Christ Church

The Church & the Word

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Introduction

The Christian faith and the Christian church are glorious results of the Word of God. The voice of God thunders in creation and in the gospel, and then we thunder with His grace.

Summary of the Text

Psalm 29 has three parts. First, David issues the command to give glory unto the Lord. The command “give” comes three times: first to the “mighty ones” (literally: sons of the gods), then the command includes “strength,” and finally the command is given with a reason: it is due/owed to His name (Ps. 29:1-2). The psalmist then summarizes the command he is giving: “worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness” (Ps. 29:2).

The second part of the Psalm explains these elements of “might” and “strength” and “beauty” and “glory” all centering on the “voice of the Lord” as a fierce thunder storm (Ps 29:3-9). The word “voice” is actually used a number of times for thunder: in the seventh plague with the hail (Ex. 9:23), and later, when Israel was gathered at the base of Sinai there were “voices/ thunderings” (Ex. 19:16, cf. Rev. 4:5). The Psalmist begins by introducing the thunder storm “over the waters,” his “glory thunders,” His voice is “powerful,” and his voice is full of “beauty/majesty” (Ps. 29:3-4). God’s voice splits cedars in half (Ps. 29:5), and God makes the earth quake, causing it to leap like young oxen (Ps. 29:6). God’s voice also shoots out lightening on the earth (Ps. 29:7). God’s thunder is not limited to Lebanon, He also shakes the wilderness of Kadesh (Ps. 29:8). God’s storm makes the wild animals give birth in panic, and His voice is like a pressure washer that completely strips the forest bare (Ps. 29:9), like with the Red Sea (Ex. 15:8).

Finally, in what might feel like a lurch, the Psalmist describes the voice/storm of the Lord in the temple where everyone shouts “glory!” But when the tabernacle and temple were dedicated, they were filled with glory that made them unapproachable (Ex. 40:34-35, 1 Kgs. 8:11, cf.Rev. 11:19, 15:8). So this is not a lurch at all. On the one hand this is what God’s people do in responseto the glory of God and His mighty Word, and on the other hand, the worship of God’s people is as much causedby the voice of the Lord as the rest of the storm. Weare the storm. The Psalmist finishes His call to worship, remembering that God was the One who ruled over the Flood – the greatest storm in the history of the world, and He is the one who sits enthroned forever. He gives strength to His people, and therefore He is the one who blesses people with peace (Ps. 29:10-11).

Centrality of the Word

The center of this Psalm is the power of the Word of God. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth by the Word of His power when His Spirit-wind hovered over the waters (Gen. 1:1), and it is that same powerful Word that upholds all things (Heb. 1:3). His Word thundered at Sinai, but Hebrews says that He now thunders His word directly from Heaven “that the things which cannot be shaken may remain” (Heb. 12:25-27). What this indicates is the fact that God’s storm is not merely destructive, but it is also wonderfully creative, saving, and healing. This Word that created and sustains and thunders from Heaven became flesh and dwelt among us, and John says, “we beheld His glory” (Jn. 1). The center of that glory was the cross and resurrection, where the justice of God was completely satisfied and the mercy of God freely offered. It has pleased God for many centuries now for His Word to go forth in the mouths of men, preaching the gospel, proclaiming the justice and mercy of the cross, splitting the cedar hearts of rebellious men and stripping their arguments bare (Acts 2:37, Lk. 2:35). The Word is a two-edged sword going out of the mouth of Jesus (Rev. 19:15), through the mouths of His servants (Heb. 4:12), conquering sinners. And God’s people shout, “glory!”

