Dalrock blogged a splendid post about people who claim that there is a shortage of “good men”. He says that if there really were a shortage of good men, then people who want women to actually get married would be telling women not to delay marriage, but to instead get serious about marrying early, when their ability to attract husband candidates is at its peak.
Dalrock writes:
We can see the same pattern in Dr. John Piper’s recent post Why Are Women More Eager Missionaries?* Piper explains that missionary work has become a pink ghetto:
…the actual situation among most evangelical faith missions is that between 80–85% of all single missionaries are women. It is a rare thing, like two out of every ten, for a single man to make missions his life’s vocation, which results in the overall statistics being that one-third of those in evangelical world missions are married men, one-third are married women, and 80 percent of the last third are single women. Which means that something just less than two-thirds of the total missionary force are women.
Piper’s main concern with the post however is not that there aren’t enough single men doing missionary work, but that women who choose this field aren’t marrying as they would like. Piper complains that the problem for husband hunting missionary women is really an exacerbated version of the same problem all Christian women have, and that is an overall lack of marriageable Christian men…
I’ll save you the quotation of Piper, but his reason why missionary women struggle to find husbands is – SHOCK! – that Christian men refuse to man up. I.e – Piper believes that women can’t find husbands because men are not ready and willing to marry.
More:
But if Piper actually believed… that there was a severe shortage of husband material men, he would focus his attention on helping the women reading navigate this incredibly difficult situation. Overseas mission work may feel empowering for young women, but (according to Piper) single women going into the mission field are greatly handicapping their prospects in an already bleak field. His advice to young women would be to choose which was truly more important to them, being a missionary or finding a husband.
If Piper really believed that there were a shortage of marriage-minded, marriage-capable Christian men, then Piper would be counseling women who genuinely want to marry to make marriage a priority when they are younger, prettier and more fertile. Some women say that they want to get married “some day”. But the hidden truth is often that they just want to delay marriage in order to have fun and thrills, until they get tired of it. And then they just expect a suitable man to show up right when they need one. But do men want to marry a 35-year-old woman when they are 40 as much as they want to marry a 23-year-old woman when they are 25?
More Dalrock:
Piper even tells a story which would be a perfect way to teach this lesson. He describes a single woman named Gladys Aylward who went to a place where she found no marriageable men, and then blamed single men for not following her and proposing marriage:
“Miss Aylward talked to the Lord about her singleness. She was a no-nonsense woman in very direct and straightforward ways and she asked God to call a man from England, send him straight out to China, straight to where she was, and have him propose to me.” I can’t forget the next line. Elisabeth Elliot said, “With a look of even deeper intensity, she shook her little bony finger in my face and said, ‘Elisabeth, I believe God answers prayer. And he called him.’” And here there was a brief pause of intense whisper. She said, “‘He called him, and he never came.’”
Now, that experience, I would guess, is not unique to Gladys Aylward.
If Piper really believed that Christian husbands were scarce, he would be sharing this anecdote to warn young women of the foolishness of moving away from the pool of men they hope to choose a husband from and then expecting God to send the man of their choosing across the world to propose. If we were in a culture of scarcity of good men, this would be the obvious lesson from this story. But we live in an age with unshakable confidence that good men are not only available all around us, but will always be abundant. If Piper believed that the husband Miss Aylward was praying for was surrounded by real life English women eager to win him as a husband, this story wouldn’t be complaining about why he didn’t drop everything, fly to China, and propose to a woman he had never met. If Piper believed that the man was sought after as a husband in England, he would be pointing out the foolishness of Miss Aylward flying off to China and then wondering why a man she had never met didn’t show up to propose once she decided she wanted to marry.
Miss Aylward either needed to accept that being a missionary in a secular country meant not marrying, or she needed to focus on marriage first when she was attractive to men as a life partner. Many women are propositioned for sex after they hit their mid-30s, but few of them are asked to marry. This is because men need women more when they are just starting out in their careers than when they are established in their careers.
Many women have no appreciation of how investing in a husband early causes him to be loyal to her when she is older. Women think that a husband will show up when she is ready, and be loyal to her even though she was absent during the hardships of the first decade of his career. A woman can do a lot of good for a man when he is starting out in his career and trying to save money for a house. But when those years have passed, the man’s ability to work and save have been largely set – without anyone’s help. If he went through those years single, then he typically will have earned less and saved less than a married man, because he did it without a wife’s support. Men do better in their careers and finances when they have a wife’s support. Especially in the early career, which is more stressful because of the lack of work experience. If a woman wants a man to be faithful and loyal, then she needs to choose a man who needs her, and invest in him using her youth and beauty to support him during his critical 20s and early 30s. Men respond to support during the critical years with lifelong fidelity and loyalty.
