Is Singleness a Special Gift God Gives?

I can't tell you how many times I've heard people say that singleness is a gift or a special calling from God that some people have been given and others haven't. Although they don't say it in the same way, the implication is that marriage is also a special gift God gives to people.

This has always sat awkwardly with me, and it definitely did with someone who I turned it around on and told them that then their marriage was also the same thing. Something has just always felt a bit off in what people mean when they say this.

I can see where people get this from. In 1 Corinthians 7:7 Paul says,

"I wish that all of you were as I am. But each of you has your own gift from God; one has this gift, another has that."

It does appear that Paul is calling singleness a gift here. I won't try to argue that he's not. It is pretty clear.

But, I think we're misunderstanding what Paul means when he uses the word gift here. When we call singleness a gift, we often talk about it as if it's some sort of special calling. We make it out to be something God chooses for certain people and that He will give them some sort of special ability to live it out.

I can't find anything that supports that kind of thinking about it. When we think and talk about it that way, we put it on par with the gifts of the Spirit talked about elsewhere in Scripture (see Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12, Ephesians 4). There is no indication Paul is saying singleness is a gift like those talked about in these passages. Gifts of the Spirit in the sense that they are talked about in these other passages are about building up the church and reaching out to the world around us with the message of the gospel. They are things like teaching, leading, encouraging, serving, along with many others.

Singleness does not fit in with the rest of these. It is not something specifically for the building up of the church or reaching out to our world, so it doesn't make sense that we would even try to put singleness in that category - yet, I have talked with people who do.

Also, if we're going to try to call singleness a gift of that nature, we should call marriage that too. In this same verse in 1 Corinthians 7, Paul talks about marriage like that too.

So, what does Paul mean in 1 Corinthians 7:7 when he talks about a gift?

I think we have to start with taking a step back and looking at all of what we call gifts in our lives. We talk about many things in life being gifts from God - from things we have to people in our lives. But, we stop short of putting these things on par with the gifts of the Spirit.

I think this is the kind of gift Paul is talking about here. Something God allows in our lives that He then uses as a part of our lives. It's not a special calling that some receive and others don't.

There is also a problem in how it means we make singles in our churches feel when we call singleness some sort of special calling. As I've wrestled with this and continued to look for more resources that talk about this, I've come across another book that talks honestly about the topic. In his book "7 Myths about Singleness" Sam Allbery explains it this way:

"Two problems arise if we continue to think about singleness as being a special kind of calling. First, it will make large numbers of single people feel as though life hasn't started yet. They're single but don't perceive themselves as having the gift of singleness. They're in a situation they're not designed for or called to. Life feels as though it is in limbo until God notices he's accidentally 'misfiled' us as being single and fixes things. That's when things will feel like they've finally got going, but until then they're just kicking about.
Second, it causes undue pressure to get married, especially for those single people not perceived to have that gift. If you're single and don't have the 'gift of singleness', then you're not pulling your weight. You should be married by now." (pg. 44)

I don't think these are the messages we've intended to portray. I believe we've been trying to encourage those who are single when we call it a special calling from God, but we've actually made it worse for them (for me). We make them feel like, if there's still a desire for marriage than something is really wrong with them. Even creating a desperation for marriage that can result in poor choices if we're not careful.

In short, we need to stop making singleness out to be some sort of special calling or gift from God. Just as marriage is something God can use for His purposes, so too is singleness. We need to embrace both as important and as circumstances in life that God can use for His purposes.