Sunday’s message (The God-Glorifying Design of Singleness) was another installment in our series on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood.

We referenced two helpful books on the topic.

Singles at the Crossroads: A Fresh Perspective on Christian Singleness by Albert Y. Hsu. Hsu’s treatment of singleness is readable and thoughtful. He writes as a single person to us all.

You can get a feel for the book from the chapter titles. (Note: Having been published in 1997, the statistics in the first chapter are woefully out of date.)

Why This Book?

1. Where Singles Are Today?
2. A Brief History of Singleness
3. The Myth of the Gift. (This chapter is a brief, and somewhat novel, exposition of 1 Corinthians 7.)
4. The Issue of God’s Will
5. Freedom and Opportunity
6. From Loneliness to Solitude
7. From Aloneness to Community
8. Rethinking Romance
9. Temptations Singles Face

Epilogue: A Visions for the Future

Appendix: John Stott on Singleness

The Appendix is one of the most insightful parts of the book, where Hsu interviews the recently deceased John Stott. Stott carried out his fifty-plus years of ministry as a single man. In this interview he shares his insights on relevant passages, his personal struggles, and the sacrifices and privileges of being single.  

Redeeming Singleness: How the Storyline of Scripture Affirms the Single Life by Barry Danylak.

This is a heavier read than Hsu’s book, but it is probably a more important one. Rather than looking piecemeal at various issues and passages that Christian single men and women wrestle with, Danylak takes a biblical theological approach to the issue asking the insightful question: How does singleness function in the storyline of Scripture? The answers are breathtaking. The kneecap of his argument is this:

Christian singleness is a testimony to the supreme sufficiency of Christ for all things, testifying that through Christ life is truy blessed even without marriage and children. It prophetically points to a reality greater than the satsifcation of this present age by consciously anticipating the Christian’s eternal inhertinace in the kingdom of God. Christian singleness lived as a testimony of this gospel truth is a redeeming singleness (215).

Here are the chapter titles.

1. Begetting from the Beginning: Procreation, Marriage, and the Blessing of God to the World
2. Living in the Land: Why Every Israelite Man and Woman Married
3. Prophetic Paradox: How Failure of a Nation Brings Blessing to the World
4. Good News for the Gentiles: How Abraham’s Offspring Come from Jesus Alone
5. The King and the Kingdom: Jesus’ Surprising Statements on Singleness and Family
6. A Charisma for Corinth: Paul’s Vision of Singleness for the Church