16 • Priscilla Papers ◆ Vol. 30, No. 1 ◆ Winter 2016 he perception in evangelical church culture persists that one of our primary goals as a church is to create good, healthy, safe, Christian families. Sure, we might have singles’ ministries in our churches, but even those are usually designed to help singles meet each other! It is no small secret that the ultimate goal of some singles’ ministries leaders is to work themselves out of a job. Consider this note that I received from a friend ater discussing this topic with him: his is a very interesting topic for me as many of my closest friends are single. My best friend and I talk about this a lot because he desires to ind a life partner and wonders why he has not found anybody yet. He also feels at the age that he is that a majority of people look at him as if he is “less responsible” or “more selish” because of his singleness. As you know, the current church culture promotes marriage, which makes it extremely diicult to be single as a Christian (unless you have extremely thick skin and are okay with comments people are making about you at times). My question is: how does the church counter this view of marriage and make singles know that they are important, gited, and even needed in the body of Christ? Personally, what can I do to help my friend and others know and feel like they have abilities and responsibilities that married couples don’t have or can’t do, and help singleness be seen as not a temporary thing but a very valuable and fulilling thing? To address these questions, I want to look at the NT to see what it has to say to this matter. Happily, we ind that it is not silent on this topic. And, moreover, much of the NT instructions on this topic come from single people! Below I ofer three NT insights on marriage and singleness in the church. Paul ofers these instructions about marriage and singleness in 1 Cor 71: Now for the matters you wrote about: “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.” But since sexual immorality is occurring, each man should have sexual relations with his own wife, and each woman with her own husband. he husband should fulill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. . . . I say this as a concession, not as a command. I wish that all of you were as I am. But each of you has your own git from God; one has this git, another has that. . . . Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I do. But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion. (1 Cor 7:1–3, 6–9) We might be aghast as we read Paul’s instructions here. Is he really saying that the purpose of getting married might be to curb our own sexual immorality? Where is the romance, Paul? Aren’t you the one who penned the “love passage” just six chapters later in 1 Cor 13—one of the most famous wedding texts there is? I doubt many of us have heard 1 Cor 7 read at a wedding ceremony! But here it is as plain as day—Paul instructing us to stay single unless doing so would cause us to be sexually immoral. A little later in this passage, Paul gives us further rationale for his recommendation: I would like you to be free from concern. An unmarried man is concerned about the Lord’s afairs—how he can please the Lord. But a married man is concerned about the afairs of this world—how he can please his wife— and his interests are divided. An unmarried woman or virgin is concerned about the Lord’s afairs: Her aim is to be devoted to the Lord in both body and spirit. But a married woman is concerned about the afairs of this world—how she can please her husband. I am saying this for your own good, not to restrict you, but that you may live in a right way in undivided devotion to the Lord. (1 Cor 7:32–35) In other words, Paul’s instructions about marriage and singleness do not stem from a restrictive, prudish, anti-sex attitude. Rather, his view of marriage and singleness is fundamentally Christ- focused. He instructs us to adopt whatever life vocation will ofer us the best opportunities to serve Christ. We oten think of our vocation in terms of career, but that simply highlights our tendency to compartmentalize our lives. For Paul, vocation includes not only career but even our relational status. Paul says that we each have our own git from God, some to singleness and others to marriage; some to education, others to tent-making. No one vocation is to be idealized or expected of all Christians; rather, we are to be fully devoted to Christ in whatever vocation we have been called. For some, we may be called to the vocation of singleness, to others the vocation of marriage. For still others, we might be called to the vocation of singleness for a period of our lives and marriage at a later period. he irst principle we glean from the NT regarding singleness and marriage is this: he ideal Christian existence is not a fulilling marriage but is fully committed discipleship to Christ. Jesus makes this abundantly clear in his call to discipleship. In Luke 14 Jesus states: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters— yes, even life itself—such a person cannot be my disciple. And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26–27). Jesus is teaching that discipleship to Marriage, Singleness, and the Family (of God): A Sermon David C. Cramer