Redeeming Singleness by Barry Danylak Quotes

“ The starting point for this book is to reflect on the purpose of biblical affirmation of the single life by exploring how singleness itself fits into God’s larger purpose of redeeming a people for his glory. The fruit of such reflection will contribute toward constructing a biblical theology of singleness.”

Danylak, Barry. Redeeming Singleness (Foreword by John Piper) (p. 15). Crossway. Kindle Edition.

“So our purpose here is to explore the logic and coherency of why the Christian Scriptures affirm singleness as good in a created world in which sexual partnerships and marriage are the pervasive norm for human beings.”

Danylak, Barry. Redeeming Singleness (Foreword by John Piper) (p. 15). Crossway. Kindle Edition.

“Single people are less involved in the life of the church than their married counterparts. And while most single American adults think of themselves as Christian, Barna’s research demonstrates a remarkably tepid level of commitment among them. “

Danylak, Barry. Redeeming Singleness (Foreword by John Piper) (p. 19). Crossway. Kindle Edition.

“Indeed, there is health and vitality in keeping an appropriately loose grip on all aspects of our temporal life as a way to acknowledge that all the material bestowments we have are good gifts from God but temporary in their duration.”

Danylak, Barry. Redeeming Singleness (Foreword by John Piper) (p. 20). Crossway. Kindle Edition.

“The approach taken here is a diachronic biblical-theological approach, by which we mean one that acknowledges the theological development that occurs through the progressive stages of biblical revelation. What is often depicted and described at first by means of illustrations, metaphors, allusions, and prophecies is often seen more clearly in a richer, more fully orbed form in subsequent phases of biblical revelation.”

Danylak, Barry. Redeeming Singleness (Foreword by John Piper) (p. 21). Crossway. Kindle Edition.

“The procreative mandate is given even before human beings are created. It is woven into the very fabric of the created order that God fashioned before human beings were on the earth. What differentiates human beings from the rest of the animal kingdom is not found in the reproductive commission but in the distinctive that they were created in the image of God and have an additional mandate to subdue the earth and have dominion over it.

Danylak, Barry. Redeeming Singleness (Foreword by John Piper) (p. 26). Crossway. Kindle Edition.

“What we can conclude from the creation account is that procreation is part of the pattern of the created order, it is associated with God’s blessing, and it was an explicit divine commandment given to Adam, Noah, and Jacob.”

Danylak, Barry. Redeeming Singleness (Foreword by John Piper) (pp. 27-28). Crossway. Kindle Edition.

“So, while an implied purpose for marriage in the creation account is to enable fulfillment of the divine mandate to “be fruitful and multiply,” the explicit purpose the account gives is for companionship and assistance.”

Danylak, Barry. Redeeming Singleness (Foreword by John Piper) (p. 29). Crossway. Kindle Edition.

“ The promise of offspring is the central promise upon which God’s blessing and the promise of land also rest. The promise of offspring depends entirely on God’s provision, as is made clearly evident in the pattern of barrenness among the patriarchs’ wives. In Jacob God is beginning to build a nation; hence he is renamed “Israel” and is commanded to “be fruitful and multiply.”

Danylak, Barry. Redeeming Singleness (Foreword by John Piper) (p. 52). Crossway. Kindle Edition.

What does this have to do with singleness?

1) Procreation is associated with God’s blessing from the very beginning of creation. It is implied in the creation of man as male and female and with the first mandate to them to “be fruitful and multiply.” It is the provision of God within the created order to maintain all life forms in a world subject to physical death (Luke 20:35–36).

Danylak, Barry. Redeeming Singleness (Foreword by John Piper) (p. 52). Crossway. Kindle Edition.

2) Marriage, according to the Genesis creation account, has two fundamental purposes. The first is companionship, which has two dimensions: intimacy (“It is not good that the man should be alone,” 2:18), and assistance (“a helper fit for him,” 2:18). The other purpose for marriage is that it is the means and context for procreation of humankind (“they shall become one flesh,” 2:24).

