I providentially came across this brother’s blog (a fellow Southern Seminarian) tonight and was very encouraged by what I read. Indeed, the Lord is changing hearts…

“One of the most dramatic flip-flops of the past year has been my view on birth control pills. Previously, I had no problem with such a friendly form of contraception. Some readers may even remember a stand I took in defense of the pill some months past on the comment section of my former blog. In the post, I virtually mocked my opponent for not being well grounded in his (or her) understandings of science and medicine. Yet now, I must confess that it is I who was ignorant and arrogant. Today, I am against using the pill. (My wife gladly stopped using it this past April.) So why the change? Mainly, we felt that the pill was not 100-percent safe. Many people argue, as I did, that the pill is a preventative measure against pregnancy—and not at all abortive. However, medical research shows that the components of the pill may actually prevent the fertilized egg from implanting on the uterine wall, resulting in an abortion. Granted, such an occurrence is considered very rare. But how rare is rare? One in a million? One in a billion? How about a trillion? Is this a game you really want to play? Can you have your cake and eat it too? Or more appropriately, can you oppose abortion and possibly kill (even if extremely unlikely) your baby too? Not in the Click household.”

(HT: Just a few Clicks away)

Amen, brother. Keep on testifying of God’s grace in your belief in the sanctity of human life!

‘BH

Here’s an interesting story out of the medical world in the past few days on a possible end to the embryonic stem cell debate. But the issue now is the morality of the use of the alternatives…:

“WASHINGTON (BP)–Scientists continue to deal blows to the campaign for embryonic stem cell research, some by shifting their allegiance to a more ethical form of experimentation and some by discovering new means of creating stem cells that do not harm donors.

Prominent scientists previously committed to embryonic stem cell research (ESCR) apparently have shifted their attention away from that method to the reprogramming of stem cells. Reprogramming involves the conversion of normal human cells into stem cells that are, in effect, embryonic in nature.”

(HT: Baptist Press)

If you have a chance, I’d really like to encourage you to take a few minutes and read this well-crafted, gospel-centered argument by Andrew Nichols from 9 Marks ministries on A Theological Vision for Families. Here’s a short excerpt:

“How important is the family? Well, notice one of the first things that God does for Adam. He creates a helper suitable for him, Eve. Then notice the first command that God gives to this brand new family unit: be fruitful and multiply (Gen. 1:28). Have children! And this was not just a pre-Fall ordinance. God tells Noah the same thing after the flood: “be fruitful and increase in number, multiply on the earth and increase upon it (Gen. 9:7).

So make no mistake: For those of us not blessed with the gift of singleness (1 Cor. 7:7), or who in God’s mysterious providence are unable to have children, families are not optional. They are commanded.

Why is God so insistent that humans multiply? The answer is found when we consider that he created Adam and Eve in his image (Gen. 1:26-27). He wants his image-bearers to multiply because he wants more of his image spread throughout the world. And he decided to graciously share the privilege of creating humans made in his image with us. Bruce Ware writes,

It is as if God said, ‘I created the first and original pair of human beings in my very image, and I could continue creating them unilaterally so that you would have no part to play. But instead, you are now to bring about human beings; you are to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth with my greatest of all creations, humans made in my very image’ (Father, Son, & Holy Spirit, p. 58).This is remarkable. God commanded Adam and Eve and us to bear and multiply his image in part “by procreation” (A. Kostenberger, God, Marriage & Family, p. 34). That’s a lot of mileage to get out of a single command.

But God was not finished—not even close. He also gave the multiplying family massive significance in the history of redemption. We see this most immediately in the family of Abraham, whose family God used to point to his plan of salvation for the nations (Gen. 26:4; cf. Gal. 3:29; 4:6-7). We also see it in the New Testament, especially as Paul shows how in marriage husbands and wives resemble Christ and the church (Eph. 5:22-33).

But there are still more portraits embedded in the family—portraits that display, as we’ve said, God’s triune self, the gospel, and the church.”

While doing research on the historical Baptist views on procreation, I had a run-in with some local history…

I was up on the second floor of the one of the (if not “the”) largest theological libraries in the world, here at Southern Seminary, pouring over some microfilm from a publication printed in 1899 called the (London) Baptist, when the following snippet providentially caught my eye:

T.T. Eaton

“The Walnut-street Baptist Church, Louisville, of which Dr. Eaton, of the Western Recorder, is pastor, has had some distillers in its membership. It appears they entered into the business long ago, when temperance sentiment was not what it is now, and have never been convinced of the evil of their traffic. The church has become weary with forbearing, and has passed a resolution giving them a year to get out of their business or out of the church. These members are wealthy, and the church is considered, therefore, to have been put to quite a test of principles.” - The Baptist, 1899 ( I think it was the May issue)

Now you have something to talk about that around the water cooler…before you vote on a church discipline resolution in your local church business meeting…

‘BH

Need a reminder of the flip side of the “value of children” question? This article is about as wordly as it gets…

When is a Big Family Too Big?

Some of the quotes are just beyond belief…almost.

From an article entitled, Wanted: Kingdom Families, in the most recent 9 Marks E-Newletter:

“In Matthew 28, Jesus commands all of his followersto make disciples of all nations. This command applies to whole families as well as to unattached singles. Families professing to follow Christ should be Kingdom families—families focused on the spread of the gospel to all nations. Different families will play different roles in the kingdom, but almost no family should shrink from the possibility of overseas ministry.

Disciple-making is not limited to single men or women. Families are extremely important in missions. Each member of the family has a responsibility in his or her role: women disciple women, men disciple men, parents train their children, children honor the Lord through obedience to their parents (Eph. 5, 6; Titus 2).

