Thread by @MattSmethurst

Recently at @ThirdAvenueBapt I got to teach on the beauty of godly singleness. Several of the quotes I shared—including a few I had to leave on the cutting room floor—are so edifying that I’d like to share them here. I hope this encourages you or someone you love.

Several are from @SamAllberry, since I’d just read his outstanding book “Seven Myths About Singleness,” which you should go ahead and preorder now: amzn.to/2KlHwGh

“Both marriage and singleness point to the gospel. Marriage reflects its shape; singleness reflects its sufficiency.”

—@SamAllberry

“Paul’s concern in 1 Corinthians 7 was not to ask how singleness fits into God’s kingdom plan. Paul was addressing the issue of how marriage fits into his kingdom plan. . . .

. . . Single people are already with the program. They are ‘concerned about the things of the Lord’ (v. 32). Married people are the ones who need help sorting out their priorities.”

— Joseph Hellerman

“For those of us who remain single, we might not experience the unique *depth* of intimacy with one person that a married friend might, but we can enjoy a unique *breadth* of intimacy with a number of close friends . . .

. . . that comes from having greater opportunity and capacity than married people typically have to invest in close friendships.”

—@SamAllberry

“If Jesus isn’t sufficient for me when I’m single, he won’t be sufficient for me when I’m married.”

—@BethanyJenkins

“Accepting singleness, whether temporary or permanent, does not hinge on speculation about answers God has not given to our list of whys, but rather on celebration of the life he has given. . . .

. . . I am not single because I am too spiritually unstable to possibly deserve a husband, nor because I am too spiritually mature to possibly need one. I am single because God is so abundantly good to me, because this is his best for me. . . .

. . . It is a cosmic impossibility that anything could be better for me right now than being single. The psalmists confirm that I should not want, I shall not want, because no good thing will God withhold from me.”

— Paige Brown

“Scripture unfolds, if anything, in a pro-singleness direction:

• Singleness in creation: nonexistent

• Singleness in OT: uncommon and generally undesirable

• Singleness in NT: advantageous for kingdom ministry

• Singleness in eternity: universal”

— @AKostenberger

“The key to contentment as a single person isn’t being content in singleness. It’s being content in Christ, as a single person.”

—@SamAllberry

“When [a chaste single woman] gives herself willingly to Christ in love, she has no need to justify herself to the world or to Christians who plague her with questions and suggestions. . . .

. . . In a way not open to the married woman her daily ‘living sacrifice’ is a powerful and humble witness, radiating love. I believe she may enter into the ‘mystery’ more deeply than the rest of us.”

— Elisabeth Elliot

“While single people may chuckle at the idea of God giving such a potentially unwanted gift [the gift of singleness], we need to be careful and recognize what and who it is we’re laughing at. God is no fool. . . .

. . . He is not the uncle who still thinks you’re 12 when you’re well into your 30s and sends you childish gifts. He is the creator who made you and knows you. He is the one who orders all things, and does so for your good. . . .

To roll our eyes at what a well-meaning but mistaken relative gives us is one thing; to roll our eyes at Omniscience is another. If we balk at the idea of singleness being a gift, it is not because God has not understood us, but because we have not understood him.”

—@SamAllberry

“But what if she never marries? Does she fail as a picture of the gospel? Not at all. Instead, she will live and die as a portrait of what the church is meant to be now.”

—@BetsyCHoward

“While you may never be content *with* your singleness, you can know God's joy *in* your singleness. You shouldn’t feel guilty that you still desire marriage. . . .

. . . In fact, it should be for you and those around you a parable of the holy discontentment we should all feel until Christ returns.”

—@BetsyCHoward

“We should be neither overly elated by getting married nor overly disappointed by not being so—because Christ is the only spouse that can truly fulfill us and God’s family the only family that will truly embrace and satisfy us.”

—@TimKellerNYC

“If single people are deficient people, then we are following a deficient Savior.”

—@DrMoore

“I want to be married. I pray to that end every day. I may meet someone and walk down the aisle in the next couple of years because God is so good to me. I may never have another date . . . because God is so good to me.”

— Paige Brown

“It is possible to have lots of sex and no real intimacy. But the reverse is also true. It is possible to have lots of intimacy in life and for none of it to be sexual.”

—@SamAllberry

“The most fully human and complete person ever to live on this earth did so as someone who was single. And yet he called himself the bridegroom. . . .

. . . The marriage he came for was the one all of us who are in him will enjoy for eternity. His singleness on earth bore witness to this ultimate marriage he had come to establish.”

—@SamAllberry

“Like Jesus, we can live in a way that anticipates what is to come. Singleness now is a way of saying that this future reality is so certain and so good that we can embrace it now. . . .

. . . It is a way of declaring to a world obsessed with sexual and romantic intimacy that these things are not ultimate, and that in Christ we possess what is.”

—@SamAllberry

“This is why the church needs single people. Not as a supposedly endless source of free babysitting. But to remind us that the joy and fulfillment of marriage in this life is partial and can only be temporal. . . .

. . . The presence of singles who find their fullest meaning and satisfaction in Christ is a visible, physical testimony to the fact that the end of all our longing comes in Jesus.”

—@SamAllberry

I’ll stop now. May our churches honor singleness without denigrating marriage (Heb. 13:4), and honor marriage without denigrating singleness (1 Cor. 7:8). Both callings are beautiful. Both are needed.

Praise the Lord for faithful single Christians.

A few have asked about audio. It wasn’t recorded since it was a Sunday school class, but most of the material is found in this article.

thegospelcoalition.org/article/9-ways…