Danylak, Barry. Redeeming Singleness (Foreword by John Piper) (p. 52). Crossway. Kindle Edition.

3) The importance of the term offspring emerges early and prominently in Genesis. Already in the garden of Eden we have prophetic foreshadowing of the importance of the offspring of Eve who will “strike” ( RSV ) the Serpent’s head (Gen. 3:15), and later Eve speaks of God’s appointing “another offspring” in Seth (4:25). The importance of offspring also serves as the central drama within the major storyline of the account of all the patriarchs in Genesis. Not only is it the most prominent of the covenant promises to Abraham, but it is the critical linchpin upon which all covenant promises depend. Moreover, God’s blessing comes to the patriarchs through the provision of offspring; and through the provision of offspring, God’s blessing comes to the world.

4) The prominence of offspring as a central motif of God’s blessing in Genesis might seem to emphasize the importance of human beings marrying and having children as the essential means to realize and effect God’s blessing upon the world. Instead, the emphasis is that the offspring of the covenant that ultimately mediates God’s blessing to the world is ultimately a provision of God himself rather than of human initiative. It serves to underscore the theological reality of our full dependence upon God for the provision of all the blessings he wishes to bestow.

Danylak, Barry. Redeeming Singleness (Foreword by John Piper) (p. 54). Crossway. Kindle Edition.

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Our lives cry out for significance, and significance comes from seeing ourselves the way God sees us—including our singleness.

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“It is a visible reminder that the kingdom of God points to a reality which stands beyond worldly preoccupations of marriage, family, and career.

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The starting point for this book is to reflect on the purpose of biblical affirmation of the single life by exploring how singleness itself fits into God’s larger purpose of redeeming a people for his glory. The fruit of such reflection will contribute toward constructing a biblical theology of singleness.

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So our purpose here is to explore the logic and coherency of why the Christian Scriptures affirm singleness as good in a created world in which sexual partnerships and marriage are the pervasive norm for human beings.

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Single people are less involved in the life of the church than their married counterparts. And while most single American adults think of themselves as Christian, Barna’s research demonstrates a remarkably tepid level of commitment among them.

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Indeed there is health and vitality in keeping an appropriately loose grip on all aspects of our temporal life as a way to acknowledge that all the material bestowments we have are good gifts from God but temporary in their duration.

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The approach taken here is a diachronic biblical-theological approach, by which we mean one that acknowledges the theological development that occurs through the progressive stages of biblical revelation. What is often depicted and described at first by means of illustrations, metaphors, allusions, and prophecies is often seen more clearly in a richer, more fully orbed form in subsequent phases of biblical revelation.

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The procreative mandate

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is given even before human beings are created. It is woven into the very fabric of the created order that God fashioned before human beings were on the earth. What differentiates human beings from the rest of the animal kingdom is not found in the reproductive commission but in the distinctive that they were created in the image of God and have an additional mandate to subdue the earth and have dominion over it.

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What we can conclude from the creation account is that procreation is part of the pattern of the created order, it is associated with God’s blessing, and it was an explicit divine commandment given to Adam, Noah, and Jacob.

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So while an implied purpose for marriage in the creation account is to enable fulfillment of the divine mandate to “be fruitful and multiply,” the explicit purpose the account gives is for companionship and assistance.

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The promise of offspring is the central promise upon which God’s blessing and the promise of land also rest. The promise of offspring depends entirely on God’s provision, as is made clearly evident in the pattern of barrenness among the patriarchs’ wives. In Jacob God is beginning to build a nation; hence he is renamed “Israel” and is commanded to “be fruitful and multiply.

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1) Procreation is associated with God’s blessing from the very beginning of creation. It is implied in the creation of man as male and female and with the first mandate to them to “be fruitful and multiply.” It is the provision of God within the created order to maintain all life forms in a world subject to physical death (Luke 20:35

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2) Marriage, according to the Genesis creation account, has two fundamental purposes. The first is companionship, which has two dimensions: intimacy (“It is not good that the man should be alone,” 2:18), and assistance (“a helper fit for him,” 2:18). The other purpose for marriage is that it is the means and context for procreation of humankind (“they shall become one flesh,” 2:24).

