“Marriage will solve my lust and loneliness problems.”
“When I get married, I’ll finally be able to serve God in my fullest capacity.”
“When I get married, my problems will be over.”
I’ve heard single people make comments such as these. I used to believe them myself. As a single 29-year-old, I was convinced that marriage would take away my most pressing problems. I believed that marriage would make me feel wanted and fulfilled. I certainly thought that marriage would solve my financial problems. Marriage was a kind of Mecca for me and I was a frustrated pilgrim.
I think this reflects a common belief among Christians: that marriage is a panacea for all kinds of relational, practical and spiritual problems. I grew up watching church friends marry by the age of 21, as though there was some invisible deadline toward which couples hustled.
One by one, those young married couples would then step into some kind of ministry role, giving an impression of having “arrived”. Some folk who had been around the church for years were immediately thrust into ministry the moment they were married.
This had a bewildering effect on me. It was as though the church’s message to the rest of us, intentional or otherwise, was that only marrieds are worthy of ministry roles. It suggested that marrieds had attained some higher plane of spirituality or completeness. And it built up an idolisation of marriage.
Don’t get me wrong. As a now-married, I am aware that marriage does have distinct advantages. But I would be remiss if I failed to acknowledge the difficulties that marriage can yield. Some marrieds become separated through work or other life circumstances. Some couples are impacted by illness or death. Some families of two are never able to increase their numbers. Some marriages are devastated through abuses of power and tactics of control. Marriage, like any other life circumstance, is subject to change and as such is continually reliant upon God’s grace.
Furthermore, the idea that marriage is some kind of litmus test for a persons’ worth or spirituality is hopelessly flawed. I know many immature people who married young only to regret it. I also know of fabulous single people who are serving God in ministry, in missions and in faithfully working hard at their jobs.
I know when I was still painfully single with no potential spouse on the horizon, I asked myself and God many times, “What’s wrong with me?” The answer: nothing. Absolutely nothing. Our relationship status is not an absolute or reliable indicator of worth and we cannot treat it as such. Our sense of worth and identity must be sourced from Christ alone.
It sounds obvious, and many of us know it intellectually, but I want this message to get right into the depths of our hearts, right into our bones. If we are in Christ, then we truly belong. We are accepted, we are justified, we are enough. There is nothing “wrong” with us. In Christ alone we are made whole by Him who is more than enough.
Let’s hold onto that hope of wholeness in Christ. It is certainly better than holding out for some idol of marriage.
Have you heard other people idolise marriage? Have there been times when you believed in the omnipotence of marriage?
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When you’re a Christian single and you openly express your desire for marriage, well-meaning people will often warn you about “idolatry.”
This can be kinda annoying or condescending sometimes, to be honest, though I get that it’s not meant that way. it seems like every time singles express the desire, somebody will throw out the old “idolatry” warning. Or when someone writes or preaches about marriage to singles, they start with the caveat that wanting marriage is good “as long as you don’t make an idol out of it,” or something like that. I wonder how many Christians keep quiet about this desire, or minimize it, because they don’t want to hear these sorts of things.
You CAN, however, desire a romance/marriage/sex badly without making it an “idol,” though. In 1 Corinthians 7 Paul talks about people who “burn with passion,” but he doesn’t accuse them of idolatry. He encourages them to marry.
I wonder if this has any negative consequences. Can the desire for marriage really become an idol? Yeah, sure, technically, probably. But I think people can blow that notion out of proportion. It might cause some people lot of women to be tepid in their approach to marriage, and make them afraid that any amount of thinking or acting on their desire might be somehow sinful. Both, of course, have the unfortunate consequence of making marriage even less likely to happen. Isn’t that ironic?
In the Bible, when verses talk about “idols,” they’re almost always talking about physical idols, from other pagan religions. And, sure, some people can be unreasonable and put marriage and romance up on an impossible pedestal. But I don’t think most people do that; they simply have a strong desire, and they can’t help it. In Timothy 4:1-5, interestingly, Paul talks about demonic doctrines, and one of them he lists is “men who forbid marriage.” If Paul wrote the book of Hebrews, he also said that marriage something that should be honored.
Paul also wrote that “But since there is so much immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband” (1 Corinthians 7:2). I think it’s unlikely that a godly desire for a biblical marriage would become a real idol. And biblical marriage seems to be the antidote to much of the real idolatry — “sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed” — that we see in the world.
