Disclaimer: Friend, this is not the episode to listen to with young ones around. Put in those earbuds!
As Sherri explains, singleness is a continuum. There isn’t just one type of singleness. You might be a single mom, or maybe you’ve never dated, or perhaps you were married and now are a widow. Each set of circumstances is different. This episode is a little dose of reality, not meant to kill the fairy tale, but meant to be a reminder that if you are single, seeking marriage isn’t the cure because singleness isn’t a sickness. It’s time to own contentment because desperation can lead you down a path that will make you say yes when you should say no. What is the gift of singleness? How do we handle the conversation about celibacy? Let’s go to scripture and see what it says! Keep those earbuds in and let’s go!
Co-Host: Angelique Struthers
Special thanks to Vision House for sponsoring the Snacks And Good Company Podcast!
Show Notes:
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Transcription:
Sherri Lynn:
Hello, friend. Just so you know, this episode, it’s a little spicy. Biblical, encouraging, but spicy. So, if you got little kids around, this isn’t the episode for them, but it probably is for you.
Angelique:
God is practical. He’s not just telling you don’t have sex before marriage to be an ogre, but once you have sex with somebody, there’s chemicals that exude from the body. I won’t get into all of it, but what happens is your eyes half shut and you do not observe all the things, the red flags, that you might otherwise see. God wants your eyes half shut after marriage. So, after marriage, it’s like, “Gee, I didn’t know he was so sloppy. Oh, well.” But before marriage, he wants your eyes wide open to see all those possible flaws before you walk down the aisle so you can make a good decision.
Sherri Lynn:
(Singing) Greetings friends, and welcome to Snacks & Good Company, brought to you by Vision House. I’m your host, Sherri Lynn, so glad to have you here for episode four. And I wanted to start this episode out a little differently. My counselor brought up to me that singleness is a long continuum, she said. You could be single and never have dated anyone. You could have been, like herself, married 40 plus years, widowed, and now single. Singleness can mean so much. And it was really difficult to try to address all of that in a five part series. But one particular part that I did not talk about, and I do want to be able to at least address it, is single moms, and being a single mom, dating, not dating, whatever the case may be. And I had someone reach out to me about just being a part of the podcast overall.
Her name is Joni. She’s a listener to my daytime gig, the Brant Hansen Show, and the Brant & Sherri Oddcast. And she said, “Hey, I’ll be a part.” And I was like, “Great, let’s do it on Zoom.” And Joni was like, “No, I’m not doing Zoom.” And I was like, “Well, we could try something else.” So, we finally got to doing it over the phone. She is… As you will hear in here, she is 69 years old. She is single. She raised her daughter as a single mom. And I just loved her perspective. I love her perspective on life just because she’s lived life, right? And she’s not necessarily in the thick of it anymore. And I thought, “You know what? This is a good perspective and I hope that it is helpful to single moms out there who are going through it right now. You got little kids or maybe teenage kids.”
Joni has a great perspective. She’s really funny and fun too. So, I called her and we just talked about being single overall, some of her life, raising her daughter, all of that. I think you’ll enjoy it. We start out with the set of circumstances that happened where she became a single mom.
Joni:
I do have a daughter, and I raised her. When she was three, she said, “What do we need daddy for?” And it wasn’t until she was 10 that he left the picture. So, I fought for seven years to try to keep him in the picture and it just didn’t work.
Sherri Lynn:
Going to what your daughter said, was it the fact that your husband was not around or was not involved to the extent that she felt like he wasn’t active in her life?
Joni:
Yeah. He would go to work. At least he had a regular job.
Sherri Lynn:
Okay.
Joni:
And he would come home from work. And he would have dinner sometimes. And then, our third bedroom… When we moved into the house, he converted the third bedroom into a man cave. And he went into the man cave at 6:30 or so at night and never came back out, never had any interaction with either one of us in the evening, didn’t play games, didn’t go for walks, didn’t ride bikes, didn’t do anything. And so, at age three, she was like, “What’s he here for?”
Sherri Lynn:
Right. And you were like, “Huh, that’s an interesting question.”
Joni:
Well, and he allowed me the decency of letting me catch him with somebody else so I could feel like I was totally justified.
Sherri Lynn:
I don’t know that I’ve ever heard adultery put that way. I was paid the respect of catching him with someone else, the privilege.
Joni:
It was a blessing.
Sherri Lynn:
It was a blessing because then you’re like, “There’s that, the end.”
Joni:
Yeah, it was the end.
Sherri Lynn:
And anyone who’s listening to this, the reason why I’m talking about this, and I think it’s important to talk about, is because I’ve heard so many imaginary romanticized fairy tale things of what single women think is coming their way or what they’re missing out on. And so, I think it’s important to say, “Hey, here is a little dose of reality.” Brandt always says, “Reality is what happens when you’re wrong.”
Joni:
And that is a true fact.
Sherri Lynn:
And so, you’re in this situation. You’re single and because you’re watching The Notebook or Sleepless in Seattle or any of the other ones that have told us all of these things, you’re like, “Oh, once I do that, and I’m on top of the Empire State Building, and I see this guy, and then it’s going to be yay, yay, yay.”
