By Kerwin Holmes, Jr.

To pretend that life is not as it is, even when it is done for the sake of conveniences, is not “faith/trust.” It is self-deceit, and the wholesome opposite of the paradigm of trusting the One Who Is and His design for “the world that is,” which He has created. Anything less than this essential trusting of reality is ultimately useless and not truly Christianity.

I know that the title for this post is jarring. I know that it is unsettling for many who may have just heard what they believe was an edifying message from their pulpit. Furthermore, and I have already made my personal convictions known in the past that hopefully softens this blow, I know that several ministers in my life will definitely disagree with this very title.

But hear me out even as I lovingly disagree with them and write this exegetically-supported plea. Because, in the line of Christian misconceptions, this dam is already bursting in several parts of Christendom, and I not only want to aid in its rupture, but I hope to help to dig a purposeful canal so that all of that pent up water flows toward a meaningful purpose and aim instead of becoming a damaging flood that will sweep up and sweep away many people and many things. This post is written because, as a single man who has struggles in common with Christian friends likewise single, I have a small voice to help. And I wish to use it responsibly. And I am, quite frankly, tired of the paucity of wise and practical Christian teaching for single people. The damage being done and the damage that has already been done must be addressed, and in this instance of a blog-post, one particular roadblock must be analyzed, found to be Biblically wanting and disqualified, and justifiably removed.

Now, I am not a pastor, nor do I seek such an office. And here, I want to make my appeal to pastors who teach. I would rather that my concerns be heard on their own merits, and not just due to my disagreement in exegetical tradition, but in my awareness of reality on the ground. I know that the pastoral role is a blessing as it is a burden. It is, after all, a responsibility. Those things tend to work that way. But pastoral care is weighty in that the sense of duty to get Biblical interpretation correct and to make application as sound as can be is a stressful endeavor. It is often easy and even wise to lighten that load by consulting those of present who are pastors who must trod the same paths of teachings, or even those from the past who did the same. This has a great effect of consistency across traditions, yet it is a double-edged sword that can also lead to incorrect paths becoming well-trodden trenches that seem inevitable. And it should never be done at the expense of being realistic. God’s Word applies to God’s world, and God’s world is real and full of real people and real situations.

But because I am not a pastor, hopefully I can offer some wisdom and insight “from the ground up” per se, apart from my exegetical endeavor. And hey, in speaking of living as a Christian single man, I don’t have to get married in order to qualify as a noteworthy voice to consider. But this won’t be without aim. In fact, I hope that this post is concise. So we will have to focus upon the one passage (that is correct, just one) in all of Scripture that allegedly focuses upon what Christians have come to name “the gift of singleness.”

That fateful passage of Holy Writ: 1 Corinthians 7.

Before I go there, let me hit you with a challenge. In the 21st century in which we live, and if you are reading this, you (usually) have access not only to the Holy Bible in several languages known and spoken by man throughout the past couple of centuries or even millennia. But you also have direct searchable access to the verses of the Bible to the very word via a simple web-browser search. I challenge you right now to go ahead and type into your preferred search engine of your web browser “gift of singleness + Bible.” I actually mean it. Open up a new tab or whatever right now and search in your preferred search engine of your web browser “gift of singleness + Bible.”

Now, scroll down and see which specific Bible verse and Bible translation has the exact phrase “gift of singleness.” Go on. I’ll wait (or at least seem to do so).

Okay, now compare how many Christian blog posts, newsletters, posted sermons, diaries, self-help books, movies, and dating websites (I don’t know, life can be weird) actually have that rather unBiblical phrase “gift of singleness.” You will find that the actual phrasing is not only not in the Bible, but it is entirely made up by particularly modern Christendom in part, and otherwise from misunderstandings throughout Church history as a whole.

Someone will say, “Oh wait, Kerwin! Aha, you sly dog,” (I am imagining the crowd of people who would say this, so bear with me). “I actually have found one verse that has the passage with the phrase ‘gift of singleness.’”

Oh? And pray tell what translation is it? Is it, perchance, The Message Bible? Well, my friend, as translations go, The Message Bible is not a Bible translation. That, my friend, is a Bible-paraphrase.
Translations simply take the words of the original author and transmit or translate (the same verbs can mean the motion for “moving something from one location to another”) their ideas and original thoughts into another medium– that namely being another language.
A translator does not add extra clauses, move around phrases, or invent entirely new phrases based upon his or her eisegetical understanding of what the original author meant (and if you don’t know what that word means, then click on that link). The Message Bible can be useful for learning what Eugene H. Peterson thought about particular passages of the Bible. Heck, I personally enjoy what he did with Romans 9. But it isn’t the same as reading an actual translation from the Koine Greek to Modern English of St. Paul’s own words.

