09 Jul Check Your Status

One of the things that never ceases to amaze me is just how much God loves each one of us.

One of the ways we can see that is by grasping how the Christian Scriptures consistently undermine every culture’s attempt (including our own!) to demote our inherent value by creating a hierarchy of some kind of “cultural status.”

Let me try to give you one example of that and then make a point (I promise, I’ll get there!).

Specifically, when it comes to singles and married couples, both Eastern and Western cultures have consistently struggled to catch up to the Biblical vision of equality that is given to both single people and married people.

What do I mean?

Traditional cultures have placed an emphasis on the status of marriage being inherently more important than the status of being single. You can see some remnants of that today here in the United States, to an extent, through TV shows about getting married (Say Yes to the Dress, The Bachelor, etc.), magazine covers, paparazzi wedding photos…the list goes on.

On one hand, some of that is understandable. Not only is falling in love and pledging lifelong allegiance to another a fascinating and mysterious thing, but for centuries in traditional cultures, being married gave people a higher chance of survival in many ways—an abundance of children could help a family care for the crops or cattle and gave the elderly a greater protection from attack.

But in particular, into the Greco-Roman world that the Apostle Paul lived and wrote, his culture had prized marriage for what it could produce: a potential (male) heir. The meaning that having an heir produced gave marrieds additional cultural clout and personal status.

And so, in 1 Corinthians 7, as Paul addresses the concerns of the Corinthian church, in a culture that was sexually depraved and morally bankrupt (the examples he lists are so graphic, you have to read parts of the letter through your fingers), he does something remarkable and courageous.

Paul has, on one hand, brand new Christians leaning towards creating a bias towards being single in order to avoid falling into sexual sin. He has, on the other hand, a culture with an established bias towards marriage being the thing that created meaning in life, and he writes a simple, astonishing statement about either kind of relational status:

“I think that it is good for a man [or woman] to remain as he [or she] is.”

Boom. Just like that. Thousands of years of cultural constructs and debate over.

Wherever you are, as Paul said, it’s all (literally) good.

In light of the coming kingdom, where status is derived from union with Christ (not a spouse), and in light of an eternal future where relationship will not produce heirs, Paul says, it’s good to be single. And it’s good to be married.

Take your pick. They are both equivalents in status in the Kingdom of God.

My point is this:

I want our view of one another at Mosaic to reflect the Bible vision for relational status.

Singles are important.

Marrieds are important.

And…I think in cultures and places, like in churches in the Southern part of the United States where marriage has traditionally “felt” like it has had the upper hand status-wise, it’s important to clearly emphasize the value that single people inherently have and meaningfully bring to the church of Jesus.

And that, after all that you just read, is (also) the point of this email.

And the point of why we are doing stuff like the Kickball Tournament at Brushy Creek Sports Park on Saturday morning from 9 am -12 pm. We would love our singles to attend (and anyone else just to connect! All are welcome!). You can sign up here, and get the address.

Whether you’re single or married at Mosaic, it’s all good. And we hope to help you handle each status well.

God really does love us all.

Morgan