this larger paper here and then this handout is specifically for tonight and very likely we will be going over this next week as well. I want to just invite your attention to the back of this as well. Huh, never mind. That's funny. Well, there was supposed to be a bibliography on back. I'll give that to you next week. The double-sided didn't work. So anyway, next week you'll get a bibliography with all kinds of good resources to get on it to look at. I will say that I don't at all pretend to be an expert on marriage and family because I've only been 15 years into it. And some of you have been into it a lot longer than that. but I do stand on the shoulders of books of people that really have been through it a lot longer, and more importantly, the authority of God's Word, which is obviously our sole authority for faith and practice. But I think hopefully we'll be able to learn together as well through some of this. So there's different topics there. Three major sections. We're going to talk about singleness first, and then marriage, and then parenthood. Now, I'll just say this, you say, well, why would you start with singleness when you're dealing with marriage and family? And the answer is, first of all, we'll look at that to some degree, but also, really, a lot of the problems that married couples face, actually, they started before they were married. Their roots were actually prior to marriage when they were single. Not everything, but a lot of times that happens. And you can kind of see when the foundation wasn't right in singlehood. We're going to talk about identity, for example, tonight. When that wasn't established correctly in singleness, then problems rose five, six years into the marriage, or 15 years into the marriage. as a result of really not establishing the right foundation. And so that's important for us to understand. And that's why it's so important. You may see some of these things as we go through singleness. You may see how this tracks from having sort of cracks in the foundation and then how they bleed over into marriage. We're going to look at three major topics within subjects within singleness. That's identity, which I think is Crucial. Giftedness. What does it mean to have the giftedness of singlehood or singleness? And then freedom. And so that's, I think, going to be important for us. So why singleness? Well, for hundreds of years, the general trend was that most, everyone left their family in origin of their, for one primary reason, to get married and establish their own family unit. Studies show that in the 19th and first half of the 20th century, single adults made up typically 5% of the adult US population, 3% never married and 1% divorced or 1% widowed, while an overwhelming number, 95%, were married. However, that's changed. So today, somewhere around 45% to 46% of the adult US population. That's from 5% to 45% of the adult US population is now single. So you have an extreme increase in singleness. And so it's really important to address it. Yes. I think it probably includes all of them. Single, never been married, divorced, widowed, widowers, probably includes all of them. You can check out unmarried.org is where the numbers come from. So you can get more details on that. So why the change? Well, a lot of factors contribute to the change. The average age of first marriages were the early 20s in the 1950s, and now they're the late 20s in the 1990s, and later, now it's probably 30s. The rise of divorce and cohabitation, and more never-marrieds than ever before, and much greater mobility of adult children. Long gone are the days the child takes the family business and lives in the same town as the parents. So it's very unusual for that to be the case. It happens more in this area because you do have a lot of jobs in this area. So that's possible in this area. But still, often, they go to college. get married, they move away, right, Josh and Julie? I mean, that's typical now. I'm very atypical that I bought my dad's house. It doesn't happen. It's not something I actually ever planned either. But anyway, so that's not really normal anymore. It's much more normal to move away. So why a class on singleness? First of all, we need to understand that singleness matters to God. And Christianity's, meaning the biblical approach to singleness, is actually revolutionary. And you'll see what I mean in a minute when we look at 1 Corinthians 7. It is very counterculture. And we'll see that. There's one thing I wanted to mention here in defining it. Maybe I define it later. In case I don't, I'll just mention this. We're going to look at 1 Corinthians 7, and what we want to do is just look at a brief overview of this text. It's going to deal with a lot of different issues. We're not going to get detailed into the text. It's not going to be an exegesis of the text, but we're going to look at the different issues. But just to give you an idea of the problem, if you don't take a scriptural understanding of singleness, is Webster's Dictionary, do you know how it defines singleness? It defines it as unmarried. Now, think about it for a minute. What's the problem with that definition? OK, well, I hadn't thought of that, but that's true. But probably it says unmarried adult in some dictionaries. OK, but yeah. Yeah, it defines it by what you're not. I mean, the definition itself leaves you wanting, like, oh, I guess I'm less than complete here. But the Bible doesn't do that with singleness. 