Good Order: Liturgy & Government

Because of the power of God’s Word, worship must be patterned after God’s clear word. To go off on our own in worship is to insist on impotence, but His voice is where the power and glory are. And His voice says, “Let all things be done decently and in order” (1 Cor. 14:39, Col. 2:5). The word for order is “taxis” and was used to describe military formations in the ancient world, and this is why we should in principle be committed to a formal or liturgical worship. Casual or informal worship is not obedient worship (Heb. 12:28-29). The New Testament requires our worship to be a spiritual sacrificeof praise, and this too implies careful order. The Old Testament sacrifices were offered very carefully and often in a particular order: sin offering, ascension offering, and peace offering (Lev. 9:22, Num. 6:14-17, Ez. 45:17). We call this basic shape of worship Covenant Renewal Worship. But Paul’s concern is principally with clarity (1 Cor. 14). When the Word of God is clear and understandable, God’s Voice thunders with grace and truth.

The same word is also used to describe the “order” of the Levites (Lk. 1:8) and priesthood (Heb. 7:11-21). So our good order is also guarded by the Church through faithful church government. “For this reason I left you in Crete, that you should set in order the things that are lacking, and appoint elders in every city as I commanded you” (Tit. 1:5, cf. 1 Tim. 3). If we want the glory of the Lord to fill our worship and thunder in our cities, we need godly, qualified men in office. While all of the qualifications for elder/deacon are important, perhaps the most neglected is the order and holiness in his home. “If a man is blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children not accused of dissipation or insubordination” (Tit. 1:6). “One who rules his own house well, having his children in submission with all reverence (for if a man does not know how to rule his own house, how will he take care of the church of God?)” (1 Tim. 3:4-5). Related, God’s people honor and obey their elders (1 Tim. 5:17, Heb. 13:7, 17).

Church Discipline

Finally, there is no storm of God’s glory where there is no discipline. Church discipline begins in every believer’s heart by the conviction of the Holy Spirit, through confession of sin and repentance (Lk. 6:41, Gal. 6:1). Most church discipline is informal and takes place in the day to day communion of the saints. Love that covers a multitude of sins is actually part of this: hot grace breaks cold, hard hearts. And never stop praying. But the Bible is also clear that some sins need to be confronted and rebuked. “Take heed to yourselves. If your brother sins against you, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him” (Lk. 17:3). You should ordinarily go to your brother in private, seeking to gain your brother (Mt. 18:15), and the principles of justice apply (2-3 witnesses, due process). Sometimes public sins may need to be publicly confronted (Gal. 2:14, 1 Tim. 5:20). A church that does not fight for holiness does not really love the beauty of holiness.

Conclusion: The Lord of Hosts

In the Exodus narrative the word “armies” is used five times, but the really striking thing is that it never applies to the Egyptians. It always applies to the children of Israel. So this is God’s way: He sees us as His armies, His hosts, and we fight by praising His name, feasting on His Word and at His table, by baptism, by confessing sin, forgiving one another, by building homes, working hard, feasting, and rejoicing in His glorious grace. By the grace and power of His word, He makes us (and remakes us) into the beautiful storm of His holiness.

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What is Family For? (Part 2)

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Introduction

Last week we established the cosmic significance of the family. The family is the economic center of people-production. We make people. This week we explore further what the Bible says goes into this process.

Summary of the Text

Paul commands wives to submit to their own husbands as to the Lord, just as the church does to Christ in everything (Eph. 5:22-24). Likewise, husbands are to love their wives sacrificially, imitating Christ’s love, so that their wives are washed and purified (Eph. 5:25-27). Paul presses the fact that husband and wife are one flesh, requiring that husbands nourish and cherish their wives, just as they do their own bodies, just as Christ does for Church (Eph. 5:28-31). And there is much more going on in this mystery, namely the fact that it is talking about Christ and the church (Eph. 5:32). And regardless of whether we understand how that is true, husbands need to love their wives, and wives need to respect their husbands (Eph. 5:33). Remember the chapter breaks were added later, and therefore, part of the mystery also includes the blessing of children and inheritance, and therefore fathers are charged with the responsibility of providing for their “nurture” and admonition in the Lord (Eph. 6:1-4). Likewise, servants are to obey their masters from the heart as servants of Christ (Eph. 6:5-8), and masters are forbidden to exercise authority by threats or partiality (Eph. 6:9).