By the way, for an explanation of why men prefer not to be missionaries, read this post on Deeper Strength blog.
And one last point. I have known 3 women missionaries, and many women who thought about becoming short-term missionaries. In every case the women had grown up as Christians, and then gone wild in their 20s with alcohol and promiscuity. And they saw missions work as a fun and thrilling way to “atone” for their wild past. Another reason for Christian men to be skeptical of women missionaries.
WINTERY KNIGHT 
This is the now common flipped script of the modern church: Men, follow your wives. Though in this case it is: Men, follow those women! Though women are called to follow their husbands lead the churches are pushing the concept that women are in the lead, since their hearts are “closer to God”. And since us men are an ungodly bunch who only desire women for sex, it would be better if we all just drop what we are doing and worship the nearest female, who will lead us to salvation!
The more and more I read about this kind of stuff the less and less incline I become to find another church to attend rather than just finding some like minded men and doing our own thing at someone’s home or a local park.
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It’s because God is a man (Father and Son). Women were created to be the help of man…not the object of his worship.
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…finding some like minded men and doing our own thing at someone’s home or a local park.
Mark my words, those will be the only non-converged churches in the near future.
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Another thought with this article….there’s more of a shortage of marriagable women than men…but they (single women) are projecting their faults onto the men to delude themselves.
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Wintery,
I hear you on the “going on missions to atone/do penance for past profligate lifestyle.”
Sometimes I’ve talked with Christian women who “haven’t met their life partner and thus want to go on missions.” It’s kind of like the person who makes it as hard as possible for God … like if we flipped it around and said that a single man became a recluse and hermit, moved to Northern Alaska, would God have some random woman seek this guy out to be a marriage partner? (Seems quite far-fetched to me.)
Or we could make this example a little more down-to-earth. Should I expect that my next job be one where, someone calls me out of the blue, offering me an amazing job with an amazing fit and a great salary with superb benefits — when I wasn’t looking for a job? Is that the narrative? I would think that most sensible people would think that one would look through want ads, indeed.com, dice.com, monster.com, ziprecruiter, talk with recruiters, look at the employment office, etc., prepare your resume and your cover letters as appropriate to the position, send them out, go on interviews, etc.
There was once a Dr. Phil episode where three 40’s somethings women were talking about how they couldn’t find any good men. He asked them about their lifestyle. All three said they had very full lives and cited examples of exercising, horseback riding, cooking classes, yoga, etc. They had pretty packed monthly schedules. They said they had otherwise a very fulfilling life. Dr. Phil eventually concluded they were TOO busy for any man to even try to break into their schedule. If a man were to show up, they would have too much going on.
I realize there’s a lot of sexual tension. The fear of being rejected is sometimes very scary. Putting oneself out there is sometimes a chore. People aren’t sure how they feel about another person, and the uncertainty is unnerving. And then there are people they’re interested in and that interest is not reciprocated or people who are pursuing but one has no interest. I realize people want to be more certain about a life partner especially if they believe they have multiple options and more options.
I’ve had many male friends who are extremely marriageable and they run into plenty of low quality women. Most of my high quality, godly male friends married later in life (30’s, 40’s). For the vast majority, they’re not the extroverted, high profile (very public/visible), gregarious, constantly-with-women/never-without-a-girlfriend kind of men. Most of these men were introverts. They weren’t seeking public recognition. They were servants/servant-leaders. They had excellent work ethic and were very studious in school, such that one could dismiss them as “nerds.” The vast majority of them either are or will be leaders (or have been) in their churches.
In terms of some marriage statistics, we’ll start here: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/02/06/new-census-data-show-more-americans-are-tying-the-knot-but-mostly-its-the-college-educated/
I know charts look nice but let’s also look at the data. About half way through the article, it shows “New Marriage By Age.” We’ll use the most recent data. It’s roughly 75.0 number of newly married adults per thousand in 2012, for people aged 25-34. That’s not great, but not bad 7.5% in any given year, age 25-34. Of course that drops by about a third once you hit the decade of 35-44, and drops again once you hit 45-64.