1 Corinthians 7 doesn't do that with singleness. It doesn't define it as what you are not. So we're going to go through 1 Corinthians 7, and we're going to see that Paul has a lot of really He values singleness a great deal. So let's look at the passage and we'll pick up here. We'll first look at 7.1-7. And I'll just say this, that the issue that he's dealing with here is the idea of asceticism. We've talked about that before, but it's the idea of isolating yourself and having a higher spiritual plane of of mysticism or whatever and denying yourself physical pleasures, that kind of idea, you put those things together and the idea could come up that it's actually more spiritual to be single than to be married or more spiritual, to not participate, even as a married person in sexual relations, that those are the kinds of things that you come up with when you start going down those roads. I mean, Christ said to deny yourself, but he didn't mean to deny yourself in this way. So Paul is dealing with this problem in verses one through seven. He begins by saying, now concerning the things which you wrote to me, it is good for a man not to touch a woman, or sometimes it's translated not to marry a woman, Nevertheless, because of sexual immorality, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband. Let the husband rent her to his wife, the affection do her, and likewise unto the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise, the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. That's, by the way, a novel concept at this point as well. Do not deprive one another except with consent for a time that you may give yourselves to the fasting and prayer and come together again so that Satan does not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. But I say that this is as a concession, not as a commandment. For I wish that all men were even as I myself, but each one has his own gift from God, one in this manner and the other in that." So he says, in verses 1 through 7, he basically says it's good for a man not to marry, but it's also fine for a person to marry. He doesn't say it's a command to marry. He says it's a concession in his mind to marry, because in his mind, in Paul's mind, He actually values singlehood as a very special thing where he can totally devote himself to the Lord. So in other words, he sees, and the scripture sees, singleness as a time of freedom where you're not encumbered by the burdens of marriage and family, and you're able to direct, you're able to focus in on pleasing God solely and completely. without some of the other encumbrances involved. That's a very different idea than Webster's definition, unmarried. He puts a very positive light on singleness. It's valued, yes. Well, if we read the whole 1 Corinthians 7, we'll find that that's not the case. He's later on going to point out other things as well, so we'll get there. That is, by the way, this is a passage, I understand, my understanding is this is basically where they get the idea of of not understanding this passage correctly, this sort of idea of asceticism. If you think of a Catholic priest or a nun going, that's asceticism. I mean, that's what that is, basically. And then they get some of the, they actually misinterpret some of this, and that's how they get their approach. But you'll see in the passage, he's not going to, he says in the passage, he basically looks at it as, it is better for the sake of serving God He wishes people were like him, but then he backs up a little here, and you'll see that in a minute. Verses 8 through 9, to the unmarried and widows. Yeah. He's a widower. Yeah. Yeah. To serve the Lord. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Verses 8 and 9, he says, But I say to the unmarried and to the widows, it is good for them if they remain even as I am. But if they cannot exercise self-control, let them marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion. So he says, okay, there's real value in people remaining single so that they can serve the Lord with all their hearts without being encumbered by families and marriages. He says, but not everybody, essentially, I'm just sort of paraphrasing here, but not everybody is called to singlehood. He says, there is, some are and some aren't, And if you aren't, and you're inclined toward marriage, then you should go that direction. And we're going to talk more about problems. I've got to be honest with you. 7, 8, and 9 have been misinterpreted and misapplied so often. It's unbelievable how often it's been misinterpreted and misapplied. We'll get to that. later, but I'm just trying to go through so you get an overall, an overview here. Verses 10 through 11 to the married. What does he say? Now to the married I command, yet not I but the Lord, a wife is not to depart from her husband, but even if she does depart, let her remain unmarried or to be reconciled to her husband, and a husband is not to divorce his wife. So he says to