6 Tips On How Married Christians Can Embrace Single Adults

3. Affirm that marital status isn’t correlated with godliness or maturity.

Many single people feel that they are often automatically stereotyped as spiritually immature, morally dangerous, and unsuitable for leadership simply because they’re single.  I’ve even heard pastors unapologetically and explicitly discriminate against single people: “I don’t want to hire a single woman to direct the worship arts ministry because she’ll probably end up sleeping with all of the guys in the band.” This is both hurtful and wrong.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote that financial independence is not a fruit of the Spirit. Well, marriage isn’t a fruit of the Spirit either. Married people aren’t more holy or godly or mature than single people. Married people haven’t “arrived” in a way that single people haven’t. Married people aren’t even “on track” in a way that single people aren’t. I can see why people are confused about this though. There are plenty of (married) Christian leaders who teach that married people are better candidates for holiness than single people. For example:

“In heaven, is the crucible of our saint-making going to have been through our jobs? I don’t think so. The Scripture makes clear that it will be done largely through our marriages.” – Dr. Albert Mohler

I disagree with Dr. Mohler. I don’t believe that Scripture makes it clear that marriage is the primary route to holiness. (And Dr. Mohler doesn’t offer any scriptural basis for his assertion.) But, I can see why the married people (like Dr. Mohler) who run the Church are more inclined to believe that God makes saints exclusively/primarily through marriage. Research shows that humans intuitively trust people who share their life experiences.[iii]

When I meet another single Christian woman in her 30s, I automatically envision how God has used her singleness to teach her wisdom, selflessness, self-control, joy, patience, and faith because that’s what God has done in my own life. I can’t easily envision the same for someone who is married, so I’m less inclined to trust that God has used marriage to produce similar fruit in her life. But I can’t let my inadequate imagination limit my view of the Holy Spirit’s work in her.

The Holy Spirit isn’t boring; it doesn’t have a cookie cutter plan for how it brings forth fruit in people’s lives. Marital status isn’t correlated with godliness or maturity. John 15:5 says that we bear fruit when we are connected to God. Period.