Singleness

It could be said that there is no such thing as singleness. We all live out the joys and sorrows of our lives within a rich complexity of relationships. This is God’s intention for all human beings. John Donne was right: “No man is an island.”

Western culture, however, has a different perspective. It assumes marriage and sexuality as the prime context of intimacy, whereas Scripture assumes and exemplifies a much larger context. Modern approaches have understood human beings biologically, with the sexual drive as one of the dominant motivational forces. A biblical view understands human beings as created for intimacy with God and with one another. Marriage is often a significant framework for the outworking of intimacy, but it is not the only framework. These things are foundational for a true understanding of singleness.

Our concept of singleness has significantly changed in the past twenty years. Previously single referred to a person who had never married and implied virginity. Today the number of adults who are single by choice or circumstance has increased. It now encompasses not only the unmarried but also those who are divorced or widowed: “No longer does it imply virginity, merely the absence of a current sexual partner” (Foyle, p. 134).

In the quest for personal fulfillment so prevalent today, more people are looking for alternatives to the previously accepted social and sexual norms. They are deciding for themselves how they want to live their lives. In the West the single lifestyle is more accepted and more attractive than it has ever been. How does all this affect the Christian person who is single by choice or by circumstance?

Marriage is clearly a God-ordained institution, a context for sexual expression, child rearing and lifelong friendship. It is a metaphor resonant of deeper spiritual realities, the foundational structure of most human societies. However, by focusing almost exclusively on marriage and the nuclear family as the norm, as well as the prime context for intimacy, the church has not told the whole truth and has, in some ways, bought into the prevailing culture. The message conveyed by the church and by the culture is that to be single is to be unfulfilled, to be somehow not whole. What is needed is a much broader biblical understanding. It is important to consider the reasons why people are single, to put singleness in its true biblical context and to look realistically at some of the challenges and opportunities experienced by those who are single.

Reasons for Singleness

There are many different reasons why people are single. Singleness can be voluntarily chosen or involuntarily imposed; it can be temporary or long-term. All people are single at some point in their lives, either during early adulthood or, often, in old age.

Many people are single because of the death of a spouse. Unexpectedly they find themselves alone and having to face a complexity of tasks and feelings never before experienced. This kind of singleness is perhaps the one best understood by other people, for it fits fairly smoothly into society’s attitudes and values. Increasingly people end up being single because of divorce. This is nearly always accompanied by emotional turmoil and is difficult for all involved. These two reasons for singleness, with their roots in loss, grief and suffering, can make the adjustment to singleness prolonged and painful.

There are those who view marriage as normative but for a variety of reasons are not yet married. They may be postponing marriage until they are vocationally established; they may be caring for an elderly parent; or they may explain their singleness by saying that they have just never been at the right place at the right time for the right person to come along.

Some people have deliberately chosen a single life. There are those who have opted to focus time and energy on a challenging career. Others, observing those who unreflectively marry because somehow it is “the thing to do,” decide to make a different choice. Those who go into religious orders voluntarily take a vow of celibacy and, although committed to a covenant community, remain single. Others, by choosing to go overseas as missionaries, may circumstantially be eliminating marriage as an option. Still others, because of a homosexual orientation, do not consider marriage as personally viable. Perhaps more than one is aware, the choice to remain single might be based on both conscious and unconscious psychological factors, such as a fear of intimacy, a strong desire for independence, unrealistic expectations of relationships or unresolved issues in one’s family background.

For all of us, part of our being made in the image of God includes the capacity for love and communication. This implies the desire for personal intimacy—the longing to be transparent and vulnerable within the context of relationships. Marriage and family are gifts from God and provide not only the stabilizing infrastructure of society but also a potentially rich context for relational intimacy. Most adults therefore long to find a place in such relationships. As the years pass and for one reason or another a person does not marry, doubts of different kinds set in. One looks inward, asking, Is there something wrong with me? or Has God made a mistake? Some of these questions can be healthy and can lead to constructive self-assessment, change and often a deeper level of trusting God.

Acceptance of Singleness

Adults who expect to marry do not always accept their single state immediately. Like many other experiences of life, the acceptance is often a gradual process. Each step is facilitated by a growing understanding of oneself as well as by God’s grace.

