Episode Transcript
Carey Griffel: Welcome to Genesis Marks the Spot, where we raid the ivory tower of biblical theology without ransacking our faith. My name is Carey Griffel, and even though I have spent the previous six episodes on the topic of sexuality, and I kind of can't believe it's been that long, honestly. I decided to do this bonus episode, so to speak, about the topic of singleness. Because that, too, has to do with what we've been addressing. I had this book recommended to me about singleness, and I thought it would fit right into what we've been talking about because much of what I've been saying has involved the purposes of creation and, of course, I believe that those purposes will be fulfilled in the Eschaton, or the End of Things, or the Resurrected Life.
[00:01:04] This book by Danielle Treweek, and I hope I'm pronouncing her name right, is called The Meaning of Singleness, Retrieving an Eschatological Vision for the Contemporary Church. And she suggests that it is in fact singleness that is the ultimate end.
[00:01:24] I think that most Christians will have the perspective that there will be, as stated by Jesus, no marriage or giving in marriage in heaven. And we take that to mean both no sex and no more marriage, right?
[00:01:41] And to tip my hand here, I'm not actually as convinced as those who take that position. Which is actually a bit interesting to me, because I was raised in a tradition where there was a very strong emphasis on eternal marriage. If you know any LDS people, you probably know that they are all about eternal families, and being together forever, and there's all these songs that still get stuck in my head and all of that.
[00:02:14] I grew up thinking, that marriage was about finding that eternal partner that I would end up with forever. That was one of the prime goals of life, as was taught to me in my LDS upbringing. But then, I turned to Christianity on a historical level. And I took on traditional Christian beliefs, and I was able to dismantle those ideas and see how, well, selfish they really were.
[00:02:43] Instead of being focused on God, and being with God, and thinking about how amazing that would be, instead of that, I was focused on not wanting to lose the people around me. And I now see what a big mental twist that is. I don't think that my highest goal should be to want to follow God in order to keep my relationships with my family.
[00:03:11] But I hope that I want to follow God in order to be in relationship with Him and to be formed in the image of Christ. So, I think that focusing on marriage in that way as, like, this eternal idea effectively downgrades God and puts a spouse, or children, or other family members in place of Him. I know that for my LDS friends, that might sound extreme. And it's not something you want to accept in the teachings of the LDS Church, but that's effectively what's going on, and it's not ideal.
[00:03:50] So, when I came into historical Christianity, I was really perfectly happy with accepting that perhaps it will be that my family relationships will dissolve in heaven, and it won't matter to me, because whatever that will look like, it will be good.
[00:04:10] So, I'm not trying to get back the idea of the eternal family, but I am interested in looking at all of this in context. Does the Bible actually say that there will be no marriage, and a big part of that also means there's no intercourse? Is that a surefire interpretation? Again, I don't have a fundamental problem with the idea of no marriage and no intercourse, but I want to make sure we aren't misrepresenting what Jesus said in all of that.
[00:04:44] Now, before we get into the book, I want to talk about interpretive bias, and particularly, my interpretive bias. To be honest, reading this book was a bit of a perplexity for me because I both like it and also find it highly annoying. And I'll tell you why. As I said in last week's episode on homosexuality, I don't normally find myself in the mix of what I might call modern conversations about theology. Because I think they come from a perspective of the modern times, as you might expect. Which, again, that doesn't have to be bad, but this is just not the way that I am thinking.
[00:05:31] Now, here's my transparency and bias, and this isn't going to be a surprise to anyone, but I read scripture, and I think theological thoughts, that arise from a trajectory of a biblical theology, meaning the context of the Bible, it's time and the way the authors thought and things like that. Now, it's not that church history and historical interpretation doesn't matter, because I think we need to value historical interpretation and tradition. And I think it has brought us solid doctrine. And I think the church has tangibly and not just invisibly existed from the time of Jesus up to now.
[00:06:16] So, normally, if there's something that the Church has said for a really long time, then I put a lot of weight to that. Like, a LOT of weight. To the point that if you can see a pretty consistent witness across space and time, well, there's probably something to that, but that doesn't make the church always right, either.
[00:06:39] Sometimes ideas take hold, and they last past their expiration date. That's why we also see a lot of bad ideas that can last a long time. Now, admittedly, the way that I'm reading Scripture and theologizing is quite frankly not the way that the Church has almost ever done it. The historical theology of the Church has not been one of biblical theology. And again, I don't mean theology that's biblical, but rather the methodology of biblical theology. So, in a sense, what I'm doing is, really, it's stepping outside the line of what traditional theology has looked like, and that should give me some caution. And it does. But I also can't really apologize for it. I don't see how it could be a bad thing to recapture the meaning of the original audience. How could that possibly be bad?
[00:07:43] But here's the kicker. What it shows us, sometimes, is that historical theology is not necessarily in line with that original meaning, at least, not exactly.
[00:07:58] And again, that might not actually be a problem, which I realize kind of sounds weird, but there is at least a bit of a tension there. I don't even want to say that a biblical theological interpretation is necessarily better than an interpretation by a church father. The biblical theology interpretation is probably going to be the one that I'll personally prefer. And I acknowledge that the Church Fathers and the Ecumenical Councils were in their own situations dealing with particular things, and that's why they thought and said what they did, and probably most often, they had the best ideas they could have in that context.
