The Church & Singleness Podcast Episodes

On today’s episode of Breaking Bread, the topic is the church and singleness, and to offer wonderful insights and much needed advice, I’ve asked Amber Miller to join me. Welcome Amber. Thanks Matt. It’s good to be here. Amber is a counselor here at ACCFS and I’m delighted to have her with us.

Amber, in your work, a lot of your clients are single. They are. The majority are either never married or divorced or widowed and out of that work I’ve benefited a great deal. Just having conversations with you in passing and working together with some of the challenges and some of the issues and some of the content that comes out of your counseling room has been very enlightening and I think perhaps warrants a podcast on church and singleness. It is a great topic, and it is interesting in my work to see how over time some needs never go away. It doesn’t matter if I’m working with a 55-year-old single or a 20-year-old single. And singleness in and of itself does create some unique challenges both with decision making and dealing with expectations for the future.

And so, there’s just a lot of ground there to cover. And I think our title says a lot just when we say the church and singleness. This message that we want to share is not to singles only but is to the wide church audience. Right. I think that is an important thing to bring up because there’s a lot that we can learn from each other.

And so yeah, I’ll be interested to see where this conversation takes us. But at the same time, people seeing the title and knowing the topic, Church and Singleness, I’m bracing myself for what I might hear. Am I overstating that or do you think there is some natural tendency?

No, there is, and as a single person myself, when we first talked about this topic, I was thinking. okay, where could this go? What else could we talk about? So, you’ve just raised the bar here for what we’re going to have to get done. Oh boy. And to say something fresh, new and important.

But this is not just an Apostolic Christian unique difficulty in terms of singleness, the church, and that type of thing. Is that true? Would we find in Christendom at large that singleness provides challenges? It does, and I think it’s easier to have the grass is greener syndrome where we expect that, oh, this church over here has it figured out.

Or you know, if this wasn’t a factor in my life, this would happen. And honestly, there are some things that the Apostolic Christian Church does really well in how we can support our singles. And then there are some things that can make it difficult. And so, we’ll try to talk through some of those different pieces.

Perhaps the vernacular or the innuendos will be Apostolic Christian based. That’s where it’s going to come out of. That’s our perspective. But I think some of the concepts that we will hopefully share in this podcast will have a lot of value in the larger Christian audience.

So, cast a little bit of a vision for what we want and tend to do with this podcast. Well, this is going to be a series of three talks, but this first one we’re really going to focus on just what is this current landscape of singleness in the church? And then teeing up the topic and saying, okay, here are the terms. Here’s the situation. Can you identify that? Yeah. And I think our listeners will say, okay, that makes sense. And that’s my experience. Then we’ll try to move into that and dig a little deeper in the second talk, where we’ll actually look at some of the theology and how singleness is really lived out in Scriptures.

What can we glean from that? And then the third talk being a little bit more practical application. So, what do we do with this information that we’ve been talking about? Where do we go from here? So, as we launch into the current landscape here in part one, let’s talk about the term singleness. I mean, is that our first point of friction that we have these categories?

I would say so, because even as you think about singleness, there’s a big difference between the single individual who is 60 years old and widowed, maybe a grandfather, and the 20-year-old never married individual to the 45-year-old professional or the 30-year-old divorcee.

There’s just a lot different in all of those who fall into that category of single, right. So, sometimes the problem is, we paint with too broad of a brush. And we say married and single. And in some way think that these titles say all.  But they fall very short, don’t they?

They really do. You know, I even think, as you said, the 20-year-old single. Okay. So, that’s something that virtually everybody has experience, so there’s like a common singleness. If you could use that term. And so perhaps one of the areas that some of us fall into is we think we understand what it means to be single.

Right? Yeah. And we really don’t. We understand maybe common singleness or specific singleness but it’s far more diverse than being that simplistic. Right. And I think that’s where some of the church’s words fall flat at times when they’re speaking in very generalized ways.

And so, it doesn’t really speak of the unique challenges of the 45-year-old? What are the unique challenges to this person over here? So, we need to dig a little deeper at times than those broad labels. Amber, let’s speak to the definition or the vocabulary definition of singleness, because often I think we’ll find that the definitions we use, or the working definitions fall short of perhaps true meaning.

And so, I think singleness at the outset casts a vision of being alone. One who is by himself is single. But the Greek use of the word singleness in the Scriptures is something far different, isn’t that right? It is the Greek word haplo, which is actually defined as complete and sound and whole. How very contrary, right?

How diverse from the typical use of singleness. It can almost be derogatory when someone feels that it is their label or that it is the category they fit into. You know what’s interesting when you use the definition for singleness as it’s used in the Scripture, we see then that actually marriage is a type of singleness in a sense, right?

