‘I don’t feel called to celibacy.’
I’ve heard various people say this or something similar. One place where I’ve heard it recently is from Christians who believe same-sex sexual relationships are acceptable to God. The argument is made that the celibacy is a special calling, given to only a few. They say that since many gay people don’t feel called to celibacy, and don’t feel able to enter into an opposite-sex marriage, God couldn’t possibly deny them access to a marriage with someone of the same sex. There may be some people – straight and gay – who are called to celibacy, but many aren’t and so marriage must be open to all.
I think this argument has a few problems, but one of them is the way it thinks about being called to celibacy. A calling to be celibate isn’t primarily something you ‘feel’ or even ‘discern’; it’s usually something you receive through your circumstances.
Single people don’t need to feel or discern a special calling to celibacy; the call is already there in Scripture: all single people are called to be celibate.
God’s good plan for sexuality reserves sex for marriage unions of one man and one woman. This is the consistent teaching of Scripture. It’s not a pointless restriction on human pleasure but is rooted in God’s plan and purpose for human sexuality. The outworking of this for any of us who are not in an opposite-sex marriage is that we are to live celibately if we want to be obedient to God. Single people don’t need to feel or discern a special calling to celibacy; the call is already there in Scripture: all single people are called to be celibate.
This isn’t to deny that some people might sense God calling them to forgo entering into an opposite-sex marriage for the sake of his kingdom, even though their experience of sexuality and other circumstances might make such a marriage feel perfectly possible. This would seem to be the third group of unmarried people that Jesus talks about in Matthew 19:12. In this sense, some people might feel God calling them to celibacy, but this doesn’t change the fact that all single people have already been called to celibacy.
Lots of us have been called to celibacy through our circumstances. And this shouldn’t surprise us. In the same verse that Jesus indicates some will choose to forgo marriage for the sake of God’s kingdom, he indicates that others will be single because of circumstances out of their control (the first two types of eunuch in Matthew 19:12). The call to celibacy has just as much been given to those of us who find ourselves single due to circumstance as those who choose to be single for the sake of the kingdom (Matthew 19:11).
Whatever the reason behind our singleness, faithfulness to God as a single person calls us to celibacy.
There are lots of us who find ourselves single by circumstance. For some, it’s because though we might long to marry someone of the opposite sex, that hasn’t become a reality. For others, it may be because we find ourselves single again through divorce or the death of a spouse. For people like me, it might be because we are attracted to people of the same sex and don’t feel able to enter into an opposite-sex marriage. There are different circumstances, often out of our control, that can leave us single, but whatever the reason behind our singleness, faithfulness to God as a single person calls us to celibacy.
And it’s this fact that renders the argument made in favour of same-sex relationships so problematic. The gift of singleness is not a special, rare calling to an otherwise impossible situation. Living a faithful celibate life is not impossible, or even unusual or undesirable. God does not give us commands that we cannot fulfil through the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. New Testament teaching has no space for the concept of single people – whether gay or straight – to whom God hasn’t given what it takes to live a celibate life. All of us as Christians are freed from the power of sin (Romans 6) and are empowered to live faithfully by the power of the Spirit (Romans 8 and Galatians 5).
The calling to celibacy isn’t an exception; it’s the norm for single people. And that means many more of us have been called to celibacy than we might realise. We don’t need to feel or discern it; often we just need to receive it.