Accepting reality is an important aspect of this process. As the awareness that one is single begins to take hold, there is often a genuine sense of loss. This is accompanied by grief as one acknowledges not only the lack of a marriage partner but also the loss of children and even grandchildren. The hope of creating and being part of a family unit fades. These losses are real, and grief is an appropriate response. Thus, it is important to acknowledge that acceptance is often initially accompanied by significant personal pain, which may recur at different ages and stages of life, and to acknowledge also that marriage has its pains and disappointments.

There is a further step in this process. Maturity comes when one is able to accept singleness in the present as from God and to trust that God is wise and loving and is well able to meet one’s needs. At times this acceptance can be a catalyst enabling a person to embrace life in a new way and to understand and experience a broader context for intimacy. Instead of focusing on what has not been given or on what has been lost, one is able to see, and receive with thanks, the good gifts that have been given.

Some people will pass through these stages with a minimum of pain, but others will struggle deeply. The church as a place of community and compassion can be a great help for single people struggling to accept various aspects of their situation. In addition, a theology adequate to encompass these realities must be developed. It is the scriptural insights into singleness that will provide the needed comfort, strength and perspective.

Scriptural Insights

To have a true biblical understanding of singleness, we need to set it in a much larger context. We need to understand that first and foremost we are relational beings. We are created at the loving initiative of the triune God, who from before the foundation of the world experiences and expresses love and communication. We are created to be in relationship with God. And it is this relationship that uniquely gives us our deepest sense of identity. We are creatures of the Creator; we are sinners known and forgiven by the Redeemer; and we are loved children able to call God Abba.

We are also created to be in relationship with one another: “We are conceived in relationship; we are born into family relationship; we develop our sense of self in relationship and we know ourselves and are known in relationship” (McBride, p. 1). Being in relationship is the essence of what it means to be a human being, and God has provided for these relational needs in ways that are profound and wonderful.

Although sin has broken our relationship with God, ourselves, other people and creation, the glorious good news of the cross is that the way has been cleared for all of us to enter freely, by faith, into that relationship. There exists no Christian imperative to become married as soon as one can or to prefer marriage over singleness as more whole or wholesome (Collins, p. 11). Wholeness comes from relationship with God.

But there is more. God gives to us the gift of his family. He places us in relationship with one another, and we are called to listen, to forgive, to encourage one another. We are to love one another, bear one another’s burdens and rejoice with one another. It is in the context of God’s family that we develop our capacity for intimate relationship; we experience what it means to be sisters or brothers, mothers and fathers, to one another. It is in ever-deepening relationship with God and with one another in this family that our needs are met, that we discover that we know and are known, that we love and are loved, that we have the possibility of experiencing deep and long-lasting intimacy. As we grow in these relationships, we become more and more like the Lord Jesus (2 Cor. 3:17-18).

Jesus clearly both taught about the permanence and dignity of marriage (Matthew 19) and affirmed it by his presence at the wedding of Cana (John 2:1-11). He also taught the contrasting truth that marriage is not forever and will not be part of the way we relate in heaven (Luke 20:34). Moreover, from the biblical perspective it is clear that it is not marriage alone that provides the context of intimacy, but rather relationship with God and his family. And this is available to all people, whether married or single. A related resource and gift is friendship.

Jesus’ singleness enabled him to focus on his messianic task; it also enables us to have insight into healthy ways of living as a single person. He lived out his life in close touch with his family and with a community of friends. He offered the men and women who knew him the love that he had experienced from the Father (John 15:9). He called them to care for one another with this same kind of love (John 13:34). We also see that Jesus was free to express love and care through human touch. He reached out and laid his hands on those who were in need of healing in both body and spirit. In loving humility he washed the feet of his friends and was quite comfortable to have John lean on him (John 13). He responded to the desperate touch of the woman with the hemorrhage (Mark 5) and the loving caresses of the woman known to all to be a sinner (Mark 14).

As well as forming committed, loving relationships with the Twelve, Jesus also knew how to be alone. He spent forty days alone in the wilderness (Luke 4:2) and often withdrew from the crowds and even from his friends for times of solitude and prayer (Mark 1:35). In the last hours of his life he knew the anguishing aloneness of being forsaken by his friends and even by God. He is well able to understand us in our times of aloneness.

The events at the Garden of Gethsemane vividly illustrates that Jesus shared not only his thoughts but also his feelings with his friends. He was able to express his need for them to keep him company, to surround him and to stand with him as he faced not only death but separation from the Father (Matthew 26:36-46). In both giving and receiving, Jesus models for us healthy, intimate interpersonal relationships.