the married, stay married, bottom line. Single, consider staying single unless you're supposed to be married. This is basically what he's saying. If you're married, stay married. verses 12 through 16. To the married with unbelieving spouse, stay married if they're willing, but if they leave, let them go, verse 12. But to the rest, I say, not the Lord say. And by the way, when he keeps saying this, he's not saying, this is my opinion and it's not a command. What he's saying is, the Lord did not address this specifically. So he says, he begins in chapter 1, I'm sorry, verse 1, now concerning the things which you wrote to me, And everything that he's saying, he's basing it on what the Lord has already taught in Matthew 19 and Mark 10 and other places like that. Now he is saying, well, the Lord has not addressed this, Christ meaning the Lord when he was on earth, so I'm going to address this now. And so he says in verse 12, and to the rest I, not the Lord, say, if any brother have a wife who does not believe and she is willing to live with him, let him not divorce her. And a woman who has a husband who does not believe, if he is willing to live with her, let her not divorce him. But the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband. Otherwise, your children would be unclean, but now they are holy. But if the unbeliever departs, let him depart. A brother or sister is not under bondage in such cases, but God has called us to peace." Now, I can't get into all the details of this or we'll never get through it, but Bottom line, if you are married to an unbelieving spouse, stay married. But if the unbelieving spouse departs, then you're permitted to let them go. 7.12 through 24, he says, don't feel that your earthly status needs to change when God calls you to be a Christian. So there was a problem. with this. Look at verse, you see verses 12 through 24, we've already looked at verse 16. You sort of see some of that in that passage, but pick up in verse, pick up in verse 16. Or, how do you know, O wife, whether you will save your husband? Or, how do you know, O husband, whether you will save your wife? It's not talking about saving in the way that we would think of it. Only Christ could do that. We know that, but be an influence on them. as God has, verse 17, 17 through 24, but as God has distributed to each one as the Lord has called each one, so let him walk. And so I ordain in all the churches, was anyone called while circumcised? Let him not become uncircumcised. Has anyone called while uncircumcised? Let him not be circumcised. Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing, but keeping The commandment of God is what matters. Let each one remain in the same calling in which he was called. Were you called while a slave? Do not be concerned about it. But if you can be made free, rather use it. For he who is called to the Lord while a slave is the Lord's freed man. Likewise, he who is called while free is Christ's slave. You are brought with a price and do not become slaves of men. Brethren, let each one remain with God in the state in which he was called." And then 725-323, he's going to talk now, we won't take the time to read those, but he talks to the virgin, or those who betrothed, he talks to the fathers and says if they need to be married, let them marry. If not, it's okay for them not to be married. It's basically, it's up to you, dads. And then verses 29 through 40, to the widows, they are free to remarry if their husband dies, but should only marry a Christian. So that's the basic overview. He values marriage. He values singlehood. If you're a widow, stay a widow. If you can't, if not, then marry. Don't think that because you're a Christian, you need to change status necessarily because of that. So he gives us sort of an overall, an overview, an overall picture of marriage and singleness and widowing, all those different statuses or positions in this chapter. So what we want to then move to is, particularly we're talking about singleness here, and we're talking about the concept of identity. And it's absolutely important for us to understand that in order for a marriage to be a solid marriage, a solid Christian marriage, the first thing we've got to do is establish our identity in Christ. A single person should think in terms of his identity or her identity being in Christ. He is complete in Christ. That has a lot of implications to it. But if a person believes that he is not complete until he's married or she is married, you're going to actually, it's actually going to create, it could potentially create problems in the marriage. We've got to understand that you are complete in Christ. And if you are already married and you When you were single, you didn't have the right approach to that, then there's a sense in which you've got to understand that you are, your identity is in Christ, is complete in Christ, even after you're married. Now, that doesn't mean that you change your status. Paul's very clear about this. But we do need to understand our identity in Christ. So a definition of singleness. Someone who is not married is Webster's definition. How about this definition? Those in our church community, those in the church really, who