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3) The importance of the term offspring emerges early and prominently in Genesis. Already in the garden of Eden we have prophetic foreshadowing of the importance of the offspring of Eve who will “strike” (RSV) the Serpent’s head (Gen. 3:15), and later Eve speaks of God’s appointing “another offspring” in Seth (4:25). The importance of offspring also serves as the central drama within the major storyline of the account of all the patriarchs in Genesis. Not only is it the most prominent of the covenant promises to Abraham, but it is the critical linchpin upon which all covenant promises depend.

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God comes to the patriarchs through the provision of offspring; and through the provision of offspring, God’s blessing comes to the world. 4) The prominence of offspring as a central motif of God’s blessing in Genesis might seem to emphasize the importance of human beings marrying and having children as the essential means to realize and effect God’s blessing upon the world. Instead, the emphasis is that the offspring of the covenant that ultimately mediates God’s blessing to the world is ultimately a provision of God himself rather than of human initiative. It serves to underscore the theological reality of our full dependence upon God for the provision of all the blessings he wishes to bestow.

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Marriage and procreation were the means by which God was building his holy nation of priests that would be a vehicle of blessing to the world. Second, marriage and children were a mark and confirmation of God’s covenantal blessing for every individual Israelite. Third, marriage and procreation were a means of retaining identity after death. Through children, one’s name was carried and remembered, and one’s allocated inheritance of land was passed to

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God’s blessing to the world was indeed to be mediated by means of the vehicle of offspring, and specifically Abraham’s offspring—but not all of Abraham’s offspring or even a select subset of his offspring, but a single offspring—who in his atoning death was the means of righteous standing before God. The offspring that represents and brings the true blessing of God is not many, but one—Jesus Christ. With one bold swipe Paul neutralizes two arguments of the Jewish legalists. Adherence to the law was not necessary for maintaining righteous standing before God, nor was it a vital link in the fulfillment of God’s promises to Abraham to mediate blessing to the world.

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Paul’s claim, identifying Christ as the offspring of Abraham, has profound implications. God was blessing the world not through a multitude of

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offspring but through a particular offspring, and that offspring was being announced through the proclamation of the gospel.

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The true offspring of Abraham are no longer defined physically through their ethnic identity but spiritually through their union with Christ through faith. Moreover, as Abraham’s offspring and heirs, they can anticipate receiving an inheritance—again, not a physical piece of real estate but a spiritual inheritance, one that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading and kept in heaven (1 Pet. 1:4).

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In short, Jesus Christ—the offspring of God—is himself, in his atoning and reconciling work, the vehicle of God’s blessing to the world. This comes apart from the law and covenant of Sinai but through faith, so that “those who are of faith are blessed along with

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Abraham, the man of faith” (Gal. 3:9).

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Rather, the fullness of God’s blessing comes to us through Christ and his sacrificial death on the cross whereby he has fully reconciled us to God and made us co-heirs in the inheritance of his kingdom. Thus Paul, a single man, devoid of wife, children, house, home, land, possessions, and financial prosperity, nevertheless recognized that he, even as a simple itinerant missionary on this earth, possessed “the fullness of the blessing of Christ

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In Galatians 3–4 we have a condensed articulation of the paradigm shift that occurred in how God fulfilled his covenant promises to Abraham. The true offspring of Abraham are not defined by their natural birth but by their spiritual birth in union with Christ. In Christ they have received all the blessings of the new covenant so that they are completely blessed and have an imperishable eternal inheritance irrespective of the circumstances of their lives.

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Thus whereas marriage and procreation play a critical role in the expected fulfillment of God’s covenantal promises to and through Abraham, they do not do so in the actual fulfillment that comes through the new covenant in Christ.

