Has It Really Come To This?
Captain Sensible writes: Is it possible to denigrate marriage any more than John Piper has in the recent sermon which I have linked to below, without actually going so far as to forbid it? (A teaching that the Bible warns us is demonic, by the way!)
I have yet to listen to the sermon itself, so I intend to post again once I have had the opportunity to do so, but judging by the extracts on the "Desiring God" site, I am truly shocked!
What has the church come to that we are even having the discussions we are at the moment about singleness and marriage?
It pains me to write this it is just so blindingly obvious, but God's plan, God's revealed will and God's command, is for all but a few specific exceptions to marry and have children. There is an entire book dedicated to the joys of marital erotic love! God calls Himself a "Husband"; we are the "Bride" of Christ! We are told time and time again to marry and try to have the godly children the Lord desires!
Does God sound in any way ambivalent about marriage to you? Does it sound like He regards marriage as something that is a kind of second rate option for those wishy-washy followers of His that can't quite manage an totally "undivided devotion" to Him? It certainly doesn't to me!
It's also plain common sense. We are sexual beings with strong sexual urges! Women especially have a natural instinct to want children! We struggle with loneliness if we are single - regardless of the number of friends or "church family" we have! It's just the way God made us!
What's with the complication? What's with the agonising over whether we have this "gift" or that "gift"?
Quite honestly, I really can't even bring myself to argue this any further, it is just so unutterably stupid!
Oh, how I had to struggle to stop myself calling this post: "Is John Piper Mad, Bad or Merely Dangerous?"!
But honestly, I do despair at what the contemporary church is teaching these days (in case you couldn't tell!).
Single in Christ: A Name Better Than Sons and Daughters
I have yet to listen to the sermon itself, so I intend to post again once I have had the opportunity to do so, but judging by the extracts on the "Desiring God" site, I am truly shocked!
What has the church come to that we are even having the discussions we are at the moment about singleness and marriage?
It pains me to write this it is just so blindingly obvious, but God's plan, God's revealed will and God's command, is for all but a few specific exceptions to marry and have children. There is an entire book dedicated to the joys of marital erotic love! God calls Himself a "Husband"; we are the "Bride" of Christ! We are told time and time again to marry and try to have the godly children the Lord desires!
Does God sound in any way ambivalent about marriage to you? Does it sound like He regards marriage as something that is a kind of second rate option for those wishy-washy followers of His that can't quite manage an totally "undivided devotion" to Him? It certainly doesn't to me!
It's also plain common sense. We are sexual beings with strong sexual urges! Women especially have a natural instinct to want children! We struggle with loneliness if we are single - regardless of the number of friends or "church family" we have! It's just the way God made us!
What's with the complication? What's with the agonising over whether we have this "gift" or that "gift"?
Quite honestly, I really can't even bring myself to argue this any further, it is just so unutterably stupid!
Oh, how I had to struggle to stop myself calling this post: "Is John Piper Mad, Bad or Merely Dangerous?"!
But honestly, I do despair at what the contemporary church is teaching these days (in case you couldn't tell!).
Single in Christ: A Name Better Than Sons and Daughters
posted by Captain Sensible at 6:06 AM
6 Comments:
Greetings Moi Capitan!
Truly as Solomon pointed out (didn't he write that sex book?) there is nothing new under the sun. Please forgive me if I sound harsh as I do not mean to step on toes here, however:
I got a chance to read through the sermon and with all due respect to Dr. Piper what he is saying is the same recycled super spiritual drivel that many before him have preached. The whole concept of the dissolution of the natural order of things and going to a "superior spiritual order" is nothing new. And frankly it paints a rather flaky, schizophrenic image of Christ. Much of this was influenced by ancient philosophies including Gnosticism, which pretty much demonized the natural and exalted the spiritual. If I remember correctly, many of the early church teachers like St. Augustine, whose influence is still felt today, were heavily influenced by Gnosticism. I do agree that the spiritual is more real in that it is the place where the outcome of things is determined, however I do not believe it will ever supplant the natural order.
I know many of the singleness pundits like to exalt Paul as the poster-child for singleness nirvana, however, remember that Paul (nor Solomon) is not the pattern we are to emulate. He did not lay the foundation to the house, Jesus did. We are all made in God's image, and that image includes our gender, sexuality, etc.
I do not know what life will be like after the redemption of man, but the natural order of things will never be done away with as God's ultimate purposes never changed. What was in Genesis will be again, however better in that sin will never taint creation again. I realize that I am opening up a theological can of worms here, but oh well....