have the opportunity and freedom to use their gifts in undivided devotion to the Lord. That's a biblical definition of singlehood. Look at verse 35 of this chapter. He says, And this I say for your own profit, not that I may put a leash on you, but for what is proper, and that you may serve the Lord without distraction." So God's view of singleness is it's to be valued. It is something that we are to value. It's something that you can serve the Lord with undivided devotion, with singleness of heart, undistracted, and unencumberment. There is a freedom to singleness. I'm not suggesting all you married people have no freedom. I'm not trying to convince you to loathe your status. But it is important for single people to understand that there is a valuable time in their life that they should not waste. They should use it. I have to tell you that Those who are single adults, particularly, or teenagers, you know, up to adulthood, older teenagers, you have maximum freedom and minimum responsibility. Now you think, I've got lots of responsibility. I've got school, and I've got my parents' responsibility. Believe me. You do not have a lot of responsibility. Okay? And I'm not trying to be harsh, but there is a freedom that you have. And enjoy it, but use it for God. Use it to serve the Lord. Focus on Christ. And understand, there are some that are so single, but they want to be married so bad. It's like, if I could just hold on until I get married. And they sort of put their life on hold until they just could find the right one to marry, and then they'll be living. Before is death, and after is life. That is not at all what Scripture says. Now let me ask you this question. Does our typical church culture help or hinder in this area? We often hinder. How do we hinder in this area? Yes. The near deification. That's a strong way to put it. Yeah. Okay. Yes, Tracy. or there are opportunities to minister together as a family, and I think that's... That's a good point. And we want that, but to have it exclusively or to have it in such a way where singles don't fit in is an issue. Yeah. The lack of responsibility we give to young people. Yeah. Lack of responsibility we give. Good. Yeah. That's very true. There are a lot of times that people will not involve singles in certain ministries because they're single. Honestly, it's hard to understand in some senses because, I agree with you, I don't disagree with you. But I think to myself, man, I'd love to have a few more single people around here. Actually, when Zach and Jacob came back from college, they immediately called me or texted me or something and said, how can we help? What can we do? Contacted Harry and said, what can we do? And got involved in some of the kids' classes. Right away, they jumped in. And it was like a relief. There's a real value in singleness. And so we are definitely not doing well, and we're not consistent with what Scripture says, if we're seeing single people as less than valuable, or undervalued, or something like that. It's actually nearly the opposite. Yeah, Tim. Yeah. Yeah, right, sure. Yeah, you could have the same kind of thing. Sure. We sometimes get the inclination, you know, you ever play matchmaker? Start matching people up? Okay. All right. Sometimes in the church we start doing that. Oh, that person's single, that person's single. We could put them together. Well, maybe, maybe not, okay? But sometimes when we have that kind of thinking, the way we talk, it's like they're incomplete. We need to get them married, because they're incomplete until they're married. That's not what scripture says at all, Tracy. Yeah. And they feel that way, and we don't help in our culture in helping them to feel that way, or going against what they would naturally feel. So we do need to rethink this. Yes, ma'am. Sometimes a married couple aren't different, just single, because there's, if it's a single woman, then there's no man, and it's not appropriate for maybe them to be together in a particular situation. Or even just, you know, this is not good in the body of Christ. These are problems, okay, but sometimes what happens in our thinking is we tend to gravitate to people of our own demographic, of our own time in life, of our own kind. Married with kids, married with teens, married with kids out of the house, old, whatever. I skipped a lot there, I know. And everybody just tries to sort of go with who they know. In the body of Christ, that is really not Not what we should be doing. It should be different. Yes? A widow? Really? Okay. A younger widow. Well, the wife can go help. She can hand him tools. There are some situations like that that might occur. Identity. How do we deal How do we deal with this that we really think in terms of a single person? By the way, teenagers, this is you, okay, right? Everybody here is single, this teenager. If you're not, that's weird. So you are single and so this applies to you. So how do we work this out? So a couple of things. Let's ask the question, well, who am I? Number one, you're either an employee or a student or both. And so the Bible is very clear that diligence is something that you ought to be working on. If you're here and you're single, working