I've been encouraged recently by a book by John Piper called This Momentary Marriage. It is obviously a book about marriage, but Piper focuses on our relationship with Christ and how marriage is only a temporary picture of that relationship. And in focusing on Christ, he has a good deal to say about single men and women, as well. I'm totally married now, but I have a heart to know more about how God is glorified in single men and women. I'd like to share a bit from the book that encouraged me today. Piper is mainly teaching from 1 Peter 4:7-11, Ephesians 5, and 1 Corinthians 7 in this chapter.
If you are a follower of Jesus, and have to read a "marriage book," I recommend you read this one. :)
"What's driving this chapter is a desire for Christ to be magnified in the way married people and single people show hospitality to each other. Or, to put it another way if it's true, as I tried to show in the previous chapter, that God's family, which comes into being by regeneration, is more central and more lasting than the human family that comes into being by procreation, the implications for relationships are very important. How members of that family, the church, relate to each other as married and single will witness to the world that our lives are oriented on the supremacy of Christ and that our relationships are defined not just by nature, but by Christ. I long to see Christ magnified through married people folding single people into their lives and single people folding married people into their lives for the sake of Christ and the gospel...
"...Neither marriage as a physical parable nor singleness as a physical parable is to be idolized or feared. Marriage is beautiful and physical. Singleness is beautiful and physical. God made them both. Both are designed, like all of nature, to display the glory of Christ.
Marriage and celibacy can be idolatrous. Spouses can worship each other or worship sex or worship their children or worship double-income-no-kid buying power. Singles can worship autonomy and independence. Singles can look on marriage as a second-class Christian compromise with the sexual drive. Married people can look upon singleness as a mark of immaturity or irresponsibility or incompetence.
But what I am trying to clarify is that there are Christ-exalting ways to be married, and there are Christ-exalting ways to be single. There are ways to use our bodies and our appetites in marriage and in singleness that make much of Christ."
This Momentary Marriage, ch. 10: Singleness, Marriage, and Hospitality
by John Piper
If you are a follower of Jesus, and have to read a "marriage book," I recommend you read this one. :)
"What's driving this chapter is a desire for Christ to be magnified in the way married people and single people show hospitality to each other. Or, to put it another way if it's true, as I tried to show in the previous chapter, that God's family, which comes into being by regeneration, is more central and more lasting than the human family that comes into being by procreation, the implications for relationships are very important. How members of that family, the church, relate to each other as married and single will witness to the world that our lives are oriented on the supremacy of Christ and that our relationships are defined not just by nature, but by Christ. I long to see Christ magnified through married people folding single people into their lives and single people folding married people into their lives for the sake of Christ and the gospel...
"...Neither marriage as a physical parable nor singleness as a physical parable is to be idolized or feared. Marriage is beautiful and physical. Singleness is beautiful and physical. God made them both. Both are designed, like all of nature, to display the glory of Christ.
Marriage and celibacy can be idolatrous. Spouses can worship each other or worship sex or worship their children or worship double-income-no-kid buying power. Singles can worship autonomy and independence. Singles can look on marriage as a second-class Christian compromise with the sexual drive. Married people can look upon singleness as a mark of immaturity or irresponsibility or incompetence.
But what I am trying to clarify is that there are Christ-exalting ways to be married, and there are Christ-exalting ways to be single. There are ways to use our bodies and our appetites in marriage and in singleness that make much of Christ."
This Momentary Marriage, ch. 10: Singleness, Marriage, and Hospitality
by John Piper