Is Piper married himself? With children, himself? If so, why is he so sold on selling singleness to others?
Hi Vincenzo:
I agree with you that there is a recycled nature to Piper's argument, and ultimately, it shares the same roots with Gnosticism. However, this idea of different dispensations for singleness acceptance is a relatively new idea, and is being advanced as the theological justification to excuse the circumstantial singleness of millions of Christians. Most of the Catholic writings exalting celibacy is still limited to those who actually chose the priesthood. Today, we are pretending that those who are single by default probably had some sort of spiritual calling that they simply overlooked in their busyness with fornication, computer games, and other worldly pursuits.
This is the utter lunacy-- still single, there must be a good reason, you just need to find out what it is, so that we can have some sort of collective singleness utopia where singles can give "undivided devotion" to the Lord. I Corinthians 7:35-36 was not setting up a goal/ideal for Christian singles to achieve, so much as it was setting up the characteristics or evidentiary exemplification should a single person choose to temporarily delay marriage. The fact that there is no "good decorum" in Christian singleness is not evidence of try harder in a more "radical" way, it is evidence that the delay of marriage (whether self-induced or caused by others) was a bad choice, and should be immediately rectified, with nothing other than marriage itself.
Captain, my husband and you share the same lamentations. He also cannot believe what Christians are debating today, something that is so elementary.
Be not discouraged and remember God has put us in this spot of time for a purpose.
Debbie Maken
I've been pondering this demonic teaching of forbidding marriage, that Paul warns Timothy about. His words are very strong (so much for Paul extolling the virtues of "singleness" as opposed to supernaturally-gifted celibacy and giving personal advice during a time of crisis!):
"The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron. They forbid people to marry..."
So Paul is issuing a strong warning here that there will be demonic forces that seek to prevent Christians marriages from taking place.
Many churches, quite rightly, seek to protect existing marriages, and will offer marriage courses and counselling services for couples in difficulty.
But what are they doing to protect singles against the forces that seek to prevent marriages in the first place?
Nothing, is probably the short answer.
So are they leaving singles spiritually defenceless (in corporate terms) against these demonic forces that seek to stop marriages happening?
I am not saying there is any "forbidding" of marriage going on in our churches.
But shouldn't we take much more seriously the hindrance of marriage, and the way that it is being denigrated to the point of being inferior, or even just equal, to singleness?
If forbidding marriage is demonic, doesn't that indicate that promoting and facilitating it among singles, in a much more purposeful and active way, is Godly?
After all, Paul doesn't warn about demonic forces that will seek to rob Christians of the "gift of singleness"...
I think I have said something about this before, but these are just a few more rambling thoughts!
Hi Debbie,
Thanks for responding to my post. Great book BTW. I do agree that we need to deal with the root cause of protracted singleness in the church. However, the point I was making about Piper's sermon is that certain sects of Gnosticism also teach the liberation from the baser natural (e.g. sex, marriage and children) to the superior spiritual (joyful eunuchhood). Many Gnostics also embraced the celibate lifestyle. So, I was actually pointing to the philosophies themselves as being ancient. But, yes I agree that what is being taught in churches today is a fairly recent reemergence of those same philosophies (40 years roughly) in a more spiritually palatable form, but this time dressed up in Scriptural references and Christianese.
Captain, I agree that many churches do protect marriage and are not actively forbidding singles to marry, however when the problem is not being addressed, but in some ways encouraged and fed, and then some who do want to seek a spouse are discouraged from doing so through sermons, media, books and just plain bad theology, then it would be easy, I think, to believe that they are, in a sense, being forbidden to marry.
Hi Captain,
I am so glad that I am reading the words of someone who has taken the words right out of my mouth on the "gift" of singleness. I've sometimes posted on the Boundless blogs but lately I don't have the motivation. It's the same debate about singleness vs. married anyways. I don't see a consensus (or whatever the word is) coming anytime soon.
Like you (well, probably like you) I am dumbfounded as to why there is even a debate on this. And if the moderators think my words are too vulgar I would hope they edit it instead of not post it: but seriously, how is it a gift of singleness to feel as if you are obsessing or struggling severely with thoughts of fornication, masturbation and porn? If it were God's will for me to be single, that would mean that He wants me to struggle with these destructive sinful thoughts every day rather than take the prudent approach and get married. Or, if it were God's will for me to be single, that means that I am incapable of making ANY man happy whatsoever. Well, at least that it is how it FEELS.
I was almost going to buy Piper's book "What Jesus Demands From the World" or something but now that I've seen what Piper has preached here, I am definitely going to look for something else.
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