Also, look at some biblical examples of childlessness. I know this is a different issue from singleness, but it’s interesting to look at the role of desire and emotion here. Rebekah was barren and prayed for a child. Rachel was heartbroken about her barrenness and basically demanded children from Jacob. Hannah cried bitterly and openly about her inability to have children, and Eli (after misunderstanding her) prayed for God to grant her request. Where in the Bible are these people criticized or condemned for “idolatry”?
Another relevant biblical story is Jepthah’s. His daughter was basically doomed to stay a single virgin for her entire life because of her father’s rash vow. Her response was to gather her friends and spend two whole months in literal mourning. She is never condemned for this, either
It’s understandable why people want marriage, and why marriage is a genuinely good thing. All the research I’ve ever seen (almost all secular) says that married people are happier, have more and better sex, make more money, live longer and impact society more. It’s a societal foundation, apparently. Who knew?
People mean well when they warn singles about turning their desires into “idolatry,” but I think they can overdo it sometimes.
Also, just because some singles have strong desires for marriage doesn’t mean that they believe things like “Marriage will solve my lust and loneliness problems.” Or “When I get married, my problems will be over.”
I mean, sure, marriage doesn’t “solve” those problems or “take away” those problems, but marriage does play a role. I mean, if you’re a Christian and you’re married, you have ways to deal with your struggles with loneliness or unmet sexual desire. I get that these things can be tricky sometimes and require compromise and humility, of course. But if you’re married, you have a starting point. If you’re single, well….you have nothing. It’s as simple and frustrating as that.
Thanks James for your thoughtful views on this subject. I appreciate that both singledom and marriagedom can be tricky, nuanced and layered with complexity, and I don’t hold the monopoly on every experience. I agree that it’s certainly frustrating to be told how to think or feel, at any stage of life! It’s interesting to hear you say that idolatry of marriage would be unlikely, in your experience and view. I’m glad to hear about your positive experience, as many people have had a different experience of church, including me. I’m glad your experience has been more balanced and supportive. My lived experience, unfortunately, is different—in my circles, marriage was definitely idolised by everyone, singles and marrieds alike, Christians and non-Christians alike. This was obviously unhelpful in many ways, so my blog was a comment on that, aimed at readers who have had a similar lived experience to me. Hopefully they can read your comments and be reassured that not every Christian circle is like that!
Oh, OK, interesting. Yeah, I can only speak for myself, and for my own experience in church.
Personally, my own home church has never really “promoted” or “sold” marriage very much. Nor do they address singleness very often. Part of the reason for this is that my own church teaches its sermons verse-by-verse, chapter-by-chapter as we go through entire books of the Bible.
Of course, the Bible doesn’t really, in totality, have all THAT much to say about marriage, and even less to say about singleness. So these subjects don’t come up that often at my own church.
That makes total sense that those subjects don’t come up that often, or they don’t seem to be the main focus of the teaching at your church. I can understand that if the church takes more of a methodical approach to studying the chapters and books of the Bible. Thanks again for sharing your experience, I value your point of view!
Yeah, I love my own home church, personally, but it does feel a bit isolating as a single. We have a Bible study for engaged and newlywed women, for instance. We’ve never had a single’s ministry. For a long time, I assumed this was just because no one had thought of the idea or though it was important. When I talked to my pastor about, he said he was reluctant to start a mixed-gender group like that because of people attending it for the “wrong reasons,” and that he’s be more willing to start separate groups like that, one for single men and one for single women.
We’ve also had “marriage conferences” and such events, but the only event I remember about singleness or dating was once during my time in a high-school youth group, decades ago.
Also, I’m personally unsure how one would even keep a singles ministry going for year after year when there’s only, like, two chapters in the whole Bible that talk about it, haha. So I have mixed feelings about it anyway.
Yes James, I can certainly relate to feeling isolated as a single. Personally, I felt like a social leper. Everyone around me was married and moving on to child number three, while I was yet to even find a date! Singles ministries are such an interesting topic to talk about too, as many singles groups devolve into church-based dating services, resulting in an ever-dwindling group! I’ve seen them happen organically though, where singles in need of support gravitate toward each other and naturally start meeting up regularly. I think that’s healthy as a response to a shared need rather than a forced initiative. It’s also healthy to have singles integrated into the whole church family, spending time with marrieds and their children, just as it’s healthy to have different age groups intermingling. I reckon both have a place.