“Jesus answered, ‘Have you not read that he created them from the beginning, made them male and female and said, therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife and the two shall become one flesh so they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together let not man separate.'”
– Matthew 19:4–6
“But Jesus said to them, ‘Not everyone can receive this saying, but only those to whom it is given. For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let the one who is able to receive this, receive it.'”
– Matthew 19:11–12
So the reason I read both of these passages is because the first talks about marriage and God’s good design for marriage and the need to protect marriage, this one-flesh union between a man and a woman that God joins together and the beauty of marriage for the display of the gospel.
Matthew 19:4–12 Shows the beauty of both marriage and singleness
The context here is Jesus teaching on divorce and the need to protect marriage and nurture marriage. So that’s verses four through six. And then you get to verses 11 and 12, and Jesus talks about singleness and specifically singleness for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven and the beauty of singleness for the sake of the Kingdom. And so we have this picture that we see all throughout Scripture. I wish we had more time to dive into this, that there is a beauty in marriage for the display of the gospel of the kingdom and there’s a beauty in singleness for the display of the Gospel of the Kingdom.
Everybody who’s listening to this right now is in one of those pictures. Either you are married or you are single. And I want to lead us to pray that whether we are married or single, that God would show the beauty and the power of the gospel through our marriages and through our singleness. So God, we pray as single children of yours and as married children of yours, and we pray that you would help us to thrive in whatever station we are in right now. God, for married children of yours, my married brothers and sisters and even my own life and my own marriage, God, we pray for your protection. We pray for your nourishment. We pray for your help.
Matthew 19:4–12 Encourages us to pray for our married and single brethren
God, I pray for marriages right now that are struggling. God, I pray that you would give grace and help and strength and wisdom. That you would provide restoration and reconciliation and renewed intimacy. And God, I pray for cultivation of that type of intimacy in every way. Just a relational, spiritual, physical, emotional intimacy, one-flesh union that reflects the beauty of the gospel, that reflects your relationship, Jesus, with the church. God, we pray for that in our marriages and help us to work toward that end. We pray for your help toward that end.
And then, God, I pray for single brothers and sisters. I praise you for your grace in singleness and for the beauty and the power. When I think about 1 Corinthians 7 of singleness for the sake of the kingdom, of how there’s a beauty in the gospel that’s on display that says Jesus is totally sufficient for me and for the way you have blessed, used, both in scripture and throughout church history, single brothers and sisters in ways that have resounded to your glory among the nations. God, we pray for your blessing, for your strength, for your help in every way for our single brothers and sisters that they might thrive for the kingdom of heaven.
God, we all say that together, we want to thrive for the kingdom of heaven. We want to thrive for the spread of the gospel in our marriages and in our singleness, right where we live and among the nations.
Praying for the Ambalavasi People
God, use us as married couples, as single brothers and sisters for the spread of the gospel in the world to the Ambalavasi people of India, hundreds of thousands of these Hindu men and women and children. God, we pray for the transformation of marriages and singleness among the Ambalavasi people. And we pray that you would raise up married couples to go and show the power of the gospel among them. We pray that you would raise up single brothers and sisters to go and to show the power of the gospel among the Ambalavasi people. And we pray that for the spread of your gospel right around us and all around the world. God help us to thrive in marriage or in singleness for the sake of your kingdom. In Jesus name we pray according to Matthew 19:4–6 and 11–12. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
