Being single isn’t a sin. The Bible says so and more Christians should agree
When I first walked away from years of voting Democrat and being atheist, I was desperate for voices to speak to the unexpected and organic transformation I was undergoing. One of the first voices I found was a Christian podcaster and commentator who espouses the goal of a great reconciliation between men and women, the ending of the seemingly never-ending battle of the sexes.
His voice and mission resonated with me as I stepped away from the incoherence of liberalism and back toward God. It made sense to me that the answers we seek wouldn’t be found in pointing fingers at the opposite gender, yet I rather quickly found that all too often — even among the Christian conservative right and especially online — that's precisely what we do. This podcaster’s proposed great reconciliation between men and women — both of us working together to do our part to lay down arms and heal generations-old battle scars — truly seemed a breath of fresh air.
So, you can imagine my surprise when several months later I read a post from him claiming women who are unmarried and childless past age 30 have lived in willful rebellion against God’s design. Leaving aside the fact that, by all accounts, he himself is in his 40s, unmarried, and childless, this is a perversion of God’s word to us — one that we see too frequently among the recent resurgence of "trad" accounts run by people (often Christians) who believe in traditional values, masculine men, feminine women, and who rail against the degeneracy of the modern West.
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These are all aspirational ideals and perhaps a much-needed balm in the backwards chaos of the modern era, an era in which no small number of people (including a sitting Supreme Court justice) stumble incoherently when asked, "what is a woman?", an era in which even those brave enough and sane enough to define "woman" biologically often have a challenging time articulating what a woman is spiritually and how her role in the home and in the world might be fundamentally different from a man’s.
In such a state of confusion, with men and women seemingly all but interchangeable, with birth and marriage rates plummeting, and divorce and suicide rates rising, it’s no wonder there’s a growing sect of people who yearn to revolt against the modern world. I myself would identify as a woman with traditional values, and — although I’m not yet homesteading on a farm knee-deep in toddlers and sourdough starter — I strive to be a feminine woman.
There’s nothing wrong with traditionalism or with exalting families or worrying about the declining birth rates in the West. But traditionalism without God is dead. And far too often in the "trad" circle, traditionalism supersedes God.
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There is nothing in the Bible suggesting singleness is a scourge, a necessarily transitory state, or something you must suffer through in order to get to the "real gift" of marriage. In God’s eyes, singleness is not a second-class state — even for a woman, even past 30.
According to Paul (a man with a horrible past who went on to become one of the greatest examples of Christianity — and incidentally remained single), singleness is a gift. As he points out in 1 Corinthians 7, it’s better to remain single — if you can commit to celibacy. Most people cannot or will not commit themselves to this — and marriage is also good for those people. But singleness (meaning, in this case, the state of being both unmarried and celibate) is no less good.
Paul goes on to call men with wives to "live as though they had none" (1 Corinthians 7:29), which isn’t an encouragement to neglect one’s spouse but rather to focus oneself on Jesus in the same manner that a single person can. Unmarried people are able to devote themselves wholly to God. There is no spouse or children demanding their time. Spouses and children are good and obligations to them–approached correctly–can sanctify you and bring you closer to God. But so too can singleness.
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As John Piper points out in a sermon titled, "Single in Christ; A Name Better than Sons and Daughters," "single people in Christ have zero disadvantage in bearing children for God, and may in some ways have a great advantage." Single people often have more time, money, and other resources to devote to advancing God’s kingdom on earth. Married people with families necessarily put their time and resources to the family.
Single people — or "those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of Heaven" — are good in Jesus’ eyes (Matthew 19:11-12). He promises them "a memorial and a name better than sons and daughters; [He] will give them an everlasting name that will endure forever" (Isaiah 56:4-5).
Indeed, throughout the gospel, Jesus — who came to establish a family of believers — emphasizes spiritual family over biological. When a woman exclaims that Jesus’ mother is blessed for bearing him, he responds that those who hear God and obey are more blessed (Luke 11:27-28). Motherhood sanctifies, but women who cannot or will not be biological mothers are no less sanctified; likewise for women who may never be wives.
Just look at C.S. Lewis’ Sarah Smith in "The Great Divorce:" "Every young man or boy that met her became her son … Every girl that met her was her daughter. … Her motherhood was of a different kind. Those on whom it fell went back to their natural parents loving them more."
Clearly, spiritual parenthood is not reserved only for a blessed few or only for women under 30. Not all of us will be married by a certain age or at all, but all of us are called to be spiritual mothers and fathers. That can be done in singleness. That can be done by choosing Christ right where we are now, for — whether or not anyone else ever chooses us — the one who matters most already has.
Oftentimes, well-meaning folks will point to Genesis 2:18 and the fact that it’s "not good for man to be alone" as if that’s condemnation of singleness. It’s true that God gave Adam his Eve, when he saw that he was lonely. It’s also true that God sent Jesus no wife, and that was also good. Jesus — the new Adam and the perfect man, the Son of God — knows firsthand the full gamut of human emotions and is no stranger to loneliness, and yet he never had a wife.
It is possible for us too to know deep and profound loneliness and perhaps never get married or get married much later. It’s also worth noting that God gave Eve to Adam in marriage before sin entered the world — which isn’t to say that marriage after the fall is sinful but rather that the world after the fall is sinful, and in our fallen state, not everyone will find a suitable spouse before the age of thirty or ever.
Perhaps most significant of all: if you’re saved, you have the Holy Spirit dwelling in you and so, while you may feel at times desperately lonely, you are never truly alone (John 14:16).
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None of the above is meant to excuse being single due to vanity, pride or worldly desires. If you’re unmarried because you’ve been putting yourself first and not God, that’s not good, and it’s probably not blessed. But only you and the Lord know if that’s the cause for your situation; random men on X (formerly Twitter) who are unmarried themselves don’t — and frankly, they’d do well to account for their own singleness before accounting for others.
I’m not dismissing very valid concerns over declining marriage and family rates. Particularly here in the states, strong families are foundational to our freedom and American way of life. This is a crisis not to be ignored. But nor are we to remove God from the crisis.
We are not to pass judgment when we have planks in our own eyes. We are not to pretend we know better than him or to add addendums to his unchanging word. We are not to add arbitrary, secular cut-offs of 30 years when no such specifications exist in the Bible, nor are we to scapegoat women for all our problems when God’s command for marriage and for sex is the same for men and women both.
The world may go easier on unmarried, promiscuous men. God does not. And biological realities exist, of course, and they’re different for women than they are men. But there’s a difference between acknowledging biological realities and putting words in God’s mouth. Singleness isn’t a curse, a sin, or a failure. In the eyes of the world, it might be — especially for women. But not in the eyes of God.
If we’re ever to right this sinking ship in which we find ourselves all jostled about, it’ll be by pointing to God instead of pointing fingers at each other. Marriage is good. But it’s not required for repentance, salvation or to be in obedience to him. And the only real and lasting marriage is the one we find in him.