[00:08:44] And as I said, there's this strange thing going on with biblical theology in working to return to the context, but also needing to acknowledge that throughout church history, that's just not how things were done. And somehow we need to live in that tension as Christians if we're in a space like this. If we're going to accept the historicity and continuity of the church, while also acknowledging that it's been a bit messed up at times. Not that everyone agrees with that, at least not in the same way.
[00:09:21] What all of this means, for me at least, is that there ought to be a certain comfortableness of understanding that God works within a history that ebbs and flows in some ways, but nonetheless His will and presence is known throughout that regardless. It's a strange kind of an idea, because we come from a stance where we want to have everything in rigid constructs, and I just don't think it works like that.
[00:09:53] I think that there are absolutely things that are certain and rock solid, but it's not all of the detail. Those things that are rock solid are the things which evidence who God is to us, through the story of scripture, from creation through the incarnation and everything that Jesus did and into the eschaton.
[00:10:16] All of that is connected. And so the value of Biblical theology isn't just in learning about historical context, but also in learning about the themes and the narrative arc of Scripture and thus also salvation history. And that's not all that dissimilar to the early allegorical interpretations of Scripture, for instance.
[00:10:40] Now, what I think the Church gets right, historically, through time and interpretation, is that it legitimately sees that arc of salvation history. And so, I don't think that historical interpretation is, well, let's say usually, not off by a long shot. It's seeing the narrative, and it's trying to speak about that intelligently. But that doesn't mean it gets all of the details right, necessarily. Just like I've said before, we're all wrong, we don't always know in what, but our work should strive to be less wrong as we study and grow. And that can account for history as well.
[00:11:22] Now, I'm not sure if all of that totally makes sense to you or not, but I guess I could say the history of interpretation is, it's like asking multiple witnesses to an event to recount what they saw. They're going to generally agree, but they're going to differ in detail and emphasis and focus. And they'll get a lot of the details wrong, but that doesn't make their retelling worthless or necessarily inaccurate, because we have to account for particular idiosyncrasies and circumstances and perspectives.
[00:12:02] And we, today, are just one more eyewitness with an imperfect but valuable and unique view of the event.
[00:12:12] Every generation has to sort of come at things from a new perspective in some sense. We need to wrestle with the things that we have before us. And that's why we have modern theologians and people who are trying to tackle important issues. They're going to do it in modern ways. The modern way that I am biased towards is using the tools of biblical theology, because they might just help us to shape the church in an important way.
[00:12:41] Okay, so I know, I tend to ramble a bit before getting to the core of my topic, but I feel like all of that is essential to how I'm approaching this book and the topic of singleness in general, because I'm going to differ from the perspective of both the book and historical Christianity a bit.
[00:13:01] So, in this book, Danielle Treweek provides a very, very valuable thing that maybe I can't say loudly enough. And that is that she is combating what has become, well, quite frankly, a very toxic way of understanding marriage in the church. So first and foremost, I want to praise her in this book for giving us some much needed and exceptionally valuable historical information. And it's presented in a framework that is, at least I expect, going to be helpful to a great many people in the church who have been sidelined in some ways because of our over emphasis on marriage and its meaning and purpose.
[00:13:51] Now, earlier, I told you a bit about my journey from LDS conceptions into Christian conceptions of marriage, because I have been very familiar with the general concept that the church has largely always taught that marriage is a thing for earth and not heaven. And that is borne out by the historical journey into theology that Treweek takes us on in her book.
[00:14:17] But also, I have to say that in popular level Christianity, I have seen the emphasis on marriage that Treweek is cautioning against, and frankly, it's often not all that different from the LDS concept of an eternal marriage and family. It's like many modern Christians will give lip service to the idea that we aren't supposed to be married in the resurrection, but we're not going to talk or act like we believe it. And I can't really blame people.
[00:14:52] Now, of course, your mileage in exposure to that is going to vary. Some traditions and congregations will give greater or lesser emphasis and value on these things. And Treweek comes at this from a Reformed perspective. But of course, Reformed tradition only goes back so far, so she presents a lot of information from the early church, and she also tries to find varied modern voices with different perspectives.
[00:15:22] So, I don't think she's wrong in her general trajectory of what we see in church history, and it's very, very interesting to see how it's changed, and some of that change has to do with the things I've talked about early on in this series. Things like the Industrial Revolution, and postmodernism, and a change in how we see ourselves as psychological selves.
[00:15:47] But let's take an exceptionally brief rundown of some of this information. As is pointed out in the book, it is important to realize that even if it seems there's largely just an overwhelming tide of agreement, that doesn't mean that there aren't important differences, because there certainly are in the different ways that different theologians have seen this.
[00:16:13] Now, I do want to say that in my opinion, both Treweek and theologians through church history have vastly overstated the case that they're trying to make about singleness and what the Bible says about it. We simply do not have enough passages to make the deep claims that are being made. And the fundamental reason is not because I think she's necessarily wrong, because, as I said, she's bringing some really solid information to bear, but because she's missing the forest for the trees, and I think overcorrecting for the problem.
[00:16:51] So I'm disagreeing with her mostly because I think there is just a better framework in all of this. But in some ways, the overcorrection or overinterpretation might prove fruitful in the modern conversation. Sometimes, the thing you have to do is enter the conversation where it already exists and talk about it and find where the middle ground is. But I'm not going to hide the fact that this book was deeply frustrating to me at times, and she could make the claim that my kind of reaction is because we live in the tension of the already but not yet where Jesus has done a real thing in history that has changed everything, but it's also not all done. But I don't think that is sufficient to explain the disconnect.
