I once had the following conversation at church. A fellow church member walked up to me and asked, “So, are you still single?” I responded yes. Then he walked away.
This conversation exemplifies the attitude of most contemporary American Protestant churches to singleness. Singleness is a problem to be solved. If someone remains single for a long time, Christians do not quite know what to do with that fact. It is generally assumed that everyone is supposed to get married. Young Christians are told to just wait until they get married to have sex. Many Christians even teach that God has a future spouse prepared for each individual who is “the one” they are supposed to marry, and God will eventually give that spouse to them.
Given this typical American Christian attitude towards singleness today, it may be quite surprising for many to learn that the Christian Tradition has always believed that lifelong singleness is at least as valuable as marriage. In fact, most Christians throughout history have believed that celibacy is superior to marriage. And this is not just a humanly created tradition; it is clearly and explicitly taught by Scripture itself.
Celibacy in Scripture
In the Old Testament, it is generally assumed that everyone will seek to get married and to have children. It appears that, for most of the Old Testament period, God’s people did not have the hope of personal resurrection. Instead, their hope for after their death was that they would “live on” through their descendants. This is the rationale for the law of levirate marriage, in which the brother of a man who died childless was expected to marry his widow and produce a son on behalf of his dead brother (Deut 25:5-10). For the Old Testament faithful, marriage and procreation was the means by which they could personally “live on” after death, and the way in which they perpetuated the existence of God’s holy covenant people. God’s unique command to Jeremiah not to marry or have sons and daughters (Jer 16:1-4) would have been understood as an extraordinary, exceptional, and burdensome calling on the prophet.
Thus, when we turn to the New Testament and find it teaching that celibacy is actually better than marriage, this is quite surprising. We find this teaching in two passages: Matthew 19 and I Corinthians 7.
In Matthew 19, Jesus is discussing the topic of divorce with some Pharisees, and declares that “anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery” (v. 9). Shocked by this extremely strict teaching about the morality of divorce, Jesus’s disciples respond, “If this is the situation between a husband and a wife, it is better not to marry!” (v. 10). Jesus responds to His disciples’ remark by saying, “Not everyone can accept this word [that it is better not to marry], but only those to whom it has been given. For there are eunuchs who were born that way, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others—and there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it” (vv. 11-12).
Jesus implicitly agrees with His disciples’ remark that it is better not to marry. He then refers to those who choose not to marry as figuratively being eunuchs “for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.” Jesus thus indicates that celibacy can potentially enable someone to more effectively contribute to the advancement of God’s Kingdom. At the same time, with His statement that “not everyone can accept this word,” Jesus indicates that there is nothing wrong with getting married. According to Jesus, marriage is good, but celibacy is even better.
In I Corinthians 7, the apostle Paul addresses a number of issues surrounding the topic of marriage. In the latter part of the chapter, he addresses unmarried Christians, and echoes Jesus’s teaching that it is better not to marry. While Paul makes it clear that there is nothing wrong with getting married, he believes that marriage brings “many troubles” with it (v. 28). For Paul, marriage is something that is part of this present age, rather than the coming age of God’s New Creation, in which Christians have begun to participate. In this, he is in agreement with Jesus, who taught that marriage and procreation will not exist in the future age of the resurrection (Matt 22:30; Mark 12:25; Luke 20:34-36). Because “the time is short” and “this world in its present form is passing away” (vv. 29, 31), it is good for Christians to limit their attachments to the things of this present age, of which marriage is one.
Elaborating on this, Paul explains, “An unmarried man is concerned about the Lord’s affairs—how he can please the Lord. But a married man is concerned about the affairs of this world—how he can please his wife— and his interests are divided. An unmarried woman or virgin is concerned about the Lord’s affairs: Her aim is to be devoted to the Lord in both body and spirit. But a married woman is concerned about the affairs of this world—how she can please her husband. I am saying this for your own good, not to restrict you, but that you may live in a right way in undivided devotion to the Lord” (vv. 32-35) Paul’s teaching here is a fuller explanation of what Jesus meant when He spoke of people being eunuchs “for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven.” If a Christian is unmarried and free from the responsibilities of married family life, they are able to devote more of their attention to working to advance God’s Kingdom.