hard and diligence and usefulness, those kinds of things, is something that you ought to be focused on. And I'll tell you why. Because when you get married, you better be diligent. Because there's more work. Just to let you know. You think you're working hard before you're married? Get married and there's more. And by the way, I went through this in my premarital counseling. I just told them, it's more work. You think it's less work because you have two? It's not. It's more work. Everybody doubles the work. Anyway, there's lots of work. And you add kids, and it multiplies exponentially. It's lots of work. You're laughing, but you're not arguing. Nobody's saying, I don't think that's true. What's that? Yeah? Oh, yeah. Oh, I can imagine. She has to cook meals every day. She's got to clean the house every day. He's not eating beef and cheese anymore. He won't care, so I'll tell the story. Like during prenatal counseling, they're talking about what he eats every day. He's like, I'm fine with beef. He was down there by himself in his apartment. He just got this thing of beef and this thing of cheese. 28 every day. I thought, man, you know, I said you could do that now. When you're 40, you can't do that anymore, buddy. Anyway, you have all kinds of problems. All right. Anyway, take a couple of things just to advise here. Number one, take advantage of your freedom. Understand there's freedom. Take advantage of the freedom. Focus in and serve God with freedom. Number two, don't set such a ridiculous pace. And what I mean by that is some people, this isn't usually a big problem, what I mean by that is that some people will set such a ridiculous pace that number three, they won't build their lives around church. This is very uncommon. This is very sad. Sometimes single people won't build their lives around church, Because we're not making it easy, like we're making it hard for them. You guys kind of mentioned that tonight, okay? So sometimes it's kind of our fault. Frankly, it's often single people's fault as well. And they're not really focused on that. And so here's what sort of happens. This is really unfortunate, but this is what kind of happens. You're single, you really don't get intricately involved in church. You get married, you're still not intricately involved in church. Kids come along, oh, I better get involved in church. Then you start looking for a church that's going to work for your kids. The problem with that is that the right way, the right approach biblically is, I'm discipled and then I disciple my kids. The church's job is to assist me in discipling my kids, but it's not to do the job for me. Okay, and so I need to, if you start off focusing, building your life around the local church as a single person, if you start off that way and you're being discipled and you're discipling others in that kind of a context, then you move into marriage and you're doing the same thing. Then you move with kids and you're continuing to be discipled and you're discipling others. And the kids come along and then you have the ability to disciple your kids, why? Well, you've been discipling other people. When you're single, you're discipling other people. Is it different to disciple kids than other people? It is. But there is some confluence. So if you take a single person and another single man, he's in his 20s, disciples another single man in his 20s. Or maybe he's not single, maybe he's married, but he's discipling a guy in his 20s. And he takes them all the way through the different phases of discipleship. Well, he's going to be far more equipped to take his kids through discipleship. But unfortunately what happens is we never get, that's not usually, that's not really what happens. So I would just encourage you that way. And then there is a quandary for single women. So we've already said focus in on working hard, work on your career, those kinds of things. And yet, sometimes the question comes up for single women particularly, because a man's got to focus on his career. He's biblically supposed to provide for his household. He is to be biblically the main provider. Doesn't mean his wife can't help, but biblically he's to be the main provider. And I'm thankful for my wife that does help, so it's not at all, but that's God's plan. So he knows what direction he's going, but a wife or a single woman, that's a little harder because it's kind of like, well, okay, well, do I go a direction? Do I not? How do I do that? And I would just say it this way. You should go a direction. You should try to work on a career of some kind, to be self-supporting, in case God doesn't have you to be married. But you also should be open to being married and to be willing to switch gears if that happens. Because after you're married, your role is to assist your husband. Now, that may mean that you can have the career that you had already planned, or it may not mean that. It's up to your husband. And it's up to the family and how you guys figure that out. Very important, though, so you do have to straddle a fence a little bit where you're going a direction, but you're open to turning. And you're open to go another direction as well. And that's the best answer I can give for that