Being devout, sound, and devoted to a person, marriage in some sense, is another layer of singleness. Now we’re starting to blur singles and marrieds. We understand that we identify with and we’re very much in stride with one another. It’s just that singleness is maybe a bit more directional than it is a status, I guess, as I’m processing that definition. Yeah, and so it is important to think through that. I would say, on the flip side, that a single person could lead a life where they are not directional in their focus and they can be very distracted by the cares of this world and getting very caught up in dreams that are not coming to pass.

And so it’s a challenge to all of us, married and single alike. Are you leading a life that is following that word, haplos, where you are complete in Christ, where you are looking for him and pointed toward him? And singleness is far from being alone, isn’t it, Amber? It is. I need other people who see my life and who can offer accountability along with mental and emotional support on my day-to-day walk.

And so, that is a challenge, I would say to the single, that you need to think through that. Who are those individuals around me that see me and who I am connected to? That sense of connection is extremely important for a single person. Amber, I would say some of the people in my life who have taught me about healthy relationships are these folks who fall in the single category.

You know, we’ve just talked about how this term falls flat, but our single brothers and sisters in Christ, it seems that their lifestyle is very entwined with relationship. And they model relationship wonderfully. And for a married person like me, I’ve benefited a great deal. And so, them being single in the sense of being alone does not match at all. Right. I think sometimes we can look at verses in the Bible or we hear verses across the pulpit, and they’re always taken in a marriage context.

When God created Eve as a helpmeet. It’s not good for man to be alone. Right. And sometimes we think that only applies to a marriage relationship; therefore, I must get married to fulfill that instead of actually seeking out relationships that I can have in my life that serve as a help to me. And so that’s a wonderful note there in Scripture where two is better than one. Right. Which might be another one that is as much for singles as they are for marriage. These do not lend themselves necessarily as a command to get married or a mandate to get married.

Right. But it is saying we need to be in a relationship with one another. And singles do that wonderfully. I think of Paul. A single man, right? And his accolades for Epaphroditus and in Philippians he says, he’s my brother. He’s my companion in labor. He’s my fellow soldier. He that administers to my wants.

You can get a sense that Paul and Epaphroditus thought very highly of each other. He understood that relationship in a number of different ways. And how impactful that was for him. And there is, I guess, case in point. Yeah. A single man, not single at all without relationships. But he is clearly focused and has a brother alongside him.

That’s a really great example to think about, and the Scripture is just full of single individuals that God clearly designated as single for a divine purpose. And yet I think sometimes as a church culture and as a culture just in general, we can very much push the need to have a significant other to complete you.

And so again, just how this idea of singleness actually in Scripture is very countercultural to what we encounter today. Let’s talk about that completion part. I mean, because that’s a heavy statement, right? I need somebody to complete me. Does that follow good biblical understanding or is that, is that off track?

I would say it’s very off track. I think that a person’s going to be seeking a long time if they’re looking for another person or another status to fulfill that, another completion outside of Christ. So that leads us maybe to some inaccurate views, because I think that is a view that we kind of bring in as kind of a little bit of a notion that, oh, I need to be completed by somebody and even sets a person off in search of somebody who. Can never really rise to that. Right. And we put expectations on one another to complete us. Right. As opposed to being in fellowship or being in relationship with. So anyway, we’re kind of treading into some deeper waters here, but what are some inaccurate views that we’ve brought along here?

I think the whole idea of completeness brings up this concept that I have less value if I’m not married, and then that can almost bring on this idea that singleness is something to be feared as well. What does that say about me? Am I not attractive enough? Am I not smart enough? Am I not spiritually mature enough to move on to this next stage of life? And so that can leave people reeling as they, they contemplate, what does this look like for me? Why is this not happening in my life when it seems to be this expectation that needs to be in place? And so there is a fear there that this is just a phase.

Right? Yeah. There can almost be this desperation sometimes of what a married life would look like. Again, going back to what we were talking about earlier by myself and that fear of how I even meet relational needs. Amber, let’s linger a bit more on this concept of moving on from your counseling experience.

Is this only a common struggle among singles, as we’ve called it? A struggle of the 20 somethings. It’s a great question, and I think another misconception is that it’s only applicable to younger people, younger singles. But the reality is that it doesn’t change over time. Like I said earlier, when I work with older individuals and there still may be that desire to be married.

And so, it’s something that doesn’t change with time. I think what that helps, Amber, is it helps us normalize and understand that, hey, this is an identity, this is an issue that’s not just to the 20 somethings or 30 somethings but is ongoing. For those brothers and sisters who find themselves in singleness and some of these inaccurate views and concepts are still very present in their thinking. And how do we as a church come around them and help provide that definition and that support? And how can we stop making it worse?

But I think those are some of our targets, some of our goals for this podcast. Right. What other inaccurate views, Amber do you find surface among singles? I notice a lot of times there can be this sense of having less value than my married counterpart. I think singles can get the sense that maybe I don’t add up or I don’t measure up to this person over here spiritually or relationally or whatever that may look like. And so just all sorts of things.