[00:17:40] I mean, it's actually really interesting because I am not an eschatological, systematic type person. And in general, it feels like I agree with her presentation of eschatology as the now and not yet, with an emphasis on the fact that Jesus changed things, or actually the better language is that he renewed things.
[00:18:06] So, if you're going into this book and you're asking if we can figure out if the end times is premill or postmill or amill, well, that's not the kind of thing she's talking about explicitly. She's actually taking an approach that I think is very in line with what Anthony Delgado suggested to me a couple of months ago. The idea of garden eschatology. That Jesus is renewing creation. And so there's a continuity in the whole story, from the beginning to the middle to the end, and the purposes of the end are found in the beginning.
[00:18:45] The thing I like most about this book are its copious and detailed historical notes that point out the historical trends on how the church has seen singleness and marriage. It's not entirely written chronologically though, probably because she wants first to emphasize how we've gotten to where we are today and how we've kind of done a 180 on this whole topic compared to most of history. And unsurprisingly, the roots of that change are in the last few hundred years.
[00:19:21] Now, the problem and caution we should have with studying historical trends is that they aren't consistent, it's not a smooth curve through time, and we necessarily kind of have to brush over the messy nuance. But some of the historical trends might surprise us. For example, between 1575 and 1700, 20 percent of women in England never married. That's a high percentage considering that we often think of women in the past as being dependent. And that high of a number necessitates that there was a great deal of independence.
[00:20:03] One of the ways we can track the perception of unmarried people is through changes in language. The ways that people talk reflect their values. For instance, unmarried women used to be called maidens, which has a positive spin with the concept of morality and chastity. But then came the term spinster, which originally was a neutral term, but began to be used with a negative spin as British national population became a focus of the society and unmarried women who never had children seemed to be a blight and a burden.
[00:20:46] Then in comes the term Old Maid, which was at least sometimes a very vulgar term. So we go from a past in which there is a positivity to singleness to becoming very critical of it. And again, to be exceptionally brief, there is quite a bit of upheaval due to the Protestant Reformation. And then you combine that with the growing psychological ness of self that is developing along with a strong concept of romance in the 17 and 1800s.
[00:21:24] So, by the time of the Industrial Revolution, things have really imploded on the marriage front and there have been some massive changes. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, families were a source of domestic production and social cohesion. But, with the advent of working outside the home and mass production, that meant that families lost a good bit of cohesion and purpose.
[00:21:54] But thankfully to help that, there were romantic ideals that helped keep things centered. So then we get the feelings between a couple that now become of primary importance, rather than the cohesion of the family unit in a social type of a sense. So, the term nuclear family didn't get coined until the early 1900s, and even then, the idea originally was that like the nucleus of an atom, the core of husband, wife, and children would be the center of the extended family.
[00:22:34] But with rising social change, they quickly lost even the sense of extended family being a unit. And so the nucleus of the family became its own thing. So then you have the 20th century progress, and we hit the 70s where we have evangelical movements like Focus on the Family, and they're working to get back to a quote unquote traditional view of family with father, mother, and children.
[00:23:05] But ironically, this has only been the traditional family for less than a hundred years at that point, which is crazy when you realize that. Our view of the traditional family unit is anything but traditional and historical.
[00:23:23] And that's a very important point to our study. Exceptionally important, I think. Please do not lose sight of this point. I think Treweek loses sight of it quite quickly. Marriage has not traditionally and only been about a single man and woman getting together, but rather they're part of a larger social unit called the family. And again, I don't think this can be overemphasized, because if the concept of marriage, entirely, is dismantled and removed, then the entire concept of family gets dismantled.
[00:24:03] And the thing is, today we just can't get away from processing the world in individualistic ways. And I think this is part of our problem. So, Treweek unironically says that she can't actually define singleness because it has so many different instances of what it looks like. And at first, she laments that it's a deficient concept because it's necessarily defined by the lack of marriage.
[00:24:31] Though eventually she swings back to that, and she says that, you know, it's okay that it's defined like that because marriage and singleness together form a way in which we can understand how we go from creation to eschaton. At least I hope I'm presenting her ideas accurately. It's not my desire to misrepresent any of her ideas, but I have to admit it's a little bit difficult because she says some really contradictory things.
[00:25:00] But as I understand it, the idea is that marriage is for the here and now. And singleness is for the eschaton. And while both of those things point in different ways to God, and both are sacramental in different ways, it's singleness that is eschatologically superior, simply because it's presumably the literal reality.
[00:25:25] And thus is the superior thing in creation as well. Though, again, like I said, she keeps going back and forth in the way she talks about things because she doesn't want to give anyone the impression, as some people did in the Middle Ages in particular, that single people have some sort of special blessing, or that they will receive a higher heavenly reward, or that married people should just go ahead and divorce or not get married to begin with.
[00:25:57] So I appreciate that she's walking a tough line here. And if we presume that salvation and our lives in the eschaton are simply individualistic experiences, then, well, maybe I can see how the appeal of singleness as eschatological makes some sort of sense, but the Bible doesn't talk about salvation outside of community.