particular quandary. Any questions so far about how a single, yes? Well, I'll tell you when we first got into church life, we were attending as a young couple, and we were fine just attending church. It wasn't until they approached us, hey, could you help out in Sunday school? They reached out to us, you know. We didn't offer, they reached out to us and sometimes that is missing in the church. Sure. Where the church doesn't reach out to new members. Good. One reason we have a new members class so that we can acclimate and learn people's how they tick and how they work and what their gift to this is and all that kind of thing. Yeah. It seems as if when you're talking here, you're talking more about just a legitimate high school, college level person, but not necessarily widowed or divorced. Yeah. So Two and three go together, so don't set such a ridiculous pace that you're not building your life around a local church. So singles tend to, if they're not careful, play church and really full speed ahead in their career and education and other things like that, or extracurricular things, fun things, all that kind of thing. And so if you set that kind of pace and you don't build your life around the local church, then you won't be able to be discipled. The two go together. Does that make sense? Yeah. You lose your focus. Yeah, and focus is wrong, which is going to be a problem in marriage. Yes. Yeah, Brad. I think of it as when you're raising a daughter, it's the distinction between four boys and one daughter. Like you said, the boy needs to be preparing to be the primary provider. But the girl, I think of in terms of fathers, 31, who find something that you could, if need be, supplement. That's good advice. Family's income. You know, as you're raising your daughter, thinking in those terms and having her thinking in those terms, but then, of course, as she becomes a young adult, you know, that could change depending on, you know, if she goes to college or training and she still remains single, then she probably needs to be thinking about a career. But I think, like, while I'm raising her, Yeah. Good. Good advice. The second date I had with Elizabeth, I asked her why she chose her majors, which were elementary education and office administration was her minor. And she said, well, elementary education is something I can do if I don't get married and will be helpful if I do get married. And office administration, my areas, I like organization, that kind of thing. And I, again, it's something I can assist in helping, you know, my husband and that kind of thing. And so, that was impressive actually to me that she had that kind of thinking. Beats other majors that I ran into or it made no sense at all. So anyway, all right, let's move on to the next one. Who am I, a son or daughter? So not only are you either an employee, student, or both, but you're also, if you're a single person, you're a son or a daughter. It seems like the biblical pattern is for a woman to remain under her father's authority until she can be given in marriage to a husband. That is generally the biblical pattern and generally the case in our, there are If a person moves, if a single woman moves away from her house and is self-supporting, like moves away from home and is self-supporting, likelihood is there's going to be less authority. There still needs to be honor. But there would be less authority than otherwise. But generally, that's the approach. Obviously, biblically, we know that once a person is married, the authority of a parent is not there anymore. They need to leave, and they need to cleave. And so you still have a responsibility to honor your parents, but you don't have responsibility to obey them as authorities. Yes? How do we distinguish that as a biblical pattern from just saying that was culturally their way? Well, good question. I think we would say it this way. A couple of things. I think culturally, obviously, there is that. The other thing, I think, is that the Bible actually says that a husband is to lead the wife. We know that to be true. So the pattern It would seem to me that there would just be wisdom. If a daughter can learn to follow her father's authority, then she is going to be, and have a good relationship with her father, then the transition is going to be a lot better. So I think it's, I don't know if it's in the realm of, at some point it's not in the realm of right or wrong, it's in the realm of wisdom. Obviously, the monetary support is a big thing, obviously. I will tell you this. It ought not be just 18. It's not a cutoff at 18 just because the law says it's 18. So that's, yeah. Another thing too, if you look at Eve, she was deceived in the garden. So there's a tendency for maybe a woman To be able to have a man, father figure or husband, to be able to run things by, to make Even if you take 1 Corinthians chapter 11, the head of the woman is the man, the head of the man is Christ. You have a pretty strong, so let's say functioning in the local church. How does that work? So you have a pretty strong examples in Scripture of that being not only a cultural pattern, but having scriptural reference to it as well. Not so much where you have a direct command