When a whole family goes overseas, it offers a team of witnesses that can have a wide impact and that can present an incomplete but effective example (or analogy) of what it means to be the body of Christ. A single family is usually not the local church, but the Puritans were right to say a family can be “a kind of little church” in the home. In pioneer settings, this little church of the household can initially be a helpful model for first-generation followers of Jesus.”

(HT: Between Two Worlds)

(HT: Between Two Worlds)

I had the awesome opportunity to run into Mr. Brent Nelson from the Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood last week as I stopped by their office in Louisville, KY. I had no appointment, and really had little more than a half-brain-stormed idea that I brought with me to discuss, but Mr. Nelson was extremely warm, welcoming, and willing to examine the issue with me in a way that was very encouraging.

All that being said, I thought it quite providential that I came across this article that Nelson posted today examining the recent USA TODAY article on fact that more U.S. women are having fewer children. His argument is short, sweet, and to the Scriptural point: motherhood, children, and the global fame of Christ are precious to God — but are they to us?

Here’s a short excerpt:

God places motherhood far higher in esteem than the value of a two-income lifestyle. “An excellent wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels….Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her” (Proverbs 31:10,28). Few career women will find that their bosses, or co-workers, or market competitors will ‘rise up and call her blessed.’ And even if they do, those blessings will ring hollow, compared to the sounds of a husband and children who bless her having known her well.

Would that all wives were so prized like jewels at home, that they never let money pressures lure them into the workforce.

Having children then would hardly seem the burden that it appears to be. God’s command to “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it…” would be seen, not as a burden, but as the blessing He intended it to be. The joys of motherhood, the rich rewards of parenting and the pleasure of passing on our faith in Jesus Christ to the next generation all would take on the treasured status God intends for them to possess. Even in the midst of the daily difficulties of dishwashers and diapers.

(HT: CBMW)

Amen brother, amen.

‘BH

“And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” - (Mat 28:18-20)

It’s easy to take things for granted. It’s especially easy to take those things for granted that we have always had in our possession — like life, for instance. But not only do we tend to take our own existence for granted, we take the existence of others for granted as well.

Exhibit A: We hear quite often that since the Great Commission, physical procreation has lost some of it’s Old Testament luster (if you will). Some will argue that the coming of Christ signaled a shift in our understanding of “offspring” — changing what was an emphasis on physical procreation, to an emphasis on spiritual offspring. While there was, indeed, a seismic shift in the ministry of the Church to the world at the coming of Christ — at its foundation this shift must be understood as an addition to, and not (what has been practically understood today) a replacement of, physical procreation.

I want to challenge you today to consider how these “nations” that Christ has called us to minister to came about. Did they fall from the sky, fully grown, waiting in a cryogenic state until your arrival on the mission field? Are they disembodied spirits, only appearing to have flesh and bones, eyes and ears by which to hear the proclaimed gospel? No, brothers. They are REAL people, who have REALLY been born - the first time… waiting, with their blood flowing in their created veins to hear of Christ (and Lord willing) be born a second time.

The coming of Christ did not signal a rejection of Createdness, rather it displayed God’s redemption of it. Do you think it is instructive that Paul considered himself as “one untimely born”? (1Co 15:8 ) Moderns today would attempt to assure him, “No Paul, what is most important is that you’ve been saved.” As if one is not wholly contingent upon the other. Clearly we are not Universalists, believing in salvation by birth; but far be it for us to become something even more illogical, holding to the indefensible position of salvation apart from birth. As Christopher Ash notes so eloquently, “It is true that God builds his new covenant people by placing his (spiritual) seed within men and women so that they are born into his family. But the people in whom he does this regenerative work are men and women who have already been born naturally.”

Read this prophetic vision from Revelation 7:9-10:

“After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”

Friends, let us not kid ourselves. We have a Great Commission, but it is a Great Commission to men and women, boys and girls who have first been conceived in their mother’s wombs, and have experienced the very thing that Christ himself experienced: a human, physical, God-wrought birth (Psalm 139:13). That “great multitude that no man can number” will have all been born… twice!

What say you?

‘BH

The most popular home medical reference book in the early nineteenth century was William Buchan’s Domestic Medicine, reprinted 28 times in America from 1770-1850.

In the section, “On Rules of Conduct during Pregnancy”, Buchan wrote:

“The dread of public shame or private scorn, though no excuse for murder, may urge the victim of seduction to commit a crime at once so abominable and so dangerous. But is it possible that a married woman should madly and wickedly attempt to procure abortion, merely from an apprehension of a large family, or to avoid the trouble of bearing and bringing up children? Can she hope to taste the joys, and yet destroy the fruits of love? What a frantic idea — the same poison puts an end to both. And in vain does she flatter herself that her guilt is concealed, or that the law exists to punish it. The laws of nature are never violated with impunity; and in the cases alluded to, the criminal is made at once to feel the horrors of late remorse…

But suppose that [an abortion] brought about by such deplorable means did not endanger the health and life of the mother; suppose that an act held in such abhorrence, both by earth and heaven, could possible escape punishment; suppose a women deaf to the cries of nature, incapable of tender emotions, and fearless of the immediate sufferings in her own person — I have one argument here to make her stop her murderous hand: perhaps the embryo, which she is not going to destroy, would, if cherished in her womb, and afterwards reared with due attention, prove the sweetest comfort of her future years, and repay all her maternal care with endless gratitude. It may be a daughter to nurse her in her old age, or a son to swell her heart with joy at his honorable and successful career in life. I only wish her to pause for a moment and to consider, that by the willful extinction of the babe in her womb, all her fairest hopes are extinguished also, and that the present danger is aggravated by the certainty of future despair.” - William Buchan, 1813