I’m Terrified of Giving Birth — Should I Still Pursue Marriage?
00:00:00.000 | Welcome back and thank you for listening to Ask Pastor John with longtime pastor and author
00:00:07.780 | John Piper. I'm your host Tony Reinke.
00:00:11.880 | Tokophobia is the fear of childbirth. It's the fear of the pain of childbirth, the fear
00:00:17.520 | of injury during childbirth, both for baby and for mom. And it's a fairly common fear
00:00:22.020 | that we hear about in the inbox. The prospect of parenthood can be, of course, alluring,
00:00:26.580 | but the pain and the dangers of childbirth are realities to be considered as well. Here
00:00:31.820 | specifically is the question I'm talking about. Dear Pastor John, my girlfriend and I have
00:00:36.260 | recently started having conversations about our future. She's a God-fearing servant who
00:00:40.140 | I can see myself marrying. I also believe she would be a great mother. However, she
00:00:44.580 | told me that while she wants to be a mother, she is very fearful of pregnancy and childbirth
00:00:49.980 | and said she may only want to adopt. I am fearful that I would harbor some level of
00:00:55.260 | bitterness in my heart towards her if we chose to not have biological children of our own.
00:01:02.380 | Should this be a marriage deal-breaker for us?
00:01:06.100 | I think there are three things that I'd like to say in this kind of situation. One is a
00:01:14.020 | word of empathy and understanding about the fear of childbirth. Even though I'm not a
00:01:20.700 | woman, I've got a wife and I've got a Bible. Second is a word about what God has done to
00:01:30.540 | address this fear in His Word. And third, what are the implications for your particular
00:01:37.820 | relationship and your girlfriend? First, both Scripture and history and all of our experience,
00:01:46.260 | I think, are sufficient to give a woman pause about bearing children because historically,
00:01:56.180 | childbirth has been dangerous. And thousands, dare we say hundreds of thousands, of women
00:02:03.140 | have died in childbirth or been so injured by the way babies are born that the rest of
00:02:13.820 | their life was made difficult. And biblically, this pain in childbirth is explicitly rooted
00:02:23.420 | in God's response to the disobedience of Adam and Eve in Genesis 3.16, where it says, "To
00:02:31.340 | the woman," God said, "I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing." In pain, you shall
00:02:38.900 | bring forth children. Your desire shall be toward your husband or contrary to your husband,
00:02:45.260 | depending on the translation, and he shall rule over you. Now, those are pretty bleak
00:02:49.540 | words for a woman. Good grief. It's going to be painful and dangerous to bear children,
00:02:56.740 | and you and your husband are going to be in perpetual conflict. In other words, the fall
00:03:02.460 | of man and woman into sin brought pain and risk into the act of childbirth and brought
00:03:09.940 | pain and relational misery into marriage relationships itself. That's what sin did. That's what
00:03:16.300 | the fall did. Selfish desires flowing from the woman and selfish domination flowing from
00:03:23.740 | the man. So it is understandable that a woman would look with some circumspect seriousness
00:03:32.420 | and hesitation about whether to marry at all and whether to risk the pain of childbirth
00:03:39.180 | in marriage. I get it, at least from my little bit of experience, makes sense to me. But
00:03:46.820 | in the face of all this bad news that comes with the sinfulness of our human hearts, God
00:03:54.380 | has broken into history in Jesus Christ and is turning things around. Indeed, he was turning
00:04:03.900 | them around already before Jesus came, but not decisively like he did when Christ came
00:04:11.140 | and the Holy Spirit was poured out and people were grafted into the risen Christ. He's turning
00:04:15.700 | them around by overcoming the curse of sin in various ways and in stages. Now, Ephesians
00:04:24.900 | 5.25 describes the dramatic reversal of the way husbands treat wives in Christ, no longer
00:04:36.460 | with arrogant, selfish domination described in Genesis 3.16, but now with humble, gracious
00:04:46.100 | leadership described on the analogy of how Christ leads and cares for and provides for
00:04:53.280 | and protects the church. And I think it is a huge mistake, by the way, to say the husband's
00:05:02.020 | headship or leadership are obliterated in Christ when in fact they are redeemed and
00:05:10.180 | transformed, which is quite evident as you read verses 25 to 33 of Ephesians 5. And with
00:05:19.540 | regard to the curse on childbearing, let me give you my understanding of a very perplexing
00:05:25.380 | verse, 1 Timothy 2.15. It says, "Yet she," woman, "yet woman, will be saved through
00:05:35.860 | childbearing if they continue in faith and love and holiness with self-control." Here's