Without question there can be comments from family members, well, once you are married then this will happen. Or once this happens, and so you start to feel like, okay, I’m just hanging out here and I’m less valued, you know? I think information like this, Amber, is really important. Things have surfaced that have gone unnoticed for me such as that there is a struggle there of less value. I’m not as valuable because I am not married. And that is toxic. Isn’t it? It really is because sometimes that can almost leave a person questioning again, where do I fit?

And if they aren’t finding that in the church, they may try to seek that fulfillment and that acceptance or that completion elsewhere. And then we go to the Scriptures. And I think this is where we’ve previously said that we may say some things in this podcast that I think may challenge our listenership, right? And some of the things maybe you haven’t heard said quite like that before or that hasn’t been your inclination. And perhaps as a disclaimer, I personally have gone through this as I’ve engaged you on this topic and have heard a little bit from your experiences.

You’ve got many touch points and data points on this, but let’s take a comment of Paul’s, for example. He says that if you are married, seek not to be loosed, and if you are loosed, seek not to be married. In similar ways, he talked about circumcision. If you are circumcised, seek not to be uncircumcised. If you’re uncircumcised, seek not to be circumcised.

At the end of the day, circumcision means nothing, whether you are or you are not, they’re of equal value, plain and simple. I think you have to come to that same conclusion with his vernacular there, that marriage status, based on what he said there in Corinthians 7, is of equal value. Not one over the other.

It’s true and I think even as we look at some of those examples in Scripture, Jesus himself, and I know we can get into this more another day, but Jesus was single. Jesus himself was single, and it would’ve been very easy for him to be married if that was a commandment or something that he wanted us to follow.

I think that is the most refreshing example, Amber, and an important one to make that Jesus was single. And we shouldn’t be too hasty to provide an explanation on why he needed to be single because he certainly did not. Right. He could have done it however, and he saw the single life to be the best way to walk his mission. I think people can almost have a fear, like, maybe this is my calling. Maybe I am going to be single for the rest of my life. And I guess at the end of the day, we don’t want people to have to face that question with fear. Okay, Lord, I am in this stage of life for right now. I don’t know how long I’m going to be here but help me live this life joyfully. Help me look for opportunities. Help me remember that this isn’t a life lived alone, but a life lived with purpose and direction.

And we talk about the sanctity of marriage, and we should, and I think perhaps maybe another lens to think about this podcast, the intention of this podcast would have a sanctity of singleness component that would come alongside the sanctity of marriage and provide a context for the blessings of relationships, whether they are single or married. And that singleness isn’t to be feared in the sense that you cannot be complete. Yeah, but you can be more complete than you’ve ever been. Just as marriage can provide completeness as well in the sense that God has ordained it.

Does that make sense? It does. At the end of the day, we want people to be able to say, married or single, I am content and excited about the stage of life that I am in and what God has for me, how he can use me and my mission. I’m excited for our next episode, Amber, because I think once we see that longer narrative of the Bible and we see how singleness fits into that narrative beautifully as well as marriage does, I think that’s going to provide perhaps a bit of vision and a bit of understanding that can support some of the comments that we’ve made already concerning singleness. Thanks.

Amber Miller is back with me today for our second episode in our podcast series, The church and singleness. Welcome back Amber. Thanks Matt. We promised big things in the last episode. Amber, we gave the landscape of the church and singleness. We talked about how that term falls so short in describing individuals in this group and we talked about, and we challenged some inappropriate thinking about singleness. 

So, when we say that singleness sets forward the gospel or it is a wonderful model of New Testament living, what are we talking about? Well, you know, it’s interesting because even as we look at different examples in the Bible, we see how clearly God used their marital status and we see how that wasn’t a limiting factor in their lives, but rather a way that moved forward, their ministry and their messages. 

So, let’s provide a little bit of detail. Let’s provide some examples. I think the most obvious one that we’ve mentioned before too, is just Jesus himself. Yeah. And the fact that he lived his life single here on earth where he could have gotten married, but he didn’t have that as a part of his life. 

And so, by his singleness, we see a sense of sufficiency in himself. Which is a large part of his message, the sufficiency in Christ. The Bible really is full. I feel like a way that I learn is by looking through characters in the Bible and learning from their stories. 

And another one that comes to mind, we don’t want to forget any women here, would be Anna. Perfect. Yeah. And I think of how God used her as a widow and put her in a very unique position where she was able to see Jesus, what an amazing honor for her to be able to have that experience as a prophetess, to be able to be in that position where she probably wouldn’t have been and she had communion with God and he was able to impart into her some understanding and prophecy that no other person had outside of Simeon and a few others.  

You know what I like about that example too, Amber, is Anna was not single her whole life. She was married at a time, so then she moved into this single life. Right. We all have common singleness as we’ve described it. You know, maybe early twenties or whatnot. So, we all experience singleness sometimes in our life. Some move into it and some move out of it. I think that’s a really important point for people to remember too is just how God uses the different stages of life that we find ourselves in and just remembering that there’s no mistake in that. God is clearly working and moving to put you in the marriage that you need to be in or in the single state that you need to be in to fulfill his purpose for you. 

