Christians Are Marrying Later — How Do I Wait in Faith?

00:00:00.000 | Welcome to a new week on the podcast. Today's question comes from a listener named Caitlin.

00:00:08.080 | "Pastor John, thank you for the podcast. I recently listened to Francis Chan's response

00:00:12.480 | to the question, 'Why are Christian singles marrying later?' I have been deeply impacted

00:00:18.560 | by the writings and the teachings of Francis Chan in the past and have profound respect

00:00:22.600 | for him. But his reasoning that singles in the church are engaging in sexual immorality

00:00:27.180 | and therefore marrying later felt dismissive for a lot of us. I cannot name a single Christian

00:00:33.620 | couple that is in the situation he describes and is therefore delaying marriage. His response

00:00:39.000 | felt like it skimmed over a topic with so much more depth to it. I know many godly unmarried

00:00:44.760 | Christian women in particular who desire marriage, yet there seem to be so few unmarried Christian

00:00:49.720 | men around interested in pursuing any of them. These women fight daily for purity and joy

00:00:54.800 | in the Lord. This is not a fight we take lightly. So to be told that the reason we are not married

00:01:01.120 | is because we are engaging in sex before marriage makes us feel profoundly misunderstood and

00:01:05.840 | swept to the side. I also happen to know that the majority of these women carry moderate

00:01:11.280 | to large loads of student loan debt that they are working diligently to pay off. This means

00:01:16.700 | the majority of our time is spent working long hours, often multiple jobs. As you can

00:01:21.600 | imagine, this leaves little time for socialization. This job situation is likely going to be a

00:01:26.640 | reality for many of us well into our 30s. I would love to hear your response, Pastor

00:01:31.520 | John, to this same question. What encouragement can you offer us single women who are pursuing

00:01:36.800 | the Lord with all of our hearts and functioning in this world as best as we can?

00:01:42.200 | First, I know Francis Chan, and I am sure if he were with me here at this microphone

00:01:51.800 | he would say that the reasons people are marrying later are indeed much more diverse and complex

00:02:03.920 | than the fact that lots of couples are substituting sex for marriage. So I'm starting with the

00:02:11.440 | assumption that Francis was emphasizing a particular factor rather than stating it as

00:02:18.920 | the only factor, even though I know because of the way people have taken my kinds of communication

00:02:26.440 | that it would be easy for Caitlin to feel the way she felt. So I'm going to start there.

00:02:34.400 | The real question here, it seems to me, for Caitlin is not so much that we can figure

00:02:43.240 | out—we've got to figure out—why since 1970 the median age for women to get married

00:02:51.360 | has increased by four or five years to 25 plus, and for men a little less, increased

00:03:00.880 | up to 26.8, I read recently. There are lots of factors feeding that phenomenon, like twice

00:03:09.720 | as many women go to college today as 30 years ago, and careers are often a priority, and

00:03:16.960 | fear of marriage commitments for both men and women because half of those young people

00:03:23.960 | have divorced parents and therefore are terrified that they don't want to do that, they don't

00:03:29.840 | want to do it the way their parents did it. Loss of community is a big one, I think, where

00:03:36.840 | finding a spouse isn't as natural and communal as it used to be and the way the world was

00:03:42.520 | once upon a time. Changes in expectation about what makes a good spouse, largely owing, I

00:03:50.320 | think, to entertainment and media. Delays in maturity for men and women. Good night.

00:03:57.040 | Adolescence just gets longer and longer, so the whole books are being written on adultolescence.

00:04:03.880 | It's a very complex setting, situation, cluster of factors that make things harder today,

00:04:11.960 | just really harder for young people. But what Caitlin points out here, and I'm really

00:04:19.160 | happy to hear it, is that there are—I'm adding the word thousands, she said many,

00:04:24.920 | and I would agree totally that there are thousands, thousands of young women who, and men, I think,

00:04:31.440 | who would like to be married, who are not having sex before marriage. Believe it or

00:04:37.400 | not, there are people like that, lots of them, who have to work full time if for no other

00:04:44.200 | reason than to pay back student loans, which puts a good deal of pressure on her and their

00:04:51.640 | energy and time for being active and flexible in social relationships. So she asks, and

00:04:58.680 | this is the question that I assume she wants me to address, not all that, is what encouragement

00:05:03.800 | can you offer us single women who are pursuing the Lord with all our hearts and functioning

00:05:10.800 | in this world the best we can? And I like that question because that's what the Bible

00:05:16.080 | is for. It is to help us where we are, not just say, "Wouldn't it be nice to be in

00:05:20.680 | another world?" My encouragement, Caitlin, is this—I'll put it just in a simple phrase

00:05:25.840 | and then I'll unpack it—God is sovereign over your life, and God is good. Now, if you

00:05:34.920 | are his child, and just like you say you are, pursuing the Lord with all your heart, we

