Does Male Discipleship Look Different for Single Men Than for Married Men?

Being a male disciple does not necessarily involve being a Christian husband or father. Discussions of Christian or biblical manhood tend to collapse into discussions of what it means to be a husband and father. If a man is a husband and father (or desires to be), they need to commit to following Jesus by learning to live under his authority. However, “husband” and “father” are subsets of “male.” They are particular roles and relationships that require men to live out their discipleship in unique ways. Notice that discipleship is still the “umbrella” category. In other words, a person can be a good father or husband and not be a disciple. However, a Christian—by definition—is a disciple. We are learning to live under Jesus’s authority. When we are husbands and fathers, we learn to live under his authority within those particular roles and relationships.

Paul’s own singleness is instructive here. In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul does not present singleness as a concession or temporary state that will ultimately and necessarily give way to marriage. He presents it as a gift that permits an undivided focus on the Lord (7:32-35). The single man’s freedom from the divided attention that marriage requires is not a lack of something; it is a different form of the same calling to give himself away for others. His relational context is different than someone who is married, but he is still seeking to be a faithful disciple.

The problem with deriving Christian manhood primarily from the roles of husband and father is our tendency to assume that getting married and having children is a sign of masculinity—an expectation rather than an option. A male elder who has never married is still a male disciple. So is a widower. So is a man who discerns that his calling is to singleness. The instruction Scripture gives to husbands and fathers is not simply useful to men who are husbands and fathers, but it is not intended to serve as a template for all men.

Male discipleship begins with the question: how does a man, in the specific relationships and circumstances he actually occupies, give himself away for others? The form that question takes for a husband is different from the form it takes for a single man. The question, however, is the same.