And they don’t tell you about the man cave and the… You know what I mean, not coming out. It’s 6:30. These things can happen. And certainly, you don’t want them to happen, but it’s a possibility. And I guess what I’m saying is marriage doesn’t cure everything.
Joni:
No, it does not. And in my particular instance, it probably created more problems than was necessary. But we persevered with the Lord’s help. And I became very much close to my church family leading up to and after. And so, I had good, decent role models in men for my daughter growing up. And she went to Christian school. And there were no men teachers until fifth grade in any of the classes.
And so, at the end of fourth grade, I asked her fourth grade teacher to put her into one of the men’s fifth grade classes. And they did. And then, she was in men’s classes through the end of eighth grade. And that was, by far and away, probably one of the best things that ever happened. She loved those men.
Sherri Lynn:
That’s interesting. Why did you feel like that was important?
Joni:
Well, because we didn’t have a man at the house. My dad was in town, but he was at the beginning stages of Alzheimer’s. And there were a lot of medical things going on with him, so we didn’t get to see him very much. And she didn’t feel…
I mean, he was an old guy, not somebody that was a parental age. And so, I felt it was important that she be around men who were decent human beings, that were able to be important in the lives of children. And we got that in spades. It was awesome.
Sherri Lynn:
Talk to me, Joni, about… I had someone on talking about being content and really owning that contentment so you don’t make dumb decisions in desperation, and where that desperation can lead you. I really want to make sure younger girls understand that you can hold that contentment, so that you can say no when you definitely need to be saying no, and not saying yes out of desperation like it’s your last chance. Right?
Joni:
Right.
Sherri Lynn:
Any insight on that?
Joni:
I definitely was not a content girl slash woman for a number of years because I was looking for love in all the wrong places.
Sherri Lynn:
I’ve heard the song.
Joni:
[inaudible 00:08:51].
Sherri Lynn:
What do you really think you were looking for? If you could say what was the deep desire in your heart? What do you think you were looking for?
Joni:
Quite honestly, I was looking to be somebody other than I was. I wanted to be desirable and flirty and all the things that go along with being that kind of a person, but that wasn’t really me. And so, I think I was really looking for was, “Oh gee, if I can just attract the right guy, then I will be happy.”
But attracting the right guy… The right guy wasn’t the kind of guy that I was attracting.
Sherri Lynn:
That’s usually how it goes, right? Yeah.
Joni:
I was getting all the beefcakes and the guys who… They were just out for conquest. So, at this point in my life, I’m like, “Why do I even worry about whether or not there’s a man in my life? I’d have to change the way I do things. I’d have to make dinner.”
Sherri Lynn:
I mean, I presume you’re making yourself dinner, Joni. You are eating, right?
Joni:
Yes, I am eating.
Sherri Lynn:
Okay. All right.
Joni:
And I actually had my sister-in-law and Nephew came through town last night and I made dinner for them.
Sherri Lynn:
Okay. So, you’re not opposed to making dinner from time to time.
Joni:
No.
Sherri Lynn:
And you don’t mind telling everyone your age?
Joni:
I am 69 years old.
Sherri Lynn:
69 years old. Okay. So, let me ask you this, 69 and single. How often do you think about being in a relationship? Is that something that you do think about often? Not so often? How often does that cross your mind?
Joni:
I’d say it crosses my mind periodically. Not in any regular basis and not really very often. But when I see friends who have a good relationship, it makes me a little… I wish I had somebody I could go to the movies with, or I wish I had somebody that I could go to this concert that’s coming up tonight with, or that kind of thing. It’s not that I really want to be intimate or anything like that. It’s just the companionship would be nice.
Sherri Lynn:
Yes.
Joni:
And I used to have… One of my old bosses was a great guy. And after his wife died, we would go to dinner on occasions and stuff. And there was never… He called me his sister. I called him my brother. There was never any romance involved at all. And then, when he died, that was the last one of my people that wasn’t family that I felt like I could have had companionship with.
Sherri Lynn:
Yeah.
Joni:
And so, that was heartbreaking.
Sherri Lynn:
Yeah.
Joni:
And I miss him still, but I don’t need to have that. I have everything. I have a dog and two cats, a daughter, her dog. I have a grand dog. We’re fine.
Sherri Lynn:
Thanks so much to Joni for agreeing, finally, Joni, finally agreeing to talk to me. I had to really press her and tell her how helpful her story was going to be to other women, specifically single moms. So, I know that it was. And Joni, thank you so much for giving me your time. And hopefully, it’s instructive to even those of you who aren’t single moms, that you can hear someone who’s a little older and more seasoned, as we say, saying, “Yes, I am in a place of contentment, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t times of loneliness, that there aren’t times of sadness.” But I don’t think…
From what I’m getting, guys, please hear me on this. From what I am seeing in the emails I am receiving about this series, times of loneliness, times of sadness, times of anxiety are not specific to single women. Married women are telling me they have the exact same thing. So, what I’m trying to help you with is, if you’re pining to be on the other side of something, I’m just trying to tell you that these same feelings and this same struggle is on the other side. And so, contentment overall is something that we, as disciples of Christ, if you are a disciple of Jesus, is something we strive for no matter what our state may be. So, thank you again, Joni for hanging out with us.