The problem is also compounded that if one is a single woman who is serious about her faith, the numbers are even lower. The population of (devout eligible Christian men) is going to be less than the overall population. If women then have a reasonable shopping list of important characteristics, qualities, traits, then the number of eligible Christian men drops even more.
Factor in then: are you going to meet them when both of you are single?
I know a lot of women who complain about older bachelors, that they are set in their ways or they have picked up a number of bad habits. I’ll be the first to admit that I had a number of bad habits that I had developed and that it was quite an adjustment in marriage. But this is also true for women.
My only advice to Christian women who think they aren’t meeting high quality devout Christian men and want to go onto the mission field goes like this:
– work on yourself, work on your sanctification. Be Miss Right rather than finding Mr. Right.
– wanting to get married is certainly not sinful; it is a noble desire if you want to honor God through marriage.
– do not make it harder on God like my Northern Alaska hermit-recluse example
– sharpen your discernment
– be okay with not knowing whether someone likes you or not. Most of the time, you’re trying to figure out whether you respect and like a guy as much as he is trying to figure out whether he wants to go further.
– even non-Christians have observed that first dates aren’t for figuring out whether you two are right for each other for all time. First dates are for discerning whether there’s enough interest and potential for a second date.
– ask for assistance through **godly counsel** (for instance, ask pastors, pastors’ wives, elders, women’s ministry leaders, etc. to introduce you)
– discover the pockets of high quality Christian men: usually high quality Christian men know each other and sometimes even hang out with each other.
– if you really think that (overseas) Christian mission is important to you, find a man who also shares that value.
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There are endless articles about men needing to man up and marry those … er … women. And even more articles about how there are no good men out there. But never ever do you see articles challenging women to look at what they bring to the table to deserve or attract that great man. It’s just assumed. Why is that?
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Good question. It’s a good question for married men who think that blaming unmarried men is a good way to make marriage more attractive to unmarried men.
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Even Denis Praeger is into shaming unmarried men. May I give the cynic’s version of their message:
So what if she’s had twenty sex partners before you; so what if she’s 35 because she spent her twenties “finding herself” and will give you one kid, if you’re lucky; so what if you’ll never have sex again after the baby. She’s a pearl of great price and you have to marry her dammit. It’s not about what you want; it’s about what she wants.
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The trouble with Prager is that he doesn’t want to talk details. He wants to make decisions based on feelings, while ignoring risks. He hasn’t really ever addressed the problems that men raise about how feminism has undermined the value proposition of marriage to men. It would be like going to a automobile dealer and asking about specifications of different models, and then being insulted by the salesperson for not taking a risk and buying one based on the need to appear brave to the salesperson. Huh?
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‘Why is that?’
Perhaps they would realize they don’t bring much to the table.
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Couldn’t agree more. When I mention this to women, I usually get “How dare you?” to which, I respond with “I dare, because it’s the truth.”
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This is true. Men know they have to bring something to the table to attract a desirable woman. To question a woman on “what do you bring to the table?” simply doesn’t grok.
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What truly frustrates me is how Christian women are getting advice from so called “Women’s Ministries” like Girl Defined and Allyson Rowe on YouTube. While I do not believe these types of ministries necessarily have bad intentions, I’ve watched them tell young Christian women things like. “So long as you’re walking in accordance with God’s word, the man that God has for you will find you.” They don’t give scriptural support for this. It just sounds spiritual so everyone claps and cheers at this great spiritual advice. There is little to nothing about being responsible, doing things to prepare to be a good wife and mother, the reality that a woman cannot afford to delay marriage if it’s something she truly desires. Pseudo spiritual feel good talk about how God loves you and you just need to live in accordance with His word doesn’t actually give any real advice about marriage.
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I think much of what passes for Christianity among most people these days is that God is our cosmic Butler, and his first priority is making his human pets get what they desire. We feel a desire to be Christian only if it makes us feel good and makes us liked by others. We only have to do things that work for God if they are in line with our spiritual gifts. So self sacrificial obligations like chastity, sobriety, stewardship and apologetics are easily dismissed. We do the ones that make us feel good, and essentially let the culture decide what we’ll do the rest of the time.
