It is good to discuss our obligation to have, or to not have, children. But here's another approach: My wife and I have four children, and eight grandchildren. We are looking back at life far more now than we are looking forward. With all that we've experienced together, and we've experienced a lot, it is our kids and grandkids tht really matter to us. I can't even imagine what my life would be right now, without the family.
Let's take that 339,000 dollars that a married couple with no kids makes a year. If they spend wisely and don't go into debt, they could make 13,560,000 dollars in 40 years. Now they've got all that wealth and nobody to leave it to. Who's going to get that money? The government will when they are dead. Their property will be sold, and there will be nothing left of a couple, and two genetic lines will fall into dust.
Now, take that couple who had kids but didn't earn as much. They won't have as much money and might have some debt, but what they have offsets that by an order of magnitude. They'll have a stable family with kids, grandkids, and maybe some great-grandkids. They'll have love, and those two genetic lines, by the grace of God, will double with each new generation. They will live in the immortality of their offspring instead of dying out.
In many ways, I feel sorry for those who can have children but don't. My wife and I wanted kids, but ours never made it to birth. Once she realized she couldn't have children, we fostered for a while and then adopted two wonderful children. When she realized that she didn't need sex, she stopped wanting it, and the affection on her end died. I still want children of my own who carry my genetic line. I love my adopted children, but once I'm gone, my family line disappears forever.
As the last in my line, I can understand how you feel about wanting children that share your blood. I bet your adopted children are great, but they will never have the connection with you that blood will. However, perhaps this is what is meant to be and God has decided this for a specific reason.
It seems to me that a good bit of difficulty in the wording of this can be avoided merely by saying that married couples should always be open to having children.
It's not that married couples should be open to having children, it's that married couples that can reproduce must reproduce for the reasons mentioned above.
I’m not sure what you mean by starting your sentence with ‘it’s not that’. I believe that what I said is fully supported by scripture. Indeed, it is fully supported by Church history.
Whenever a married couple has sex, they should always be open to having children. This applies both of those who are capable of reproducing and those who think they aren’t.
Plenty of people can debate about the Biblical truth. I'd like to point out a totally unrelated issue, that the parents must seek God for the difficulty of raising kids, (and I like to assume the kids themselves also benefit from knowing adults who seek God.) What's more, the added difficulty and stress that such incredible pleasure caused leads to the desire for even more of the pleasure, the unity, the release: so this works well, but in a circular kind of way. By the way, another "advantage," (if you want to call it that) is that difficulty makes us learn to trust God. There are plenty of reasons, probably a few that I've missed, for having kids. The notion that kids are difficult, while true, is also a lie from the pit of hell, an assumption that God won't help His children who ask.
"The word 'able' does not exclude couples unable to bear children from the responsibility of being open to life. Still, biological inabilities or life-threatening health issues may preclude them from the responsibility of bearing life. Therefore, this paper does not address this group of married couples."
I would love if the article had a follow up as infertility rates are skyrocketing now and adoption is being favored to those that are not equipped to handle it.
That is definitely something worth writing about. It doesn't really change the statistics I did present though of people that are choosing not to have children altogether.
While I strongly agree with all the points presented here on why married couples should have children the essay seems to be addressing an issue that if it exists is extremely minor. While people not wanting to have children is certainly a problem (as is proven by the cited statistics) I am not sure married Christians not wanting to have children is a problem. I have never met a Christian couple who was even semi serious about their faith who didn’t want kids. I suspect the people not wanting to have kids are atheists, agnostics, or the sort of “Christians” who grace a church on Christmas and Easter and pray whenever they want a promotion or need something to go a certain way in their lives. All the sound and right Biblical arguments in the world don’t really matter when the people in question don’t care about what the Bible says. The stats point out that half of Millenials don’t have kids, but don’t point out that only 44% are married. So for Millenials at least it appears that birth rates are higher than marriage rates. So while DINKs are receiving a lot of internet attention a lack of marriage looks like it’s a more common situation than DINKS although many DINKS are in relationships that are not marriages so they might fall into both categories.
The problem is less that young married Christian couples aren’t having kids and more that young people are increasingly neither Christian nor married.
I think these are well made points and a well written essay but I’m not entirely sure who the audience is. Christians are going to agree with the message already and the DINKs and young people who need to message aren’t going to listen to it because they deny the authority of the Bible and Christianity as a whole.
Our experiences have been different. I wrote this from a concern I had from Christians whom I have met that are dedicated in many other ways but choose not to have children. My wife and I have wrestled with aspects of this in the past. Thankfully, it is no longer a struggle of ours. This essay also forms a launching pad for future writings in which I intend to discuss sex, family size, and birth control. Contained within this essay are the fundamental principles I believe are essential to understand in order to address these further topics.