[00:26:22] And I don't want to be putting words in her mouth, but I think that Treweek might respond to that by agreeing with me that community is a big part of things, and that singleness is what points to the idea that community is not about bloodlines. Which, okay, fair enough, but marriage is also not really about biological relationship. So, I'm not sure how that helps. She makes the supposition that it's singleness that points to the concept that the family of God is not a family that is necessarily biologically related. But I mean, that's just the concept of adoption. And again, you get adopted into a family and you can do that via marriage or via singleness.
[00:27:12] It's not like we have to choose one thing here. So my entire proposition as an alternative to the "marriage or singleness in the eschaton" question can be summed up by saying, guess what? Neither one has to be uniquely eschatological, because both are going to be used to point to different ideas.
[00:27:38] Both marriage and singleness point to the purposes and goals of God in different ways, and so I don't know why we have to choose one or the other. Well, okay, I do see why, and I think there's several reasons. We do it probably because, number one, we want it to be literal and not just figurative, especially as modern people, we want it to be literal. We want our understanding of the eschaton to be literal. And number two, the church has historically done this. And number three, we do it because of the particular way in which Jesus connects singleness to the resurrection.
[00:28:23] Now, of course, there is a sense in which the context might point to this idea of singleness. But we'll get to that. First, a few more things from the book that I think are really worth talking about. As I said, Treweek is coming at this from a Reformed perspective, so she does pull quotes from prominent Reformed voices about marriage, and so maybe in your tradition you have the same, or maybe you're seeing less of a problem.
[00:28:55] But one of the big concerns she brings out is the connection that people make between marriage and maturity. Or marriage and sanctification. These two things are connected to the point that someone who isn't married could potentially see themselves as, frankly, not being able to be sanctified or having a lesser version of sanctification.
[00:29:21] And really, some of the quotes she gives are really concerning. Albert Mohler of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary says that "true biblical masculinity" is centered on marriage and children. So, you can't be masculine without getting married? John MacArthur says that singleness is a preoccupation with oneself and a focused selfishness.
[00:29:51] And a number of people have said that marriage is the crucible for holiness, and moms sacrifice time and energy, suggesting that a single person isn't in a crucible of holiness or doesn't sacrifice themselves for others. Another quote, "protracted singleness rarely glorifies God." Whew. And I don't know if you're familiar with John and Staci Eldredge, but they focus very much on the idea that to be a man, is to be in pursuit of marriage, so that the man can protect the woman and the children. And the woman's purpose is to be pursued by the man.
[00:30:33] And look, I know a lot of people like these concepts. They appeal to what has been formed in our society today as this romantic ideal. And it is a society wide thing, at least in the Western world. And it's not just in Christianity. Like you watch a movie like Jerry Maguire, for instance, and Tom Cruise says, you complete me. And so many of us just melt at that narrative that love completes who we are.
[00:31:06] And I don't know that we have to say that there's anything inherently wrong with our romantic conceptions any more than there might be something wrong with the alternative romantic notion of the woman or the man who fully dedicates themselves to God and takes a vow of celibacy or aesthetic life. Like, is there anything wrong with that? I don't think so. I think people can make that choice, and so I think we can honor and appreciate people who do. But, just the same, why can't we honor and appreciate those who see a deep connection with someone else, and sees that in light of how we are, in fact, to complete one another?
[00:31:49] I don't think the biblical narrative is that we're all lone wolves that ought to eschew community. Quite the opposite. I think that our human connections do complete us in a sense. I think the narrative is all about connection, and there are different ways that that can look. We have connection between spouses, between family in general, within the body of Christ, or even in an aesthetic life where the person is focusing on communing with God.
[00:32:19] I personally feel like it's wrong to suggest any of those paths are misguided. Now, an overemphasis on a particular one, as if it's the only way you can do things, or the very best way. ... well, I'd agree that there's a problem with that. We should be cognizant and appreciative of all of the paths that people take to honor God and connect with Him and with each other.
[00:32:47] But more than anything, what we see in Scripture is that emphasis on community. And so if what we're doing in practicing Christianity is excluding any group or type of typical life, like singleness, and showing that that is somehow lesser than marriage, then, yeah, I think that's problematic. And I think that Treweek does an excellent job in showing how the modern church has really, sometimes completely, dropped the ball on that. Our overemphasis on marriage as the be all, end all of human life is a problem. But I think running the other way and overcorrecting is also a mistake.
[00:33:32] Now, I want to touch on the way that she talks about this narrative of marriage and maturity. And again, in a big way, she's not wrong in pointing out some of the dangerous ways we talk about this. And so, connecting marriage and maturity, there's some nuance I want to bring here.
[00:33:51] We should not be talking about marriage as if once you're married, you're automatically now in the ranks of adulthood, or that you've suddenly arrived at a new plane of existence or a maturity level. But sometimes we treat it like that. We see married people as being more stable in life. We do act like someone who's married is going to be more trustworthy. And again, this is a societal thing. Married people can more easily apply for some loans, for instance. A married person is going to be viewed as more financially secure, and things like that. And really, it's a bit ridiculous because sometimes married people will feed off of each other's bad habits, and they'll be even more immature than if they were unmarried.
[00:34:41] Treweek says that the Christian sanctification narrative matches the secular maturation narrative in many ways. And in the sanctification narrative, there's this idea that it happens uniquely in marriage. And okay, that's not true. Again, married people can continue in their immature ways, just as much as a single person can.