I think another wonderful example is Daniel. Daniel was likely single. What do we learn from Daniel? We see Daniel as being a solely devoted eunuch to his Heavenly Father King in the context with the backdrop of an earthly kingdom. Isn’t that phenomenal? And his single state was a visible testimony of his life. That’s not an accident, is it? It’s amazing to think through some of the lessons that we can learn as we see how these individuals lived out their life and what God did with them, and I’m so thankful that we have those examples to look to. In the Old Testament covenant marriage and children were very central to God’s favor and God’s covenant. 

Am I right on that? Right. So, provide a little bit of that description. When we talk about the old covenant and move into the new covenant in a sense of following the narrative of the Bible and see singleness with that backdrop. As we look at just different people in the Old Testament, you see how their lives revolved around children and being able to bear children. 

I think of women like Rachel and Leah and the fights that went on there and the struggle there. Leah was able to have children, and Rachel was not for a while. I think of Hannah and her desperation to have a child, and again, to pass along this lineage, this heritage, because after all, the promise to Abraham was what? Children. We even have the infertility of Sarah woven into this theme. God uses this, doesn’t he? It is quite amazing really to see how God has used infertility or barrenness, yet it’s central to his covenant. It’s like he’s going someplace with this. 

Right. He is very intentional about the things that we have in the Old Testament, and so we can learn a lot from them. So, a few of the people that would be on the outskirts of this Old Testament covenant whereby their blessings of God are children and a land and inheritance and those types of things. 

Right. Who would be the infertile? Strangers. So, the stranger would be like the Gentile. Certainly, the promises of Abraham are not to them. So, you have the stranger and then the single. That is why Jeremiah’s singleness, Daniel’s singleness would’ve been decried and mourned for by the normative Jew. But God uses that singleness to tell a larger story. You know, I think of Isaiah 56, he prophesied neither let the son of the stranger that hath joined himself to the Lord speak, saying the Lord has utterly separated me from his people. Neither let the eunuch say, behold, I am a dry tree. For thus say the Lord, I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.  

To give a eunuch a name that would be everlasting is absolutely incongruent to a Jewish mindset. How can a name be everlasting if children don’t pass it on. And I think as you look through this message, you see the very spiritual sense and the message that was starting to come across, and that has continued with Jesus’ message in the New Testament. 

I love it that you’re going there now, Amber, take us to the New Testament, because obviously prophesying of this day that’s coming. Let’s go to Mark 3. And in that passage at the end of the chapter, Jesus is actually sitting with a multitude of people, and his mother and his brethren come seeking him. And in verse 32, as they pick up here, and the multitude said unto him, behold thy mother and thy brethren without seek for thee. And he answered them saying, who is my mother and my brethren. And he looked around about him, which sat about him and said, behold my mother and my brethren. For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother and my sister and my mother. 

Wow. And so suddenly you see how he is expanding that sense of family to those who are following him. I have struggled with that passage because I’ve thought, Jesus, it seems to me you dissed your mom and your family, doesn’t it sound like that? A little bit. I mean, I’ve struggled with that personally as I’ve read that. 

What does he mean by that? But now with that explanation, it makes it all the more beautiful that he’s not necessarily putting down his natural family, but he’s raising up a new one. He’s using that as a teachable moment to say, no there is a new family that I am bringing about here. 

And that would’ve been very stark language because in that day and time, your natural family was something that you had allegiance to. And you know, it’s interesting because we talk about this in the context of back then, but yet it’s still something that I think people can struggle with today. And let me take this a step further here. Even in our church where we have a very rich heritage. Where our faith has been passed down from generation to generation and that means. And yet I think that strength can become one of our church’s weaknesses where maybe we need to be looking at the point are we really reaching out to visitors? 

Amber, that’s Miller, right? Right. You’re Miller? Miller. Yes. Oh, then you must be, no, I’m sorry, that’s a Mueller. Yeah. Oh, well, I’m not related to them either. Nice weather outside, isn’t it today, Amber? Yeah. So, we make these family connections, right? Because that’s a blessing of our church and we want that, but then we realize that, oh, I need to cradle this understanding of blessing and family and generational connection carefully. Because that can be offensive to you, right? Right. Because you feel like you are the stranger or the outskirts of this larger family, which Jesus is saying in Mark, as you’ve mentioned. Behold my brothers and sisters, right. 

We can joke about it and we find ourselves doing it so easily. We’re trying to make conversation and it’s an easy habit to fall into. Now as I think about these questions and as I engage with people at church, I am thinking more broadly about what it means that they are my brother and my sister. That’s one thing that our church does. We have that vocabulary to think carefully about what actually I am saying and how it is in step with New Testament living and in step with Jesus’s instructions. It gives you an eternal perspective, so to speak, because it helps you remember that this world, that these dynamics that I find myself right now are not necessarily outlined. 