The Postmillennial Promises

You might summarize this message as exhorting you to keep God’s promises connected to your faith and obedience in all your household dealings. And it turns out that God’s covenant promises are cosmic in scope. Paul invites us to do this explicitly when he reminds Ephesian (Gentile) children of the promise that goes with the fifth commandment: that it may go well with you and you may live long upon the earth (Eph. 6:2). Note this well: Paul says that Gentilebelievers are now heirs of the promises that were originally given to Israel. But what land is Paul talking about? Paul’s paraphrase makes it clear: the whole earth. Everything that Jesus inherited is now the Promised Land along with the final hope of all things being raised and made new.

One of the more tragic mistakes of some Bible teachers is represented by the following quotes: “Paul’s reference here [Rom. 4:13] to being ‘heir of the world’ is probably not to a temporal repossession of the world but is rather an eschatological reference… For whereas marriage and physical procreation were the necessary means of building the physical nation of Israel, the spiritual people of God are built through the process of spiritual regeneration.” But this is two half-truths that create a very unhelpful distortion. First, this mischaracterizes the Old Covenant, which was always about regeneration also. Yes, the promises were given to ethnic Israel and beganby bestowing the land of Canaan, but the true sons of Abraham were always by faith in the promises, and true Jews were always those whose hearts were circumcised by the Spirit (Dt. 10:16, 30:6, Jer. 4:4, Rom. 2:29, Gal. 3:7). And what did God promise? That by faith alone, God would bless all the families of the earth (Gen. 12:3, 28:14). And the prophets proclaim that the blessings and curses that applied to Israel will apply to all the nations when God has been established as King of all the earth (Is. 66, Zech. 14). And so secondly, God is still working through marriage and family and land in the New Covenant, even though it is all by faith, utterly depends upon the Spirit’s work of regeneration, and still looks for the resurrection.

They Ought to Marry

A related objection that is sometimes raised is that the New Covenant views marriage and singleness as equally normative options, but this is largely based on a misreading of 1 Corinthians 7 and Paul was giving instructions for the “present distress” (Cor. 7:26, 29-31) just as Jesus had warned about the distress that would befall Jerusalem when the temple was destroyed (Mt. 24:1-2, 19, 34). But otherwise, the general command of Scripture is to marry and raise children (cf. Mk. 10:6-7). And this is part of our cosmic warfare against Satan (1 Tim. 5:14-15, 1 Cor. 7:1-5).

The Ministry of Provision

You have heard before that God gives unique assignments to different authorities. The civil magistrate has been given the sword, which is authority from God to punish crimes and maintain equal weights and measures, including the protection of private property and requiring restitution (Rom. 13, Ex. 22). The church has been given the keys of the kingdom, which is authority from God to proclaim the gospel, administer the sacraments, and to exercise church discipline (Mt. 18, 1 Cor. 5). To the family, God has entrusted the ministry of health, welfare, and education. We see this requirement established in our text where Paul requires a husband to “nourish and cherish” his wife as his own body, which is literally to “feed” and “keep warm” (Eph. 5:29). Likewise, the father is required to bring up or “feed” his children with the “culture” and “counsel” of the Lord (Eph. 6:4). Add to this, Paul’s admonition to Timothy that those who do not provide for their own families are worse than unbelievers (1 Tim. 5:8), as well as his prohibition of Christians fellowshipping with those who name Christ but refuse to work for their own food (2 Thess. 3:10-14). We work from the heart for Christ our Master, without partiality or threatening (Eph. 6:5-9). This includes children caring for their elderly parents (Mk. 7:11-13).

Education, Wealth, and Inheritance

Solomon says a good man leaves an inheritance to his grandchildren (Prov. 13:22). Christian education is the process of passing down Christian wealth to the next generation. The wisdom of Christ is better than rubies, better than choice silver or gold (Prov. 8:10-11), but that wisdom is an inheritance that brings with it knowledge and understanding and the fear of the Lord and authority and power and riches and honor (Prov. 8:13-21). A Christian education is itself an inheritance of immense value, but it is also the kind of inheritance that trains you to be a good steward of far more (Lk. 19:17). So the question is not whether you will have wealth, but whether you will seek it biblically and steward it in obedience to Christ or not. Unbelieving education is oriented to the systems and values of Mammon, but Christian education teaches that all of the treasures of wisdom are found in Christ and His reproach is great wealth (Col. 2:2, Heb. 11:26).