that would prohibit a woman from being able to move out and have a career and those kinds of things. And you see no prohibition like that. And you see no clear command like that. So that's why I say there are exceptions to this, but the general pattern seems to be that. There's different places in scripture that demonstrate that. Yes? Are there specific examples that we are given Older women? So the difficulty is in the first century everybody got married. So I mean culturally until Paul, this is so foreign for Paul to say stay single, but culturally you don't have examples because At very young ages, women were getting married, almost entirely. So in Galatians, you have a principle there that says man is under tutors and governors until the time appointed by the father. You could assume then that the woman is also appointed by the father, at least that. And it's sort of funny. I was just listening to a podcast today of a pastor who who is pastoring in the United Arab Emirates. And he was pastoring in the United States. And they were talking about this whole idea of leadership in the church and the issue of actually men being in leadership in the church versus women and men being elders versus women not being biblically allowed to be elders. And of course, we know that's clear in Scripture. But he said, you know, this is not a hard thing for people to understand outside the United States. This is not a, you know, you go to nearly anywhere else in the world and this concept is not hard. In the United States, it seems to be a cultural problem. So I think you've got a general pattern, but again, I don't think you can nail it so hard because we don't have a clear command. So there's a lot of things, by the way, that like that. Let me just say it this way. And actually, this is probably a good time to say this when it comes to marriage and family and all this. There are commands in Scripture, and there are examples and patterns in Scripture. Commands don't have exceptions, unless there's contextual exceptions or something, but usually not. Examples have exceptions, but the question is, do we want to be as close as we can to the biblical example? I was talking to somebody about church and how a church should function, for example. Here was the question, and I'll show you the analogy. Should a church encourage baptism before you take communion? That was the question. And should you really say you need to be baptized before you take communion? Answer, I said, yes. Why? Well, you have the biblical example in the New Testament, and once you're saved, you're baptized, and then you're part of the church. Baptism is actually a profession of faith in the New Testament, the first century. That's what the profession is. The idea of somebody being saved, genuinely saved, and not being baptized is a foreign idea in the book of Acts. So we were talking about it, and he said, well, there's no command about that. I said, no, there's no command about it. It's just what is the examples that we find in Scripture? What is the general pattern? So it's not a matter of sin. It's a matter of wisdom when it's not a clear command. And what you have to do is you have to first say, OK, do I want to accept the general pattern and follow it? Or am I only going to, and consider it to be wisdom, or am I only going to really primarily look at the commands, and then the rest of it, I kind of do what I want. There's two ways of looking at that. And if you choose to say, OK, well, I want to follow the general pattern and the examples as wisdom, then that's the basis of really a lot of this discussion when it comes to singleness and family and marriage and all that. There are clear commands that we're just going to follow. But there are other things that we look at and we say, OK, this is a wise way to approach things. Jeff? You mentioned specifically that at that time, pretty much everyone got married. Yeah. So following that pattern of being Right. Right. Well what I mean by following the pattern is, is you look at, you look at principles in Scripture like 1st Corinthians chapter 11, which says the head of the woman is the man. You look at principles like the idea of an appointment by the Father. You sort of look at all those different things, and you extrapolate from that, and you put it all together, and you get this, you know, and you say that generally speaking, this is the best approach, biblically. Okay. Let's see. Couple of more things to advise as far as singles. Put yourself within striking distance of older men and women in the congregation. Singles, teenagers, this is so important. There is a level of wisdom that you really can't get from your own peers. for lack of a better way of saying it. In fact, it's really more important to have people speaking truth into your life that are not in your age group than the people are. It's really important to do that. And as you get older, if you stay single for longer, which is statistically going to happen more likely, remember, don't just stick with people in your own age group. And the idea of elders, there is that role as well. The next section, the next part of identity here is that a single person is a sexual being. Now there's a reason