And coming up, we are going to talk about a phrase that I heard over and over and over again in church culture. It’s called the gift of singleness. I cannot tell you how many times I heard that over the pulpit, how many times I’ve heard people talk about it, but never really say what it is or what it was. And so, we’re going to dive into that. What is the gift of singleness? That’s coming up on Snacks & Good Company.
Welcome back to Snacks & Good Company. I’m Sherri Lynn. By the way, if you want to comment on anything you hear on this episode or any of the other episodes, you can always email me at Sherri, S-H-E-R-R-I at Snacks&GoodCompany.com.
All right. Right now, we’re going to talk about the gift of singleness. If you grew up in church culture like I did, this is something that you heard thrown about, but I never knew what it meant. I never heard a definition of it. I just knew that if you were single and you were single for a while, they implied that you either had this gift, or you needed to get this gift, or people said they didn’t have this gift. I just didn’t understand it. It comes from First Corinthians chapter seven, I do know that, where the apostle Paul is talking about being single, but that’s really as far as it ever went in church culture.
So, before we talk to Dani Treweek, because she has some of this in her book and we’re going to discuss the history of it all, I wanted to ask a couple of our friends, had they ever heard about it. So, we’ll start with Bridget. And then, we’ll go over to MaryBeth and ask them about this.
The gift of singleness. Bridget, what do you know that to be? First of all, did you ever hear that in church, growing up, just in church like general? Did you ever hear anybody preach about the gift of singleness?
Bridget:
Honestly, I don’t really recall any sort of sermon that I’ve listened to or…
Sherri Lynn:
All right, if someone says, “Oh, he or she has the gift of singleness.” What would you think that meant? They’re a loser?
Bridget:
[inaudible 00:15:56]
Sherri Lynn:
The participation trophy. That’s how they… Y’all going to act like that ain’t how they talk about them in the church? Big old L right here. But we call it a gift because we don’t know what else to say. Go ahead. What would you think if a guy came in and they said, “Oh. You know he has the gift of singleness.” What would you think?
Bridget:
It’s an interesting thing to say, right? Because you just don’t hear people saying that. So, to be honest, because you don’t hear people saying it, I would be like, “What are you… What? I’m sorry, what?”
Sherri Lynn:
He has the gift of who?
Angelique:
Could you repeat that once more.
Sherri Lynn:
The when, where? Why? MaryBeth, the gift of singleness. What do you know that to be? We’re church kids. So, it’s been in the mix somewhere.
MaryBeth:
I’ve heard of it. And more often than not, what you hear is, “I don’t have the gift of singleness.” It seems to be associated with discontentment. And also, it feels of a way to dismiss people who are single. That’s what I’ve heard it used in my direction before. It has been, “Oh, you must have the gift of singleness.” So, I’m just assuming you have this super power that makes this easy. And I think, to me, in my opinion, that kind of speaks to how we view gifts in general, gifts and callings.
I think sometimes there’s this idea that God’s divinely a fairy godmother who passed these things out. And you have them or you don’t have them. And I don’t feel like that’s really what we see in the broader context of scripture. Certainly not what I’ve seen in my life. It feels like what a gift is, is the enablement to keep on going. There are definitely moments with singleness that feels like, “What if instead of this being a gift that allows me to stay celibate, what if it’s actually a gift that he gives me because I’m celibate?”
Because I’m here in this moment. There are gifts of the season, just like every season has gifts and things. So no, I don’t like… It always sounds slightly dismissive to me when we just say it like that.
Sherri Lynn:
Yeah, that’s how I’ve heard it. I never think that anyone has said it like a gift. I don’t think we think it’s a gift. I think we just say it to dismiss because I… And I say this with full confidence and no arrogance, whether you believe me or not out there, you may think I’m saying it with arrogance, but I’m not. I am a gifted person. I was raised in the church as a gifted person. I know how we treat gifted people.
I know where we sit them. I know what we pay them. I know what we let them say. I know what we let them do. I know the passes we give them and how they get to be a little more elevated. I know all of that because I have been that, right? So, if we truly thought it was a gift… I think that’s my problem. And it goes to what you’re saying, it is dismissive. If we really thought it was a gift, we’d be treating single people differently.
MaryBeth:
Right. Because the way we actually treat it is as if it is a dis qualifier. And then, what other gifts do you think disqualifies you from ministry?
Sherri Lynn:
Nothing.
MaryBeth:
I would love to talk to someone who feels they have the gift of singleness because-
Sherri Lynn:
[inaudible 00:19:41].
MaryBeth:
I have talked through a lot. This is my niche now. I told my dad. I was like, “I guess I’m the Spinster. It’s what we are.”
Sherri Lynn:
Welcome.
MaryBeth:
I know, but there’s some things you never asked to be an expert in, right?
Sherri Lynn:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
MaryBeth:
But in this area, I feel like I have talked to so many more people who are struggling than people who feel like they have the grace they need for the season. But even when there are people who have the grace for the season, which I do, absolutely, friends who feel that way, they still struggle. It’s still hard, just like marriage. If you’re gifted with marriage, there are times when it is still hard, a lot of times.