00:05:43.080 | have it on God's authority that he will withhold from you no good thing, nothing that

00:05:50.720 | is good for you. Psalm 84 11, "The Lord God is a sun and shield. The Lord bestows

00:05:57.840 | favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly." So I'm

00:06:06.320 | going to suggest, with that promise as the background, that you linger over two stories

00:06:11.640 | in the Bible for your encouragement. One is the story of Ruth. Ruth. She resolved

00:06:20.120 | as a young widow to leave her homeland, Moab, and to be faithful to Naomi, her mother-in-law,

00:06:27.440 | with these words, "Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where

00:06:33.000 | you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people,

00:06:38.240 | and your God my God. Where you die, I will die, and there will I be buried. May the Lord

00:06:46.640 | do so to me, and more also, if anything but death parts me from you." That's Ruth 1

00:06:53.920 | 16-17. Now, that meant that as a Moabite woman in Israel, the prospects for marriage were

00:07:02.440 | zero. Apart from an extraordinary work of God, what godly Jew would marry a Moabite

00:07:12.400 | and a widow and all the other circumstances surrounding this? But God—I like that phrase—but

00:07:20.080 | God rewarded her faithfulness, faithfulness to God and to her human relations, with a

00:07:28.800 | total surprise. His name was Boaz. You cannot plan things like this. You can't. You can't

00:07:38.840 | strategize as a young woman, "I'm going to have a Boaz. I know what to do. I know

00:07:42.920 | what fields to go to. I know a country to go to." You can't. You can't strategize

00:07:48.320 | for this kind of matchmaking. You can only do your work with joy in the Lord and watch

00:07:56.600 | the sovereign God work for you. That's the first suggestion. Meditate. Linger over

00:08:04.100 | the book of Ruth. And lest you think, Caitlin, that I'm a hopeless romantic with only happily

00:08:10.840 | ever after marriage endings, my second suggestion is that you linger over the story of Anna

00:08:19.040 | in Luke 2 36 and 37. There was a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe

00:08:26.280 | of Asher. She was advanced in years, having lived with her husband seven years. So I'd

00:08:33.520 | guess maybe from age 17 to 24, from when she was a virgin and then as a widow until she

00:08:42.040 | was 84. That'd be 60 years. She did not depart from the temple, worshipping with fasting

00:08:51.780 | and prayer night and day. What is that? That's a seven-year marriage as a young girl and

00:09:00.280 | then a widow, probably from her mid-20s until she was 84. But she was faithful to what the

00:09:07.380 | Lord called her to do, and he rewarded her with the sight of the Messiah. He was pleased

00:09:15.720 | with Anna, and that's what matters ultimately. So, in other words, your sovereign good God

00:09:26.580 | is able to stun you with a boast out of nowhere, and he is able to keep you chaste and fruitful

00:09:34.360 | and happy, unmarried, until you are 84. Now here are my concluding brief four simple pieces

00:09:44.960 | of counsel. One, don't look twice at an unspiritual man. Yes, spiritual men are far too rare.

00:09:59.300 | That's one of the biggest problems of the day. But they do exist, and God is guiding

00:10:08.780 | their lives. Number two, be an integral member of a doctrinally solid, loving church. It

00:10:19.620 | may have 60 people in it and no 20-somethings, while the church with all the hip singles

00:10:29.180 | and weak doctrine has thousands. But guess where boas may choose to go to church?

00:10:38.640 | Number three, find your joy in knowing Jesus and serving others. Marriage is not the greatest

00:10:48.200 | good. Faithfulness to Christ and his people around you is the greatest good. And number

00:10:57.120 | four, in your prayers, tell the Lord your heart's desire, and then make him your supreme

00:11:05.060 | treasure. Amen. Thank you for responding to this, Pastor

00:11:09.080 | John. And Caitlin, thanks for the articulate and excellent question. It's exactly the type

00:11:13.700 | of thing we're looking for, so thank you. And thank you for listening and supporting

00:11:17.460 | the podcast. You can stay current with the Ask Pastor John podcast episodes on your phone

00:11:22.460 | or your device by subscribing to us through your preferred podcast catcher. And you can

00:11:27.320 | search our past episodes in our archive and send us an email of your own, even questions

00:11:30.440 | about marriage and trends that you see and what God offers to those who are not yet married.

00:11:37.040 | You can do all that through our online home at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn. And also,

00:11:43.040 | we've got to mention here at the end of this episode that be sure to check out our very

00:11:47.500 | own Marshall Siegel's book on Amazon titled Not Yet Married, The Pursuit of Joy in Singleness

00:11:53.660 | and Dating. It's a solid book you don't want to miss. Well, we are going to return on Wednesday.

00:11:59.080 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke. We'll see you then.

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00:12:03.880 | Desiring God's Pursuit of Joy in Singleness and Dating

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Christians Are Marrying Later — How Do I Wait in Faith?

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