The Unexpected Response

And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it…” Genesis 1:28a

The Value of Children

Some years ago (when we were in a different church), we had invited friends to come and visit our worship service on Sunday morning. During their visit there was an announcement about some changes in the children’s programs. They were no longer making them open to the neighborhood.

Afterward, we asked what they thought of the service. The wife very gently said the service was fine but that she would never go back. She went on to explain that when a congregation no longer cares for the youngest among us, she knows she is not in agreement with the overall theology.

At the time, I thought it was an overreaction. But, my eyes have been opened to the way Christians in general view children by how they view abortion. Most do not see it as murder but as a sad solution to the problem in our nation of over-burdened people who can’t afford to have their careers interrupted or their finances “ruined,” because of the birth of a child of their own making.

There is no real recognition, even among many Christians, that it is a live, human baby being murdered in its mother’s womb.

The Value of Family

I am seeing the problem as even deeper, though from the outside, it does not seem as shocking.

My daughter and her husband are pregnant with their fifth child. They have wanted a large family and have been slowly but surely adding to it for ten years now.

On this issue, I admit that I have a completely different expectation of my Christian friends than I do of those without faith. I expect Bible believing Christians to know that God says, “Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward (Psalm 127:3).” These words are to be taken seriously and children are to be celebrated.

So, when I recently relayed the new information that our daughter is pregnant again to a Christian friend, I was expecting to hear, “Congratulations!” What I heard was, “WHAT?!”

It was an unexpected response, an ungodly response.

With our negative attitudes about “a quiver full” of children in families, and our lack of a stance against murdering babies in the womb, we see that as well as unbelievers Christians are not without guilt in the tearing down of the family in our culture.

What God Says

Do we know what God says about children, even the commands to teach the next generation God’s law? I fear we are raising a generation of Christians who have learned that “being fruitful and multiplying” are too expensive and too damaging to other things we want to do to obey it.

Our fears do not consider God as the great Provider and Rewarder of those who obey His Word. And, our guilt at not raising our own children in the fear and instruction of the Lord is huge.

God’s Word teaches what our responses to life events, including children being added to a family and those that are taken from the womb, should be.

Will you consider your own beliefs? Is God’s Word inerrant? Are we obeying Him in our words and deeds? Are we teaching the Truth, and not just our fears, to the next generation….or our Christian (and non-Christian) friends?