Sherri Lynn:
That’s a great point. So, with the gift of singleness, would that mean that you would be absent of struggle? That can’t possibly mean-
MaryBeth:
Right, no. I don’t know what it means. What does it practically feel like to have it?
Sherri Lynn:
Angelique? Any thoughts?
Angelique:
I think honestly, using that terminology, the gift of singleness, in the non-sarcastic way, I think the gift itself is thriving in a space where people would otherwise suggest it is an uninhabitable. So yeah, I do think, to the Apostle Paul’s point, learning to thrive, whether you’re abase or abound, whatever you consider abased and whatever you consider abound-
Sherri Lynn:
Thriving is… I love that word because, when he does that scripture, talks about that scripture, which is, “I can do all things through Christ that strengthens me.” But that actually is the end of his contentment speech. So, we always take that as “Therefore, I’m going to be the VP of marketing at Kellogg.” Okay, we agree. You could do that. Yes you can because Christ and all things, yes. But he’s actually talking about I can do all these things. Like, whatever these things are, I can do them, whether it’s this or that or this or that. Right?
And so, thriving is a really good word because, when I get emails and inboxes and everything from women who are single, I think women beat themselves up because they think that there is a mountaintop they’re supposed to arrive where this doesn’t bother me anymore. I’m not sad, where I’m at a 10 on the scale and now I’m here. Yay, I’m here. Right?
I don’t think that that happens, but I do think that there is a point where you can thrive. I do believe that.
Bridget:
Which gives you power when you’re in a situation. The singleness thing feels still powerless in so many ways. Right? So many people, if they could choose, they would choose to do something different. But you do have the choice to put your roots down and to be content. And that, I think is a game changer. Right? If we really go, “Wait, this is where I am. So how do I figure out how to thrive in this place where I am?”
Sherri Lynn:
Yeah. Guys, we solved it. Let’s move on to world hunger.
All right, we didn’t quite solve it. You’ll find that out later on this podcast. But we felt pretty good at the end of that discussion. Like, all right, well that’s a workable definition, but I wanted to talk to Dani Treweek about this because she’s done so much studying on singleness and church culture. I just wanted to get her take on it. Before we do that, we’re going to get into the history, what I think is a complicated history of how singleness is discussed and taught about in the church.
And I start out with my theory. Now, I’m going to go into it. And when you hear the clip, you’ll hear me re-emphasizing that it is my theory. Okay? It’s mine, not Dani’s. That’s number one. Number two, it is a theory. I am not making a declaration. I’m not saying something is true. It’s just what I have perceived from my own life as a single woman in church culture. ,So let’s get into it. I’m re-emphasize when we get into it that it’s my theory, but I wanted to say again, it’s just my theory about how we’ve been taught about being single and how that has impacted negatively, quite frankly, a lot of people.
This is me saying this, and I want to be very clear. This is me saying this, but when I read your book, I thought, “Well, maybe she thinks this too.” But it is me saying it. So, what I thought was the issue here is sex is the God of this culture, however you want to look at it, whether it’s sexual autonomy, whatever, it’s the God of this culture. I don’t think that that is different in church culture. I just think we called it marriage. Right? And then, I think what happens is, from reading so many different quotes from what you lovingly I’m sure called reformers, it was this idea that a life without sex was not possible.
And if it was, it was not enviable or enjoyable, and it made no sense. And so, we just could not fathom, in any way, shape or form, that kind of life. And so, that’s how marriage had to take center stage. And I think that that would be more of a male perspective because of, biologically, their more need for that kind of… their need for sex than ours. I’m just going to say it. You know what I mean? Our different drive. And so, if that’s who is… I’m not making a statement on who should be preaching, who should not be preaching, who should be pastoring, who’s not… I’m not making…
I’m just going to say, in our country anyway, ninety-eight percent of the people talking to us from the pulpit are male. Right? They’re not going to say to us, “Hey, don’t get married if you don’t want to.” Because, if marriage and sex are synonymous, that would be him saying “Don’t have sex.” And I don’t think that they can fathom that. I think what happens is you have all of these young women, who…
When I was talking to young women, Dani, there were young women who I don’t think wanted to be married. They sounded happy, not wanting to be married, not wanting to have children, but scared to say that, scared to feel that. And that was where the shame was coming from.
Dani:
And this is what I was hinting at before when I brought up the revelation that actually, we as Christians, I agree with you. We live in a sex-obsessed world. And ultimately, I think we live in a world that is obsessed with the self. And it just so happens that, for all sorts of reasons, sex is seen to be the expression of the self, in our time and age.
Now, Christians, we are like… I see us broadly pushing, wanting to push back on that and kind of spite that quote unquote culture war. But what I don’t think we realize is this hasn’t just happened around us. It hasn’t just happened on our watch. We have, over centuries, contributed to this narrative. We have co-authored it. And absolutely, I do feel like… I am a dyed in the wool Protestant, reformed, evangelical Christian. Let me lay my cards on the table, love the reformation.
