's a Christian but isn't much involved in a local church, then he doesn't much have the heart of Christ. Particularly if he's got "reasons" and excuses and rationales, he's not the man for you. He doesn't follow Christ. And you want obligate yourself to follow him?

"But he says he's a Christian!" one might sob. Yes, sister, if he's interested in you and knows you have this Jesus-thingie going on, I'm sure he does. I could train a parakeet to say he's a Christian. In fact, I've known parakeets who would make better Christians than some of the guys who've assured their girlfriends that they're Christians until they got what they wanted. It's just words. I could say I'm a MMA champion. Talk's cheap.

I just gave you ways to weigh that talk, and that's what you really need to do.

Remember, dating is the selling phase. All the best is put on display, to sink the deal. You should assume that marriage will not instantly make him a better man. If he is godly, it will; but you need to be convinced of that now. I can't tell you how many heart-wrenching stories I've heard about men who made this and that religious gesture, and then once the trout is in the creel, everything changes.

If you're a believer in Christ, you're a precious treasure to God, and your life is a stewardship. You need to make this decision slowly and carefully. If I may indulge my imagination in order to engage yours, your unborn kids are begging you to pick their dad v-e-r-y  c-a-r-e-f-u-l-l-y.

Too much is at stake to risk everything on a maybe-sorta lip-service until-the-deal-is-closed-and-the-deed-is-done sort of "Christian" male.

There are plenty of good godly men out there. Why haven't you seen them? They're probably going to smaller churches than your mega-church, because they prize Biblical preaching and look for opportunities to serve, and not simply be served. That's the sort of man you want to join yourself to in marriage.

Don't settle. Really, truly: don't. You'll be so sorry, and I'll be so sad.

PostScript: for the "But I know someone who [did a really stupid, un-Biblical, lamebrained thing] and it turned out just fine!" retort, see the "Real-Live Final Thought" at the end of this.

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Briefly: Resurrection Day, singles, sales and modalism ascendent

by Dan Phillips

Still more or less recovering from our Easter activities, and working on a long post reviewing the first volume in Logos' very promising Evangelical Exegetical Commentary series. So I don't have a single long-form post for you; just a few variouses. For instance...

• The Resurrection Sunday array of events was a joy and a cause for gratitude — particularly because I'd just taken ill a few days' previous. The last cold was a whopper, almost more of a flu, laying several of us out with fever, chills, plugged sinuses, and wracking coughs. God was very kind, and this was a much milder cold. Fellow-elder Jacob Young handled our Good Friday service, dwelling on Christ's love for us from Romans 5. Then on Sunday we had a Sunrise Service, a breakfast, the normal Sunday School class, and our morning worship. Did not know whether I'd have enough voice, but I trusted God's good will — and we made it. If you like, you can hear:
• Brief (13 minute) Sunrise Service message on Matthew 28:1-8, particularly focusing on the angel's words in v. 6, "just as He said."
  
• Sunday School class on singleness in the Bible, which ends by taking up the topic of God's will and how a single should approach marriage. The Blackaby model takes a sound and well-deserved thrashing, which won't surprise longtime readers.
• Morning service titled Christ Died, Christ, Rose — But Why? My text was Romans 4:25, which is very variously translated and interpreted. In it I develop the argument that we can't really understand Sunday without considering Friday, yet Friday is an incomplete message until the events of Sunday.
• And then I'd like to point out to you that Logos users can buy the works of D. A. Carson at a hefty 75% discount. That's a terrific deal, and I took advantage of it!
• If you've missed it, for the last few weeks there has been an absolutely extraordinary series of posts back and forth between Thabiti Anyabwile and Douglas Wilson. It all started here. Well, in a way, it all started here, with a rant from Bryan Loritts (last seen throwing around skin-color-obsessed accusations at anyone not snowed by Jakes and MacDonald), who basically said Wilson's book Black and Tan had hurt his feelings: he didn't care whether Wilson was right or wrong, wasn't willing to discuss it, but demanded that Wilson withdraw the book because Loritts said so. Thabiti took up the subject in a sound, serious, and formidable manner, and a most extarodinary dialogue began. You can trace it at Thabiti's and Doug's blogs. Reading the series has been like taking a college-level course in how gracious adult Christians should dialogue; both men have been models of grace, patience and candor. The commenters, not so much; but that's par for the course, eh? 've always known Doug was a force to be reckoned with, and have thought well of Thabiti — but through this, I've come to appreciate just how formidable (in a good way) a brother Thabiti is. 
• Thabiti provides the service of posting a round-up of the series thus far, as it comes to a close.
• My own take is that my head's dizzy. I think they're both right about many things, and I think they're both not exactly completely hearing each other — and I think that's in spite of the fact that both are trying their level best. Which is discouraging, because I'm not in either one's league; so what hope do us pikers have of finding resolution on such issues? I only wish Thabiti would take Doug's repeated invitation for a further public conversation.
• Finally, practicing what I preach, I'd like to give recognition by listing out all the names, complete with links, of the folks who have welcomed the privileges and perks of being high-visibility bloggers, and now have joined in expressing concern (proactively, this time) that yet another prominent evangelical leader is promoting the ministry of reputedly dogged Modalists. I'd really, really like to. Sincerely, I would.