[00:35:05] But when married people continue in immature ways, that's when the marriage falls apart. Maybe they stay together, but the marriage itself has fallen apart in some form and way. I don't think it's possible for a married couple to continue in immaturity indefinitely and remain married without massive amounts of conflict and disorder, and effectively they're stuck in a cycle of immaturity unless one of them gets themselves out of that.
[00:35:38] Now, I am a big fan of the psychologist David Schnar And, yes, he's coming at marriage and relationships from a secular perspective, but I don't think that's against Christian concepts. But one of the things that he says is that marriage is a people growing machine. He says so many good things, like, you don't work on your marriage, but rather your marriage works on you.
[00:36:06] It is generally the case that two people enter marriage at roughly the same state of immaturity. And they can either grow together, or they remain immature and cause problems. And I'm sorry, but it's the case that if you are single, you do not have that same experience. That doesn't mean you don't mature. But you're simply not going to mature like a married person will. And that isn't to say that we have to buy into the idea that someone married is mature or uniquely sanctified. Because that is not the case. But the married person has an opportunity for a kind of growth that the unmarried person does not have.
[00:36:48] Of course, we could also say that the single person likewise has a unique opportunity for unique growth. But part of what I'm trying to say is that connecting marriage with growth and maturity doesn't have to mean that all married people are mature, nor does it mean that single people are immature. But there is a growth that does happen in that situation that is unique.
[00:37:13] And, you know, we see marriage and singleness as polar opposites. I don't think that the Bible presents a single culture or lifestyle as the be all, end all way that all people are going to be living. Why should it? The promises of God are true, but they aren't going to look the same for every person everywhere. They aren't individual promises. They're only effective insofar as you are a member of the community that is going to be on the receiving end of those promises en masse, and not as if God is blessing each person and dropping a new car and 2. 5 children into each and every life. Those aren't the presumptions. The presumption is that this life is going to be a struggle, and we all have different things to deal with.
[00:38:04] Being married is anything but a guarantee that you will grow into a good person. To participate in that people growing machine, you have to let the machine work on you. And many people don't. Many married people choose to live into their selfish resentment instead, just like many single people choose to live into their selfish resentment for wherever they are at. There's no guarantee anywhere, but there are opportunities. So, I just want to touch on that because I think it's important to see.
[00:38:38] Oh, but I also want to mention what she says about Timothy Keller's comments on marriage because she admits that he was also trying to correct the ship with what he was saying, but she says that he still goes down this path that marriage is about sanctification uniquely, and that that leaves out single people.
[00:39:00] And I haven't read what he said beyond what she puts, but from her quote and from what she says, I have to wonder if she's reading him quite right.
[00:39:10] Quoting from Treweek, who is quoting Keller, he asks the question of what marriage is for. And his answer is, quote, For helping each other to become our future glory selves, the new creations that God will eventually make us. End quote.
[00:39:31] Treweek says that he conflates the purposes of marriage with the purposes of the church. And I don't know whether Keller really said or meant that marriage is a special version of discipleship that non married people cannot access or that there's a special level or that he is confusing the purposes, but his point seems quite consistent with what I would say. And this is really the purpose of every relationship we have so I don't see why it's a bad thing to say that this is the purpose of marriage. I think, and I thought before, that the focus we should be having is not either singleness or marriage, but rather the body of Christ.
[00:40:22] And I think that if we made that our focus, and if we worked to detoxify our views a bit, then maybe we wouldn't even need to have this talk about the plight of the single person in the church.
[00:40:34] Now, I'm going to read from Treweek. She says, quote, Discipleship is grounded within the primary and eternal relationship of brother and sister in Christ, not within the secondary and temporal relationship of husband and wife. End quote.
[00:40:54] And I could almost agree with that, except I'd say it's actually grounded in discipleship, and thus relationship with Christ, and secondarily with each other as brother and sister in Christ, along with some hierarchy, potentially. But that doesn't discount husband and wife as brother and sister themselves.
[00:41:18] And yeah, they're brother and sister in a unique way. I don't see how you can dismantle that obvious fact. And honestly, I wonder if that's partly why we see the sister narratives in Genesis. Why Sarai is seen as the sister of Abram.
[00:41:37] One thing that's missing in the conversation in this book, and it's a big gap, is that in Biblical times, spouses actually were not the closest relationship that a person would have. It was actually siblings. The sibling relationship was seen as the most intimate, not the spousal relationship. So, that being the case, if we have now made the spousal relationship the closest one that we have, then does that not make husband and wife equate to the brother and sister of the first century in the church?
[00:42:18] Now, we might not like the direction we've gone in society, but here we are. And the spirit of brother and sister as intimate relation being the focus and mode of discipleship in our lives kind of means that husband and wife as intimate relation should be a picture of the church and discipleship.
[00:42:38] Now, we can work to dismantle our ideas to some degree. Because Treweek makes the point, and I highly agree with her here, that one of the toxic ideas we've built up around marriage is that once you marry, your spouse and your nuclear family are now supposed to be your whole world. Like, goodbye friends, Goodbye hobbies you previously enjoyed by yourself. Goodbye personal growth in a direction that is unique and not just enmeshed in your family.
[00:43:12] We've now made it so that the marriage partner is the sole way that we expend not only sexual activity, but also friendship. How many married men and women do you know who don't really have any friends anymore who aren't also another married couple? How many married men no longer have male friends? Or, how many married women who continue to have female friends, not only ones that they talk to sometimes, but that they actually hang out and do things with? How many young married people continue to hang out with their single friends? How many people use their kids as excuses to avoid social situations? How many young moms don't actively pursue their own interests because, well, I have kids now?