But the reformers were not Jesus. They didn’t get everything right. They were responding to a particular historical context going on for them too, where celibacy was mandated for clergy, where monasteries and nunneries were filled with people who made vows of chastity and were not always living up to that, who had illegitimate children running around. There was something going on there that they were responding to too. But that’s when you get people like Martin Luther. He literally said that having sex is a biological necessity, as necessary as eating, drinking, and going to the toilet.
Sherri Lynn:
Wow.
Dani:
So. For him, we’ve been made to have sex.
Sherri Lynn:
Right.
Dani:
We can’t stop ourselves from having it, therefore we need marriage to actually let us have it legitimately. And this is where you see essentially the invention of the gift of singleness.
Sherri Lynn:
This is good. I was going to ask you about this because we talked about this. I was asking people, did they know what it is, but nobody could really pinpoint what it actually means. I loved in the book when you said it was talked about like a special booster shot, you said, that you get. This is where we get the gift of singleness. Go ahead. I’m ready for it.
Bridget:
From what I’ve been able to determine through looking at church history, this seems to be… If it wasn’t the absolute first invention of it, it’s where it really hit the ground running, this idea that you need some special spiritual empowerment, some special, extra, special spiritual gift from God, as I say, a booster shot of the Holy Spirit, to live contentedly without having sex. Now, when you go back and you look at the early church fathers…
And so, it comes from one Corinthians seven, verse seven and eight, right? Paul says, which is all go out and marry as I am, but each has his own gift from God. One has this kind, one has another. When I went back and I looked at what the earliest Christians were saying about those verses, none of them understood it to be some special dose of the Holy Spirit for a rare, exceptional few people. Actually, what the earliest ones were saying is that marriage is a gift. I wish all were unmarried as I am, but some have one gift and one has another. They say marriage is a gift. And in their language of virginity or what we would parallel with singleness is a gift. They had none of this kind of special spiritual dosing going on. And it does seem to me to have really emerged from the reformist thinking about living as sexual beings in this world, as foreign sexual beings in a fallen world.
And it wasn’t just Luther. He talked about how you need this special gift, especially they’re specially empowered to it by God. And he talks about these special gifted people being no more than one in a thousand. Calvin talks in similar language. And we then… We don’t realize how deeply embedded that notion of this special gift is. And I actually think there are so many. I mean, we could do three whole podcasts on how many problems I think there are with this particular thing. But let me say, I actually think it undervalues marriage. It turns marriage into the solution for lust, the remedy for lust. It says, because we’re all going to explode with lust unless we get to have sex, then marriage is the solution, the remedy that God has given us for our lust, as if being married justifies you lusting after your husband or wife. That lust is sin.
It doesn’t become holy just because it’s your wife or your husband that you are lusting after. And I think we endanger all sorts of people in marriages when we adopt that view. But it also is just completely unworkable for the majority of single Christians in our day and age, who do want to be married, who do struggle with sexual temptation. But for all sorts of reasons, many of which are godly, because they’re not going out there pursuing romantic relationships with either people of their own sex or non-Christians, they’re making godly, obedient decisions. And we’re saying to them, “Well, you’re not meant to be single, because you haven’t got this special gift.” And so, they’re left in no man’s land.
Sherri Lynn:
Right.
Bridget:
God hasn’t given me this special booster shot and he hasn’t given me a spouse.
Sherri Lynn:
Right.
Bridget:
So, either God is not good to me or God is not powerful in my life. And it just leaves them going, not just how do I live, but what do I think about who God is, and who I’m in relationship with him? So, as I said, I could talk about this forever. I think it’s really problematic. And I do think it’s indicative of what we were laughing about before is we just kind of pull one Corinthians seven out, and kind of [inaudible 00:32:28] here, say the very limited things we want to say about it rather than actually going, “How do we understand this passage in the broader context of scripture?”
Sherri Lynn:
All right, we’re going to stop right there. Did I say how grateful I am to have Dani Treweek on the podcast? If I haven’t said it, I’m going to say it again. I’m so grateful we had… I’m so grateful AI led us to Dani Treweek to have her on this podcast series because it adds a level of heft, so to speak, history, studying, theology, all of those things that, quite frankly, I don’t have. All I have is theories. All I have is anecdotal evidence from living as a single woman, having single friends, talking to a lot of you. But I love having someone who has studied the history of it.
So, coming up, Dani’s going to say what she believes the Apostle Paul meant by the gift of singleness and what it actually is. It’s not… I love Booster shot. That makes me very happy. A booster shot of the Holy Ghost. Some of us got an extra booster shot of the Holy Ghost. That’s not the way it works. So, Dani’s going to talk about that and more. Coming up also, Angelique, my cohost, had a question that… When she sent me the question, I was like, “Ooh, I don’t know about that.” But I let her ask it. The question’s going to blow your mind. And I’m sure it’s a question that many of you have. And so, that’s why I was like, “Yeah, we might as well go ahead and go there.”
So, you don’t want to miss that either. That’s all coming up on Snacks & Good Company.