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I have to speak up for girl defined because of this article though, which is not too bad, but still amateurish when compared to how men think of the marriage enterprise and marriage roles:
https://www.girldefined.com/the-number-one-thing-single-girls-should-look-for-in-a-future-husband-but-rarely-do
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To be fair, Girl Defined generally gives much better advice than Allyson Rowe (I don’t know if you’ve seen her, but if you check out her channel I’m pretty sure you’ll be as disgusted as I am). However, I still cringe somewhat at how Girl Defined tends to be overly spiritual without a lot of practical advice. I recently watched some of their videos where Bethany (the 29 year old single sister) talks about how to be a Christian single woman while desiring marriage. Seeing as she’s a relatively attractive and seemingly committed Christian woman, I have to conclude that the reason she’s still single at 29 is by choice. While I don’t think a woman should be so desperate for marriage that she runs into a bad marriage simply because she thinks she’s running out of time, I find it difficult to believe that an attractive, committed Christian woman who truly desires a Godly marriage, could find herself 29 and single without actively turning down qualified men who tried to date her.
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@My 2 Cents,
I hear that. I also know a girl who is 28, very attractive and shows comittment to Christ, and in the same situation. Only thing that stands out is that she is a missionary kid from the Netherlands. She has already told me there’s not many candidates for marriage, but she seems adamant to focus on her career as a counselor there. She says she wants to get married, but unless she goes to an area with a larger dating pool, she may be destined for the road Gladys Aylward took.
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I think you’re right that women’s ministries typically minimize preparation for marriage roles, being practical about the man’s demonstrated ability to earn and save, accurately estimating timelines and costs, etc. Although women can be very good in their schooling and career, they don’t have the same focus on achievement in relationships. They let feelings rule, and it seldom works out for them.
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What women’s ministries should be teaching:
What women’s ministries are NOT teaching:
What women’s ministries ARE teaching:
You go girl! Girl power!
You are a daughter of the king and you deserve a royal raiment!
God has SUCH A BIG plan for your life! You are more than just a wife and mother! Just wait and see!
Of course you are to obey your husband, but your not supposed to be a DOORMAT who doesn’t think for herself!
If your husband doesn’t hear your heart then its time for a holy tantrum!
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Reading this, “obedient to their OWN husbands” jumped out to me with something new, because it seems like another way to emphasize “stick with your husband, don’t follow other men, don’t make them a priority above him.”
Just seems like another layer of meaning.
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I am a 43 yr old unmarried, childless christian woman (Reformed Baptist) and I would like to contribute to the conversation. I became a christian at the age of 25. Before I have lived a very worldly, sinful, promiscuous lifestyle, because I thought this is what normal girls do. And I definitely wanted to be normal, after having survived a difficult childhood (domestic violence, divorce, death of brother, raised by narcissist single mom). Men surved the purpose to give me status among my peers, to make me look cool and popular, that was my main motivation for getting into these “relationships”, not sex.
As soon as I learned about biblical chastity, I stopped my sinful behaviour and have never touched a guy since. It took me until the year 2009 to find the correct theology, since christianity is full of false teachers. I fell into the charismatic trap at the beginning (Joyce Meyer and the likes) and got into conspiracy theories/truther movement etc. From the day of my conversion I was pretty obsessed about discovering everything I could about God, the bible and the church. This was my absolute priority for many years.
Today things have calmed down a bit, my faith has become quite stable, and I am more resting in it instead of being fanatically obsessed. My ride with Jesus was pretty wild and adventurous and to be honest, marriage wasn’t a priority because I felt rich and fulfilled just for the fact that I was born again and belonged to Gods chosen people. A husband and kids would have been an obstacle between me and my endless, desperate, passionate thirst to discover my faith.
I also became very ill in the year 2006 and it took me 10 years to feel normal again from a physical standpoint. My illness slowed my social life down, but not my religous adventures.
During all those years I went on dates with 2 christian guys, but they didn’t work out. One guy got completely drunk on both the first and second date and the second one wasn’t really that into me. I also used a christian dating platform, but I found all the men unsuatable. One seemed to lack sensitivity and the others were chronically jobless or had very low paying jobs or they did not share or even rejected my theological views. Most had either liberal or charismatic tendencies.
As a woman the idea to have to submit to such a man seemed unbearable and I was reminded about the situation where Israel wants to exchange leadership through God with leadership through a king, in order to be like the sorrounding nations. God has led me and provided for me miraculously during all those years and I didn’t want to exchange his perfect leadership with the leadership of an inadequate man.
Now at 43, I have calmed down a bit. I have become more balanced, more settled, I have indeed discovered my faith and myself. The thought of not wanting to grow old alone has suddenly entered my head. Just as a test run I have visited a dating platform to find out about the dating market. I was pleasantly surprised that there were plenty of single, childless men in their forties.
