4 Things You Did NOT Know the Bible Said About “The One”

According to the Bible, is there such a thing as “the one”? Does the Bible actually use the words “the one”? And if there is such a thing as “the one,” how does God expect us to locate this person?

By studying Genesis 24:14, we will discuss 4 biblical truths about the one that many Christians have never been taught.

1. Most People Don’t Know that the Bible Uses the Phrase “The One”

Have you ever heard someone say, “The Bible never talks about the one!” or “There is no such thing as the one!” Well, let’s read Genesis 24:14 and see whether these claims are true. In context, this is a prayer to God by Abraham’s servant who was sent to find a wife for Isaac. It states:

Let the young woman to whom I shall say, ‘Please let down your jar that I may drink,’ and who shall say, ‘Drink, and I will water your camels’—let her be the one whom you have appointed for your servant Isaac. By this I shall know that you have shown steadfast love to my master.” (ESV)

Here is a direct, word-for-word example of the Bible using the phrase “the one” when specifically talking about God appointing someone’s spouse.

In the NIV, it states, “let her be the one you have chosen for your servant Isaac.” In the NLT it says, “let her be the one you have selected as Isaac’s wife.”

In Hebrew, the word represented by the English words “appointed,” “chosen,” and “selected” is yāḵaḥ. This word appears throughout Scripture in contexts involving judgment, reproof, and dispute resolution.

In Genesis 21:25, Abraham “reproved” Abimelech regarding a disputed well—a situation involving confrontation over a contested claim. Similarly, in Genesis 31:37, Jacob invites his kinsmen and Laban’s kinsmen to “decide between us two,” establishing the word’s judicial dimension.

The phrase “the one” shows that yāḵaḥ is functioning as a participle. A participle is a word derived from a verb that functions as an adjective (to modify nouns). So the verb is appointed; God appointed Rebekah to be Isaac’s wife. Thus, Rebekah is described by the action God has produced.  She is “the appointed one” for Isaac.

In addition to Genesis 24:14 directly referring to a specific woman being chosen as a specific man’s wife, there are many more verses in Scripture that highlight God’s sovereignty over everything. For example, Ephesians 1:11 states, “In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will . . .”

The Greek phrase for “all things” is “ta panta”. It refers to “all things: the whole universe and everything it contains”—which includes both the visible and invisible realms under Christ’s authority and God’s sovereign rule.

Therefore, to say that God is not sovereign when it comes to who you marry is to say that God is not sovereign over all things, which would directly contradict Scripture.

So next time someone says, “The Bible doesn’t talk about the one!” tell them to read Genesis 24:14 and Ephesians 1:11.

2. Most People Don’t Know “The One” Chosen By God for You Will Still Produce Problems in Your Life

The reason so many people get irritated when I use the phrase “the one” is that they don’t understand how God can be sovereign over imperfect things. They look at how messed up so many relationships are and conclude, “There’s no way God is sovereign over this! God would never choose for this to happen!”

Scripture says two things are true that we often think can’t both be true. We know bad things happen and thus we think this means God cannot be in total control. Or we believe that God is in total control, but he must not be very loving since bad things happen. However, Scripture states that, one, God is all loving and in total control, and, two, bad things still happen.

God never causes sin (James 1:13); however, he is still sovereign over sin. He doesn’t make people do bad things, but even when they choose to do bad things, he is still sovereign over the outcomes. Proverbs 16:9 (NLT), “We can make our plans, but the Lord determines our steps.” Proverbs 16:33 (NLT), “We may throw the dice, but the Lord determines how they fall.”

For example, when people murdered Jesus on the cross, that was a sin they chose to commit. And yet, the crucifixion was ordained by God. Acts 2:23 states, “ . . . this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.”

Thus, while Scripture is clear that God appoints who we marry, the human mind often rejects this idea because it can’t reconcile how God might put people together who end up having so many problems.

