by Trevor Douglas
More and more young people choose the single lifestyle. It’s estimated that about one-third of all U.S. adults (56 million) are single. The same is true for Canada.
More and more young people choose the single lifestyle. It’s estimated that about one-third of all U.S. adults (56 million) are single. The same is true for Canada.
However, among missionaries, fewer single men go to the field planning to stay single. In his article in Trinity World Forum (Winter, 1980), Dale Everswick says that the number of single men in full-time Protestant missionary service dropped from 3,905 in 1938 to 903 in 1976. In the Philippines, for example, he found that single Protestant male missionaries made up only 4.8 percent of the force in 1982 and the figure dropped to 4.3 percent in 1984.
I’m defining "single" as never married, although most statistics include widows, widowers, and divorcees.
Why the sharp decline in single male missionaries? Everswick cites three possibilities: (1) The environment in which most missionaries work has become more conducive to family life, so God is working through families. (2) Educational requirements are higher. (3) Singles are suspect in some churches.
Whatever the reasons, we must come to grips with the fact that the single man is a vanishing species on the mission field. We must do our utmost to counteract negative attitudes toward singleness in general and, in particular, towards this avenue of missionary service. After all, there was nothing strange or unnatural about Jesus and Paul, the two foremost single male missionaries.
In this article I want to look at what Jesus taught about the cost of being single, what Paul added from his perspective, and then the question of whether or not to marry.
WHAT JESUS TAUGHT
From a study of Matthew 19:10-12 we find some important statements Jesus made about the single male missionary’s lifestyle. First, he put his stamp of approval on it. When the disciples rightly concluded mat if marriage is forever, and there is no easy way out, then it might be better not to marry, Jesus implied that they had understood him. It is indeed better not to marry than to marry and wish you hadn’t.
However, somehow in evangelical circles we have ducked the clear implications of Christ’s words. Many Christians not only do not encourage singleness, they frown on those who choose it. Singleness is just as honorable as marriage. In missions-minded churches we must not convey to young people the idea that singleness is not quite as good as being married.
Second, Jesus admitted that singleness is costly, so much so that not everyone can endure it. The obvious cost is the attitude that single men might be gay, or at least slightly strange, and perhaps anti-female. Our North American society is structured definitely for couples. Not so the tribe of Ayangan Ifugaos among whom I work. Although 99 percent of the men are married, they don’t look at the one percent as weird. The social cost only hits me when I return home— in the churches, among Christians, who, of all people, should know better.
Perhaps loneliness takes the heaviest toll. At creation, God knew that man needed companionship. The single male missionary forfeits that legitimate need and embraces loneliness.
I well remember how a fellow single missionary brother poured out his heart to me. "Christmas is especially bad," he said. "That’s the hardest. Once I was invited to spend Christmas with a family, but after I got there I wished I had never gone. I felt like they were just trying to do me a favor. I felt like an intruder. Next Christmas, I drove off in my car far away, rented a motel room, and sat there and cried."
Such anguish has never struck me. I try to compensate for loneliness by being married to my work and my people. I also pursue my hobby— academics— and look forward to study when I have spare time. Nevertheless, single male missionaries must face the emotional cost.
When someone even dares think about singleness, the first thing that pops up is the physical cost. It’s true, I have given up my right to have a family, but probably that hurts my parents more than me. When a single male missionary is the only child, it’s especially painful to his parents who cannot have grandchildren.
Of course, being a single man means I have to look after household duties, too, and that could be a problem for some men. However, in many places where missionaries live domestic help is available.
Of all the costs I’ve had to face, the one that hurts me the most is a misguided interpretation of 1 Timothy 3:2, 12, which is taken to mean that a single man can’t be an elder or a preacher. This idea would leave out Jesus, Paul (there is no conclusive evidence that he ever married), and possibly also Mark, Timothy, Luke, Sopater, Aristarchus, Secundus, Tychicus, Trophimus, and Titus— ”as well as David Brainerd, Bill Gothard, and John Stott.
My own denomination, the Evangelical Free Church, ordained me and commissioned me for foreign service, but the stigma against the single pastor-teacher-evangelist-missionary remains strongly entrenched. I’m not imagining this—people have told me so to my face. Bearing this wrongful application of Scripture has been my toughest cost.