What puzzles me a bit is that I have heard many men say, that men in their forties would look for significantly younger women. My question is, why is that? And why would a thirty year old woman look for a man ten years her senior? Doesn’t make much sense to me. Unless these guys have a lot of money I can’t really imagine why a young woman would look for a much older guy.
However this might turn out, I am glad that I am not desperate. I have lived so many years on my own, I can continue to do this for many more years. Can it get lonely sometimes on my own? Yes. But then I also have a lot of peace and freedom. Everything comes with a price tag. Marriage means compromise, fights, discussions, less freedom. I observe married couples and I have never seen a relationship that was desirable in my eyes.
By the way, the average woman becomes a widow at around 60. So women always had to live the last decades of their lifes on their own. This is not a new thing.
We live in the end times now. Things are being turned upsite down, and the rules of the past are fading. I think the most important thing in life is to get saved and to try to live right before God. Everything else is nice to have, but not essential. And you can live right before God as a single man or woman. Plenty of examples in the bible.
When you read the book of revelation you will find that things will get worse, not better. We won’t go back to a conservative society that lives out biblical truths. There will be more children out of wedlock, more divorces, more abortions, more promiscuity, more perversion. Things won’t improve until Jesus comes back.
I think this struggle of christians to re-establish conservatism in a world that is desperately trying to get rid of Gods laws is futile. Might work in a few cases, but in most cases it will be wasted energy.
So all of these discussions on the internet about all the mistakes christian women make nowadays, not sure if they will change anything. We live in a fallen world ruled by Satan, of course Eves daughters will be led astray. And men will be whoremongers, as they have always been, but in a patriarchial society this has been ignored for a long time.
I am looking forward to heaven, where everything will be perfect. Until then I will rejoyce in my salvation and hope, that Jesus will come back soon.
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Rebecca,
I am glad God has brought you through a difficult childhood and also delivered you from a promiscuous lifestyle. I rejoice with you!
You wrote; “A husband and kids would have been an obstacle between me and my endless, desperate, passionate thirst to discover my faith.”
I want to counter that by sharing the example of my wife. She also had a difficult childhood. We met at church and when we married she had a lot of issues from her past and difficult family. But in marriage, she grew a LOT. My point, you can grow a lot while being married, while submitting to a husband (that takes a lot of faith and self-control) you can grow a lot. While taking care of young children God can use that to cause a lot of growth in your life!
At 43 it is difficult to have children now. I am not trying to condemn you but to show younger women reading your comment that they can get married and still discover their faith and find themselves in serving others while married.
Also, their is great benefit in growing God’s Kingdom on earth by having and raising children in the church. Chances are high that Christian leaders did not encourage you to do this. I want younger Christian women reading your comment to realize the importance of marrying young so they can birth and raise Christian children for the future. Larger numbers in God’s Kingdom increases God’s glory; ” In a multitude of people is a king’s glory, But in the dearth of people is a prince’s ruin.” Proverbs 14: 28
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I would have been a terrible mother when I was younger. i have been raised by such messed up people, I think I would have made many of their mistakes with my own children.
As a calvinist I believe in predastination. If God really had a husband and children in mind for me at this time, it would have happened through some coincidence.
Godless people meet each other through all kinds of crazy coincidences all the time. If God wants Christians to have children, he will make it happen. He controls everything, remember? I went to enough churches domestic and abroad, no guy was ever really interested in me and I, too, was not really marriage minded.
I also know a christian woman who is old, single and childless because she spent her life caring for her disabled sister and she is actually quite happy about it. She spends much of her time digging into the word and she knows plenty of the bible by heart. I have never had such a deep conversation about theology with any other woman I have to say.
I don’t think being single is a lesser calling than being a wife and mother, on the contrary. Paul called it a gift and I agree with him.
Personally I think it is a sign that we are slowly getting ready for take off (rapture). We are getting closer to heaven, and in heaven we will be like the angels anyway, marriage and procreation will cease to exist for us. I think singles on earth are a foreshadowing of this. Our lifes are often meant as pictures and symbols for higher things, just like marriage is a picture of Jesus and the Church, singleness is a picture of life in heaven.
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Rebecca,
“… I think I would have made many of their mistakes with my own children.”
You don’t raise children only by yourself. Your husband makes up half of the child and he leads and participates in how they are raised. Your response here shows selfishness on your part – you are only thinking of your involvement with the child.
