Singleness from Tim Keller

It's been a while since I mentioned singleness here, so here it is. I have been meaning to visit Redeemer's sermon website since the free sermons went up, and yesterday Ben mentioned some of Tim Keller's sermons, and since work has eased up a little I decided to have a shot at listening to one (you just plain can't listen to a sermon and read something else at the same time, but when I don't have to actually read something, I can catch a lot of it). So I listened to the one on Adoration nearly three times yesterday. And I'm going to listen again - ie, it's good!

Then I noticed that he had sermons on singleness. It's a little myopic perhaps, but I thought I'd give those a go. It's more of a forum, followed by a Q & A than a sermon, and I am still digesting all of it after one listen, but he says some really interesting things about the "relative goodness" of singleness, self-image, mast*urbation even (red face over that word - but what he says here would also apply to por*nography too perhaps I think, and his wife gets in on this one), idolatry (but it's not the run-of-the-mill idolatry stuff), the re-organisation of the "four loves", the way women are like studios and men like one-bedroom apartments in friendships (that was helpful!), whether or not it's "unspiritual" to change situations to meet people, marriage (I don't think you'd need to be single to get a whole lot of stuff out of it), and a response to the question of "what do single people do to grow emotionally then since everyone goes on about the sanctification/maturity that comes in marriage and family" etc. I've sat here with the tissues out and I am definitely going to listen to these again too.

Here's the link that will take you to both. And you can read an article on Tim Keller in the New York Magazine too.