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Spiritual regeneration rather than procreation is the means by which God is now building his holy nation (1 Pet. 2:9). Neither marriage nor children is a fundamental marker of being blessed of God in the new covenant, as all spiritual blessings come through Christ (Eph. 1:3). Nor are marriage and procreation necessary to maintain one’s covenantal inheritance, for those in Christ have an imperishable inheritance in heaven.

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Looked at positively as a celebration of the complete sufficiency of Christ, singleness can be a powerful witness for the gospel. Whereas in Judaism, Islam, and Mormonism being married and having children are expected norms, in Christianity they are not. In choosing a life of singleness for the sake of kingdom service, one can freely demonstrate the complete sufficiency of Christ for being a fully blessed member of the new

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covenant, despite being without the fulfillment of a spouse and children. This is not to say that every Christian single person consciously sees his or her singleness in this way. Christian marriages can similarly be a powerful tool for proclaiming the gospel when the husband and wife respectively seek to model their marriage in the pattern of Christ and the church described in Ephesians 5. But not every Christian spouse consciously does so. Likewise, one’s singleness can be a powerful testimony to the sufficiency of Christ for all things when one realizes and lives out this covenantal truth. Not every single person consciously does so, but the opportunity remains.

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Jesus’ primary concern in his ministry is not to provide a prescription for living well in the land but to bestow spiritual life—a new life in the Spirit that is eternal life. Such new spiritual formation is the process of becoming Jesus’ disciple. Hence, though in the New Testament we are not given any explicit mandate to marry and procreate physical human beings, we are given a new mandate to create more spiritual human beings, disciples in the form of Jesus as we find in the words of Matthew’s Great Commission:

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The gospel mandate is not distinctive to Matthew but reverberates through the New Testament (Luke 10:1–2; John 20:31; Acts 1:8; 15:7; Col. 1:23; 2 Tim. 4:5; Rev. 14:6). Likewise, it is not Jesus’ task alone but one which he commissions to his disciples. Disciples are to make disciples. Paul exhorts his converts to imitate him as he, in turn, imitates Christ (1 Cor. 4:16; 11:1; 1 Thess. 1:6; 2 Thess. 3:7–9). Like the barren woman of Isaiah, they too are to produce spiritual offspring in the pattern of the Offspring, servants in the pattern of the Servant.

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To “eunuchize” oneself was thus to deny oneself the right of reproduction of physical progeny. Therefore, in using the term eunuch, Jesus meant more than someone simply not marrying but rather one’s setting aside the right of marriage and procreation. This is especially significant in light of the importance of offspring throughout the Old Testament and its association with covenantal blessing.

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Jesus is suggesting that there are some who will willingly

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give up the blessings of both marriage and offspring for the sake of the kingdom of God. Conversely, to be blessed in the kingdom of God no longer requires marriage and offspring.

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To eunuchize oneself entails more than simply not marrying but involves the sacrifice of one’s right to marriage, procreation, and sexual relations, for the sake of the kingdom of God.

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Mikeal Parsons sums up the eunuch’s distinctive role: Eunuchs had great influence and power in the royal courts of Assyria and Persia because of their undivided loyalty to the reigning monarch. They were valued and needed because they had no family heirs (not, as in much popular thought because they posed no sexual “threat”). Only eunuchs could be trusted to stand outside the nepotism and intrigue created by the competition in the palaces among the many princelings. It was their lack of kinship heirs which made them the leading palace officials in Persian, Hellenistic, and Roman times.61 As Parsons points out, eunuchs were loyal because they had no family heirs.

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But it also meant that they were fully dependent on the king and the king’s heirs since they had no heirs of their own to care for them in their old age. The eunuch staked his future in the survival of the king and his dynasty. If the dynasty was lost, so was the eunuch’s future welfare.

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The eunuch was also a model of devoted service because he was without the distractions of marriage and family. No personal family matters competed for his allegiances. He could afford complete, unhindered loyalty to his king and the king’s concerns. The highest loyalty of the disciple of Jesus Christ is likewise to be to the kingdom of God (Matt. 6:33).

