In Genesis 1 and 2, we learn that it was not good for Adam to be alone, marriage is a good gift, and it’s part of God’s good creation and cultural mandate that we not only subdue the earth but fill it with more image bearers. Motherhood is a good, beautiful, and holy calling. In an age when motherhood is sometimes denigrated or marginalized, it is good for Christians to remind ourselves and the world that mothering is essential work.
But the physical means of procreation in the old covenant have been replaced with the spiritual means in the new covenant. In the Old Testament, people joined God’s family by being born into it. Even then, though, birth wasn’t the only way to join. Foreigners who professed belief in God and submitted themselves to His law and the requirements of His community were welcomed in (Ex. 12:48-49; Lev. 19:33-34). In the New Testament, though, the only way to join God’s family is by grace through faith. The church, the household of God, is the new Israel. Through faith in Jesus, we who believe in Him make up God’s household. Our primary and eternal family is spiritual, and it grows by faith.
Marriage and family are good gifts. And as the world seeks to minimize them or tear them down, we do well in the church to build them up. But we must stop short of saying that marriage and motherhood are God’s only call, or highest call, or best call for all women. While we may claim we don’t believe that, we betray our subconscious assent to it when we endlessly try to fix up our single friends, as if we cannot imagine anyone being single forever. Or when we say to our childless friends, “You think you’re tired now, just wait until you have kids!” As if real sanctification only happens in motherhood.
Motherhood and marriage are good gifts, but they are not required for maturity. Further, marriage is not superior to singleness, and biological motherhood is not superior to spiritual motherhood. As we consider what the Bible says about being a woman, let’s consider God’s blessings for and delight in single and childless women too.
In Isaiah 56:1-8, the context is freedom for Israel from Babylonian captivity. The salvation mentioned in verse 1 is rescue from Babylon. The Sabbath in these verses is shorthand for the whole law.
It’s not hard to imagine the hopelessness and shame a eunuch may have felt amongst a people whose identity and growth depended on biological procreation. But our God, who always sees those on the margins, sees them too.
Jesus also speaks about Eunuchs in Matthew 19:1-12. There was a group of Pharisees who were “liberal toward divorce. They permitted it for virtually any reason, including such ridiculous grounds as the wife burning her husband’s supper or having physical defects like bushy eyebrows.”1 They came to Jesus to challenge Him about marriage.
Jesus acknowledges the painful reality that sometimes people are born unable to have children. The eunuchs who “were made so by men” refers to those who may have been made sterile in servitude to a ruler who required lifelong, unwavering loyalty, or possibly a person made sterile by a conquering people group. Those who are eunuchs “because of the kingdom of heaven” are those who choose celibacy to devote themselves to God, such as someone who feels called by God to serve in a particularly difficult mission field or someone who chooses to stay single for a singularly focused devotion to the Lord.
The apostle Paul was single—at least during the part of his life covered in Scripture. In 1 Corinthians 7:7-9 Paul does not say singleness is better than marriage. Nor does he or Scripture claim that marriage is better than singleness.
Marriage is good, and children are good! They are both good gifts from our generous God, and they are both good means for us to pursue in responding to the creation mandate. But in our attempt to uphold these good gifts, we in the church must not unduly burden our single and childless brothers and sisters with unthoughtful comments that make them feel secondary. After all, both Jesus and Paul were single! Our single and childless siblings in the household of God are just as Paul wishes, and they are walking out the gift that Jesus says they should receive if they can.
One final thought on our spiritual family and Jesus’s singleness that kind of blew my mind when it first dawned on me: Jesus’s singleness and childlessness preaches the gospel. If Jesus had married and had children, His family would’ve grown by physical means. Instead, Jesus is our Groom. The church is called the bride of Christ (Matt. 9:15; Rev. 19:7-9).
Further, Jesus is the promised offspring of Eve (Gen. 3:15) who makes a way for us to be adopted “as sons” into His family (Gal. 4:4-7). Paul says we’re all like sons because in the context of first-century Greco-Roman culture, sons who were legally adopted received all the rights and benefits of a full inheritance from their fathers. We who are adopted into God’s family have all the rights and benefits that legally adopted sons did. We are sons and daughters, brothers and sisters of Jesus, the firstborn Son and our eldest Brother (Heb. 2:11; Rom. 8:17,29). Jesus is not only our Savior, but the Bible also calls Him our Groom and our Brother. The Bible uses all kinds of metaphors to get this point across to you and me: we who were far off are brought near and made family. In fact, the most common way Christians refer to one another in the New Testament is by the Greek word for brothers and sisters. It’s used 271 times! The first Christians saw themselves as family members of the same household.2 Our faith family is a good gift!
This is an excerpt from the new Bible study Very Good: What the Bible Says About Being a Woman by Jen Oshman, now available for preorder. Learn more at lifeway.com/verygood!
Works Cited
- Charles L. Quarles, “Matthew,” in CSB Study Bible: Notes, ed. Edwin A. Blum and Trevin Wax (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2017), 1535.
- Paul Trebilco, “Brothers and sisters – ἀδελφοί,” Self-Designations and Group Identity in the New Testament (Cambridge University Press, 2011), 16–67.