The apostle Paul, who also was single, indicates that he had chosen this “better way” because it enabled him to focus on his primary calling to serve God. His logic is straightforward. Of necessity, married people must be most concerned with their spouses and children. Their interests are divided. However, those who are unmarried can be primarily concerned with serving God and others (1 Cor. 7). He goes on to add, however, that both singleness and marriage are gifts from God. Ultimately we need to discover what our calling is in this area. It is not simply a matter of choice. To choose marriage, or singleness, when we are not gifted for it could place us in a frustrating situation, though this does not rule out God’s then supplying us with the gift.

Challenges and Graces

Singleness is described as a gift, but it must honestly be said that it is not always experienced as a gift. It can leave one feeling vulnerable and ill-equipped to deal with certain aspects of our humanity that are painful, such as loneliness, belonging and sexuality. It would be easy to think that these pains are unique to the single state, but they are not—they are human pains. Singleness provides a particular perspective for both experiencing and responding to these aspects of our humanity.

Loneliness. To speak of singleness is to imply aloneness; this is often equated with loneliness, which is what most people dread. Aloneness, however, is different from loneliness, and it is something we can choose, as Jesus did. It is crucial for our growth as Christians and need not be feared. It is often in times of aloneness that we can uniquely hear God. Loneliness, although painful, is at least a pain that we can do something about. It is often cured by focusing beyond ourselves and reaching out in love and hospitality to someone else. Creating and sharing a home with others can take the edge off loneliness, as can consciously developing loving relationships with both male and female friends of all ages.

Belonging. A poignant and often painful question of the single person is To whom do I belong? Married people have one another and their children, but a single person often has a sense of being adrift, not permanently anchored in relationships.

Here again the Scripture speaks strongly. We are called to worship because we belong: “O come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker! For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand” (Psalm 95:6-7 NRSV). Ephesians reminds us that we are “no longer strangers,” that we are “members of the household of God” (Ephes. 2:19 NRSV), belonging to one another in the community of faith. The bedrock truth for all of us is that in Christ we belong to him and to one another, and nothing “will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:39 NRSV). We belong to God. We are his children, now and forever! This is the anchor that can bring comfort and steadiness when the belonging question rises. Further, we have friends. And in churches that offer real fellowship, especially in small groups and house churches, we can experience the grace of an extended Christian family.

Sexuality. Sex and sexuality are often used interchangeably and can thus be confusing. Both are God-given gifts. Sex is a biological drive oriented toward pleasure and often procreation, where-as sexuality refers to the totality of our being, as reflected in the words in Genesis: “male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27 NRSV). Whether married or single, our sexuality impacts every aspect of who we are: our body shape and functioning, our sense of self, our orientation to the world and to other people. The sexual drive is accompanied by a whole cluster of physical and emotional feelings that are part of being a healthy human being.

The Scripture is clear that sexual intercourse is to be expressed between a man and a woman within a covenant relationship of committed love and long-term faithfulness. In focusing on biological sex, society has removed it from this covenantal context and thus diminished its meaning and power. Single people are to wisely discipline their sexual thoughts and feelings while at the same time developing and appropriately expressing their sexuality. This requires personal and spiritual maturity. Failures of every kind occur, but God’s kindness, forgiveness and restoration are real. In learning to responsibly handle all the dimensions of our sexuality, we learn many deep and important lessons about ourselves and God’s grace.

Singleness then is to be understood and lived out in the broad biblical context of being relational beings, called into intimacy with God and others.

» See also: Calling

» See also: Dating

» See also: Fellowship

» See also: Friendship

» See also: Hospitality

» See also: Love

» See also: Marriage

» See also: Sexuality

References and Resources

G. R. Collins, It’s O.K. to Be Single (Waco, Tex.: Word, 1976); M. Foyle, “Overcoming Stress in Singleness,” Evangelical Mission Quarterly 21 (April 1985) 134-41; A. Fryling, “The Grace of Single Living,” in HIS Guide to Sex, Singleness and Marriage, ed. C. S. Board (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1974) 74-79; S. Grenz, Sexual Ethics: A Biblical Perspective (Dallas: Word, 1990); J. McBride, “The Self in the Culture of the Therapeutic,” unpublished lecture presented at Regent College, Vancouver, B.C., November 1994.

—Thena Ayres