I want to accent that point, Amber, because I think it is very powerful. And to say singleness is a visible testimony that is eternal in nature. Okay. And I would like to play that out because I totally agree with you. Using the passage that you mentioned, marriage and family are very rooted in this earth. I have five children, that means I’m thinking about this earth. I am watching the elections. I am thinking about 20 years from now, 50 years from now, I’m thinking about a hundred years from now. But that is different for a single who finds sufficiency in Christ and that trajectory is eternal. 

And that’s a wonderful, visible testimony of singleness. Right. And I think that it has to be balanced too with the perspective that while we are here on earth, we need to build up our heavenly family. And so, making the effort to invest in those around us as single, it’s important to have that eternal perspective. And yet at the same time remember that doesn’t discount or ignore your responsibility here on Earth to be mentoring, to be reaching out to those that are younger than you and training them up and teaching them about truth. And in that sense, you have spiritual progeny, don’t you? You have spiritual seed. 

We now are living in new covenant times where our children are not by the will of the flesh. Isn’t that what John 1 says? And when John 1 says this, but as many as received him to them, gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name. So, that’s how you become a son, believe on his name, which were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. 

And so, we see there is a wonderful start of the gospels that he’s saying, hey, listen up. We’ve come into a new covenant era now. Where progeny is not physical in propagation, but spiritual. And now we have Paul. We haven’t even mentioned Paul as single. Which is fine. Because he’s always the go-to person with singleness. We have enough examples without him. But let’s use him as an example because he would refer to those that he cared for as children, didn’t he? Yeah. You would very much see him as a father, and yet he had none of his own children. 

But isn’t that amazing? When you think of him, when you think of the messages and his letters that we have now and that we learn from, he is a father to all of us. Even today, as you were saying that I was thinking right with you. I am in a sense a product of Paul. Spiritually. Why? Because some of what Paul wrote has helped me believe. And I’ve just read there in John 1 to him who believes becomes the child of God. So, if we can contribute to the faith and the belief of others, we then become fathers and mothers in that sense, right? 

You know what, here’s the bottom line, Amber, that comes to me as we have this conversation. I think this is so important. Okay, and it’s this, the church needs singleness, right? The church needs singles. Singleness is not something that needs to be solved. It’s not something that needs to be eradicated. In fact, without the singles, we lose all that can be gained by this visible testimony that they walk. Right? So, as we move then for that context, what does it mean now that the church understands that we need singles? Because I don’t know that we’ve always operated necessarily under that paradigm. 

Right. My mind immediately goes to responsibilities and how sometimes it can almost seem like there are certain responsibilities that are for our singles like going to nursing home singings or maybe they need to babysit or things like that. Those aren’t bad things. 

Sure. If we say that the church needs singles, do we esteem them? If we esteem them, that will bear out in their responsibilities. We would be looking at their gifting. We would consider them for Sunday school teachers for preaching positions, for ways where their messages can be heard and their examples to be noticed. 

Amber, I wanted you to answer this as a single? Okay. Because you can speak to this, but I perceive that church is a difficult place for singles at times. Is that true? It really should be one of the easiest places and one of the most welcoming places for a single and yet there are certainly times where it can be very difficult, so I want you to speak on behalf of singles to help us as the church understand some of the finer points that say, hey, listen, this is why church can be a difficult place. 

Well, I think sometimes people, going back to what we were talking about earlier, can almost be unsure of where they fit in. Maybe they haven’t been given any responsibilities in church or maybe they don’t have anywhere to go on a Sunday evening. Even just where to sit sometimes I think about baptisms and maybe going through for the meal afterward or standing in line at a reception. 

You know, sometimes people can feel very intimidated. Singles can feel very intimidated by those things and having to do those alone. And so just a message for the church would be, are we making singles feel welcome? Is there a difference in our head? And does that difference between us cause us to behave differently? 

And I think what we’re suggesting here, since the church needs singles, we would understand them to be a vibrant and important part. And so that fellowship would bear that out. And I think about this a little bit too in the context of comments that can come up at church. We talked about our family names and then what’s another very typical question? How are your kids doing?  And when they don’t have that topic of conversation to share, I think sometimes people don’t know what to ask them, and even sometimes say very unhelpful or hurtful comments like, why aren’t you married yet? Again, people can be very well-meaning in those words, but yet for a single, that might come across in a different way than what was intended.  

And I think your comments just raise the importance for us to be sensitive. But I think some of the undergirding of that sensitivity based on what we’ve talked about is to see the importance and the sanctity of singleness. And then what first comes as a label for us now has become a beautiful title. Does that make sense? Right. And I think that changes things. Amber, thank you for helping bring clarity to the overall purposes and the beauty of singleness. And just as a bit of a recap, think about visible testimony.  

God has throughout time, used our marital status as a visible testimony and to those who are married, part of that visible testimony is the example of love, commitment, submission, unity, and to the single, that wonderful visible testimony of one who is sufficient in Christ. Which is such a huge message of the Word of God. And that’s where I think we’re going to go in the third part as we start to look a little bit at the application here, because it’s not easy being single and we’re not saying that it’s easy to be married for that matter. But there are some unique challenges, and we want to address some of those unique challenges head on.  