“As a calvinist I believe in predastination. If God really had a husband and children in mind for me at this time, it would have happened through some coincidence.”
Passivity is not God’s will for your life. Passivity is an excuse to not seek, knock, and give. Does predestination mean that Christians should not use an alarm clock to wake up in order to get to work on time?
Jesus said we should “ask, knock on doors, seek…” What about when Jesus said that “… violent men take the kingdom of God by force”? When Jesus sent the 70 out in teams of 2, were they just supposed to sit under the shade of trees and wait for unbelievers to walk over to them?
Did the churches you attended and sermons you listened to ever encourage and try to motivate you of the importance of being a wife and mother, of making it your ambition to keep a house for a family? Unfortunately, it is doubtful you were given these kinds of sermons or messages.
“Paul called it a gift and I agree with him.”
The single gift (celibacy) is very, very, very rare. Paul expected all of the elders and deacons of house churches to be married men with children. These are Christian leaders; thus being single was very rare gift!
“Just as a test run I have visited a dating platform to find out about the dating market. I was pleasantly surprised that there were plenty of single, childless men in their forties.”
If you truly have the single gift then why are you on a dating website perusing all the 40 something men???
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When i first got saved at 25 years marriage was absolutely not on my mind. I had to heal so many things from my upbringing, I very much doubt I would have chosen a good spouse. And as a mother I would have spent the majority of my time with my kids, thus the danger of repeating the mistakes of my parents with them would have been pretty big.
Also, no guy approached me with serious intentions, so nothing is really lost here and I don’t think I am guilty of anything. There are less men than women in the churches anyway, so some women will go without husband whether they like it or not. However, I am no longer 25 and this time period has passed forever, so it’s useless to try to discuss something that’s no longer part of reality.
Singleness was and still is a gift for me. I have lived a chaste life since I am saved, but that does not mean I have made a vow of celibacy for my entire life.That is not something God requires of singles anywhere in the bible. I don’t know what the future holds, perhaps I might marry someone, who knows? This is really the first time that I think about the subject of marriage more seriously.
I don’t think there is anything wrong with checking out my options. I have heard from so many people that there are no single men available in my age bracket. Turns out this is not true. Whether I will have children in the future is something I leave in Gods hands. I live by faith and not by sight.
I don’t share your and other peoples concern about women delaying marriage. We could in the same breath speak about men delaying marriage. When I was young I met plenty of beautiful, godly christian women who were sad that they were never approached by any guy.
I also noticed that men seem to favour women who are very new to the faith and whom they have missionary dated outside of the church. I think this is wrong. Why would christian men not prefer women with mature faith? Why are they afraid of a woman who was raised in the church by godly parents and who knows the bible well and prefer a porn actress or stripper who was just saved a week ago? I think this question is much more important and relevant than asking why women delay marriage.
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I want to add that looking at dating profiles to find out who is available does not equal “persuing men”.
“Your response here shows selfishness on your part – you are only thinking of your involvement with the child.”
You don’t really seem to understand what selfishness means. A person who is not the least bit concerned of the wellbeing of others is selfish. Not someone who wants to avoid making serious mistakes with child raising.
“The single gift (celibacy) is very, very, very rare. Paul expected all of the elders and deacons of house churches to be married men with children. These are Christian leaders; thus being single was very rare gift!”
Uhm, most people will never be leaders in the church, so marriage is not a requirement for them.
1 Corinthians 7:34 King James Version (KJV)
“There is difference also between a wife and a virgin. The unmarried woman careth for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit: but she that is married careth for the things of the world, how she may please her husband.”
Singleness is ALWAYS a gift and never a curse, simply because it gives you more hours in the day to think of God.
“Passivity is not God’s will for your life.”
What exactly do you expect single christian women to do? To throw themselves at men and to beg them to marry them?? If a guy is to coward to approach a woman in church he is interested in I very much doubt he will be a good leader in the home …
I also think this whole article should be renamed into “Start telling men to stop watching pornography so that they might develop healthy sexual interest in godly women and while you are at it start telling men to stop missionary dating hookers in order to get them (cough) ‘saved’.”
Statistics on christians and pornography here: http://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2016/january/how-pastors-struggle-porn-phenomenon-josh-mcdowell-barna.html
A male view on missionary dating: http://applygodsword.com/is-it-wrong-for-christians-to-missionary-date-unbelievers/
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Bee observed: “You don’t raise children only by yourself. Your husband makes up half of the child and he leads and participates in how they are raised. Your response here shows selfishness on your part – you are only thinking of your involvement with the child.”
