God, Singleness, and Marriage: Introduction

This is part of the series God, Singleness, and Marriage: How the Bible Gives Purpose and Direction to Singles.  

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                                             Introduction
 

Within the first two chapters and last four chapters of the Bible we find marriages (Gen. 2; Rev. 19). At the beginning of Jesus’ earthly ministry we find him attending a wedding (John 2). Weddings and marriages seem to turn up at important moments in biblical history. 

They are probably part of your experience, too. Maybe you have attended a few and the thought of weddings strikes a note of hope and joy as you look forward to your own marriage. Maybe you have attended many weddings and are tired of the recurring and painful question that inevitably comes during the reception: “So, when are you getting married?”  For you, weddings bring up the painful fact that you may never be married. Or, it could be that you enjoy attending weddings but have little desire to get to married. 

The Most Important Thing about You

As we begin our journey to see what the Bible has to say about singleness and getting married, I want you to realize that, if you are a Christian, the most important thing about you is not your marital status. It may feel that way at times. As many singles have noted, they feel like a single person in married person’s world.  Every time you go out to eat and have to ask for “a table for one,” you feel as if your most defining characteristic is the label “single.”

However, the Bible makes it clear that the most important thing about you is that you are a Christian.[1] You are not a single Christian. You are a Christian who is unmarried. This is not semantics. I am trying to get at what the Bible says is the most defining reality for you, and it is not your marital status.

The Goal of This Book

That being said, your marital status does affect the way you live and experience life. And the Bible does say much about the topics of marriage, singleness, and relationships. My goal in the pages that follow is to bring some of the rich truths of the Bible on this issue to light. 

If you are single and content, I hope that the words in this book will encourage and empower you for even greater fruitfulness and joy in serving the Lord. If you are single and hopeful of marrying in the near future, I hope that you will be encouraged to maximize your time as a single and to pursue marriage in ways which glorify God. If you are single and struggling to be content, wondering if you have missed the opportunity to be married, I hope you will be encouraged to trust God and thrive under His care for you.

Where We Are Going

This book is divided into three main sections. The first is all about how the biblical storyline and the character of God give purpose and hope to singleness. It begins by tracing singleness through the Bible and demonstrating how God has redeemed the state of singleness for His glory and our good. The second chapter examines the most robust passage on singleness in the entire Bible, First Corinthians chapter seven, in order to give you a vision for how to glorify God and utilize your singleness. The third chapter applies the doctrine of God to your understanding of singleness in order to strengthen your faith in God during an undesired time of singleness. Reader, you may be tempted to skip over this part. You might find it hard to read through these early chapters because you long for quick and practical steps to marriage. Let me encourage you to do the hard work of studying theology – only then will you find true hope and right practice.

The second major section of the book is about the dangers and temptations that seem most pronounced during the single season of life. All temptation is common to man, but we do well to examine what specific temptations Satan may use to lure us away from our devotion to Christ. Again, you may be tempted to skip this section, thinking that reading about sin is not encouraging. But remember that our enemy seeks to devour us (1 Pet. 5:8), and Jesus called us to watch and pray lest we enter into temptation (Matt. 26:41). You would not go to war with an enemy and ignore the specific points of vulnerability that he might seek to exploit against you. Neither should we expect to live the Christian life in this fallen world without examining our own weak points and shoring up our defenses.

The final major section gets into the practical aspects of living in the single season of life. The first chapter addresses issues that apply to all Christians while the last two look more specifically to Christians who are single but desire to be married. However, I do think that those who are not seeking marriage will still find these chapters beneficial. 

We will conclude with a chapter about a wedding reception that all Christians will attend, which will be the most joyful wedding feast ever. Maybe you hate going to wedding receptions and being reminded that you lack what you so badly want. But I guarantee that this is one reception you will be glad to go to. We have a lot of pages to cover before we get there. So, get reading.   

Copyright Ben Khazraee. You may share this article with others, but please direct them to this blog rather than posting the text to your own website, blog, etc. You may share printed copies with friends as long as you do not charge more than the cost of producing the copies. 

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[1] Though maybe you are not a Christian. A Christian is not simply a person who goes to church or even likes Jesus. A Christian is a person who has recognized that they have sinned and rejected their Creator and are worthy of His just condemnation. They do not think they can earn God’s forgiveness by doing good things. They understand that Jesus, God’s perfect Son, lived the perfect life they failed to live and then died on the cross to satisfy the justice and wrath of God. They receive this blood-bought forgiveness by turning away from sin (repentance) and turning to Jesus as their only hope of salvation (faith). If you haven’t done this, you should spend some time studying the gospel (good news) of God by reading the Gospel of Mark, from the Bible, with a Christian friend.

God, Singleness, and Marriage: How the Bible Gives Purpose and Direction to Singles

About two years ago I began reading a lot on the subject of singleness and the Christian life. In a culture in which marriage in increasingly postponed, the period of living as a single person has increased. Add to that the confusion over the "gift of singleness" and the fact that this gift has been marginalized in the church. Consider how many young Christian men and women desire to get married but find themselves confused about how to pursue marriage. Put all this together and you have a good reason to want to know what God has said on these issues. 

