Audio Transcript

It’s been almost three years since our last episode on dating, Pastor John. You’ve briefly mentioned dating in a couple of episodes since, but there have been no episodes devoted to the topic for a long time — our longest drought ever for such a major theme on the podcast, which you can begin to appreciate by scanning my digest of all those many episodes in the APJ book. I titled that section “On Dating, Romance Idols, and Fornication” (pages 141–65). Much has been said already, but not everything — no. Because you all surprise us with great questions, like this one today: Can a single pastor date within his local church? Should he? Why wouldn’t he?

Here’s the email: “Pastor John, hello! I’m a 23-year-old pastoral intern and MDiv student preparing to enter full-time pastoral ministry soon, sooner than I expected. I’m a single man and find it challenging to date while being on this pastoral track. First, I find many young women intimidated by the stereotypes of the pastor’s wife — stewarding a meager income, maintaining a pristine public image, and ministering to the women in the church. All lofty callings. Second, due to the busy amount of work and school, I meet very few women outside my church. Third, I hesitate to date inside my church, due to my position on the pastoral team. What’s your advice for someone in my situation? Is it appropriate for pastors to use dating apps? And if this is even remotely possible, how would a pastor wisely date within his own church? The closer I get to becoming a pastor, the smaller the possibility of marriage appears to me. Your wisdom and encouragement would be greatly appreciated.”

Well, I’m just smiling here, because I think 95 percent of our listeners are not in this category of being a pastor (or almost a pastor) who would like help in finding a wife, but I’m betting 90 percent of them are not going to turn this off. They wonder, What is Pastor John going to say? And so I’m wondering that too. Only I get a chance to turn this off and think about it.

I’m going to focus on the young pastor himself, not just the seminary student or the apprentice. I know that’s where he is, but I’m just thinking about a young pastor. He comes right in — maybe he’s an associate or a youth pastor, or maybe he’s the senior pastor at age 27 or 28 — and he’s single, and he’d like to be married. What do I have to say to him? And I’m going to start and end with the glorious truth of God’s mysterious providence.

1. Believe in God’s providence.

There are two mysteries of God’s providence that I never cease to be amazed at. I’m amazed at all of them, but these two just blow me away. One is the mystery of how God in his providence calls people into full-time, vocational, Christian service in the church or on the mission field. How does that happen? This strikes me as astonishing and glorious. One year, here’s a person studying in school — maybe a junior, senior, or maybe high school, or maybe serving in a trade or a profession selling shoes, for example, like one of our missionaries did. And then ten years later, there they are — a devoted, full-time, lifelong missionary in a distant, hard place. How in the world did that happen? What did God do to make that happen?

The other mystery is how God in his providence brings a man and a woman together from who knows where — a thousand miles apart, ten thousand — in such a way that they come to know each other, trust each other, love each other so deeply that they get married and live together for sixty years. I look back on how I came to meet and fall in love with Noël, my wife, as a totally unexpected, undeserved, inexplicable gift of providence.

So, that’s where I’m starting. And I just want to say to young pastors, single pastors, believe that. Believe in the providence of God. He is up to something. Yes, he is, in ways you can’t even see.

2. Seek a ministry-minded woman.

The next thing I would say to this young pastor or aspiring pastor is that if a woman is put off by the thought of being a part of your full-time ministry, she’s not the right woman. You want a woman who will not just tolerate your calling, your burden, your passion, your risks in ministry, but a woman who loves the thought of throwing her life into that with you. This is what God has been making her to be. She wants to share that kind of life, walking on the edge of eternity — with all of its difficulties and risks and challenges.

And you can believe — yes, you can — God is raising up many such women in our day. He’s always been doing this — women who want to find and be found by a trustworthy, strong, kind lover of God who wants to live his life radically in the service of Christ. That’s what they want. She’s been dreaming about this. She wants to live that kind of life herself, and she would love to do it with a like-minded husband. Believe that; wait for that. She’s out there.

3. Ask for help from your church.

The third thing I would say is this: be realistic and mature and candid with your fellow church leaders — the older, mature, trusted fellow pastors or laypeople. Tell them how you’re thinking, how you’re feeling, how you’re hoping, and ask them to partner with you in praying and working toward a happy outcome of finding God’s woman for you. Now, if this sounds pragmatic rather than romantic, it is. Finding a compatible Christian spouse ought to be a practical community project involving family and church, not a secretive solitary quest. Just get over that. That’s not the way you need to think about it.