Absolutely in terms of the sentiment — husbands SHOULD get a say and lead how children are raised. Of course, raising children is not just by two people — which is why we have Infant Dedications (the parents dedicate to leading their children into the knowledge of God) / Infant Baptisms [if you are more covenantal/Presbyterian/Congregational].
In addition to our extended families, we have the community of faith. My wife has admitted that her bad experiences with poor parenting were undone by the excellent examples of **Christian men, husbands, women, mothers, sisters, brothers**. We lean on others.
On an aside, my now retired senior minister has laid out very interesting paradigms even in the Bible about looking for a spouse. For instance, he highlighted Abraham search for a wife for Isaac, and Abraham’s unnamed servant. For whatever reasons, Abraham’s unnamed servant isn’t even dignified with having his name recorded. Maybe he wanted it this way. The servant was commanded to find a wife for Isaac. So he used his brain: he went to the well, where there would be lots of people. That might be like going to the supermarket.
The servant employed discerning criteria: he prayed for a highly hospitable woman with a super servant attitude — that she would offer him drink and offer to water the servant’s TEN camels. If the camels were thirsty, we’re talking in the order of 1000L (=1000 kilograms) = 2000 pounds of water. He’s a nobody, a servant. But the woman he prayed for would overlook his appearance and that he is merely a servant, and would demonstrate great personal sacrifice. I’ve likened this to offering to be something equivalent to offering to plan an apologetics conference or offering to shop for and to prepare a banquet for the families of all the guest speakers as long as the conference pays for the cost of the food…
In the rest of the narrative, Rebekah honored her brother and her father in following the tradition. They then employed discernment in seeing if this matter was from the LORD.
There’s two perspectives we can look at for application: (1) the servant’s — using wisdom, he looked in a place where he would find people, and using discernment he found a woman of character. Or (2) Rebekah’s perspective, where she is hospitable and very sacrificial.
Bee observed, “Passivity is not God’s will for your life. Passivity is an excuse to not seek, knock, and give. Does predestination mean that Christians should not use an alarm clock to wake up in order to get to work on time?”
Sometimes I get puzzled why Christians get so passive about dating when they may have heard of the book of Ruth. I mean, Goodness! That Ruth! She doesn’t sit back and wait, but proposes to Boaz, not just once — TWICE!
Here’s Ruth 3:7-10:
“And when Boaz had eaten and drunk, and his heart was merry, he went to lie down at the end of the heap of grain. Then she came softly and uncovered his feet and lay down. At midnight the man was startled and turned over, and behold, a woman lay at his feet! He said, “Who are you?” And she answered, “I am Ruth, your servant. Spread your wings over your servant, for you are a redeemer.” ”
By uncovering his feet and laying down [at his feet], she was proposing marriage.
If that wasn’t clear, she said that he should “spread [his] wings over [his] servant, for [he is] a redeemer,” also asking him to marry her.
Realize this is a very interesting situation: you’ve got a woman who is a Moabite by birth who is widowed (and normally that kind of marriage is forbidden), and then you’ve got a man who’s most likely an older man. Both of them realize something based on the character of each other. Ruth is a convert to the God of Israel. Both of them honor their laws and traditions. And out of this union, you have their son Obed, the father of Jesse, the father of David.
As I have said before:
+ be Mr. or Miss Right, rather than looking for Mr. or Miss Right (the emphasis is on what you are doing to live according to God)
+ emphasis on character: character matters! (making wise choices)
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I remember that a few years ago I went to church with a friend and her female friend. While my friend and I dressed modestly, her friend went to church with a huge, in our opinion very inapropriate cleavage. There was this tall single guy in his thirties I thought was cute and whose godly sister I knew.
But guess whom he asked out that day after the service? The friend with the cleavage! Mind you, this friend was not only older than me, she also looked a lot older than me. This church is also filled abundantly with goodlooking, young, modestly dressed women.
So he invited her to go to a museum. She denied because she thought it was too “boring”. I would have loved to be asked out to go to a museum, but unfortunately he couldn’t care less about me or any of the other modestly dressed women.
I think we need to dramatically raise the standards of young men, because they seem to reward the wrong kind of behaviour in women.
Also the story of Ruth is descriptive, not prescriptive. And as I understand it it wasn’t that much about Boas character and much more about the piece of land he owned. Anyway, I am not going to propose to any man any time soon.