Conclusions

A family is a powerful economy ordered according to God’s word and nature for the production of fruitful people who will live forever. We do not set at odds the physical needs, responsibilities, or fruit of our labors with our spiritual needs, responsibilities, or heavenly reward. Do not store up treasures on earth: seek first the Kingdom. And we do that by knowing Christ, laboring honestly, remaining steadfast in the Word and prayer, by marrying, bearing children, starting businesses, confessing our sins, forgiving one another, providing rigorous Christian education, caring for elderly parents, building houses, investing wisely, giving generously, looking to help others in need. It is not an accident that having exhorted households to be ordered to Christ, Paul immediately turns to our cosmic struggle against the rulers of darkness in this world (Eph. 6:10ff). We are at war, and it is only by faith that all the families of the earth will be blessed.

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What is Family For? (Part 1)

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Introduction

This week and next week we will look at what the Bible says about what the family is for in order to better understand why God calls us to different tasks aimed at the same goal.

The Text

8 For the man is not of the woman: but the woman of the man.9 Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man.10 For this cause ought the woman to have power on her head because of the angels.11 Nevertheless neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord.12 For as the woman is of the man, even so is the man also by the woman; but all things of God (1 Cor. 11:8-12).

Summary of the Text

In a somewhat challenging passage, Paul reminds the Corinthians that the creation details are important and significant, not arbitrary or ambivalent. The first woman was created fromman, and this is because woman was created forman (1 Cor. 11:9). Paul reasons from the order of creation to a telos or purpose of creation. Paul says that this is why a woman ought to have authority on her head (1 Cor. 11:10), especially in the context of worship and public prayer (1 Cor. 11:4-5). This is so significant that it in some way even reaches up to the angels (1 Cor. 11:10). At the same time, none of this can be taken to mean that man is independent of woman, as though only she needs the man. No, both need each other (1 Cor. 11:11). In fact, don’t take the “from” language in a sloppy way because every man after Adam literally came froma woman. And besides all of that, all things are fromGod (1 Cor. 11:12).

Because of the Angels

Riffing off of C.R. Wiley’s new book The Household and the War for the Cosmos, the Bible says that getting sex and marriage right has cosmic significance. This is implied at the beginning of our passage where Paul writes, “But I want you to know that the head of every man is Christ, the head of woman is man, and the head of Christ is God” (1 Cor. 11:3). Paul insists that the order (or structure) of male and female in this world is constantly referring to Christ and God. To mess with male and female is already to attempt to mess with God and His Christ. We’ve been reminded of this many times when considering the fact that man (both male and female) is made in the image of God. Since rebel man cannot actually strike at the Infinite God, he strikes at His image – he burns the image in effigy, like some kind of blasphemous voodoo doll. But here Paul presses the point further: the blasphemy is not merely in the disfiguring and dismembering of image bearers themselves, but it is also in the attempted deconstruction of the orderof the sexes in marriage, in worship, and in the public square. To defy the orderis to defy Christ and God.

But it isn’t only that. Paul says that this order is even significant in some way because of the angels. Without pretending to understand fully what Paul had in mind with that phrase, we should understand that Paul is making a cosmicclaim. He is arguing that the order of man and woman and Christ and God is not an extraneous matter, but it reaches up and out into the fabric of the universe. While we have been trained to think of molecules and atoms as the fabric of the universe, a more biblical understanding recognizes that God’s Word is what ultimately holds all things together (Heb. 1:3), and the angels are His messengers, who carry out His word (Ps. 103:20), sparks of fire intimately involved in all of creation, fulfilling His will (Ps. 104:4). This is why in the Bible angels are associated with the stars (Jdg. 5:20, Job 38:7, Lk. 2:13, Rev. 22:16), and star-angels can be seen in this sense as having something to say/do with the births and lives and callings of people (Job 3:9, Mt. 2:2-20). Our lives are intertwined with the angels (Ps. 8:5).