And when I get some, I'll share them.

But time's running out.

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Singles, churches, and Scripture

by Dan Phillips

I married later than many do... which is to say, I was older than 18. It meant that I got to experience church life for some time as a single, as many pastors do not. I learned some things, developed some thoughts.

For one thing, I found that many otherwise-good churches seem to have forgotten what it's like to be single. A lot of activities assume that one is married, which one wasn't, and one felt left out. It is true that couples and families should be addressed and served by the church's corporate activities and by the preaching, but it's no less true that the singles should be encouraged and instructed.

For instance, a series lifting out the Bible's teaching to husbands, wives, parents and children would not be uncommon. But a series for singles? Too depressing? Too limited?

An unintended consequence is that many get the impression that the Bible just doesn't have much to say to singles except, well, don't have sex. Which it does say. So we hear that, and that you should pray that God will guide you to That Special One whom God has chosen and prepared for you and expects you to find or you're out of luck for the rest of your life — which, parenthetically, the Bible doesn't say.

There is no doubt that marriages (and marrieds) need a lot of help from Scripture. What I would propose, however, is that they might be just a skosh less needy of churches preached the Word about marriage with a constant eye to the unmarrieds. Many go into marriage with unrealistic and un-Biblical expectations. Worse, they approach marriage with the thought that Scripture really doesn't offer much in particular to them as singles.

This was brought to my mind lately by an unmarried reader who wrote me about sharing part of God's Wisdom in Proverbs with a group of unmarried folks. In page 199, I relate this:

Valerie and I heard a sad story once from a local church. Its women’s group was considering what book to use next for a Bible study. Someone proposed a very good book on being a Christian wife. It was summarily rejected. Why? “We don’t want the unmarried women to feel left out.”

My dear wife and I were aghast. What poor reasoning! Those were the very people who might profit most from such a study.

In fact, in the book, I practice what I'm suggesting here. There are separate chapters devoted at some length to relationships (Chapter 6), to marriage (Chapter 7), and to raising children (Chapter 8). In studying Proverbs, I don't forget to relate to those who are not yet married, trying to equip them with specific Biblical instruction to help them both in thinking about the whole issue of singleness and marriage, and in approaching the critical process of mate-selection.

So in that way I both move to try to meet the need I'm pointing to here, and trying to set a model as to how churches could do the same thing. You could say I practice what I preach about preaching. And now, you could say, I'm preaching about practicing what I pr... okay, you sharp cookies get it.

In sum, as Paul ranges across the categories in his instructions and exhortations (cf. 1 Tim. 5:1ff; Titus 2:1ff.), so should the pulpit ministry and the fellowship activities of the local church.

There is a companion-post over at my place today, for singles only. The meta to this post here is open, and I'd particularly like to encourage pastors to share their thoughts or responses to the need to enfold singles in the church's ministry.

Have at it.

UPDATE: partly due to the lively discussion in the meta of the first post Over There, I've added a second post devoted to the subject of Jeffing.

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