So, we look forward to that conversation. Thanks so much to our listeners for coming alongside us. And we do have singleness resources on our website at accounseling.org. You’ll find buttons there that point towards singleness and you’ll find a number of different links there to certain resources that have been provided for help in this calling. 

Welcome back to Breaking Bread for our final episode and discussion on the church and singleness. Amber Miller is back with me. Good morning, Amber. Morning Matt. In the last one, we really talked about how singleness is not something to be solved. In fact, the church needs singleness to be a visible testimony of the New Testament covenant. 

Sufficiency in Christ. But that doesn’t make it easy, does it? Unfortunately, no. And we don’t want to cast this as an easy calling or as an easy stage for all of us. And for some, a calling. Right. Going back to, I think the first in common definition of singleness that most people would think of is alone. 

Single. Yeah. Double is with two, triple is with three. Single is with one. Is healthy singleship, if there’s such a word, learning to live in isolation? Is that where it’s at? That is not our end goal. And I think sometimes people look at it like I’m doomed to living this life alone. 

I think that’s what comes to their mind. And yet the reality is that when you look at Scripture again, I think of Ecclesiastes, two are better than one. Genesis, it is not good for man to be alone. Those verses don’t just speak to marriage, and they speak to our need for accountability. They speak to our need for others that can call us out on different things and challenge us and sharpen us. 

I think this is a very significant point then, Amber, that for one to live out their singleness well is not necessarily a mastering of isolation for the points that you’ve just made. Scripturally we have been created for relationships. Right. And relationships are vital to our sanctification. 

Right? And so, the life of singleness in a way is a life of learning relationships. It is a life lived in community, essentially. And I think about just how many relationships singles can have that can refine them. I think immediately we go to the marriage relationship as a very refining process. 

Yeah. But yet for singles that don’t have that built in refinement of a spouse, they can get refined through their relationship of caring for aging parents or their relationship with that roommate that is super difficult to get along with or those coworkers that they have. How do they share the gospel with them? 

Singles need to be masters of relationships, almost superior to marriage. Okay, I mean, explain that. I think by default sometimes, and I’m speaking from a married person, I’m mostly speaking out of my life as a default. I can invest in one relationship. It’s a paramount relationship with my spouse. 

And so, a lot of those other relationships find a backseat or drop off entirely. Right. And I’m not even saying that it’s healthy. I’m saying that can happen. But singles, to do singleness well, need to do relationships well. And then that also now tees up the importance of church. 

Right, because much of that context is in church. Because it does speak to the fact that as a church body, we need to be able to interact well with one another. We need to be able to expand our invitations that we don’t just stay with our extended family or we don’t just stay with our little potluck group that we have over here, but that we are reaching out to those in different age ranges to those who are in different points in their life, and make sure that they’re included as well. Because we can really learn and grow from one another.  

Let’s go back to Paul as the quintessential example of New Testament living as a single person, but he wasn’t a lone ranger. Right. In Philippians, he talks about Epaphroditus. His friend Paul was able to do what he did because he lived out singleness. Well, he lived out singleness well because he lived out relationships well. Right. And I think a tendency for singles is to isolate or to feel sorry for themselves at times. And so, this is not just a plea to the church to make them feel more welcome but also to the single to make those investments relationally. 

Because it isn’t easy to ask this person over here for accountability. It is a lot easier to just go home at night after work and be by yourself. And again, some of it speaks to personality as well. And I just think sometimes how singles can go through multiple groups of friends as this wave. And some of my close peers in this generation get married and then I’m left in the young group and so now I’m becoming friends with those younger than me and all of a sudden, another wave comes through. 

And this happens multiple times. And so, I would just encourage those that do get married and, in a sense, move into a different stage to remember to seek out and to maintain those relationships with single friends. Now I’m going to try to put my finger on something Amber, that I’ve got no experience with, but it’s just an outsider looking in based on what you’ve said. 

Singles in a sense, when we talk about relationships, endure a component of relationship that marrieds pray we don’t. And that is transitioning in and out of relationships. Right. You do that more often, don’t you? Right. Which can be why we isolate. Right. I’m tired of in and out of relationships. And so, it’s easier not to get in them than to have them broken all the time. Exactly. That has to be a real challenge as you think about how that could happen multiple times for a single person who enters their thirties or forties, and they watch this happen over and over again. It can be very hard to still put forth investment in those whom they feel will only be around for a couple years and then they’re going to leave again and move on.  