[00:44:05] There's an idea that's very prevalent, and in my opinion, very dangerous, that once you marry, and especially once you have kids, then your identity is now wrapped up in that marriage and parenthood.
[00:44:21] Now, I'm not saying anything against motherhood as a high goal of your life, if that's what you want, but I have met so many mothers who have abandoned themselves to that, and they feel empty. They don't feel like they are their own person any longer. The life of a mom with young kids is so wrapped up in keeping those little ones alive and flourishing that they often lose their own identities to that.
[00:44:51] So, I think that maybe what Treweek's book is doing is trying to shine a light on those things and show how the single people in our married lives can help pull us out of that kind of black hole that we might find ourselves sucked into. I think that's something that married people can get out of this book.
[00:45:12] And fair enough. That's why I will absolutely recommend this book, because it shines light in places that we need to look. There are genuine problems and dangerous and toxic narratives that we have, and we desperately need some balance. But we could do it just as easily by focusing not on a perceived battle between singleness and marriage.
[00:45:37] But, by focusing on things like community, and bringing back some much needed liturgical elements to our gatherings, and looking to the image of God and the body of Christ as identifying factors rather than our individual states of singleness or marriage. Our individual states of singleness or couplehood will have its unique challenges, but the eschatological focus shouldn't be on our individual states, whatever they might be, but rather, the state of community and relationship as a whole.
[00:46:15] I see danger in identifying closely with anything other than what the Bible says we should identify with. And that is the image of God, the image of Christ, the body of Christ, and children of God. And note that family language remains.
[00:46:35] So in disagreeing with the trajectory of Treweek's argument, I'm not saying that we should continue to identify as being married as an innate aspect of who we are necessarily. I think that has massive problems and leads to bad practices like enmeshment and lack of differentiation. And not allowing yourself to grow as an individual according to your particular interests.
[00:47:04] I don't think we should identify as either married or single. Those are just aspects of our lives, and they may or may not be temporary. Now, I haven't said much about the vast majority of the content of the book, which hashes out what we might call the historical view of singleness. There's a lot of data there, and it can really be summed up in saying that prior to our strange switch to focusing on family and marriage as the highest good, really, the highest good has usually been seen as that of singleness, chastity, virginity, or however it's put by different people in different ages.
[00:47:49] And as far as I can tell, Treweek is right in saying that historically, the church has seen singleness as the eschatological reality, that we're all going to be single in the eschaton, and so single people in our midst should focus our attention to that. But she also makes an effort to point out that in different places and times in the church, this idea has been arrived at in very different ways.
[00:48:17] So, we should be careful not to overstate and say there's one main witness or way in which there is no nuance, because there has been a lot of nuance. And I won't get into the details. If you want those, go ahead and read the book. But I will say that many of the conclusions in the church have been contradictory. And frankly, many of them have come from bad exegesis. And do we really want bad exegesis to formulate our eschatological views? Well, we don't have to rely on the bad exegesis necessarily, but it's a question if you choose to dig into the stuff.
[00:49:00] I'm not actually trying to argue for marriage continuing. I'm mostly saying we're looking at it wrong to even make that a focus. I don't think either one has to be inherently eschatological, because both point to the purposes of God. But I kind of think that marriage points more to it than singleness does.
[00:49:23] Now, one of the things I had a hard time with in this book was wondering what Treweek even meant when she says that singleness is eschatological. What does that even look like?
[00:49:36] She says that, quote, Our forebears exhort us, their spiritual descendants, to esteem single Christians as those who potentially exemplify a heightened instantiation of some aspects of the life to come, end quote.
[00:49:55] She's not real clear on what that means. What does it mean that single Christians exemplify the aspects here? Further on, she says, quote, Single people have a foretaste of the eschaton, while married people only foreshadow it. Of course, everyone participates now, but for married people, the privilege of their union rightly precludes them from currently appreciating the fullest available sense of the egalitarian nature of siblinghood as experienced by their single counterparts. End quote.
[00:50:37] So, I'm wondering what this fullest sense is. The best answer I could find is where she says, quote, Singles already have a literal understanding and ongoing experience of what it is to participate in the body of Christ without any exclusively covenanted bonds to one other person. End quote.
[00:51:04] As best as I can figure, what she's saying is that in the Eschaton, we're effectively disconnected from each other. And I'm sorry, but I don't see that. I do not see how scripture presents a disconnected community or disconnected bonds between people.
[00:51:26] She says, quote, Ironically and wonderfully, it is the unmarried form of life which most closely resembles the interpersonal character of the heavenly bride, end quote.
[00:51:40] So again, the focus seems to be on disconnect. Like, we are connected in intimate ways here on Earth, but only here on Earth? And I just, I don't think that's the context. I think that for the first century Christian, as brother and sister, that's the most intimate connection they had. So if we translate that into the most intimate connections we have today, well, for the married couple, that's usually each other.
[00:52:12] Another kind of sticking point for me, she admits that the mandate of Genesis 128 is part of the usual formation of the idea that marriage is eschatological. But then she goes this strange direction of saying that even though mankind was married from the beginning and the eschaton fulfills the purposes of creation that began in the beginning, somehow marriage is no longer a purpose of creation.