All Fatherhood is Named

In another place, Paul again gestures at the cosmic significance of the family when he writes, “For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family [lit. all fatherhood] in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man…” (Eph. 3:14-16). As with angels and stars, moderns are frequently ignorant of the Biblical and cosmic meaning of naming. But going back to the original creation week, when God spoke and called the universe into being, He did so by calling it by name, and when He began to teach Adam what it meant to be made in His image, He taught him to imitate that creativity in the task of namingthe animals (Gen. 1-2). Naming in the Bible goes closely together with calling. To be called by God is frequently to be named by God with that calling (e.g. Gen. 17:5, 15, Mt. 1:21, Lk. 1:13-17). While we are not God, our words are still powerful like God’s words (e.g. Ps. 42:10, Prov. 25:15, Js. 3:5-6). So all fatherhood finds its meaning and purpose in the Eternal Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and this is how God grants strength in the inner man. Knowing the Father through His only Son is an invitation to put roots down, to know who your people are, to know what your nameis, to know what you and your family are for, to build a strong family.

What Are Families For?

“Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Gen. 1:28). A great deal of our confusion is related to the fact that we don’t understand what family/marriage/home is for. The word “economics” is from two Greek words “home” and “law.” So literally, an “economy” is the “law of the house” or we might say the “order of the home.” An economy is literally the way a household is organized. A household economy includes what is being produced, what supplies are needed, and who performs what tasks. And therefore, there must be a clear chain of command. We do not generally bat an eye at the idea of a boss having authority and giving instructions and pointed feedback to employees. But this is frequently because we have a great deal of reverence for money and market success. But if you don’t think that the family-economy is doing anything terribly important then you might think the man being the head of his wife seems arbitrary and tyrannical – like some roommate being appointed “head” of all the roommates. But if you see how high the stakes are, that we are participating in cosmic realities, then you are likely to appreciate the need for clear roles. But you might still wonder: businesses have services they provide or goods they produce. What are families for? The answer is they make people.

Conclusion

People are the most valuable resource in all of creation because they bear the image of the Eternal God. Lewis says somewhere that we have never had any dealings with a mere mortal. Everyone we come in contact with is either in the process of becoming a creature that we would be tempted to worship or to recoil from in utter horror. People are immortals. For two people to become one flesh, and create new people is to participate in something beyond reckoning: immortal souls are coming into existence and being fashioned for eternal destinies.

So the stakes are really high if we get this wrong. But on the flip side, to submit to God’s design for man and woman and family is to cut with the grain of the stars. It is to even honor the angels in some mysterious way. It is to participate in something that reaches all the way up to God in heaven, which is why it is such a threat to all the old systems of sin and unbelief. But none of this is automatic. Our families participate in that glory in the only way there is to the Father, which is through the Son. This is good news for every kind of household there is. We make people biologicallythrough the one flesh union of husband and wife, but we make people for everlasting glory and productivity through the gospel, by knowing the Father through Jesus His Son.

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The Single Person’s Role in the Church

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Introduction

I want to do two things with this talk, which is probably more than the organizers had in mind, but I want to address the increasingly common claim that singleness and marriage are equally normative options for Christians and then talk about being fruitful and faithful as a man or a woman in the church. And the reason I think I need to do it this way is because there has been a heavy push in recent decades to downplay the ordinary calling to marriage and family. Sometimes articles or sermons or books come out on the potential idolatry of family and marriage or on why singleness is an equally normative option for Christians to choose, or sometimes, following this same logic, Christian couples announce that they have chosen not to have children. This topic has also become a hot button issue in the “gay-celibate” and “spiritual friendship” movement, seeking to revive some of the monastic impulses of the middle ages.