Thus, we see a remarkable congruence between Jesus and Paul on the topic of celibacy. Both of them teach that celibacy is better than marriage. Both of them teach that marriage will not exist in the eschatological (end-times) age. Both of them teach that singleness enables a Christian disciple to better focus on advancing God’s Kingdom. And both of them teach that there is nothing wrong with getting married. According to both the Lord Jesus Christ and the apostle Paul, marriage is good, but celibacy is even better.
Celibacy and Christian Theology
So, how do we make theological sense of the New Testament’s teaching that celibacy is better than marriage? A minority of Christians in Church history have taught that celibacy is superior to marriage because there is something inherently wrong with having sex; while sex within marriage can be begrudgingly tolerated, it is morally better to refrain from sex altogether, and so celibate Christians are morally superior to married Christians. This idea, however, runs counter to Scripture’s teaching that sex, marriage, and procreation are good things, part of God’s good creation.
The only way to make sense of the dramatic shift between the Old Testament and the New Testament on the issue of singleness is to understand the New Testament’s teaching about celibacy in an eschatologica (end-times) sense. Through Jesus, God has already begun His New Creation, and Christians are the firstfruits of this eschatological age. Because marriage and procreation will not exist in the eschatological age, celibacy is now in the New Testament age a way that Christians can live out their identity as the firstfruits of God’s New Creation. Until Jesus comes again, marriage will continue to exist as a good part of God’s created order, and will continue to be a perfectly legitimate option for Christians. However, now that God’s covenant people are perpetuated by evangelism and conversion, rather than by procreation, the importance of marriage has been relativized. Marriage and celibacy are two legitimate options for Christians to express their sexuality, with celibacy in some ways occupying a higher position.
Given the clear teaching of Scripture about the value of celibacy, it is baffling how little value most American Protestant churches today assign to singleness. Churches have been so focused on affirming the value of marriage in order to combat American culture’s celebration of sexual immorality that they have neglected the Christian Tradition’s teaching that celibacy is an important and valuable Christian vocation.
Some Christians teach that celibacy is a good option only for some Christians, those who have the “gift” of singleness: the ability to feel content without sex and marriage. However, this concept of the “gift” of singleness is unbiblical and deeply problematic. The apostle Paul does write, “I wish that all of you were as I am [i.e., single]. But each of you has your own gift from God; one has this gift, another has that” (I Cor 7:7). However, nowhere does Paul indicate that his “gift” is to feel content without sex and marriage. Rather, his “gift” is being single, just as a married Christian’s “gift” is being married.
It is this understanding of what Paul means by “gift” that aligns with the middle section of I Corinthians 7, in which Paul teaches that “each person, as responsible to God, should remain in the situation they were in when God called them” (vv. 17-24). Immediately after this, Paul addresses unmarried Christians, advising them to remain single. A Christian’s “gift” has nothing to do with their subjective feelings of contentment or discontentment; it has to do with the situation in which God has placed them.
The idea that only some Christians who have a subjective “gift” of singleness are called to celibacy creates all sorts of problems. It is simply not true that all Christians who have a strong desire for marital intimacy eventually find a spouse; there are many Christians who desire marriage but, for various reasons, are never able to get married. They may spend many years agonizing over why God has not given them the spouse He was “supposed” to give them. Or, worse, they may become desperate and enter into a bad marriage which will make them deeply unhappy and/or hinder them from serving God as they should. Even worse, they may decide that, since they do not have the “gift” of singleness, and it does not seem like they will ever get married, they will just start having sex outside of marriage.
The Christian life has nothing to do with God orchestrating the circumstances of our lives so that all of our subjective desires will be fulfilled and we will be able to always feel content in this life. The Christian life has to do with handing all of our subjective feelings, desires, hopes, and dreams over to God, and serving Him as best we can in whatever circumstances He has given us. The clear teaching of Scripture and the Christian Tradition is that, while marriage is good and blessed, the circumstance of singleness is in some ways actually better for serving God. It is vitally important that Christians today recover this genuine Christian understanding of celibacy.