2 Timothy 3:1–5 (CSB) — 1 But know this: Hard times will come in the last days. 2 For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, proud, demeaning, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 unloving, irreconcilable, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, without love for what is good, 4 traitors, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 holding to the form of godliness but denying its power. Avoid these people.
I’m sure by now most people have seen the above video glamourizing “the childless life“. In this video, Julia Mazur talks about how she sleeps in late, wakes up and casually scrolls social media, and decides with carefree bliss to make shakshuka. And she makes her point clear when she says that she gets to live for herself. So no one will be surprised that her video provoked some visceral responses.
What I want to do is to draw our attention to something Paul writes to Timothy regarding the attributes of hard times, which I think will help us balance how we think about singleness and marriage.
First, Paul writes to Timothy that difficult times will come, and explains the attributes that will compose these hard times. In verse three, he writes that people will become “unloving”, which translates a word that refers to being “without natural affection”. Vine’s Expository Dictionary describes this word, “astorgos” (ἄστοργος), as describing someone who is “without natural affection”, which comes from the negative prefix “a”, and “storge”, which refers to kindred love, especially that of parents for children and children for parents. Put simply, difficult times come when people lose their natural affection. When we strip society of the essential wisdom for parenting, which is necessary to cultivate healthy, respectful, and productive children, we turn children into drains on their families and make parenthood sound more like a prison sentence than a divine privilege (See Psalm 127:4-5). Parallel to this, when we teach children that the highest virtue in life is to have fun and to “enjoy themselves to the max”, we instill in them the ethics of selfishness that will corrode and corrupt their joy in sacrificial-love.
Unfortunately, there are some influential voices opposing Mazur’s video that are missing the mark on this issue by taking aim at singleness, giving the impression that singles are somehow “incomplete.” But this is because they have not attuned their ear to God’s word, to learn from him the wisdom of life; “singleness” is its own blessing from God, but not in the way that today’s childless-culture seeks to glamorize singleness.
Jesus teaches his disciples that “not everyone can accept” singleness (Matthew 19:11), referring to the celibate lifestyle, but that those “who can accept it should accept it” (Matthew 19:12). Paul then explains that disciples should “be without concerns, and the unmarried man is concerned about the things of the Lord — how he may please the Lord, but the married man is concerned about the things of the world — how he may please his wife…” (1 Corinthians 7:32–33, CSB), but acknowledges that “each has his own gift from God, one person has this gift, another has that” (1 Corinthians 7:7, CSB), contrasting the gift of marriage with the gift of singleness. Put simply, the gift of singleness is the singleness of vision enabled for the Kingdom of God! Unlike Mazur’s video, which specifically elevates singleness by deprecating the value of children, treating them as burdens that stifle one’s life, the Bible teaches that the blessing of singleness is the freedom one has to wholeheartedly pursue the Kingdom of God without distraction! Just as Paul upholds the value of marriage with some of the greatest marital insights in Scripture, even including raising godly children as a requirement for those whom God appoints as elders (Titus 1:6), he demonstrates the value of singleness in the same way as that of marriage as being in light of Jesus! You see? The value of both marriage and singleness is understood in light of Jesus, not oneself. When either are framed in light of the latter, they become perverse and grotesque things because selfishness is inherently corrupt.
Therefore, the severe loss of respect for the sacred in our society inevitably results in the loss of these natural affections, which are so vital to society, and brings about the difficult times that we are experiencing now as society systematically implodes.
I feel sorry for this person because she has been lied to and told that the highest virtue in life is having fun and “enjoying herself to the max”, but Jesus tells us the truth that will set our souls free, the truth that “it’s more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35).
So if you’re single, you need to know that you’re not incomplete and that your fulfillment will come from taking advantage of your singleness to fully pursue the Kingdom of God with the time and resources available to you because of your singleness!
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