Because of the Present Distress

One of the most misunderstood and misapplied passages on this topic is 1 Corinthians 7 where Paul says, “For I wish that all men were even as I myself. But each one has his own gift from God, one in this manner and another in that. But I say to the unmarried and to the widows: it is good for them if they remain even as I am… Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be loosed. Are you loosed from a wife? Do not seek a wife… But I want you to be without care. He who is unmarried cares for the things of the Lord – how he may please the Lord. But he who is married cares about the things of the world – how he may please his wife…” (1 Cor. 7:7-9, 27, 32-33).

But nobody seems to pay very close attention to a few significant phrases: “I suppose therefore that this is good because of the present distress – that it is good for a man to remain as he is” (1 Cor. 7:26). And a few verses down: “But this I say, brethren, the time is short, so that from now on even those who have wives should be as though they had none, those who weep as though they did not weep… for the form of this world is passing away” (1 Cor. 7:29-31). Paul explicitly says that he is giving this advice because of the historical moment he was in. Jesus had actually said this as well: “But woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days!” (Mt. 24:19). What days was Jesus speaking of? He was answering the question his disciples had asked Him about when the temple would be destroyed (Mt. 24:1-2). And just in case we may be tempted to think that Jesus changed subjects at some point in the discourse, He insists that all of that judgment would come during “this generation” (Mt. 24:34). So Paul’s instructions were not for all times. They were specifically directed at the moment of cataclysmic social collapse of the Old Covenant — the form of that Old Covenant world was truly passing away and the time was short and it was going to be full of distress — and so all these things were fulfilled in 70 A.D. when Jerusalem and the Temple were destroyed, just as Jesus promised. At most, we might say that there may be an analogous application of Paul’s recommendation to remain unmarried to the guy who is called to be a missionary in North Korea.

Old & New Covenant

There is also some confusion sometimes over the nature of the transition from Old Covenant to New Covenant. One writer says, “For whereas marriage and physical procreation were the necessary means of building the physical nation of Israel, the spiritual people of God are built through the process of spiritual regeneration.” This is unfortunately only half true. It’s true that the Old Covenant centered on Israel as an ethnic people in a specific land as their inheritance, but all of that was a type and training for the New Covenant which is international and Christ’s inheritance which is now the whole world (e.g. Ps. 2, Mt. 28). Both the Old Covenant and the New Covenant have external signs and blessings and internal and eternal realities. Paul says that Abraham’s true children have always come by faith – often biologically, sometimes by adoption or profession, but always by the miraculous working of the Spirit.

So rather than seeing the Old and New Covenants as opposed at this point, we ought to see the Old Covenant as the seed form of what would grow up into the New Covenant. And therefore, the command to be fruitful and multiply, the inheritance of children and the blessing of long life in the land, and therefore the ordinary calling of a man to leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and become one flesh is not merely still in force, it is still in force with the added promises and power of the gospel. This doesn’t reduce the blessings of the New Covenant to family and land because of course it includes forgiveness of sins, the gift of the Holy Spirit, and eternal life and the resurrection, but it still includes family, land, and inheritance in every land, among all people. The New Covenant takes up the basic building blocks of the Old Covenant (e.g. Acts 2:39 — the promise is to you and to your children) and expands the offer and promises and inheritance to everyone everywhere (“as many as are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call”), including those who are not yet married, those who are barren, those who for various providential reasons will not or cannot be married or bear children (cf. Is. 56:4-5).

Fruitful Men & Women

As we turn the corner and begin considering what a single person’s role in the church is, I want to look at two texts that on the surface may seem unrelated or even unhelpful. “And I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, but to be in silence. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived fell into transgression. Nevertheless she will be saved in childbearing if they continue in faith, love, and holiness, with self-control” (1 Tim. 2:12-15). There are several fascinating things about this text, but the one I want to focus on is the fact that Paul says that the woman will be saved in childbearing. It cannot be the case that Paul means that regeneration is literally tied to procreation since Paul is the champion of justification by faith alone, not by works, lest anyone should boast. So in what sense could Paul mean that salvation is related to childbearing? One answer could be the fact that God promised that the seed of the woman would crush the seed of the serpent, and then Mary bore the Savior of the world. Salvation did literally come through the birth of a child. Paul may be alluding to that, but I think there is more.

