Gender Matters For Singles

Gender matters.

Moses agreed. “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Gn 1:27). Mankind alone bears the image of God, and he made us distinctly male and female. Don’t you think this matters?

Paul also thought gender matters; Peter agreed. Have you ever noticed though that they only write to husbands and wives? Thus, many are left wondering how much gender matters for single people. It is true, gender roles are addressed to husbands and wives because the teaching comes to fruition in marriage, but what about those who are single like Paul? Does gender still matter?

Yes.

All men should grow to maturity as fathers; all women should grow to maturity as mothers. Whether you ever get married and start your own family, this is your calling because you belong to the family of God in a local church.

The family unit each of us grew up in is simply a microcosm of the Church. Paul calls the church the “household of God” (1 Tm 3:15), and he uses the family as a training ground qualification for elders: “[F]or if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church?” (3:5).

In fact, the family structure is modeled after this truer spiritual reality. Notice how Paul addresses Timothy (“my true child in the faith,” 1 Tm 1:2) and Titus (“my true son in our common faith,” Titus 1:4). A family relation in blood can be superficial if there is no family relation in the Spirit. What joy is ours then when these ones we care for the most are also a part of the “household of God” (Eph 2:19)!

Paul never had any biological children, but he fathered many spiritual children. Along with Timothy and Titus, Paul mentions another: “my child, Onesimus, whose father I became in my imprisonment” (Phl 10). Paul was a mature man of God, and he fathered several individuals and entire church families.

Paul, as a single man, thought that gender matters, and he met numerous needs within the church family; are we able to see those same needs? Timothy had no father figure as he was raised by his mother and grandmother (cf. 2 Tm 1:5), and there are many children and young adults like Timothy in our churches. We need more people like Paul: older men to teach younger men and older women to teach younger women (cf. Titus 2:2-5).

Paul, who wrote extensively on gender roles, heeded his own teaching, though he himself was single. Everyone is commanded to be a mature believer: for men it means being fatherly, for women it means being motherly. The family of God is huge, and so are the needs, which should be nurtured by mature men and women—married and single alike.