00:05:42.700 | what I think that means. And by the way, I did a whole article with all the details at
00:05:46.940 | Desiring God called "How Are Women Saved Through Childbearing?" So if you want all
00:05:51.420 | the detailed argument behind what I'm gonna sum up now, go to Desiring God and just click
00:05:56.540 | on the search button and type in "How Are Women Saved Through Childbearing?" So here's
00:06:01.060 | my understanding, my paraphrase of that verse. Even though a woman may need to pass through
00:06:10.020 | the painful remnants of the curse that came on childbearing in Genesis 3, nevertheless
00:06:18.460 | she should not see this pain as God's curse in Christ, but rather press on by faith with
00:06:25.660 | love and holiness and self-control and thus experience God's complete salvation. That's
00:06:31.740 | my paraphrase. In other words, 1 Timothy 2.15 is intended to address a woman's fear that,
00:06:41.540 | I suppose, yes, legitimately arises from the curse of Genesis 3.16, address that fear,
00:06:48.660 | and the encouragement is this. "While childbearing is still hard, nevertheless you will come
00:06:55.460 | through it. In Christ the deepest dangers of the curse have been removed. The pain of
00:07:01.780 | childbearing will not be an obstacle to your full and complete enjoyment of salvation in
00:07:09.320 | Christ." And I think the words of Jesus in John 16.21 point in the same direction when
00:07:15.380 | he says, "When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come." In
00:07:21.660 | other words, it's gonna hurt. "But when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers
00:07:27.980 | the anguish for joy that a human being has been born into the world." In other words,
00:07:35.140 | the pain of childbirth is not an end in itself, and by God's grace in Christ leads to great
00:07:42.740 | joy, just like resurrection brings joy after the sufferings of Jesus, which leads finally
00:07:49.140 | to the question now of your relationship. God's transformation of arrogant, selfish,
00:07:55.420 | male domination in marriage into a humble, gracious leadership in marriage is closely
00:08:02.780 | tied to God's transformation of childbirth as a curse into childbirth as a painful path
00:08:11.940 | to extraordinary joy. I think the question every man has to ask at the front end of marriage—indeed,
00:08:20.220 | every woman has to ask—is whether, by faith in God's wisdom and grace and power, you
00:08:28.140 | are willing to enter into a relationship where there will be gracious, humble involvement
00:08:37.140 | of the wife in plotting out the paths of this life together, together with faithful, confident,
00:08:46.780 | Godward submission of the wife to the husband's leadership. That combination. Are you both
00:08:53.620 | willing to step into that? Both husband and wife have to look that dynamic square in the
00:09:00.520 | face and decide whether they believe this is God's revealed, wise, loving pattern for
00:09:10.820 | marriage, and therefore whether he will provide every need that you have to live joyfully
00:09:17.660 | in it, which in this case, the one we're talking about right here, in this case, I
00:09:22.780 | think means for you as the man, do you discern in this woman such a deep trust in God and
00:09:33.380 | such a discerning confidence in your leadership that should you want biological children as
00:09:45.420 | God leads you, she would be willing to trust God for that. She needs to know you will not
00:09:53.300 | ride roughshod over her fears, and you need to know she will gladly trust God with your
00:10:02.300 | leadership.
00:10:03.300 | Amen. That's a very wise pastoral word here, Pastor John. Thank you. And thank you for
00:10:09.340 | listening to search or browse our entire episode archive, or to send us a new question of your
00:10:13.460 | own, go to our online home at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn. Well, by God's grace, this is a podcast that's
00:10:21.500 | heard around the world by a lot of different people, and that means when we dive into the
00:10:25.900 | most sensitive questions and fears that people face, like today, or into the deepest pain
00:10:31.660 | of people's lives, which is what we'll do next time, we do so at a principled level.
00:10:37.740 | We try to offer pointers to scripture. We're never trying to replace the necessary pastors
00:10:43.380 | and the counselors and even the Christian friends that God has put into our lives for
00:10:48.060 | face-to-face care. That's irreplaceable. And with that said, next time we field a really
00:10:53.500 | painful email from a man in England who is struggling with unforgiveness as he reflects
00:10:59.340 | back on years of childhood abuses inflicted on him by his parents. It's a heavy question,
00:11:05.260 | and it is up next time. I'm your host, Tony Reinke. We'll see you back here on Wednesday.
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