So, the answer is “No.” And the question was: Is “the gift of singleness” explicitly found in the Bible? Did any Bible author name “singleness” itself to be a gift given by God for mature Christians?

The answer is: “No.”

“But what about the eunuch passage from Jesus?” comes the next retort. Yes, Matthew 19:1-12 has a clear passage where Jesus is questioned in a trap laid by His enemies who seek to prove themselves better teachers than He was concerning the Law of Moses and divorce. I want to emphasize two things.

One, despite the current Christian teachings on divorce, Jesus and Paul are clear: Christian couples are not free to divorce and remarry after the divorce. This is evident in verse 9. The average pastor in the West may point out that Jesus made a concession by naming “sexual immorality” as the exception. But I will merely state that this must be interpreted with Jesus’s earlier teaching in the book at Matthew 5:31-32, where the same concession is made only in regard to divorce and yet remarriage to another spouse while the first spouse is alive is still off of the table. Paul knew about this strict rule and repeated it in 1 Corinthians 7:10-11, 39. And there is an argument to be had that given Paul’s verbal cues and written headers, even verses 17-24 refer to married people. Paul uses language of “being bound” only for those bonded in marriage.

Two, returning to Matthew 19 and the point of the eunuch, Jesus clearly stated that this state of being is only acceptable to those to whom God had given them to be so. This was in response to the disciples complaining about what I have shown you in point number one (several of the disciples, perhaps having already been married, as Peter certainly was, and being a bit perturbed by Jesus’s teaching to them about their marriages). Only those who are given this calling, which comes along with the ability to abide by that calling, ought to accept it. Just so that I may be clear, Jesus clearly says: “The one who is able to accept it should accept it.” If there is any “gift of singleness” in the Scriptures, then this is it. And it is clearly not a seasonal thing.

And it is not a sign of distinguishing Christian maturity any more than Christians gifted to marry are somehow more mature in their ability to live in close proximity and in lifelong intimate union with a fellow Christian sinner.
There is one Body of Christ and there is one Giver of gifts within that Body. Do not divide God’s love for His Bride.

The thing is, most folks are not able to accept this “gift of singleness” because most folks are not given it. Jesus’s own teaching in Matthew points to this reality. And, as we will see next, so does Paul’s. God created humanity male and female for great reason, and He gave them monogamous marriage for great reason as well. And in the present age, our mission from Genesis 1:26-30 remains unchanged. That is a good thing and it ought to be embraced.

Now, to 1 Corinthians 7. Paul enters into discussion of married couples first in order to answer some concern about sexual intercourse that the Corinthian Christians held. Looking at verses 2-7, it is clear that Paul wanted Christian married couples to come together in sexual bliss regularly so that sexual immorality, which Paul admitted was a common threat for humanity, would not be an opportunity for Satan to make the couple fall. Paul based this upon the couple’s lack of self-control in this reality.

Now, for the Christian, typically, a lack of self-control is seen in the negative sense. However, I challenge you to see this in another framework because this is godly marriage that even Paul, later on in verse 14, claims makes even children with an unbeliever holy, or set apart. Furthermore, marriage is given as the gift of God for accomplishing the mission of God before the Fall. Since marriage is a prelapsarian institution, it ought not be regarded as evil or less than God’s divine blessing upon humanity when God gives it– which is often enough. But let us use another one of God’s great gifts: work otherwise known as labor.

Say a Christian is unemployed and desires to work. Now, thankfully, Christianity is not teetering upon the irrational hills of sloth in the Protestant world or in Western Christendom in general. Christians often have no problem with an unemployed Christian who desires to work and yet has not, at present, found a job. Such a person desires a good thing. In fact, in this life, labor is simply not an option. We are all called to labor in some way for the upbuilding of the Kingdom of God and also for the benefit of our larger societies…and even for our own personal benefit. Work is a gift given to us all. But would any of us rebuke a man or woman who desired to work and yet was unemployed? Certainly not! Even if it takes weeks, months, possibly even years for them to find employment, we will encourage them and come alongside them to help them.

Sure, in the meantime, we would be wise to help them to learn to be able to weather the storm and to find contentment in knowing that their identity ought not to be defined by the present lack. We would be wise to point them to the lessons of maturity they are able to glean from unemployment even as they seek employment, for they will be lessons needed in life regardless of their status. But the joy of the mission for the pursuit of a job is theirs to have! And even if tragedy strikes them on their drive to a job interview, and their life is cut short, not a Christian should mourn their pursuing exactly what they ought to have been pursuing at the time of their departure. They were faithful to their calling and able to delight in Christ during their pursuit of it. My friends, expectations delayed are not expectations misplaced. Though such a person is certainly being governed by that desire, it is a godly desire. That they are not able to divorce themselves from that godly desire is a good thing.