[00:52:43] I don't, that doesn't compute in my head. She says suddenly it was the fall that made the need to have kids to be urgent. Now, if by that she means the need to bring forth the Messiah, then okay, but I don't think that removes the command from the beginning or the fact that there's also the need to literally fill the earth.
[00:53:09] The command to multiply wasn't just for the sake of the coming Messiah. And if we can all agree that Jesus was coming regardless, and she doesn't explicitly say that, but it seems as though she agrees, since Jesus is connected to the creation for eschatological purposes, then none of that really makes sense.
[00:53:31] She disagrees with taking a natural law approach to the concept of marriage or singleness. And again, I think that if we can focus on the idea that that means it doesn't have to be abnormal or against nature to be unmarried, then all is well and good.
[00:53:50] But there's individuals that we can talk about and then there's mankind as a whole. Each individual doesn't have to be oriented in the same exact way in our individual natures. Thank you. We all have some wonderful diversity of character, and inclination, and lifestyle, and life story. And I'm not really talking sexual orientation, but just the things that we like, and the things that we appreciate, and the personal needs that we have, and our desire for certain types of circumstances.
[00:54:21] But I think there's a sense in which it is mankind's nature to be coupled and connected with other people. I think that's what we still see in the brother and sister metaphor in the church as a family.
[00:54:34] And again, I really think that most of it rests on this single sentence that Jesus utters. And making a whole eschatological, purpose of creation, Messiah and the Church doctrine, out of one sentence is just crazy to me. And I know the Church has done that. And we've had this interpretation for thousands of years now. But I think it's okay to have a look at it and ask, Really?
[00:55:03] So, let's finally read our proof text here. I meant to do it earlier, but it is helpful to have all the background in our heads when we're looking at what it says. Again, this is an episode that shows up in each of the Synoptic Gospels. So, the passages are centered on Matthew 22, 30, Mark 12, 25, and Luke 20, verse 35. This is an incident of the Sadducees challenging Jesus, and you should know that the Sadducees only accepted the Torah as scripture, so they didn't see anything like the resurrection in the first five books, so they didn't believe in a resurrection. They also didn't believe in angels, so it's another interesting aspect of this passage.
[00:55:52] But let's read it in Matthew in the NASB. Matthew 22, verses 23 through 33. On that day, some Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Jesus and questioned him, asking, Teacher, Moses said, If a man dies having no children, his brother as next of kin shall marry his wife and raise up children for his brother. Now, there were seven brothers with us, and the first married and died, and having no children, left his wife to his brother. So also the second, and the third, down to the seventh. Last of all, the woman died. In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife of the seven will she be? For they had all married her. But Jesus answered and said to them, You are mistaken, not understanding the scriptures nor the power of God. For in the resurrection, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. But regarding the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by God? I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. When the crowds heard this, they were astonished at his teaching. End quote.
[00:57:17] Okay, so, the big question is, does this say that there is no marriage in the Resurrection?
[00:57:25] Well, I mean, of course it seems like it does, but if you think about it, it still remains kind of vague. For in the Resurrection, they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are like the angels in heaven.
[00:57:40] Now, there have been a lot of interpretations here, including the idea that we are to become angels, like literally angels, exactly like angels in the Resurrection. But that's a minority interpretation, and it really disallows what the Resurrection fundamentally means, as I talked about in my episode on embodiment.
[00:58:02] So what does it mean to be like the angels? We think the focus here is on marriage, and kind of is, but note the hypothetical that Jesus is given. A woman marries, has no children with her husband, he dies, She marries the next brother, and the next, and they all die in turn, and there's no offspring.
[00:58:24] So, yeah, the Sadducees do ask specifically whose wife is she? Like, who does she belong to? But the reason she kept marrying is that there were no kids, no offspring. So what does it mean to be like the angels? Well, they don't procreate in heaven. Now, of course, this verse has also been used to dismantle the Supernatural Sons of God interpretation of Genesis 6, but that is easily explained by the difference of being in heaven versus being on earth.
[00:58:58] Angels in heaven don't have earthly bodies, and they don't procreate. I think that if you average out all the interpretations, that one comes closest to what we have predominantly. Angels in heaven don't procreate, so we will also be like them in not procreating. It doesn't mean we don't have embodiment.
[00:59:20] When Jesus mentions marriage, as we've explored before, that can either be a reference to the covenantal bond or potentially just intercourse in general. So what does Jesus mean? There are no more covenantal bonds between married couples? Does he mean that unmarried people will not be able to get married? Is he just referencing intercourse? Does he mean, as many many interpreters have said, that this means we have no genitals, or sexual differences, or maybe at least a desire for sex?
[01:00:01] So, now, there is a good reason to see the idea of covenantal bond of marriage dissolving upon death because of what Paul says in Romans about being dead to the law. And that shows the cultural idea that a covenantal bond does change upon death. Once someone dies, their previous commitments are dissolved. So there is a contextual way to understand this. And it gives a good bit of credence to historical Christian belief, even if they didn't understand that.
[01:00:34] But even so, I still maintain that all of the options I mentioned are potentially available to this passage. And Jesus could be meaning one or more of those options. Or his focus could be on none of them, if his point really is mostly about the idea that in the Resurrection, our lives won't be exactly like they are now, living, and marrying, and having kids, and dying.