Thank you, thank you, thank you to Vision House, the sponsors for this podcast series. I told y’all before, when they said $60, I could not believe it. I really couldn’t. $60 provides a night of safety and care for families experiencing homelessness. I mean, that includes safe housing, food, professional mental care, and more. 60 bucks? That’s amazing. And it’s life changing for these families. You could do that right now and help a single mom and her kids not just receive housing, life skills, child care and more, but hope. Don’t just take my word for it, okay?
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Snacks, and good company.
Sherri Lynn:
All right. So, this next one is the audacity of you. So, I’ll let you go ahead and tell me why you thought we should talk about celibacy. And I will say that you specifically asked Lisa. And so, we’ll start with her. And then, we’re going to jump to Cathy because Cathy went there just on her own. Me and you were shocked, like, “Ooh.”
I mean, she went there, went there, y’all. Y’all going to get a good dose of it, because both of us were like blink, blink, blink, blink. Like, hmm, okay Cathy. So, I don’t even think she took a breath, but what made you think that this was something that needed to be discussed?
Cathy:
Well, honestly…
Sherri Lynn:
And it’s important to know you are in a different generation than I am. So, I would be considered generation X, you would be considered a millennial, right? So, what would be the thinking? Because in Gen X, I can say in church culture, African-American, church culture, celibacy was not a question. Now, was everyone sleeping around? Sure. But it wasn’t like… We didn’t say we’re allowed or God says it’s okay, or this is my… We weren’t trying to finagle with scripture. We were just sinful. And we knew we were sinning.
And I always say, you knew who was sinning Sunday morning by their behavior at the altar. And so, that’s what we did in Generation X was we did whatever we wanted to do. We came Sunday morning and repented. We did whatever we wanted to do, until God freed us from that cycle, right?
Cathy:
Yeah.
Sherri Lynn:
But in your generation, just even having the question was interesting to me. Can you tell me why you thought?
Cathy:
Yeah, I honestly posed the question because the generations that came before mine was very much, very much like, these are things we don’t talk about.
Sherri Lynn:
Yeah.
Cathy:
And that’s why there were those cycles…
Sherri Lynn:
Yeah.
Cathy:
… because we did not talk about the same thing. Until we put a thing in the light, everybody’s bound by it, but nobody wants to talk about it because everybody’s also ashamed of it.
Sherri Lynn:
Yeah.
Cathy:
You know what I mean?
Sherri Lynn:
Yeah.
Cathy:
And so recognizing that, hopefully, we all have an understanding of what scripture says and how we are to live with respects to our sexuality and sex before marriage, et cetera. But there are people who don’t.
Sherri Lynn:
Right.
Cathy:
And for those who do, we still need to talk about it so that they can get free.
Sherri Lynn:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Cathy:
You know what I mean? Let’s talk about what scripture says because scripture is the standard. What God says is the standard. But then also, once we bring it into the conversation… It hasn’t even been a conversation. But once we bring it into the conversation, freedom can come there,
Sherri Lynn:
Yeah. Because the light is here now there, very good. All right. Let’s start with Lisa, who was very brave from focus on the family. If I was from focus on the family, I’d be like, “I can’t talk about that right now.” But Lisa was very brave and took the question on.
Lisa:
So, the way I’m going to answer that is by claiming and by calling out the authority of scripture, because I think we have too often lost that in our culture today, where something doesn’t sit right with us and we’re like, “Maybe I need to just re craft this or rephrase it or just say that this doesn’t apply.”
Clearly, there is a biblical sexual ethic that is very clearly outlined in scripture. We can’t always explain it. We don’t know what God’s doing. We don’t know. But we know that he has defined a right representation of sexual activity as between a man and a woman in the union of marriage. And again, that gets back to that covenant for us. And so, when I talk to my friends about sex, I’m like, “Yeah. So, as a single woman, sex is not available to me in this season.”
That said, because you said, Angelique, you talked about abstinence and celibacy, quite frankly, single people and married people need to practice abstinence and celibacy, okay? Because married people don’t have just crazy sex available to them with anyone and with any… We all have pleasant boundaries that have been laid for us. And they’re all different, but they are… I mean, married people…
I love it when single people assume that marrieds like, “I just need to get married, because then I won’t have a porn problem, or then I won’t struggle with lust, or then I won’t…”
That is bogus. Okay? We are all in a fallen world where we all struggle. We are all trying to walk out scriptural mandates and trust God in the process. And we all need a new heart from God himself to even be able to want to please God in this area. I think it comes down to a trusting God issue. And I remember someone said this one time… I was listening to a talk from… John Piper was doing a Q&A back in the day. And a young guy came up to him and he said, “Well, Dr. Piper, I’m twenty-five years old, and so far I’ve remained a virgin, but I’m giving God until I’m 30, because then all bets are off, because I refuse to go into my thirties not having had sex.”
And I’m like, “Okay, first of all, who says that to John Piper? Because you know you’re going to get [inaudible 00:40:21].” Secondly… And who’s going to say it to John Piper in front of God, who quite frankly has his own answer for that. But really, I think… And I felt like Dr. Piper’s response was so good, but what it was, the essence of it was, “You are not trusting God, because you don’t know where you’ll be in five years. You don’t know what God has crafted for you 15 years from now.” It is very foolish for us to say, and again, scripture speaks to this, “Tomorrow, I will be doing this” or “Here’s what I’m going to determine for myself.”