As I read many books on singleness, I found that many were very good, but none did exactly what I wanted them to do. So, I began to write out a few thoughts (many of these thoughts are influenced by many who have already written on these topics). In the end, I had a short book. 

Over the next few weeks, I will begin posting sections of the book, God, Singleness, and Marriage: How the Bible Gives Purpose and Direction to Singles. My aim is to show the redemptive usefulness of singleness in a way which gives hope to struggling singles, encouragement to content singles, and direction for all singles. This book is intended for men and women, and it is even intended to benefit those who are married.  

I pray God is glorified and you are encouraged. 

Note: If you want to keep up with all the posts covering the book as time goes on, you can search the label God-Marriage-Singleness.

 

Shooting at FSU: What Are We to Make of "A Close Call?"

This morning a gunman shot three people at FSU's Strozier library. A place that was one of peace and studying has now been stained by violence. Thankfully, as far as I know at this point, all of these individuals will survive. This has not been the case with other shootings in the US or with attacks in other parts of the globe. Even though the FSU shooting could have been worse, its "close to home" aspect has no doubt shaken many in our community (as it should).

How are we to think about this event?

We Live in a Dangerous World

First, we should recognize that Christianity gives us the proper worldview to interpret this world. We live in a dangerous world, and it is one which seems to get more dangerous by the minute. 

Why is this? It is because we live in a world that is in rebellion against the Creator. As Romans 1 says, men and women suppress the truth in unrighteousness and from that flows all sorts of sin including murder (and attempted murder). While the media asks the why questions and people speculate on the reasons, we know that, while each individual's reasons for such violence may differ, it is all a symptom of the fact that we live in a world that is in rebellion against God.

What Are We to Do About it?

Second, we should recognize that Christianity tells us what we should do knowing that we live in a dangerous world. In Jesus day, a tower fell on some individuals killing them. About the same time, a ruler of the day had many Jews slaughtered. Why did this happen to them? Were they worse sinners than others? Well, they were sinners (we all are), but we do not know why a tower falls on that sinner and not me or you. If the tower fell on me I could not complain against God for I deserve nothing but his just wrath against my sin. So, how should we process the bad things that happen to those around us? How should we think about a close call? Jesus said that we should repent (Luke 13:2-5).

A close call is a reminder to us that death is coming for us all, and we must be right with our Maker. We must repent or turn away from our rejection of God and the disobedience to God's law and turn to Jesus as our only hope of forgiveness and salvation. He lived the life of obedience to God that we should have. He died on the cross to take the punishment sinners deserve. He was buried, but rose again having conquered sin and death for all who will trust in him. He is the only way to God (John 14:6). We will all die one day whether it is at the hands of a gunman, behind the wheel of a car, or quietly in our sleep. A close call is a call to repentance.

For those of us who have repented, we are to go about our daily lives knowing that physical death is a reality for us too but that it does not have the final word. God has not guaranteed us a life of ease. We still live in a sin cursed world, but we are not as those who have no hope. We have a Savior who has defeated the power of sin - eternal death. This frees us to serve God without fear for all the days of life he gives us knowing that when we die we will be in the presence of the Lord (Phil. 1:21-24).  

Let's carry on, not because it is the only thing we can do, but because Jesus is our hope. This is not a "keep calm and carry on" slogan.  Keeping calm makes no sense if you still have to fear death and God's judgment. But as those who know we serve a living Savior who has removed the sting of death, we have an imperishable hope. Let's live as those who have real hope, and let's call others to repentance so that they might have this hope too.

How to Think Biblicaly about the Sexuality Crisis

It is an understatement to say that our culture is in the middle of a confusing crisis in the area of sexuality. We have addressed some of this in our study of 1 Corinthians on Thursday nights and seen that there is nothing new under the sun (the culture of Paul's day had issues in this are too). Rod preached from Hebrews 11:3 and Romans 1:18-27 this past Sunday on the issue of sexual ethics as well.

As a follow up to all this, I encourage you to read Al Mohler's article "Biblical Theology and the Sexuality Crisis." In addressing the issues of the day, we need a solid understanding of the overarching story of the Bible and how that story answers the confusion of our day.

In Defense of Marriage and The Rule of Law

Albert Mohler has a great article on the recent ruling by the US 6th Circuit Court. Judge Sutton, writing for the majority opinion (it was a 2-1 decision) explains with amazing clarity and sanity why he and other judges do not have the right to decide the issue of same sex marriage for a democratic nation. The whole article is worth a read.

"Just Stop It"

On Sunday night I taught on the topic of Christian growth from Colossians 3:1-17. We discussed how Christian growth is not behavior modification (merely). It does involve changes in behavior, but that is not where it starts or ends. As a funny contrast, check out this video of Bob Newhart playing a psychologist.

If you want to hear more about the actual biblical change process, check out the audio at the church website (the link for the How Can I Change Pt. 2 isn't up yet, so keep checking).