Emotional Purity and Broken Heart Syndrome
Betrothal and Emotional Purity: is it Biblical?
Singleness
The Way of a Man With a Maid
Bill Gothard and ATI
In my reading I frequently come across authors idolizing singleness or promoting it above marriage. Not infrequently, young people are urged to ‘be content with singleness’ or to take advantage of the ‘gift’ and ‘opportunity’ of singleness at precisely that time of life when they ought to be looking for potential spouses. Consider the following comments.
“...unless we are content with the Lord in singleness, we will not be content with another person in marriage.” (Bill Gothard, The True Significance of The Wedding Covenant.)
“Having been discontent while single, satisfaction in marriage becomes elusive… She should enjoy the Lord with gladness and contentment. Should God send marriage, it will be a wonderful gift. For now, encourage your daughter to serve her Savior without distraction where God has placed her; that too is a beautiful gift from Him.” (Brook Wayne, ‘Of Princes and Fairy Tale Dreams’, article available at www.biblicalbetrothal.com/)
“Are you unmarried at thirty or forty, filled with that sinking feeling that perhaps you never will find a mate? Don’t be dismayed or despair. God’s best gifts are never rushed. Perhaps his best for you is to remain single. Perhaps you will marry when you are fifty…. Do not waste your single years pining after what is not. Rejoice for what is. Use these years to do what you could never do if you were married. …give thanks to God for such an opportunity. …He is in control.” (Michael and Judy Phillips, Best Friends for Life, Minneapolis, MI: Bethany House Publishers, 1997, p. 107.)
“For a long time I did not consider that my single status was a gift from the Lord. I did not resent it – to be frank, in my earlier idealistic perio
d I thought that because I had chosen singleness I was doing God a favor! But in later years I was severely tested again and again on that choice. Then…it gently dawned on me that God had given me a superb gift!” (Ada Lum, Single and Human, Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1976, p. 22.
“If there are singles who find the waters of singleness dark and deep, who feel, ‘I sink in deep waters; the billows go over my head; all his waves go over me,’ this is my message to you concerning singleness: ‘Be of good cheer, my brother, my sister; I feel the bottom, and it is good.’” (Margaret Clarkson, So You’re Single, Wheaton, IL: Harold Shaw, 1978, p. 11.
“…there is some warrant for thinking that the kinds of self-denial involved in singleness could make one a candidate for greater capacities for love in
the age to come.” John Piper and Wayne Grudem, Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: A Response to Evangelical Feminism, Wheaton, ILL: Crossway Books, 1991, p. xviii.While not denying that there may be elements of truth in some of the above statements, they all represent a general tendency to promoting singleness as an end in itself and even, in some cases, a devaluing of marriage by implication. In answer to this chorus of voices, I suggest Debbie Maken’s book Getting Serious About Getting Married: Rethinking the Gift of Singleness. She makes a good case for the fact that it is unbiblical to be content with singleness. Also Steve Hayhow has a good article on his blog on the subject of singleness and marriage, answering those who erroneously read 1 Cor. 7:1-40 as a promotion of singleness. Finally, see my earlier post about Why I Am In Favour Of Teen Pregnancy!
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3 comments:
It´s been a long time since I´ve read anything so sensible!
Interestingly, though, the link to the article Let´s Have More Teen Pregnancy didn´t work today from your website, but I found it on google.
Here in Peru they marry young and Peru has one of the highest fertility rates of any country in the world. The children start working as soon as they can and, even though they are poor, I can´t see they have the same sorts of problems as families in the United States. And you still see young families having time to go out and enjoy themselves.
patrick phillips
One of the things F-Matthews Green didn´t mention in her (very good) article was that these teen women who married younger in our family trees often had husbands much older, men who had had time for education and to establish themselves in something. But in the United States teen pregnancy with an older man is considered a crime. It is frequently called ¨perverted¨ and ¨disgusting¨ in the media and schools. A good move towards encouraging the fertility she is talking about would be first to decriminalize the relationships. The United States is one of the only countries in the world with these kinds of age prohibitions. As she points out, the problem isn´t teen pregnancy as such, but teen pregnancy outside of marriage---and pregnancy outside of marriage should be the same problem at any age. Unwed pregnancy doesn´t suddenly become okay if the women is older. But even courting a younger women in the United States is enough to get you thrown in the slammer---which is something that is unheard of in the rest of the world.
patrick phillips
Hmmm... this looks like an interesting blog. I found your site while doing a search on Eastern Orthodoxy and ethics, and one thing led to another. I am surprised to see that the goarch folks hold to Inclusivism. I don't buy that ... but I digress.
Ok. Some comments.
- I think that some people have a gift of celibacy. Those who do so should be encouraged to be celibate.
- The other thing. In Eastern Religions, one way of arriving at contentment is to be rid of your wants, needs, desires, etc. So you can meditate a lot to work on getting rid of them. It is these desires that are the source of our dis-contentedness.
Christianity however states that you can be content and yet still have desires, needs, wants, etc.
I think that unless a person has the gift of celibacy (ick!), they should seek a significant other, and they can do this contentedly. Contentedness is not simply accepting your singleness state and then not doing anything about it. That may be complacency.
Ciao!
Raj
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