We just walk it out and know that, by obedience to God… And our obedience to God doesn’t… I’ve heard this said too, and I love it. Our obedience to God doesn’t define the amount of God’s love for us, but it does evidence the closeness to God or the way that we’re living out and trusting God in our faith. And so, we can walk that out in that way. It’s not like “I better obey God more because then he’ll love me more.” But my experience of his love will definitely change based on how closely I’m walking to God and how much I’m living in obedience to him and trusting him.
And so, with sexuality, that just plays out. We have to trust God as our good, good father. He has good things for us. We don’t know… We’re just living in this blip. I mean, we’ve got an eternity of living with him that we can’t even conceive of yet.
And so, I say, just hang on, trust God with it. It also… Weird side tagline. I mean, there are motivators for marriage that include… I think sex is a great motivator for marriage. I don’t think sex is a great motivator to be like, “Let me just marry the next person that comes along and just chuck all my values.” But there’s a reason why God has made sex for within that union of marriage. But ultimately, I think it’s just what has God made available to me? What’s right in front of me? What stays within the boundaries of his good plan for me? And I can trust him in that.
Sherri Lynn:
All right. So, Lisa, thank you so much for being brave and taking that question on as we talk about celibacy. And when we saw her face when you said it. And then, the funny thing is, I walked out. And it was only because Kathy was coming up next. Literally, she was coming up next and she was in studio. And so, I had to go let her in the studio. But it seemed as if, as soon as Angelique asked a celibacy question, I was like, “And goodbye” and just left Lisa on the hot seat. So, she was very brave and gave a wonderful answer there.
And speaking of Cathy, we did not ask Cathy this question. Cathy just got in the car, put the keys in the ignition, turned it on, put it in drive, and drove right down the road. And here’s what Cathy says about… And she is coming from the perspective of women that come into her office. And she is dealing with the women who have compromised their morals. And now, this is what happens when we don’t do it God’s way. That’s what she’s saying as far as scripture is concerned. And she says a lot more.
Cathy:
If you have sex before marriage, there’s a reason. God is practical. He’s not just telling you don’t have sex before marriage to be an ogre, but once you have sex with somebody, there’s chemicals that exude from the body. I won’t get into all of it, the biology of it, but what happens is your eyes half shut, okay? They have shut. And you do not observe all the things, the red flags that you might otherwise see. God wants your eyes half shut after marriage. So, after marriage, it’s like, “Gee, I didn’t know he was so sloppy. Oh, well.”
But before marriage, he wants your eyes wide open to see all those possible flaws before you walk down the aisle, so you can make a good decision. After marriage, half shut. So, have sex after marriage because then your eyes are half shut. “I didn’t know he was kind of boastful. Oh, well, let it go. Move on.” Because you’re married, you see?
Sherri Lynn:
Whoa. I don’t think I’ve ever heard that before.
Cathy:
Oh, yes. Listen, we exude a love potion, oxytocin. Oxytocin. A baby emits oxytocin from their little brain. God did that so that, when a mother is woken at two A.M, she’s so exhausted. She doesn’t just say, “Oh, you kid, go to bed, I’m done.” No. She still loves that baby, walks that baby, cuddles it, because there’s a love potion.
When we have sex with someone, okay? We emit oxytocin from the body. But the problem is a man also, at the same time, emits testosterone, which for a man dummies down the oxytocin. For a woman, it does not dummy down. So suddenly, women get this clingy thing once they have sex with a guy. It’s a love potion. It’s chemical. God knew it.
Sherri Lynn:
What is it? So, it doesn’t do that for the man, but it does it for the woman.
Cathy:
Yes. I bet you can. I still can remember in high school thinking, seeing this couple, they’re so cute. And all of a sudden it’s like, boy, she’s getting clingy. Everywhere they’d go, she’s grabbing his arm, grabbing him. Well, they had sex. And all of a sudden, it changes. And I think all of us, anybody listening, could probably remember seeing this. Once you have sex, women get clingy. Prior to that, they’re independent.
Sherri Lynn:
Listen, let me tell y’all something. I had never heard that before. The eyes half open, eyes wide open. I’ve never heard that before. But since that interview with Kathy, I have been saying it to everyone who will listen and even to people who aren’t. I’m still saying it. I have used it in advice. It’s just so relevant. And we’re all adults here. We put the parental thing on here. So, we’re all adults here. I’m sure there are a lot of us listening like, “Oh, that’s what happened to me.”
Oh… Or you got a friend and you’re like, “Oh, that’s what’s happening to her. Now I get it.” It was something I had never heard before. But then, the light bulb went on when she said it like that. Makes total sense. So, thank you so much to my counselor, Dr. Kathy Martin. Thank you to Lisa Anderson, who answered that question out of nowhere. I mean, that came out of left field for her, for Angelique to ask her was very, very, I would’ve thought, unnerving. But Lisa did such a great job in just jumping in. That was because she’s a pro. So, thank you to Lisa. Thank you to Kathy. We’re going to talk to Dani again, Dani Treweek, author of the book, the Meaning of Singleness. We’re going to get her thoughts on what she actually thinks the gift of singleness is.
