Why Are Today's Churches So Hostile At Matured Singles ? I'm puzzled about why in most churches matured singles (Executive Bachelors/Spinsters, Single Parents & Youthful widows/widowers) are not discipled in their singleness. Let's be objective here, singleness is not a disease, and marriage is neither the cure.
Agreed, singleness is sometimes a struggle and people in that season are sometimes miserable or discouraged or weary, but you could say the same thing about marriage, right? And we are not scripturally allowed to offer miserable married people divorces; we teach them how to grow and persevere in the midst of the difficulties.
I have never, not even once, been encouraged to persevere in my singleness because I could do something with it that I couldn’t otherwise do for God. Instead, I’ve been encouraged to look forward to marriage. I have never heard a sermon in which a pastor preaching on I Corinthians 7 spotted on the sentence “being single is being preferable…..”
Instead, Ephesians 5 gets more loudly pronounced attention than I Corinthians 7. And when most pastors do preach on the passage in Corinthians that includes the bit about being single, they always transit quickly to, “BUT….if your sex drive is too high…and it probably is….then it isn’t wrong to get married. Marriage is never a regulator of untamable libido but Holy Spirit our sanctifier who daily mortifies carnal manifestations in us".
Rather than teaching the culture of self-discipline to singles instead, most churches are busy sending their singles off into the university of marriage. They are too eager to conduct your premarital counseling, HIV & pregnancy test (with the defaulters hunting motive. Lol) and wedding. But if you choose to remain single, what will the church provide for you? Umm……
Christianity is radical, right? Following Jesus means taking up a cross and following him, right? And Jesus was poor and single, right? If our faith is so radical, why don’t we encourage people to make radical choices ? Why don’t pastors stand up in front of their congregations and preach on I Corinthians 7 and challenge people to consider whether, for the sake of the Gospel, they can put off marriage (at least for a season) to do something for God and others that they couldn’t do if they were married?
There’s an opportunity cost for every choice we make in life. The opportunity cost for being single is dealing with loneliness and celibacy. What’s the opportunity cost of marriage? Well, an enormous amount of time, tons of energy, and a couple of millions of naira in setting up a household, throwing a wedding and taking a honeymoon. Has anyone ever dared to ask out loud, “What could we do for the Kingdom if we skipped the wedding and spent that time, energy and money on ministry instead ?” I have never heard anyone ever say that out loud in church. Not just from the pulpit, but in any of the pews.
Do you remember Anna and Simeon ? They were both (presumably) single adults who spent lots of time at the temple, and were the first people to hold baby Jesus when Mary and Joseph brought him to the temple 8 days after he was born.
In today’s churches, I think most pastors who ignorantly claim they specially gifted in match-making would abused their priestly calling by instilling prophetic intimidations into Anna to marry Simeon , but if both parties refused, the pastors swiftly misinform those within the household of faith that, one or both of them was too picky, immature, short-sighted , etc.
In many churches, there are multiple classes for people who are, or who want to be, married. There’s a pre-marital class, a class on marriage, a marriage mentorship program, and a parenting class. There are lots of Christian resources for how to be married. There often aren’t any for how to be single, sensible and spiritual.
For instance, Paul criteria for eldership appointment is that they be “the husband of one wife.” This phrase has caused unbelievable (and, I think, unnecessary) turmoil and pain in the church. Can we agree that “be the husband of one wife” means “If you’re married, honor your vows. Oh, and don’t practice polygamy.”
To interpret it any other way seems weird because, by taking this passage literally, we’d have to disqualify at least two incredible men — Jesus and Paul — from church leadership.
It’s weird to think we’d ban Jesus from ministering to people in our churches. And it’s also bizarre to think that Paul wrote qualifications that disqualified himself from ministry.