we have truth trackers right now. So we're going to get into this area. So some people think of world religions, this is something that Mark Dever said, he's right. Some people think of world religions as Christianity's main competitors. Yet I think it can be fairly said that the main competitor that Christianity faces today in the West is not Islam or Judaism. It is not atheism or Hinduism. It is eroticism and an increasingly uninhibited search for fulfillment, fulfilling our sexual passions in whatever form we please. I don't even have to defend that statement. Just go online. Actually, don't. And you're going to find that to be the case. Here are some principles. Number one, God created sex. He created sex to be something that's within marriage only. We know that biblically. But a single person should not be ashamed for feeling like he's a sexual person. So how do you deal with this? Number one, be honest and open instead of ashamed and secretive. Now here's what I mean by that. It doesn't mean be honest and open with everybody and their brother. Be honest and open with the right people. But sometimes what happens as a person goes from childhood to teenager, they have all of these feelings and desires and those kinds of things and they close up. And that is a very unbiblical, very unwise thing to do. In fact, in Proverbs 18.1, it actually tells us to avoid doing that. Can somebody go to Proverbs 18.1 and read that? I don't have it here easily. Go ahead, Josh. Okay, so through desire a man having separated himself seeks and ends up following after his desire into foolishness is basically what that's saying. It's a very common thing for a teenager or a young adult to sort of seclude himself and isolate himself and have all of these feelings and thoughts and problems and issues and not be open about them with anybody, try to deal with himself. And here's what will happen ultimately. They will come out somewhere. And the place that they will come out is their friends usually, teenagers particularly. And the problem is, is that they don't have any experience in how to deal with this. And I can't tell you enough, teenagers, when you have these kinds of feelings, number one, the feelings and the temptations even, and the desires are not sinful. Now, if you dwell on certain desires, it becomes sinful. But you need to talk to your parents about this. You need to be open with your parents. Parents, you need to ask your kids. Talk to them. Hey, do you have these desires? This is so important because those who isolate themselves, Satan works in the darkness. He does not want things to be brought out in the light. Now, when I say out in the light, I mean to the right avenues, the right places. Satan works in the darkness, and we do not want that to happen as teenagers. So be very careful about that. That means what happens is, in dealing with this the right way, it prepares you to be able to handle it in the right way, And then, eventually, it's going to help in your marriage as well. But there's other things to say about that in a minute here. Be really careful about temptations that come with a sexually pure life. It is now, in our culture, a foreign idea that a, maybe not so much teenagers, I don't know, young adults for sure, the idea of a young adult that is not sexually active, that's not married, is a foreign idea. And yet, it's a biblical idea. And so you have to be careful about these temptations. One of the greatest dangers of singleness is the ability to isolate yourself. It's easy. When you're married, it's hard to isolate yourself. Let me tell you. You go to bed with the same person every night. You get up with the same person every night. They're always there. I love you. So isolating yourself is not probably going to work very well. However, singleness, you can isolate yourself. You can stay in your room, you're by yourself all the time, you can go elsewhere, you can do it, and the more freedom you have as a single person, freedom is a gift that God's given you, but you use it the wrong way, you isolate yourself, and it's going to be, there's going to be a lot of problems. Those of you have, we'll move on from this one. So, that's dealing with that issue. Bottom line is, teenagers particularly, Make sure you are open with your parents about this. Parents, this should not be faux pas discussion with teenagers. It should not be, oh, I'm just not comfortable. I hear this. Parents, I just don't want to talk about that. Get over it and talk to your kids. I mean, they're going to hear it from somewhere. And teenagers, you need to talk to your parents. This is something that's very, very important to connect with your kids on. And frankly, the earlier probably the better these days. There is something called too early, obviously. But the way as public as this stuff is now, Erring to the side of early is probably a wise idea. You don't have to get into explicit details, but just opening a line of communication about this is something that is important. OK. I was not planning to end on that, but I will. So there's more positive subjects to end on, but I was not planning to. All right. Teenagers, you're dismissed. Good luck with that, Josh. Yeah. Anyway.