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The eunuch is blessed in his “faithfulness” to the Lord. He is blessed because he has an eternal inheritance in the temple of the Lord independent of children or family. He is a model of one lacking physical family yet being fully blessed, completely sufficient in the Lord to whom he is faithful. And if the despised eunuch has been redeemed and fully blessed, he is no longer a symbol of reproach and stigmatization. Rather, he is a positive model of undistracted and unfettered service to his Lord, all the while fully cognizant of his complete dependence upon the God he serves for the welfare of his future.

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A eunuch for the kingdom is voluntarily so for the sake of serving the King and the kingdom. Voluntary eunuchs are those who recognize that their assignment from God, whatever it is (and every Christian has one), can be better accomplished by remaining unmarried, whether for a select period or for a lifetime.68

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1) The idea that it may be better not to marry is a big idea that not all can embrace. 2) Though people may remain unmarried involuntarily (those born incapable of marriage and those not able to marry on account of the unavailability of a marriage partner), some will also willingly embrace foregoing marriage, children, and sexual relations for the sake of service to the kingdom of God. 3) Those who can embrace it should embrace it.

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The charisma of singleness is something more—it is a divine enablement with a specific purpose. Moreover, suggesting that marriage is a gift complementary to singleness leaves those who are single involuntarily in an ambiguous state. They do not have the “gift” of marriage, but neither do they have the “gift” of singleness, as their desire is to be married. Paul recognizes that while some have the gift of singleness, others have different gifts, apportioned by the Spirit according to his will (1

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Paul surely was not advocating celibacy for everyone; his statement was carefully qualified. But assuming he was affirming that living an abstinent single life is good for all those able do so, he was not in contradiction with Genesis. Paul is not affirming that it is good to be alone but only that, in appropriate circumstances, it is good not to marry. Conversely, when Genesis 2:18 affirms that it is not good to live alone, marriage is given as a provision. But this does not imply that marriage was designed to be the sole provision for one’s aloneness.

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There are numerous indications in the New Testament of the deep spiritual intimacy Paul shared with his converts and fellow believers. To the Thessalonians he writes: So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us. (1 Thess. 2:8) Similarly, he “yearns” for the Philippians with the “affection of Christ” (Phil. 1:8); he longs to visit the Romans so to be “refreshed” by their company (Rom. 15:23, 32); and he weeps and embraces the Ephesian elders (Acts 20:37) upon his departure

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Though Paul did not have his own wife and family, he experienced profound familial intimacy within the spiritual family of God in which he had utterly invested himself.

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The freedom and flexibility of the single life will often open access to levels and opportunities of spiritual intimacy with other believers that those who are married do not have available in the same way and to the same degree.

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The crisis most likely served as a catalyst for the Corinthians to bring to Paul the question of the wisdom and necessity of marriage.

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When people choose to remain single for the sake of the kingdom of God because they recognize that their true sufficiency is found only in their relationship to Christ and the coming of his kingdom, and they orient their lives around this conviction, they become in their singleness visible signs of the coming new age.

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The second term, “constant service” (euparedros), is not found elsewhere in the New Testament,94 but its root connotes “sitting beside,”95 and a sense of constant attendance in the context of devoted service fits well. The picture is of one who sits beside the Lord, ready and waiting in his service.

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This triad of terms probably gives us the most accurate understanding of Paul’s vision of the gift of singleness in operation. He envisions those who are above reproach in their sexual conduct, undistracted by spouse and family, and ready and waiting at the service of their Lord.

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The capability to remain single is thus to be regarded as a spiritual gift, and it is characterized by three predominant features: a life of simplicity free from the stresses of spouse and family; a life that finds sufficiency in the blessings of Christ alone apart from the experiences of sexual intimacy, marital companionship, and physical family; and a life ready and free for service to the King in whatever way he should call.