Third, it is clear from what Jesus taught that the single lifestyle is conferred on some. Not everyone can accept this; "only those to whom it has been given" (Matt. 19:11). Singleness has been conferred on some involuntarily: "Some are eunuchs because they were born that way." It has been forced on others: "Others were made that way by men." Others accept it voluntarily: "Others have renounced marriage because of the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 19:12). This does not necessarily mean emasculation, as Origen understood it. Rather, it means accepting that God has the right to confer singleness on some. Some are made for marriage, some for singleness.
In the end, however, Christians know that Jesus will more than make up for every cost incurred by being a single male missionary. As I have applied his promises in Matthew 19:27-30 to myself, I see a tremendous exchange taking place in eternity. The social cost of not fitting in a couple’s world will be exchanged for socializing with Jesus around his throne. I’ll trade the emotional cost of loneliness and the family hurt for companionship with new fathers, mothers, and families. I’ll exchange the physical cost for spiritual children. And when I’m snubbed, I love to think of eternity and the privilege of going from the last of the gospel preachers to the head of the line. The rewards are worth everything.
WHAT PAUL TAUGHT
Next, we can also learn a lot about being a single male missionary from the apostle Paul, especially from 1 Corinthians 7. Amazingly, he recommended the single, chaste lifestyle (vv. 7a, 9, 36-38). Not only so, he saw it as distinctly advantageous.
The context, of course, is Paul’s answer to a problem that apparently perplexed some of the Christian women in the church at Corinth. Scholars think that Paul was responding to a letter complaining that some of the young men had decided that it was better for them not to marry so that they could do God’s work. In effect, said Paul, they were right. His answer gives valuable insights into the reasons why there are advantages to being a single male missionary.
The first advantage is that it’s best adapted to perilous situations ("the present crisis," said Paul). In rugged life among primitive tribes, in guerrilla-infested areas, or in disease and famine, the single man has only himself to worry about.
Interestingly, God warned Jeremiah against getting married for the same basic reason – ”Judah was about to fall to the Babylonians (Jer. 16:1-4). Certainly then churches and mission agencies have a duty to ask potential missionaries to forsake marriage, especially those anticipating service in hazardous areas, or where the political pot is boiling. If the Catholics require this across the board, why can’t evangelicals do likewise for certain special situations?
Paul claims that being single and male best fits the "shortness" of the time. Doing God’s work is a momentary thing. Advantages and opportunities come and go very quickly. The single lifestyle enables one to get the most out of the time God gives for his work.
The third reason Paul gives for not marrying is that the single man thus avoids the hassles that unavoidably go with being married. This is especially appropriate to missionary work. Negatively, one’s leadership and ministry may be curtailed because of marriage problems. For example, a friend observed of a fellow worker that he could never become field director because of his wife’s indiscretions with her tongue.
Paul points out the obvious fact that married people have less time to do God’s work. When I was in language school one of our speakers confessed, "I used to be jealous of Mrs. So and So because she had a husband and family. Years later I found out that she was jealous of me because I had more time for outreach."
One of my chief delights is that I don’t have to fit my ministry around a family schedule. I don’t have to be home at a certain time each night. My time is the Filipinos’ time. I can give my undivided attention to their needs.
Single missionary David Brainerd wrote:
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I cared not where or how I lived, or what hardships I went through, so that I could but gain souls for Christ. While I was asleep I dreamed of these things, and when I awoke the first thing I thought of was this great work. All my desire was for the conversion of the heathen, and all my hope was in God.
TO MARRY OR NOT TO MARRY
More Christian men must stand up against the unspoken, yet powerful negative attitude against single men in our churches. They must affirm the biblical truth of Jesus and Paul and offer themselves for missionary service as single men.
Of course, they must do this without deriding married people. They, too, have special ministries that singles don’t and can’t have. That isn’t the issue. Marrieds do not face the opposition to their chosen lifestyle like singles do, so they need no defense.
Missionary recruiters should more explicitly ask for single men. On campuses, men must be confronted with the possibility of remaining single for missionary service. They can cite the example of a Chinese brother I know well in Manila. He’s 30 and still single. Every two years he examines his life, to decide whether or not he should remain single for another two years. If so, he vows not to seek outside attachments for that time.
That’s basically what I have done. I told the Lord that I wanted him to have the best years of my life, my 20s. Although not my best years in maturity, they are best physically. Come my 30s, I’m open to change.
In the meantime, I make no apologies for being single. It’s practical, biblical, and a bit gutsy, too.
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