Now for something more acute, say that a Christian desires to lose weight and to get healthier. Now, though some have fallen into some of the current-day errors of certain body-positivity movements, if the Christian truly desires to get healthier by losing weight, we certainly are not wrong in encouraging them. We may choose a suitable diet and exercise regime for them, but we do not rebuke them as being vain if we are likewise godly and take care of the bodies that God has given us. And if they actually have suitable health and are simply unhealthy toward their body’s image in the objective sense, we endeavor to show them the beauty and glory that God has given them in their healthy body. To do otherwise would be evil and cruel; it would be sin. It also would be righteous to, in the meantime, teach them to come to terms in loving their body and embracing the process, however frustrating and slow-paced, of becoming healthier.

Now, the desire to have a healthy body is a godly desire. That a person is governed by that desire is a good thing that ought not be eschewed. And if that desire is not towards what is objectively healthy, then we ought to guide them toward the goal of true health. Reality matters. And here we may find a slight analogy to those who have unrealistic expectations in general. It is good to be governed by godly desires, and God will always give desires consistent with His Word which governs the whole cosmos. It is always sinful and ultimately dangerous to be governed by ungodly desires, and God’s Word will always point those out to us as unrealistic and ultimately destructive to ourselves and to others.

Now, returning to 1 Corinthians, Paul spoke in 1 Corinthians 7 so far to married people, stating that their lack of self-control in having sexual urges and needs ought not to be denied, or else it leads to an opportunity for sin. The fact that the abstaining from sexual urges within the Christian marriage could lead to sin ought to inform us that Paul did not see sexual intercourse within Christian marriage as sin itself. Friends, it is clear that this is not a negative use for self-control. This urge is much akin to the godly urges above. This is the godly intimacy that God places within many men and women, especially those who have received the gift of marriage to the opposite sex in Christian marriage (which is both lifelong and monogamous). This is the godly urge that God desires we have fulfilled within Christian marriage. Paul’s concession here is to avoid sin, not to abate it.

And that leads us to verses 8-9, the crux of this post.
Note that this is truly the only section where Paul addresses the truly single exclusively, those who are not identified as betrothed and those who have also never been married (he includes the betrothed in the verse later on addressing single people). Note that Paul’s advice is that those who are in this state and yet desire to get married ought to simply get married because they too, like the married couple mentioned prior, lack the self-control that Paul says is required to remain celibate for life. There is no gap between the section addressing the married and this section addressing the truly single. The lack of self-control in both groups is described alike and in kind. This is the unique urge to marital intimacy that God gives. To one person God gives one gift, and to another person that gift. Some gifts are more general than others, and some are rarer.

The gift of marriage, my friends, is more general than others. And that is the bottom line.

Historian’s Note… The Roman Univira

Historian’s Note: One of my friends was able to read this post last year, and she informed me of something that she had learned while studying Latin prior to university. Her teacher had taught her of the Roman tradition of the univira, the (literally) one-man woman. Check it out for yourself. It was apparently en vogue in Paul’s time, and had a lot to do with married women being perceived as soulmates, of a kind, to their first husbands. There was an expectation that if the man preceded the wife in death, then the woman would remain unmarried. This was not just due to religious superstition. Life as a widow afforded the average Roman woman (given she was freeborn or a citizen) the right to own the property of her husband, to navigate the Roman business world freely, to never require the headship of another man, either her father or guardian (since she was considered still possessed by her dead husband). Therefore, when one reads Paul in 1 Corinthians 7:39-40, we read something that very likely points quite practically to the particular society Paul lived in– not unlike the particular crisis that the Corinthians faced at the time nor unlike the tendency of Holy Scripture to give very basic and mundane relationship advice as holy wisdom. Once again, simply being uncomplicated and knowing history and culture sheds light where a thousand pastoral commentaries likely don’t. [Edit: April 12, 2025]

Yes, Paul goes on to address a crisis that was affecting the Corinthian Church at that time– a crisis that had apparently ended by the time Paul wrote 2 Corinthians given it is never mentioned again. It is even in that context that Paul dealt with the betrothed, those people who definitely and eventually were going to get married. But even in that context, Paul’s teaching is clear in verses 25-38 that those who desired to be married in the crisis were free to do so without fear of sin. Some may say that it is not a particular crisis that Paul refers to because Paul tied the crisis to the greater truth that this world is passing away.