When I say “ask for their help,” I mean ask them first to pray. Oh my goodness. Over the last fifty years, I have prayed specifically with many young men especially. They’re the ones who feel most free, I think, to come forward after a service and tell me, “I want to be married. Would you pray with me?” And I prayed with them. All the ones I can remember are married. There’s no shame in this to go to a friend or a pastor and say, “Pray that God would lead me to the woman that I could spend my life with.”

“Lots of couples meet because they follow their ministry heart on some venture and discover each other in the process.”

And besides prayer, I mean ask your leaders for their counsel. Ask them to keep their eyes open in regards to their near and far networks. My wife kept her eyes open at our church for husbands, for example, for her sisters. And she introduced three of her sisters to the men they married at our church, and she did it very intentionally. This was quite intentional. Yes, it can be awkward, but it can be glorious. It can be glorious. Be a mature, confident young man. This will not be your last brush with awkwardness. So grow up, put your big boy pants on, and be confident that these folks are for you and can help you in this process.

4. Consider apps with caution.

The fourth thing I would say is that I’m not opposed in principle to dating apps. How you go about meeting a person is not nearly as crucial as how you go about discerning that person’s character. That’s another challenge, and it’s not going to happen on an app. But I would offer this caution: it seems to me that a pastor is a fairly public person, and the secrecy surrounding the use of dating apps could tarnish your reputation as one who wants to be totally candid with his church and especially with his leaders. Now, that’s not a veto — I don’t have a veto vote here against dating apps — but it is a caution. I would give preference to the open networks that you have rather than to secret ones.

5. Give yourself to ministry.

The fifth thing I would say is this: pursue various ministry ventures, like short-term mission trips (you might lead them or just go on them) or mercy-ministry ventures (hurricane in New Orleans, and your church packs a bus full and goes down to help put sandbags up or rescue houses) or educational tours where the nature of the venture might be self-selecting. In all these ministries that you go on, they might be self-selecting for the kind of woman that would go on it too. Lots of couples meet because they follow their ministry heart on some venture and discover each other in the process.

6. Rest in God’s providence.

And finally, I would return to God’s mysterious and wonderful providence.

I have seen God lead two people together in the most unlikely ways. For example, two people at our church both wanted to be in missions, both were single, and both wanted to be married. They didn’t know each other. They surrendered. They just said, “Okay, it’s over. We probably won’t get married.” They gave themselves utterly to the mission. Both of them were sent by various missions, posted to one of the hardest places on the globe. And guess what? They discovered each other there after they had basically surrendered and said, “Well, it didn’t happen at home. It’s sure not going to happen on the mission field.” And that was not true.

So, trust God’s mysterious providence. Focus on doing your ministry with all your might. Walk through the doors he puts in front of you. Pray without ceasing. And trust God’s good timing.

Part 7 Episode 176 When the word of the cross comes to us through faith, it enables us to love what God loves. In this episode of Light + Truth, John Piper opens 1 Peter 2:21–25 and shines light on the transformative power of the gospel.

When we stop to remember that God exists — that he created all that is from nothing; that he sustains everything we know, moment by moment, with just a word from his mouth; that he governs every government on earth; that he entered into his creation, taking on flesh, enduring weakness and temptation, suffering hostility to the point of death, even death on a cross, all to shower us with mercy, cleanse us of our sin, and secure our eternity with him in paradise — it is stunning, isn’t it, that we ignore and neglect him like we do.

Isn’t it amazing that God simply was before time began, and yet we sometimes struggle to find even ten minutes for him? Isn’t it perplexing, bordering on insanity, that we sometimes prefer distracting ourselves with our phones over taking advantage of our breathtaking access to his throne of grace in Christ? Isn’t it kind of unexplainable how we often live as if we do not have time to sit and enjoy God?

It is stunning, amazing, and perplexing, and yet so painfully familiar. Everyone who has followed Jesus knows what it is like to be distracted from following Jesus. That means we all, every one of us, can sympathize with anxious Martha.

Distracted by Fear

When Martha saw that Jesus had come to town, she welcomed him into the home where she and her sister lived (Luke 10:38). When Mary saw Jesus, she immediately sat down at his feet, and hung on his every word (Luke 10:39). “But Martha,” Luke tells us, “was distracted with much serving” (Luke 10:40).

To her credit, she was not distracted with little serving, but with much serving. And it’s hard for some of us to be too hard on her. She was hosting the Messiah — Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace — and she alone was preparing the food. Mary realized who Jesus was, and sat down to listen. Martha realized who Jesus was, and ran to do all she could for him.