Dani:
I think what is going on in that verse is just that Paul is saying he wishes all were unmarried as he was. Then, he goes on in that chapter to say why. There’s all sorts of reasons, and it’s got do with the time that we’re living in, between Jesus’ death and his resurrection and his second coming. But he says, “I wish all were unmarried, but each has his own gift. One is this kind, one has another.” I think Paul is just saying being unmarried is really good as a gospel person. But actually, marriage is a gift that God gives people. And the situation of being married is a gift that God gives people. The situation of being unmarried is a gift that God gives people.
And we have all that we need to live godly, obedient lives for Jesus in either of those situations, because, Titus chapter two, verse 11, the grace of God has appeared bringing salvation for all people, and the grace of God trains us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age. We don’t need some special booster shot to be trained to renounce ungodliness, to live self-controlled upright lives. We have the grace of God.
Sherri Lynn:
Yeah.
Dani:
And that, I think, the gift of singleness and the gift of marriage, is the opportunity for live for Jesus, in either of those situations, knowing that the grace of God gives us all we need to do that, to live for Him. That’s all I think that’s going on there.
Sherri Lynn:
So, they’re equal like marriage… your gift of marriage, gift of singleness. Same thing.
Dani:
Most married people, at least half really, married people will be given back the gift of singleness.
Sherri Lynn:
Yeah. You know what? That’s very true. I have had to be so honest with myself. People have asked about my process of feeling settled as single. And I said therapy helps praise Jesus. And my therapist saying to me, “Say true things to yourself. Whatsoever things are true, say true things. What are the true things you need? Stop romanticizing the things that… Your life is not a Hallmark movie. The credits aren’t going to roll. What do you actually know?”
And what I know is being single can be hard, but what I also know is marriage doesn’t cure that. It’s not like, “Okay, now life is easy.” I have married friends. I have married friends who are still married. I have married friends who are divorced. Marriage is hard. Singleness is hard. But we go back to Titus that you just read about the grace of God. We all need it. That’s what I know, right?
That’s those true things that I say to myself so that… I really do think Dani… When I think about where the church is, I always talk about this scripture and my friends and in our listeners. Everybody gets so sick of me talking about it, but I don’t care, because Romans 12 is so right in, if we are not transformed by the renewing of our mind… if our minds aren’t… We will automatically conform to the world, right?
Dani:
Absolutely.
Sherri Lynn:
Dani Treweek, author of the book, the Meaning of Singleness. So glad that she joined us on this podcast and lent her wisdom to it. Hey, if you didn’t get the book yet, you do need to get it. If you are married and you’re listening to this and you have a single friend, get the book for them, The Meaning of Singleness. Whether they’re struggling in their singleness or they’re content, either way, just a great book and it’ll really benefit them. It really benefited me.
All right. Coming up, episode five is our final episode, so next week is it. And I have a big surprise for you that I just love. And I love it so much, I am struggling not to tell you what it is, but I’m not going to tell you. But please make sure you listen to episode five coming up next week, because my goodness, it’s so fun. I can’t wait. Also, we’re going to talk about, how can the church do better when talking to singles?
Angelique:
What could the church do better? Invite the singles in. This is where we don’t have singles at the kids’ table. Utilize singles in their giftings to lead committees, to be part of planning, to be part of ministry initiatives, to really spearhead a lot of that, and to jointly work with other believers in the church to accomplish that, and not just like, “Oh my goodness, we need singles to run our Awana program, or we need… Let’s get all these ladies in the nursery because I’m sure it’ll make them motivated to have kids someday” or whatever the construct is.
Sherri Lynn:
Ooh wee, it’s going to be a good one. We’ll see you next time on Snacks and Good Company. Snacks and Good Company is presented by Purposely, produced by me. Co-host for this series is the one and only Angelique. Struthers. Music is done by Matt Mason of Mason Haven Music. Thank you, Matt.
Art designed by Notoria Marketing, sound Engineering by Garrick Whitehead, Social Media by Chanessa Shuler Multimedia. Recording was done in Studio Me in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Make sure you subscribe to this so that every episode is in your inbox. And send it to a single person that you know, that you think it’ll be a blessing to or encouragement to. Maybe she’ll laugh, maybe she’ll cry, but at least she won’t feel alone. So, make sure you share this series as well. And if you have any comments or questions, you can always email me at Sherry, S-H-E-R-R-I, at snacks and good company.com.
We’ll talk to you next time, friends.
About Sherri:
Sherri Lynn has been a radio professional for well over a decade. She has her degree in Communications as well as Biblical Studies. Sherri is a writer, comedienne, and former youth pastor. She wrote and produced a comedy DVD entitled “The Very Funny Church Comedy Show: Together We Laugh”, wrote and starred in the stage play musical “The Bold and the Sanctified” which starred American Idol Winner Ruben Studdard, and authored the book “I Want To Punch You In The Face But I Love Jesus.” She is the producer of The Brant Hansen Show and “The Brant & Sherri Oddcast.”
