Getting Serious About Getting Married: Rethinking the Gift of Singleness

By Debbie Maken

Book Overview

Singleness is a "gift"; at least that's what we've been taught. But if singleness is a gift, then why does it make us feel so miserable so often? Does God really want his children to embrace a gift they resent so much? Debbie Maken proposes that marriage is the fundamental design and structure for life that God chose for hisp people. She argues that the church needs to reemphasize the importance of the gift of marriage. This book issues a challenge to churches in their teaching and attitudes toward singleness and to believers in their understanding of God's intentions regarding marriage. Book jacket.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1581347413
• ISBN13: 9781581347418
• Release Date: January 2006
• Publisher: Crossway Books
• Length: 208 Pages
• Weight: 0.58 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.3" x 0.5" x 5.3"

Customer Reviews

This book gave me my faith back.

I was a convert to Evangelical Christianity at the age of 21. For years, I struggled with the "Gift of Singleness" teachings and prevailing attitudes in the Evangelical church. I could not bring myself to believe this doctrine was of God. I no longer attend Evangelical churches, but after reading this book, I realized that the modern interpretations of the "Gift of Singleness" doctrines are not Biblical. It was very liberating to realize that I can still believe in the Bible's teaching that salvation is by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone--without also having to buy into the "Gift of Singleness" garbage. There are so many voices in the Evangelical world that make it seem as if you have to accept BOTH, or you're not Christian. (Or, rather, you're not a "Good" Christian.) I wish the Evangelical people all the luck in the world solving their problems regarding the lack of men and particularly single men in the Evangelical church. If Evangelicals are smart, they will at least read this book and consider what Mrs. Maken has to say.

Insightful and Honest

Stumbled upon this book at the local B & N. I highly highly recommend this book. It was brutally honest, insightful, and at times funny. I know the book is geared towards women, but men will also find it a fascinating read.

A Must Read

Here is the Candice Z. Watters (www.boundless.org) book review in its entirety. Getting to Marriage: What You Can Do by Candice Z. Watters "You are not wrong to pursue marriage." So reads the last line in the final chapter of Debbie Maken's book, Getting Serious about Getting Married. It's a shocking book, one she admits you'll either love or hate. But in our culture marked by unprecedented protracted singleness, it's necessary. And if large numbers of single women read it and follow her advice, it may not be too late for them to have husbands and children of their own. This is a message whose time has come. And yet, it's so bold and so challenging as to seem unbelievable. Maken reminds me of Lucy in C.S. Lewis' Prince Caspian. Though the whole company of her siblings and Trumpkin the dwarf are desperate for help, especially from the lion Aslan, Lucy is the only one who sees him. And though she does not at first follow him for the nay saying of her brothers and sister, she finally defies their disbelief and leaves to follow him. It's not until her siblings have followed begrudgingly (not willing to let her run off alone) for some distance that their eyes open and they finally begin to see the presence of the great lion. In this case, Maken has seen through the disbelief that our current dating system could be anything but good, and is following the design of the one who created us for marriage in the first place. Not only does she identify what's wrong with the dating system -- how it gives all the advantage to men, leaving women little hope of marrying -- she tells you what you can do about it. This book is like nothing you've read. For all the hundreds and thousands of Christian books about being single, this one is different. Most of those books say if you're single beyond your expectations, it must be God's will -- His gift (1 Corinthians 7) -- for you, and your joy will come when you learn to be content with the lot you've been given. Many then go on to detail the best ways to enjoy your singleness, to make the most of it, to, in the words of one author, be "single, sassy and satisfied." Some even build up singleness by tearing marriage down. "Marriage is hard," they write. "Better to be single than wish you were." Maken debunks all these myths and more including "Jesus is all you need," "Being single equals knowing and serving God better," "Single equals celibate," and "Wait on the Lord." She is not so easily duped. She blows away the smoke, encouraging readers to go back to Genesis 1 and 2 to understand why God made marriage -- in response to our loneliness -- and who He intends it for -- most everyone. Far from concluding that someone who's single must have the gift of singleness, and need only to learn to be content with it, Maken believes that "The reason singleness is disappointing, lets us down, and leaves us wanting more is because singleness isn't what God intended" (p. 28). She urges readers to consider the qualifi

Finally, a book that addresses the real issues facing single Christian women!