…but pastors will do that very same thing this upcoming Sunday and the next Sunday, and the next, when they preach. They will take some current crisis, say even Panic 2020, and use it to point to the greater truth that this present world is passing away. Paul’s words were not meant to undo God’s own dictations and commandments to humanity from the beginning of creation. This age surely is passing away just as we all individually are passing away, and yet we are told to be merry in this present age and to complete the labors that God has given to us within it– including the labor and enjoyment within our given marriages. Need I also point out that many pastors who preach the misconception on the “gift of singleness” often have their own wives and children sitting in the pews along with us each Sunday?

Let’s not make this more awkward than this has to be. Let’s be real.

Look, as I stated, I am not a pastor. And this is my plea to pastors and to greater Christendom. We need to have better teaching on this issue. It is not good to tell single Christians, especially the young, to forego their God-given desires and to pretend that the period of tension that they live in is in itself simply a gifting of God for their spiritual benefit. Though that may be true in the ultimate sense, it is also true that God has given them the desire for marriage in order to seek it out in a Christian spouse. Admittedly, having spoken with several single Christians who too often find sermons by prominent Christian leaders portraying the greater spirituality of not being governed by the desire for marriage (alike to the specificity outlined in this post by the reading of God’s commands for how God-given desires ought to govern us), I have been saddened and angry at the sorry state of teaching in this area.

We seem to have inherited the monastery in the midst of living in the bachelor’s pad. If that is a silly image, then you understand the image.

But my anger is of no benefit to being convincing in my appeal to Christian pastors, and it is also in reality secondary to my sorrow at the state of teaching in this area. The anger of men does not produce the righteousness of God, and I do not write this to give a venting device for any anger of any one person– especially myself. I hope that my concern is heard in this exegetically-based plea, and also in my warning about the dam.

Let the Christian single pursue marriage if that desire has been given to them by God, and may they mature and learn how to enjoy their journey’s path as they go.

Now, I am not a pastor, but I can point you to some I have found to be beneficially sound and real. I am not a teacher of women, but I can point you to some who are godly ones. This is just one post to start a challenge with a major misconception about “the gift of singleness” in Christian circles. There still need to be answers on many matters:

–How should single Christians pursue marriage?
-What responsibilities are given to Christian men as they search for and seek to attract a Christian woman to lead and to provide for?
-What responsibilities are given to Christian women as they seek to attract and wait for a Christian man to serve?
-What interactions are realistic for single Christians to have with one another to avoid irresponsible relations?
-How do we cope with, and even live with, our frustrations at our hopes of being married being deferred, or even from rejection or our prospective relationships not working out?
-How ought Christians treat sexual purity, and in cases of sexual impurity, and what is the healthy path to sanctification in repentance that leads to godliness– even godly marriage?
-What are the goals of Christian child-rearing, and how is that related to Christian marriage?
-How do you change a diaper?

There are many others. But I am not a pastor. Heck, I’m just a single Christian. I leave below some resources embedded into this blog. I find the first one to be most pertinent to this immediate discussion. Some of these resources deal with some pitfalls I have heard from my fellow Christian single people, men and women. All of them I have found to be good in general. The reader who is single and struggling will be most blessed in using these as “starters,” and also in bringing up their concerns (possibly even with this blog-post in tow) to their local congregation’s elders and also to the older mentors that they have in their lives.
Two of these resources are from pastors who lead their own flocks where they serve.
Two of these sources are Christian teachers brought up in the Scriptures and equipped to help Christian women.
These are teachers who have great insights into this matter, and they also have associates that you can track down who have teachings you may also find to be good.

But remember to test every spirit by the Word of God.

I also recommend you, if you are able, to download the Canon App and to watch the first season of the Man Rampant Show. It is available there for free. Christians ought to support good Christian media, and though I am not a Presbyterian, I can definitely recommend this resource for Christendom. There are some good tidbits on various issues of life overall in that series.

May God bless you and keep you. And may God’s mercies guide our pastors, who have a godly responsibility to meet by the grace of God. I do pray that my appeal is heard with the grace that I sought in writing it.

All glory to the Triune King of kings and Lord of lords and God of gods.

EDIT [June 22, 2025]: Unfortunately the original YouTube video to the final video, the one from Lauren Chen, has been removed from the internet (say “no” to big internet censorship, folks). But I do want folks to have the opportunity to see the video in the intended media that it was originally uploaded to. For those who want to see a time-captured version from YouTube, apart from the video featured on this blog, on the internet archives (it is still the same content as featured here), try this link: https://web.archive.org/web/20201120132235/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iu0VUhWMV78

Original URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iu0VUhWMV78