The serving itself was not the problem — or at least not the main problem — especially given the social expectations for hospitality in her day. What, then, was the problem? Anxiety was consuming Martha. When she complained to Jesus that Mary was not helping her, he responded, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things” (Luke 10:41). Her grumbling had opened wide a window into her heart. Love was not inspiring her to serve; anxiety was. Her turmoil was driven by misplaced fear. How often is this true of us?

And not just a fear, but many fears. “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things.” This wasn’t just about hospitality. Martha was distracted from Jesus because her mind was drowning in the cares of this world. And because she would not stop and listen to Jesus, she was forfeiting the calm she so desperately needed.

One Necessary Thing

Jesus knows how to still the raging waves of anxiety. Notice that he says her name not once, but twice: “Martha, Martha . . .” You can almost hear him slowing down the second time. He uses his voice, like a brake, to slowly quiet the turbulence in her heart. He knows how distracted she is, how wildly her mind is racing from one worry to another, and so he begins by helping her focus: “Martha, Martha . . .”

“You are anxious and troubled about many things,” he goes on to say, “but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her” (Luke 10:41–42). In just two short sentences, he confronts her sinful anxiety — our sinful anxiety — with necessity, then felicity, and lastly security.

Necessity

“You are troubled about many things,” he says, “but one thing is necessary.” In other words, everything that feels so pressing, so critical, so overwhelming is ultimately unnecessary next to hearing and knowing Jesus. Her fears screamed the opposite: What will we serve him? What will he think about the food? How will this compare with other places he’s visited? Did the neighbors notice Jesus came to our house? Why isn’t Mary helping me? We don’t know what precise anxieties were harassing Martha, but we know they were many — and that each concern insisted it was essential and urgent. Only one thing, however, was truly necessary.

“Satan will try to make everything feel more urgent than sitting down to be with Jesus.”

Hundreds of years before Martha was born, King David had already learned this lesson: “One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple” (Psalm 27:4). He said this while evildoers assailed him (verse 2), and armies encamped against him (verse 3), and lies and threats fell like arrows all around him (verse 12). In other words, he had every reason to fear, and yet even then, he knew the one thing he must do: seek the Lord.

Satan will try to make everything feel more urgent than sitting down to be with Jesus. But in the end, only one thing is truly necessary. And it’s not the hard conversation you’re dreading, or the pile of deadlines at work, or some distant drama on social media, or the exam you need to pass next week, or the debt you’re afraid you’ll never pay off. One thing is necessary — today, tomorrow, next Tuesday, and every day after — to know, obey, and enjoy Jesus.

Felicity

The necessity of this one pursuit, however, does not make it an unhappy pursuit. “One thing is necessary,” Jesus says. “Mary has chosen the good portion.” While it might seem like Mary had abandoned her responsibilities and left her sister out to dry, she actually had chosen wisely and lovingly.

For choosing the one necessary thing, Mary received the good portion. Necessary was no sacrifice for her; it was all gain. She was drinking from a well that would never run dry, feasting from an overflowing table, swimming in an ocean of hope and peace and joy. Because his presence was her portion, her portion was not just right, but good. Her sitting and listening said what the apostle Paul would one day say in Philippians 3:8: “I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.”

“One thing is necessary — today, tomorrow, next Tuesday, and every day after — to know, obey, and enjoy Jesus.”

Martha, meanwhile, was drinking from another well that day — one that left her even more thirsty. While the fountain of living water sat in her living room, she feverishly carved out cisterns for herself, “broken cisterns that can hold no water” (Jeremiah 2:13). That’s how the fear of man oppresses us: it begs and pleads for our attention, but is never satisfied. Fear breeds fear breeds fear. But the good fountain — the good portion — breeds peace and contentment, quenches our thirsts, satisfies our longings, and gives our souls rest. Necessity, for Mary and for us, is also felicity.

Security

Lastly, this necessary and happy pursuit is also profoundly safe. “Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.” Not only has Mary chosen wisely, sitting at his feet to receive his words, but she has chosen happiness. And not just any happiness, but a full and abundant happiness that no person or circumstance could ever take from her. Is there any better word to a heart distracted by worry? The good I will give you, you will never, ever lose.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? . . . No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:35, 37–39)

Have the cares of this world distracted you from sitting at the feet of Jesus? Have your fears left you feeling restless, insecure, unstable? The God of the universe is still speaking, right now, in his word. Hear his voice calling your name today, bidding you to come and enjoy the one necessary thing, the one satisfying thing, the one safe thing. You have time to sit with God.