This is THE book that single Christian women have been waiting for. As the author points out, the number of singles in our generation has tripled or quadrupled, leaving us with the questions of how, why, and what do we do about it now? This book explores the Biblical answers to these questions and corrects decades of erroneous teachings of the modern-day church about singleness. The best quality of this book is that it doesn't read like either a dry seminary thesis or a lightweight pop psychology article. The author is able to analyze the historical and Biblical texts necessary to understand the origins and root causes of the issues and at the same time to fully empathize with the reader's feelings of discontentment, loneliness, frustration, etc. She knows all the glib responses offered by the current broken model driven primarily by popular culture, and soundly refutes each of them. I am so glad that I didn't listen to the "quick and dirty" negative reviews of this insightful work. Anyone that reads this book carefully and thoughtfully will see that (1) the author offers accurate and thorough research and interpretation of the Bible, commentaries, and writings by time-honored theologians like John Calvin and Martin Luther, (2) the author is not simply trying to impose her own married lifestyle on others, since she clearly became convicted about this topic during her own struggles with singleness, (3) the author does not promote rushing into marriage, idolizing marriage as a cure-all, or entering into an arranged marriage; she merely advocates that "it is better to live by what God has intended in regard to marriage than to miss out on its intended fullness because we've seen some unhappy marriages" and (4) the author's advice to single women is both extremely practical and Biblically-based and attacks the problem at its source.

WHY THIS BOOK IS IMPORTANT

It would be easy to pan this book for its judgemental "smug married" stance and its implausibly retrogressive solutions to the current (non)marriage crisis facing single Christian women, but that would miss the point. Most evangelical writers would rather blame this problem on the larger culture and all it's fleshly temptations, but FINALLY there's someone out there with the moxie to go beyond culture wars and straight to the heart of the matter: REALLY, REALLY BAD CHURCH TEACHINGS! Oh c'mon! How many of you haven't been told to just "wait on the Lord" for your mate to come along? Or that "Jesus is all you need"? Or that "maybe isn't God's will for you marry"? Debbie Maken blows these zingers right out of the water, showing that they have little or no biblical basis, that earlier Christians encouraged much more agency in finding a spouse, and that this kind of hyper-spiritual teaching has been an absolute failure in the way that it has immobilized earnest people whose desire for marriage is unfairly and unnecessarily pitted against their desire to please God. These are not rare exceptions. All you need to do is take a look at a handful of Christian singles discussion boards to see the mass confusion about God's will/sovereignty in regards to mate finding and see the damage done in the way of magical thinking, disillusionment, inertia, ambivilence, missed opportunities, and guilt, guilt, guilt. Church leaders must examine the bitter fruits of these teachings (which originate in the excesses of late 20th century born-again fever and its promises of special revelations galore) and own up to these unintended consequences. Despite an impressive chapter on the historical views of marriage and singleness, Maken omits this more recent aspect of church history. She also glosses over the shortage of men in our churches of which Lauren Winner said "is real and has historical precedent". Certainly, the dwindling number of single men who are in our churches right now cannot bear the burden for all the surplus single women yearning for husbands, an issue addressed by David Murrow of churchformen.com. Despite its limitations, I give this book five stars because it's the only work out there to date that dares to even speak of these "no-go" zones. Its lesson is clear: church teachings that overemphasize special revelation for the individual can interfere with the fulfillment of general revelation or God's revealed will for his people, as written in the scriptures. The outcome can be devastating not only for the individuals oppressed in their God-given yearnings for families, but for the church body whose very existence depends on the creation of those families.