With So Many Orphans, Why Have Children?
00:00:00.000 | [music]
00:00:05.000 | Amy writes in to ask this, "Pastor John, why should I even consider having kids of my own
00:00:10.000 | when there are so many children in need of loving homes now?"
00:00:14.000 | Let me set up an understanding of Scripture that makes that question valid,
00:00:20.000 | even though Genesis 128 says, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth,"
00:00:26.000 | because there's a structure of biblical thought that I have to put in place before I can try to answer this.
00:00:33.000 | A person might say, "Well, doesn't that just settle it? Be fruitful?
00:00:37.000 | That means have babies, multiply and fill the earth, so do it. Don't just adopt. Do that."
00:00:44.000 | Well, it's not that simple.
00:00:47.000 | The way I get at it is by comparing the question with marriage,
00:00:53.000 | because Genesis 218 says, "It's not good for man to be alone. I'll make him a helper fit for him."
00:00:59.000 | So marriage is normative. You might even say commanded in the creation order.
00:01:07.000 | And yet Paul, in 1 Corinthians 7, 7 and 8, says, "I wish that everybody was single like I am,
00:01:15.000 | but each has his own gift from God, one of one kind, one of another."
00:01:20.000 | And so he explains that the reason he's commending singleness is because in this fallen world
00:01:32.000 | and in this urgent hour, there's greater difficulty in serving the Lord fully without any distraction
00:01:44.000 | when you're married than when you're single.
00:01:48.000 | He wants to see some people single so that they can be more fully devoted
00:01:55.000 | without having to take thought for what a wife or a husband might need.
00:02:01.000 | And yet he says, "You do not sin if you marry."
00:02:04.000 | Now, I'm going to take that same principle and apply it to children.
00:02:09.000 | If you can say to God's good marriage ordinance,
00:02:13.000 | "The redemptive order after the fall may call for a relativizing of the created order before the fall."
00:02:22.000 | Maybe, I think the answer is yes, the redemptive order of having children after the fall
00:02:32.000 | may relativize the created order of be fruitful and multiply before the fall.
00:02:40.000 | So I've counseled a lot of people who have asked me, "Should we even have children?"
00:02:46.000 | Sometimes they weren't putting this, usually they weren't putting this in the context of adoption
00:02:51.000 | like this question does.
00:02:54.000 | Can we choose not to have children?
00:02:58.000 | And I never say yes.
00:03:01.000 | I say what I'm saying now.
00:03:03.000 | Children are a blessing from the Lord.
00:03:06.000 | That's plain in the Bible.
00:03:09.000 | And the modern resistance to having children as though they get in the way and are a pain in the neck,
00:03:19.000 | that's a sign of cultural corruption and selfishness.
00:03:23.000 | And so if that's your motive for not having kids, no, you're not obeying Jesus.
00:03:29.000 | If you're viewing children as that kind of pain in the rear end
00:03:34.000 | and you want to go on and do your own thing without the encumbrance of having to care for kids,
00:03:39.000 | then you have an attitude that isn't biblical.
00:03:43.000 | I would never commend childlessness the way the world commends childlessness.
00:03:50.000 | But there may be kingdom reasons for not having children.
00:03:56.000 | And I don't think those reasons can be elevated to normative or absolute.
00:04:01.000 | So we shouldn't require that of anyone just the same way I don't elevate the creation order to absoluteness.
00:04:10.000 | Like you have to have children.
00:04:13.000 | So how does a couple decide, especially in view of the number of orphans in the world who need a home?
00:04:21.000 | Beware of making artificial judgments here.
00:04:26.000 | The reason most people don't adopt is not that they want children of their own.
00:04:33.000 | The vast majority of adoptive parents have children biologically,
00:04:39.000 | children that they've gotten through their own union.
00:04:42.000 | That's what I mean when I say children of their own.
00:04:44.000 | You have to be so careful because our adopted children are children of our own.
00:04:48.000 | The question boils down to whether the natural good desire for joy of reproduction,
00:04:56.000 | having children from your own union, is permissible and good if it keeps you from adopting a child.
00:05:05.000 | Practically, I would say first, it doesn't.
00:05:08.000 | It doesn't.
00:05:10.000 | I mean, I've never met anybody who hasn't adopted because they've had children of their own.
00:05:17.000 | But the second thing I would say, it is permissible and good for us to eat food even though others need food more.
00:05:29.000 | We wear clothes that others need more.
00:05:33.000 | We pursue education when others have less.
00:05:38.000 | We're housed in apartments or in houses when others have less.
00:05:45.000 | Now, how is that right?
00:05:48.000 | How is it justifiable?
00:05:50.000 | It's a huge question.
00:05:53.000 | But the answer seems to be that our having is usually not the reason others don't have.
00:06:02.000 | It's not a zero-sum game in this world of resources.
00:06:06.000 | Therefore, love is usually not our going without, but rather our giving effort and time and money and things and ourselves
00:06:21.000 | to help others have access to what we want for ourselves.
00:06:24.000 | That's what neighbor love means.
00:06:27.000 | Doing others as you'd have them doing to you.
00:06:29.000 | Love your neighbors yourself.
00:06:31.000 | Work for their access to what you want access to.
00:06:36.000 | There's no doubt in my mind that this will simplify our lifestyles and make a wartime way of life for us.
00:06:44.000 | But in and of itself, simplifying, going without, does not do anyone any good unless you have a strategy to help them get access to what you want to have for yourself.
00:07:00.000 | So now when I come to apply that to children, it seems to me that the call on our lives is not mainly not to give birth,
00:07:10.000 | since the Bible portrays that as a great blessing and a legitimate joy.
00:07:15.000 | The call in our lives is to give ourselves in ways that we can to provide for orphans.
00:07:24.000 | That may be adoption.
00:07:26.000 | I pray that it would be more and more.
00:07:29.000 | And it may mean fewer biological children.
00:07:32.000 | Not often, I would guess, but it might.
00:07:35.000 | But it will always mean praying and acting toward as many ways as we can of investing our lives in the cause of the orphan,
00:07:46.000 | along with all the other needs in the world.
00:07:49.000 | Yes. Thank you, Pastor John.
00:07:51.000 | And thank you for listening to this podcast.
00:07:53.000 | We want to hear from you.
00:07:55.000 | So please email your questions to us at AskPastorJohn@DesiringGod.org.
00:07:59.000 | You can visit us online at DesiringGod.org to find thousands of books and videos, articles, sermons, seminars, some art, some poems, some music, and other resources all free of charge.
00:08:09.000 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke. Thanks for listening.
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