[01:01:04] And by the way, that's a common connection through time in this passage in interpretation as well, that marriage and kids are connected to death. And since there's no death, well, there's no marriage and no kids. And, okay, some of you know what the same passage in Luke says. It's a little bit different, and it fleshes out the idea that the focus is on life and death.
[01:01:32] After the question by the Sadducees, starting in Luke 20, verse 34, it says, quote, Jesus said to them, The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage. But those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and the resurrection from the dead neither marry, nor are given in marriage, for they cannot even die any more, because they are like angels, and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection, end quote.
[01:02:04] And then from verse 37, he again mentions Moses, and he quotes from Exodus. Alright, so what do we have here? Does Jesus mean not just that there won't be marriage in the resurrected life, but also that if you're worthy for that life, then you also must not marry now? Does it also mean that unmarried people don't die?
[01:02:27] Well, of course not. That's silly. Those who are considered worthy are going to be those who attain and they, who have attained, neither marry nor are given in marriage because they don't die, and there's no need for marriage and procreation. Okay, so basically it's saying the same thing as we have in Matthew, but it's adding this part about death.
[01:02:55] Jesus is comparing two ages. This one and the age to come and it's really this passage that cinches what the church teaches about singleness being a pointer to the eschaton and the idea that marriage and procreation are for earthly purposes. The comparison to angels is either because of the procreation aspect or because of the lack of death in the next age. Maybe both. It kind of feels like it's the lack of death.
[01:03:27] But, again, this passage may seem really clear, but you know me. I like to try to question and challenge and ask if we really have all the information that we think we have, and if we're looking at a passage in the way that we should. What concerns me is that we take a passage like this, that clearly has a particular focus, and then we try to push it to say something absolutely definitive that it may not have been saying.
[01:03:56] Jesus is talking to Sadducees who are both denying the resurrection as well as angels, and Jesus is bringing both of those things to bear in this conversation. So is he making a rhetorical point that may or may not be something that is as literal as we might think? Yeah, I don't know. Maybe it's fine to assume that he's not, and that the eschaton is a time of singleness and not marriage.
[01:04:29] But like I said, we have a whole bunch of ideas that are wrapped up in that. And the question is, are all of those meanings and ideas present in what Jesus is saying? Or is it more restricted than that? Is the idea as expansive as we think, or not? I mean, honestly, part of my frustration when it comes to eschatology is that we want this surety of everything.
[01:05:01] We want to know how it's going to happen chronologically, what it's going to look like in a literal fashion. And so I think maybe what I would say that my biggest problem here is that we're overly trying to fit ideas into this passage that maybe we should just let it be and not presume that we know what the eschaton is going to physically be like.
[01:05:29] I'm not arguing for the idea of marriage in the eschaton. My point is that the options are wide. And we're going to land on a particular one because we have reasons for doing so. And that's just what we do and how we approach eschatology.
[01:05:46] What is clear is that there is a difference between this life and the resurrected life, which shouldn't be exactly surprising. And I can appreciate why and how the church has come to the strong conclusion that singleness is eschatological. There are, by the way, a few other passages in Scripture we could turn to, to see that, like the passage in Romans, for instance, and Paul's opinion of singleness in 1 Corinthians 7. But none of these passages are much clearer than what we have in Jesus address to the Sadducees.
[01:06:23] My personal recommendation in all of this is that we shouldn't worry overly much about what the status of our relationships are in the eschaton, because none of that is how we should be seeing our value anyway.
[01:06:37] And we should all work to have healthy views of relationships. If you don't think you can live without your spouse, then it might be time to consider if you're enmeshed in your relationship, and you should work to differentiate yourself.
[01:06:54] But none of this should mean that our relationships don't matter, or necessarily that they don't endure. If the body of Christ is like a family, it's very hard to see how individual connections will not endure. I don't personally think it's a foregone conclusion that there won't be intercourse or marriage in general.
[01:07:15] But as I said, we should not define ourselves by our human relationships, whatever those look like. Neither singleness nor marriage is necessarily the state we will find every person in. Instead of trying to cram our modern sensibilities of marriage and romantic relationships and identity into the Bible, we should go back to the imagery of the Bible.
[01:07:40] Stop comparing yourself and your life to the lives of others. Strive to live a life in whatever circumstance you are to glorify God and to come together as the body of Christ. Do not exchange your value and purpose and identity for a transient one or one which is actually located in another person, whether that be wife, mother, husband, father, or single person.
[01:08:13] You are unique, but you also fit into the created order in an embodied way. You are the image of God. You are a sibling in the body of Christ. You are the bride. You are the son. You are who you are because you were created by God, and, I hope, because you are in Christ.
[01:08:36] Alright, thank you for listening, and, as always, I hope you enjoyed this. I think finally, we'll be moving on to new topics. Well, sort of, maybe kind of not. We'll see what next week brings with Episode 99, by the way.
[01:08:55] Welcome you all to check out my website at genesismarksthespot. com, join my newsletter, leave a review wherever you listen, or even on my website . And to interact with me if you have such a desire, I'd love to hear your comments or your questions. And thank you, thank you, thank you to those of you who help support me financially. You guys help me do what I do, and I greatly appreciate that. If you're interested in supporting me, you can do so with any amount at all, through PayPal or Patreon. Even a small tip is much appreciated. Thanks for your questions and interaction and your listening, and I wish you all a blessed week, and we will see you later.