And so, it can be a real challenge point. Yeah. You are pressed towards that sufficiency in Christ again. Which is the large visible testimony that a single person embodies. Right. And that is, I think, one way that you do it, where you press into relationships just as Christ pressed into relationships and was burnt. And he’s being burned in relationships all the time. Does that make sense? It does. It’s very fair to say, I think we need to be clear what we mean by Christian singleness. Because right now, I think even a secular listener could listen to this and identify with a lot of what we said, but our culture thinks of singleness very differently, don’t they? Right. They think of singleness as being a marital status only. That means you are not committed in marriage to a person. 

Or in a dating relationship. But Christ and Scripture call us to singleness on another level. And I know a lot of our listeners know this, but let’s be clear about what that means. Yeah, I mean, the first thing that comes to my mind is even how the world will push us toward independence. And when they think about singleness, it’s every man for himself and bettering yourself through your profession and all these things. And Christ’s message would be very much selflessness. And so, as a Christian single, that is one of the main things that we need to be living out as being selfless in our lives. 

And now I’m going to jump in there with a question. Are you saying then that singleness can tend towards a life of selfishness if not properly maintained. I very much think so. I think it can be very easy to get into routines to start to feel entitled or to almost excuse behavior at times. 

And so, it’s a caution again to have people that see into your life to make sure that you are giving financially, that you are investing in relationships, that you are not just building up for yourself and at the same time building up walls around you because you’ve been hurt by your friends moving on. Or you’ve been hurt by this and that, that’s happened over time. Those disappointments, hence, the importance of those relationships help ground you.  

What other dichotomies do we have as we look at culture’s idea of singleness and the church and Christ’s ideas? Well, I think one of the biggest challenges when you look at the difference between how we would hope a Christian single person would live versus how a single person in the world would live would be just their sexuality and being a steward of that. 

I think in our culture right now, we can very much be defined by our sexuality, and yet when we try to live a life through the Bible, we are finding our identity in Christ, not in our sexuality. I think this warrants some pause, Amber, because you’re absolutely right. The culture has no category for celibacy. And you mentioned that identity piece. I think you’re so right. Just think of the language that we’re throwing around in today’s culture. Homosexual, bisexual, heterosexual. They all are identities in a sense where you say, which one of these you are. Well, how does the celibate single person have the right to say, I am heterosexual? The world would say, then, in order to be your identity, you need to act that out, right? And so, we have interwoven sexuality with who we are. And now Christ is calling some to be celibate, which means, well, I can’t live out my identity. We have a conundrum. 

Right? And I think the reality is that we have been designed as sexual beings and yet, what does that mean for single people, like you just mentioned, when you can’t live out that piece of your life? Well, first off, it means attention in the sense that we are being pulled in opposite directions. 

Instead of trying to solve that tension, we need to figure out how to live with it. Okay. That may sound a little bit foreign to some, but yet the reality is that’s not going to go away. Even with marriage, it’s not going to go away. You know, I think sometimes people wish that they could just turn off their sexuality until they were in a marriage relationship, and that just doesn’t happen. 

That’s going to ebb and flow over time with hormones that come along and relationships and attraction and all these different pieces that are going to come into play. But another thing to consider is that this isn’t just a male issue. I think that sometimes that’s what it’s set up to be, that all men struggle with this, and yet I know many women that I’ve worked with that have been almost afraid to bring this up because they feel like they’re so abnormal and that’s not the case. 

Again, going back to the fact that we have been designed as sexual beings, and so as single believers, we are trying to figure out how to live with this tension because it’s not something that you can just automatically shut off. Yeah. And I appreciate the normalizing that you did there, Amber, to acknowledge that, hey, this is what it is, and this is the reality of it. 

But also, to maybe make departure from our common culture to say, yes, we are sexual beings, but we are holy sexual beings. Right? And what that means to be a holy sexual being, you know, heterosexual, bisexual, homosexual believers are holy sexual. That means our sexuality is brought into conformity to the worship of God. And however he’s prescribed it, that’s where fulfillment is done. Sometimes, I struggle a little bit, and I’ve talked to singles with this struggle who say we’re always told celibacy for marriage. Right? Well, in a sense, maybe for common singleness that works. But not in the larger scope of what God calls singleness to be. 

Right. If marriage doesn’t come into fruition, then they ask the question, why then have I saved myself? So, that cannot be the end. There must be a larger, better answer for celibacy, and I think it is critical to remember that. Learning how to deal with this tension, learning how to deal with your sexuality is a process, and I would ask people to consider this question, what if this process is my end goal, so to speak? What if the process of sanctification and learning to live with this tension is really where I’m at instead of it being part of God’s intention. 

Instead of, I’m saving myself for marriage, or I’m doing this because I have to, or things like that. Yeah. You know, I wouldn’t be so dogmatic to share what I’m going to share now, being married, I don’t feel like I’m qualified, but I had this conversation with a single person who brought this testimony of just exactly what you said. This person said to me that they realized in a moment of temptation when they turned away and followed worship, God’s design for celibacy. And they realized that it was at that very moment that they worshiped very deeply. That is holy sexuality. And that then brought perspective to them to say this is how I can fulfill this exactly in that tension. It’s not getting out from underneath that tension, but it was the obedience in that tension.  

