Birth Control: In Light of Gospel Ministry

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By the way some people talk about children and gospel ministry, you get the feeling that to do either one well, the other must suffer. Many times this will be the only reason that people give for an acceptable Christian use of birth control. And at first glance it seems like a powerful defense. I mean, who wants to argue against being as productive as we can for the Kingdom of Christ?

John Piper is one of the many conservative evangelicals (a man whom I greatly admire, and am not afraid to say I love) who argues that birth control is admissible as long as it is used “for Kingdom reasons, gospel reasons, advancement reasons, and radical service reasons,” and uses this analogy of marriage to defend his position:

“Sometimes people ask me if everybody should get married. I say, “No I don’t think so.” And they say, “What about Genesis 2:18—’It is not good for man to be alone’? You’re saying it is good sometimes?” And I say, “Yes, because in 1 Corinthians 7 Paul wishes that everybody would be alone like he is in singleness.”

So evidently the fall of man into sin—which happened after Genesis 2:18—and the redemption that comes in Christ affect the natural world order (“It is not good for man to be alone”). They do so in such a way that, under some circumstances, it is better for man to be alone. It certainly was better for Paul to be alone than to be married, he thought, because he was more devoted to Christ and was able to go to jail every other weekend without traumatizing his wife…

…We should make our decisions on Kingdom purposes. If—for Kingdom reasons, gospel reasons, advancement reasons, and radical service reasons—having another child would be unwise then I think we have the right and the freedom to regulate that. But such regulation must presuppose that we’re not doing anything like abortion to measure out when and how many children we have.”

There are however, at least two primary problems with this position:

1) It presupposes that marriage is analogues to child bearing within a marriage. This view claims that, like the decisions that one may make to forego marriage, there are certain reasons that a husband and wife can intentionally make themselves barren — as long as it is for the gospel’s sake.

However, there are a few very important issues that are overlooked in this comparison.

1. Children are a natural (and we can truthfully say, God given) result of the marital relationship. Unlike in singleness and marriage, where a man would be denying himself a ‘good’ relationship with a wife in order to better serve the Lord — when using birth control, he is instead altering his ‘good’ relationship towards procreation to fit his own design and apparent needs of the ministry – by denying its natural ‘fruits’.
2. The Bible is very clear that marriage is not mandatory, it is indeed a choice that can be made according to each man’s conscience. However, the same can not be said about child bearing.There is no such testimony in Scripture that even alludes to the fact that intentional barrenness in marriage is a option left open to believers – for any reason – be it for the gospel, or anything else. The fact that Paul defended singleness has much to say about singleness, but we should be careful in applying it directly to childbearing (of which we know Paul was not addressing in those particular verses).
3. Related to the last point is a subtle shifting of paradigms between the singleness argument and child bearing that must be addressed. As far as singleness and marriage goes, a couple makes a pro-active decision to be married, if they find it to be favorable to gospel ministry. However, in the case of childbearing, the couple would be making a retro-active decision to suppress the procreative tendency of the marriage relationship. For the single man, he would be deciding between doing two things the Bible calls “good” – singleness and marriage. But for the married couple, they would be deciding between only one thing the Bible calls “good” – and another thing they intend to show as good by their increased ability to minister. If that sounds presumptuous to you, it may be because it is. It presumes upon both their ability to plan a family better than God, and the idea that fewer children necessarily leads to a more fruitful ministry.

2) What will help us here is to look at this question in light of the historical testimony of the Christian church, which clearly rejects the idea that in order to do great things for God (even on the mission field) one would be wise, or excusable for refusing to bear children in the marital relationship. Such an understanding just doesn’t line up with historical fact (biblical or otherwise). For instance:
Jonathan Edwards – 11 children, sibling to 10 children

John Wesley – sibling to 18 children

Charles Wesley – 8 children, sibling to 18 children

Isaac Watts – eldest of 9 children

Martin Luther – 6 children

Adoniram Judson – 8 children

John Knox – 5 children

William Wilberforce – 6 children

John G. Paton – 10 children, eldest of 11

Hudson Taylor – 10 children

John Bunyan – 6 children

David Brainerd – sibling to 8 children

John Owen – 11 children

Jacob (Israel) – 12 children

And on and on you can go. This is by no means implying that you need large families to have fruitful ministries, for there are just as many evidences to the contrary. However, clearly we should be willing to acknowledge from this list alone, the fact that procreative fruitfulness does not in and of itself equate to unfruitful gospel ministry. Many of these men were missionaries to dangerous parts of the world, many were preachers in a time when persecution meant being burned at the stake, and yet even then – children were not viewed as contrary to fulfilling the gospel call on the family’s life. Why then should our generation be any different? Is the mere presence of the “ability” to self-sterilize “for the gospel’s sake” adequate proof to convince us of it’s morality? Are we to assume these men would have done the same thing, if they only had the opportunity? (This last question is a definite no, as no Protestant theologian from the time of the Reformation to the turn of the 20th century supported the use of birth control.)

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So then what are we left with? Could it be that when God calls you to the ministry he calls your entire family as well (both born and unborn)? I think it’s clear he does.
When medicine gave us the birth control pill, did God cease to be sufficient for our family size? Did he cease knowing the perfect plan for our lives and marriages, and relinquish his procreative sovereignty over to our deceitful and desperately wicked hearts? I think not.

Somethings never change, and God’s plan for marriage and family is one of them…

‘BH

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