The Promise of Procreation

In the last post we touched on the idea that one of the primary purposes for our sexuality is procreation. God's desire is for men and women to join together in holy matrimony, to become one flesh, and in that union to bring new life into the world. This vision of the family has been a foundation stone of the Christian faith and of Western civilization for centuries. In our modern context, even among Christians we have come to accept that birth control is acceptable and even good, but this is clearly in contradiction of what the Bible and historic Christian teaching has held.

Even a casual reading of the Bible indicates that children are a blessing and should be received with joy. Psalm 127:3-5 reads, "Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate."  Not too long ago I heard a conservative pastor on the radio commenting on this passage in a scoffing way, "Exactly how many is a 'quiver-full'?"  Dismissing the idea that the Bible supports the idea that having a large number of children is a good thing.

I think we can read this passage and understand that God is not looking for a certain number of children, the point is that children are a blessing, and more children are more of blessing. If an archer is heading to battle, the more arrows he has in his quiver the happier he is. He may only have one or two and will make do with that, but if he can get his hands on more, he will. He most certainly will not say no to more arrows and cut off his supply of arrows. This is the attitude the Bible tells us that married couples should have toward children, we should never intentionally say no to them.

These verses teach us as well, if we want to increase our happiness, we should seek to increase the number of children in our family. In our society, it is odd, many couples, in their pursuit of happiness, choose to limit or completely remove the thing that God has promised will grant them just that. They believe that they will be happier with fewer children or no children when the exact opposite is true. Today the mentality seems to be, "Children bring happiness, but not too many children. Too many children are a burden!"  We live in a culture that has taught us to be very selfish and self-centered, that the purpose of our life is to achieve self-actualization and self-satisfaction, and anything or anyone who gets in the way of that is at best a nuisance, if not an oppressor, children included. So, if an unwanted child begins to grow in the womb, we simply abort it, we cannot have that tiny person interfering with our self-actualization.

Many people believe that the key to happiness and fulfillment is found by looking within, by pursuing our own interests and selfish desires. So, we chase after careers, hobbies and experiences seeking that fulfillment, and more often than not we come back empty and unsatisfied. The vision of life presented in the Bible teaches us that if we want fulfillment we should seek the well-being of others, we should love God, and then love others. The journey of life is a journey out of ourselves, we surrender our selfish plans and desires and seek to help and bless others, and it is in this process we find desperate joy.

Part of the reason God wants us to have children is to sharpen us and grow us in that grace of love. Children will challenge our patience, reveal our sins and character defects, and motivate us to change and become better men and women. They expand our hearts to love more and to love more deeply. As we see our children growing in joy, our joy overflows as well.

In Genesis 33:5 we find this exchange between Jacob and Esau, "And [Esau] lifted up his eyes, and saw the women and the children; and said, Who are those with thee? and [Jacob] said, The children which God hath graciously given thy servant."  I do not have the space to break down the context here, but clearly Jacob realized that the fact that he had many children was a wonderful gift from God. God's gifts are always good and should be welcomed with gratitude. This is most especially true of children.

Scripture time and again tells us that children are a blessing. "Blessed is everyone that feareth the Lord; that walketh in his ways. For thou shalt eat the labor of thine hands: happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee. Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thine house: thy children like olive plants round about thy table. Behold, that thus shall the man be blessed that feareth the Lord." (Psalm 128:1-4) Most of us would say that we want to be blessed by God, so we work hard for the Lord, go to church, perhaps even donate time and money to the service of the Lord. It seems crazy to me, that we will do all that, and then cut off one of the primary ways in which God wants to bless us. We would not do this in any other area. If we had spigot in our house that just flowed with cold, hard cash every time we turned the handle, we would not put a cap on it, or disable it in some other way. We would turn that handle and receive the blessing of the cash as often as we could!

Imagine if you became friends with Elon Musk - one of the richest men on the planet - and one day he calls you up and says, "You know, you have been a good friend to me, and I would like to give you a few gifts."  The he follows through, pays off your mortgage, and buys you a new car. He calls you up again to talk about his next extravagant gift he wants to bestow on you. Would you tell him, "No thanks, Elon, you have blessed us enough, we are all set now!"? Would you decide to not pick up the phone? Some of us may feel some awkwardness about receiving these kinds of gifts, but we would still want them and desire them. We would gratefully accept those gifts, and as long as Mr. Musk wanted to give us nice things, we would gladly accept them. This is the picture that the Bible paints around children, it confounds me that even among Christians there are those who deny the blessedness of children.

For some reason in our society and even among Christians we have come to believe that we are smarter than God. We think we know better. We have pills and condoms and want to enjoy our sex without consequence, God need not apply, and God's blessings need not apply. We have technology so we do not need to concern ourselves with what God thinks about these things. We do not need God to plan our families, we can do that ourselves.

Framing birth control in this context reveals the fact that birth control is dangerously similar to abortion. It cuts off the natural, God-given process of producing new life. God's plan is and always has been, marriage, sex, children, in that order. When we disrupt that order we are upending God's purpose and plans for our sexuality and our defying his will. Abortion and birth control exist so that we can indulge our sexual appetites with consequence, without the burden and the blessing of children. Sex simply becomes a mechanism to satisfy our passions, and people either become a means to that end, or something that gets in the way. In this case children are only obstacles to us achieving maximum sexual satisfaction. When we use birth control, we are prioritizing our sexual desires over God's desires, we are placing our will ahead of his.

If we want to achieve utmost happiness and joy in this world, the way to do that is not to disobey God and seek only for present pleasure. God calls us to live according to love and in that love practice self-control. Birth control minimizes love and removes the need for self-control. We should instead seek to increase our love by seeking to love our spouses and loving the children that God chooses to bless us with. For those of us who are not married, we can seek to live a life of love by serving God through our abstinence and serving the people around us.