This leads us to our second passage: “For in this manner, in former times, the holy women who trusted in God also adorned themselves, being submissive to their own husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord, whose daughters you are if you do good and are not afraid with any terror” (1 Pet. 3:5-6). The thing I want to point out to you is that word “daughters,” and the reason I want to point it out is because Sarah never had any biological daughters. In fact, for most of Sarah’s life she was barren, and then at the very end of her life, she had one child, a son, Isaac. But Peter says that Sarah is still bearing children, as women imitate her obedient, fearless faith. So I believe this is what Paul has in mind as well: women are saved by a maternal-shaped faith that continues in faith, love, holiness, with self-control.

Pulling these two texts together, I want to insist that marriage and childbearing is the normal calling for most people, but in the absence of marriage and/or biological children, God still calls women to be fruitful mothers and homemakers, as “they continue in faith, love, and holiness, with self-control.”

And we can make a similar argument for men from the way the Bible describes fatherhood. Yes, it is centrally the act of begetting biological children via marriage, but Timothy was Paul’s beloved son in the Lord (1 Cor. 4:17), and he lamented the fact that the Corinthians did not have more fathers in the faith (1 Cor. 4:15). And of course Abraham is the father of all the faithful. All men are called to a masculine-shaped faith and obedience that the Bible broadly describes as fatherhood.

No Place for Singles, Only Men & Women, Fathers & Mothers

The point I want to make is that there is no gender-neutral place for “singles” in the church. But there are necessary and crucial roles for men and women in the church, and those roles are broadly described under the headings of fatherhood and motherhood, or what we might call a masculine-shaped holiness and service and a feminine-shaped holiness and service.

Men, your glory is your strength – particularly physical and emotional strength. You are good at concentrating on particular problems and creating solutions. You are good at trying and failing, trying something else and failing again, and finally succeeding. This is why most entrepreneurs are men. Use your strength sacrificially for the good of the world. Start a business, start a ministry, start a podcast, invent something, build something, give away whatever God has given you an abundance of, serve wherever you see needs. But think big and think long term. Think of leaving something behind, an inheritance, a legacy, something that matters.

Women, your glory is your beauty and your ability to give life. You make homes. The central sign of this reality is the fact that God gave you a uterus. The uterus is a small home inside of you designed by God to make a human being. Whatever God has for you, He has put that inside of you to tell you what you’re for. You make people. But don’t just think of that as a biological thing, though no doubt most of you will one day do that. But think of motherhood and homemaking as the task of ministering life to the world: serving, loving, giving, blessing, feeding, teaching, organizing, communicating, making beautiful things, music, art, clothing, food – these are essential tasks for giving life to people, of making people. Think big and long term. Be fruitful in every way, and do not pretend to be competing with men. Never be ashamed of being a woman.

“And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance; for you serve the Lord Christ” (Col. 3:23-24).

Don’t Be Proud or Have Higher Standards than God
I want to apply this to how you serve now: cleaning up, setting up chairs, running a sound booth, taking pictures, helping with little ones, cleaning homes, chopping wood, sending encouraging notes, praying for needs, giving tithes and offerings, working hard, practicing hospitality and evangelism. If Christ calls you to the task, the task is dignified by His calling.

I also want to apply this to how you pray for and pursue a spouse. Have biblical standards and never compromise them and seek out biblical accountability, but don’t let your pride get in the way of seeking a spouse. Many human standards need to thrown away. What does God say makes a good spouse? What do your parents think? Your preferences or romantic imaginations may be getting in the way.

Conclusion

I want to be clear: the ordinary calling of men and women is to marry, bear children, and build families under the blessing of God as a central means of building the Kingdom of God. But through various providences, God sometimes calls men and women to temporary or lifelong singleness, and when God does this, He does it for His good purposes and for the good and blessing of the Church, and for your good and blessing, so that you might exercise your fatherly and motherly gifts in the body.

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