The truth is, the phrase “the one” and the idea of God sovereignly ordaining everything that happens does not mean God will put you with someone that is perfect for you, like a soulmate. Rather, the term “the one” is just a phrase that I use to mean “the person God has planned for you to marry.”

This is a big topic! For more information, you may want to read my article called If God Ordains Who We Marry, Why Do Divorces Still Happen?

For now, I just want to highlight what many people were never taught. God can still direct two people to get married while fully knowing that those two people will have problems in marriage. Just because there is such a thing as “the one” does not mean there is such a thing as “the perfect one.”

Humans still sin and make bad choices with their own free will. And God still wants us to follow him and figure out who he has chosen for us to marry. Just as we can’t fully comprehend the facts of the Trinity, but we can accept them, so too must we seek to accept the biblical facts of God’s sovereign rule and man’s free will not violating each other even though we can’t fully comprehend how this is possible.

3. Most People Don’t Know There’s Not a One-Size-Fits-All Approach to Finding “The One”

Let’s back up a bit. I’m not saying that every story in the Bible is meant to be an exact blueprint to follow. The story of Isaac and Rebekah illustrates many biblical principles we can follow, but it is not meant to be an exact blueprint.

So while there is this idea of “the one” clearly stated in Genesis 24:14, this does not mean we should set up a test like Abraham’s servant did. Rather, we should look at this passage and try to identify certain principles that we can apply to our own lives. For example:

• Scripture routinely tells us to ask God for guidance (Proverbs 3:5-6). And just as the servant asked God for guidance to find Isaac’s wife (Genesis 24:14), so too should we ask God for guidance to lead us to “the one.”
• Scripture repeatedly teaches that inner character is more important than external appearance (Matthew 23:25-26). And just as the servant used a test to figure out if Rebekah had selfless character (Genesis 24:13-14), so too should we seek to choose a spouse by looking more at the internal rather than the external.
• Scripture routinely highlights God’s sovereign power to accomplish his will (Ephesians 1:11) while also encouraging humans to obey God because we reap what we sow (Galatians 6:7-9). Like the servant, we should ask God to produce his will (Genesis 24:14) and see how other humans use their free wills (Genesis 24:8). Remember, even though God selected Rebekah for Isaac (Genesis 24:14, 44), she was still free to choose her own husband (Genesis 24:58).

Most people don’t know how to properly apply these truths about God sovereignly ordaining the one. They imagine that either God has ordained our spouses, thus we must follow God perfectly, or else we can miss the one; or they imagine that God is not sovereign over who we marry, and thus we are solely responsible for either finding or missing a spouse.

The truth is, however, that God is sovereign, and this fact should embolden us to use our free wills even more. Like with evangelizing, the fact that God appoints certain people to salvation is not a reason to not evangelize but rather the reason we can have confidence that our evangelizing will be effective, so too can you take the fact that God is sovereign over your relationships and use this knowledge to act even more biblically and wisely, knowing it doesn’t all depend on you to be perfect.

4. Most People Don’t Know Other People Will Play a Crucial Role in the Formation of Your Future Union

As Americans, we have a very individualistic mindset toward relationships. While I’m not proposing we should resort to arranged marriages as was the custom in Genesis 24, I do think we should see the biblical principle that God uses other people in our love stories.

Remember, it was the servant who helped Isaac and Rebekah find each other. Likewise, many people think that finding “the one” is all up to you. But as Christians, we should rarely think that anything should be done alone. We are a part of the body of Christ. We need each other.

So, some people can’t find the one because they don’t have a Christian community. They don’t have friends introducing them to other friends who might end up being something more. They don’t have mentors to correct them and give them wise relationship advice. They don’t have pastors giving them biblical meat they can apply to their relationship questions.

As 1 Peter 4:10 states, “As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace . . .”

For more on this topic, you may want to check out my book called The One: How to Know and Trust God’s Sovereign Plan for Your Future Marriage.