God: "I looked for someone to take a stand for me, and stand in the gap" (Ezekiel 22:30)
To love the soul is to really love. To pet and pamper and indulge your child, as if this world was all he had to look forward to, and this life the only period of happiness—to do this is not true love, but cruelty. It is treating him like some beast of the earth, which has only one world to look to, and nothing after death. It is hiding from him that grand truth, which he ought to be made to learn from his very infancy—that the number one goal of his life is the salvation of his soul.
First, there is no “gift of singleness” if by gift we mean a supernatural outpouring accompanied by some kind of revelation that it is God’s hidden will that you remain single all your days. I would suggest that there are two proper ways to speak of this gift. First, if you are single, you have the gift of singleness... The “gift” of which Paul speaks is the freedom that comes to us when we are not burdened with pleasing our spouse... Second, I believe we can speak of the gift of singleness if by that we simply mean a lack of a current pressing need to marry. I too have this kind of the gift at present. I am sympathetic to men who are eager to marry, or in certain circumstances, to remarry. But I do not at present share that urgency. Indeed I honestly can’t imagine remarrying. I am savvy enough, however, to know that this could change in a moment. God’s Word gives me liberty. If the desire comes to marry I would be without sin to do so. I would not be turning up my nose at some kind of pseudo-charismatic “gift” God had given me. I’d be giving thanks for the wife He would be giving me.
