White evangelicals feel pretty strongly about marriage. In fact, they were the only religious subgroup analyzed in a Pew Research study in which a majority said that prioritizing marriage and having children is better for society.

So, Annalisa Phillips Wilson explores in a recent CT article, what are Christians doing with the words of Paul in 1 Corinthians 7? “Now to the unmarried and the widows,” he writes in verse 8, “I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I do.”

The goal of Paul’s words, Wilson writes, is the same whether he is talking about marriage or singleness: the pursuit of wholehearted devotion to Jesus. He advises widows who want to remarry to wed a fellow believer and encourages the already married to engage in periods of mutually agreed temporary celibacy for the sake of undistracted ministry. Paul knows as well as we do that most people will get hitched. Whether one does or doesn’t, he wants to see Christians keep Jesus at number one on their affection list.

As we raise children in the knowledge of the Lord, may we take care to help them understand the remarkable joys and difficulties of both marriage and singleness. Above all, may they be sure that full devotion to Christ is the ultimate goal of their lives, whether they ever say “I do” or not.