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I find it also very irritating, that both you, WIntery’s Friend and Bee completely overlook that at the beginning of my walk with Christ i was involved in false doctrine. i went to charismatic and liberal churches, that means any guy I would have met there, would have been either charismatic or liberal.
It took me 9 years to straighten my faith out and to come to a good, solid doctrine. So if I had married right after getting saved I would now be with some tongue speaking charismatic husband who would try to drag me to Benny Hinn healing crusades.
Uhm no! I care way more about good doctrine than I care about popping out babies. You don’t build Gods kingdom on earth with false doctrine. I am not with you guys. I think you’ve got your priorities wrong.
If you cared about bible prophecy you would also know that the bible says “When the Son of man comes, will He find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18:8). So that tells me things will definitely become worse in the future and no amount of christian baby producing will change that.
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Rebecca,
I am sympathetic to those who are involved with false teaching/false doctrines. (Truth be told, and Wintery Knight knows this, I was involved with a fairly well-known Bible-based totalitarian organization and I am fairly well-known in the counter-cult world. I went up to my counterparts who were familiar with EveryNation, and said, I’m investigating this as a friend’s sister-in-law is currently getting involved, what can you tell me? And the expert said, Ah, I know who you are, here’s a bunch of information.) I run a particular … “expose false teaching” website such that even one of my best [atheist] friends calls me a “secret counter-cult agent.”
In any case.
I didn’t marry in my particular group.
In fact, I finished my degree, I went to seminary (because I was really interested in deepening my faith), and only some time after working full-time while going to seminary part-time, I finally met my wife and we married (I was 36 when we met, I was 38 when we were married, she turned 30 just after we got married). No, she has no background similar to my group, although she understands the group fairly well.
Amusingly, my wife realized she wasn’t meeting solid Christian men in her traffic patterns so she decided to change them. And even today, I thought about how we’ve changed over the decade we’ve been married but we still have some of the same interests and the same core values.
We’ve had to explain lots of topics to our kids, ranging from the Atonement (and why) to what is Hell and why to lots of other topics. I’m always thrilled that we’re a team.
AND, you’ll find this ironic: one of our first married dates after our first two kids (when my parents came to stay with us to visit their grandkids), I took my wife to the Dead Sea Scroll Exhibit. She loved it! I remarked to her that I should have brushed up on my Ancient Hebrew beforehand.
[Look, Rebecca, if you want war stories about dating, I have plenty. Women marry for wrong reasons too, like lots of women wanting to get with the Portfolio Manager/Ivy League grad who did his CFA and was tall, suave, and Caucasian. There are plenty of Christian men interested in all kinds of different things. Some of my guy friends really like intellectual women, and not all women are intellectual.]
My point still stands though —
Both men and women should be
* continuing in holiness and obedience, and growing in these, which includes gaining good doctrine, and
* in the habit of learning discernment, and practicing discernment.
Or, to put in Christianese, “The Cultural Mandate [Genesis 1:28] does not set rulership/dominion over Creation, including having right doctrine and learning to govern well, against having children.”
Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth. (Genesis 1:28, ESV)
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As I read Rebeccas comments about issues with pornography and her story about the man who asked out the women who showed cleavage, I was reminded of one of the things I asked my husband. I asked him if he thought that men have unrealistic standards of what women should look like because of pornography, and you know what he said? “Yes”.
I am a women who grew up with Rebeccas struggle. I understand what it’s like to be the modest women who felt like I had to dress skimpy for a man to notice me because the boys\ men around me confirmed that belief. I didn’t grow up with a father and had only one uncle so I had to look at the world around me. I have been so discouraged learning that pretty much all men have looked at porn in their lives.
I often saw how women dressed did matter. Girls and young women notice and it hurts their feminine hearts.
Now as I say this, Rebecca , we serve a God of healing. We have an enemy out there who would try to convince you of a negative nature of men. I fight this battle daily, but we can’t give in. One day if you do get married the devil will pull those same discouraging thoughts into your head.
When we loose sight of Gods truth we get stuck in the disappointments of this life. There is so much hope and love and freedom offered to us. I would ask God to heal your hurt when you saw that young man approach the women you thought wasn’t dressed well. And I would pray for your heart. We can easily be unkind and judgements to the women who dress immodestly and that’s not the heart God wants us to have either. I will pray for you! Don’t loose hope!
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