And maybe if I can even draw this example, and I hope this hits right, but when we fast, as the Scriptures call us to fast, what do we do? We agree with the sufficiency of God’s Word as being bread to us. Right. That’s when I fast. That’s what I do. I agree with God’s Word as being sufficient, and when a single is celibate, they also agree with the sufficiency of Christ. That right there is worship.  

It’s interesting as we’re talking about this, just to even think through the reality that this is a process in learning how to deal with sexual urges and temptations that come our way. And in that reality, I find that we are very alike, married and single, and that this is a human issue. This is not just a singleness issue. This is not just a man issue, whatever that may look like, but this is a common issue, and the solution is common, which is that deeper communion with the Lord.  

I appreciate that, Amber. I can speak for marriages that practice abstinence. Singles practice abstinence. And in some ways, they are very similar. We all are holy sexual beings, and our flesh pushes so hard to act out in unholy ways. Whether you’re single or married, you fight this battle to maintain holy sexuality. Amber, I had the unique opportunity to be in a conversation with an individual who’s been called to singleness and celibacy. Okay. As part of his calling and his ministry and in conversation I was able to ask him directly about how he lives that out and what are the helps. And he said first he did it for his flock, for the people he ministered to. And you know, he said that didn’t work. It wasn’t enough to do it for another group of people. And then he thought, you know what, I’m going to do it for God. 

This is going to be for Jesus and my love for him. And he said that wasn’t where it was either. And so, when pressed, what it was, he said it was when I understood my identity as being a settled son of the Father. He painted this picture of when he came to the understanding of his relationship with his Father God and his Father’s relationship with him, similar to our children, when they are settled in their love by their parents. They are less promiscuous. Studies would show that. Does that make sense? Yeah. There is a settled relationship there and he then brought that to this level of his settled identity in Christ. That has allowed him to say, I don’t need to. It’s amazing what can actually be stirred up from that settledness and that acceptance that I am a child of God. That security, I guess, is what I would call it. 

And that can come from the understanding when we have that as our foundation, that makes all the difference in the world with how we deal with some of these issues that come our way. I’m not trying to create or redefine myself through this relationship or that label or role. It’s a beautiful thing. I don’t need an answer to my life. Apart from Christ, I’m broken. I think this all speaks to what we’ve already said about this being a visible testimony to the sufficiency of Christ. That’s really what he said. When I realized that I was a living testimony, a visible testimony of the sufficiency we have in Christ, all of a sudden, my needs get recalibrated, reorganized, reprioritized.  

We’re going to bring this podcast series to a close. We’ve entitled it The Church and Singleness. We wanted to take this opportunity to learn from one another. In some ways we are not that different. We have unique challenges. We have unique blessings with our stage of life or where we’re at. And not only to understand our similarities but understand our beautiful differences. Right? And I hope that that will be some of the outgrowth of this podcast series that we have expressed some differences, but those differences are beautiful in the sense that now I understand that my single brothers and sisters are visible testimonies of the sufficiency we have in Christ. That’s something I can really appreciate.  

Right. I can lean into that. I can pray according to that. I can encourage according to that. Yeah. Another thing that I would say to single people. I would challenge you to reach out and to invest in your churches, invest in relationships. You don’t know necessarily how long you’re going to be in this stage of life. 

You don’t know if this is a calling for the rest of your life, but to make those investments and to not fall into the temptation of just saying somebody else will do it, to look for those opportunities. I think it’s very easy as a single to fall into the trap of martyrdom that I’m the only one who knows what it’s like or no one gets me and everybody thinks I need to be fixed or that I’m not right, or I can’t do this or that. 

And to recognize that the struggles your married brothers and sisters have are very similar to your own in a lot of ways. And so, to make those investments with them, even when it’s hard, even when you’re tired after a long day of work, even when you have to run errands on the weekend, all of those sorts of things. We’ve maybe suggested that marriages have always wrongly perceived singles. 

And I think that’s been an overstatement. By and large, I think you would probably be relieved to know what a healthy view everybody in your church has of you. And so just a caution to single people not to be too easily offended and to take some of those comments or those well-meaning words as just that. They are trying to be helpful, and they have maybe never been in your particular stage of life. 

And so, they might not know what that sounds like. And as we close this series our prayer and hope would be for marriages to see the sanctity of that marriage. And how they’re a wonderful, visible testimony of love and devotion, submission, and unity. And for single people to see their wonderful, visible testimony of the sufficiency and supremacy of Christ, and that they embody all the blessings of the New Testament covenant. 

And that the church needs single people, the single people need and find definition in the church. And I think now we’re off on a good start to living in this community embodying the gospel and showing that to the world. So, thank you for that. And again, to our listeners, we trust that this could have been a podcast series where truly the bread of life in Christ Jesus was broken and shared to meet the needs that we have in marriages, singleness, in church. 

Again, please find other helpful resources at our website at accounseling.org. Thanks.