While SCRIPTURE commends marriage as ordained of God and good (1 Tim. 4:3-5), it also COMMENDS SINGLENESS AS A LIFE OF EXTRAORDINARY PURPOSE AND CONTRIBUTION, never speaking of any fundamental loss but only extolling the potential gain of the single life devoted to God (1 Cor. 7:25-35). Since human marriage is the shadow of the reality of the union of Christ and the church (Eph. 5:32), no believing single will miss out on the reality of marriage even if God calls him or her to live without the shadow.
Reflections & Resources from Sunday: Singleness
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 (Note: Having been published in 1997, the statistics in the first chapter are woefully out of date.)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?
- Where Singles Are Today?
- A Brief History of Singleness
- The Myth of the Gift. (This chapter is a brief, and somewhat novel, exposition of 1 Corinthians 7.)
- The Issue of God’s Will
- Freedom and Opportunity
- From Loneliness to Solitude
- From Aloneness to Community
- Rethinking Romance
- 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.
- Begetting from the Beginning: Procreation, Marriage, and the Blessing of God to the World
- Living in the Land: Why Every Israelite Man and Woman Married
- Prophetic Paradox: How Failure of a Nation Brings Blessing to the World
- Good News for the Gentiles: How Abraham’s Offspring Come from Jesus Alone
- The King and the Kingdom: Jesus’ Surprising Statements on Singleness and Family
- A Charisma for Corinth: Paul’s Vision of Singleness for the Church