Christians are influenced by the culture. When I released this paper among my friends and family, I was surprised to hear many Christians express that I should not "get involved" in other Christians' bedrooms (not what I intended), that this is a liberty issue, and that God created sex primarily for pleasure. I do believe worldly philosophies can affect the heart of good Christians. The sexual revolution has changed a lot more than we sometimes realize. The world attacks our doctrines from all directions and it is hard to defend every attack at once. I hope this essay at least helps Christians reflect on whether they have a Biblical mindset on this issue.
It is good to discuss our obligation to have, or to not have, children. But here's another approach: My wife and I have four children, and eight grandchildren. We are looking back at life far more now than we are looking forward. With all that we've experienced together, and we've experienced a lot, it is our kids and grandkids tht really matter to us. I can't even imagine what my life would be right now, without the family.
Let's take that 339,000 dollars that a married couple with no kids makes a year. If they spend wisely and don't go into debt, they could make 13,560,000 dollars in 40 years. Now they've got all that wealth and nobody to leave it to. Who's going to get that money? The government will when they are dead. Their property will be sold, and there will be nothing left of a couple, and two genetic lines will fall into dust.
Now, take that couple who had kids but didn't earn as much. They won't have as much money and might have some debt, but what they have offsets that by an order of magnitude. They'll have a stable family with kids, grandkids, and maybe some great-grandkids. They'll have love, and those two genetic lines, by the grace of God, will double with each new generation. They will live in the immortality of their offspring instead of dying out.
In many ways, I feel sorry for those who can have children but don't. My wife and I wanted kids, but ours never made it to birth. Once she realized she couldn't have children, we fostered for a while and then adopted two wonderful children. When she realized that she didn't need sex, she stopped wanting it, and the affection on her end died. I still want children of my own who carry my genetic line. I love my adopted children, but once I'm gone, my family line disappears forever.
As the last in my line, I can understand how you feel about wanting children that share your blood. I bet your adopted children are great, but they will never have the connection with you that blood will. However, perhaps this is what is meant to be and God has decided this for a specific reason.
It seems to me that a good bit of difficulty in the wording of this can be avoided merely by saying that married couples should always be open to having children.
It's not that married couples should be open to having children, it's that married couples that can reproduce must reproduce for the reasons mentioned above.
I’m not sure what you mean by starting your sentence with ‘it’s not that’. I believe that what I said is fully supported by scripture. Indeed, it is fully supported by Church history.
Whenever a married couple has sex, they should always be open to having children. This applies both of those who are capable of reproducing and those who think they aren’t.
Plenty of people can debate about the Biblical truth. I'd like to point out a totally unrelated issue, that the parents must seek God for the difficulty of raising kids, (and I like to assume the kids themselves also benefit from knowing adults who seek God.) What's more, the added difficulty and stress that such incredible pleasure caused leads to the desire for even more of the pleasure, the unity, the release: so this works well, but in a circular kind of way. By the way, another "advantage," (if you want to call it that) is that difficulty makes us learn to trust God. There are plenty of reasons, probably a few that I've missed, for having kids. The notion that kids are difficult, while true, is also a lie from the pit of hell, an assumption that God won't help His children who ask.
I am curious to those couples that cannot have children naturally and cannot afford adoption. What say you, Mr. Responsibility?
From the article:
"The word 'able' does not exclude couples unable to bear children from the responsibility of being open to life. Still, biological inabilities or life-threatening health issues may preclude them from the responsibility of bearing life. Therefore, this paper does not address this group of married couples."
I would love if the article had a follow up as infertility rates are skyrocketing now and adoption is being favored to those that are not equipped to handle it.
That is definitely something worth writing about. It doesn't really change the statistics I did present though of people that are choosing not to have children altogether.
While I strongly agree with all the points presented here on why married couples should have children the essay seems to be addressing an issue that if it exists is extremely minor. While people not wanting to have children is certainly a problem (as is proven by the cited statistics) I am not sure married Christians not wanting to have children is a problem. I have never met a Christian couple who was even semi serious about their faith who didn’t want kids. I suspect the people not wanting to have kids are atheists, agnostics, or the sort of “Christians” who grace a church on Christmas and Easter and pray whenever they want a promotion or need something to go a certain way in their lives. All the sound and right Biblical arguments in the world don’t really matter when the people in question don’t care about what the Bible says. The stats point out that half of Millenials don’t have kids, but don’t point out that only 44% are married. So for Millenials at least it appears that birth rates are higher than marriage rates. So while DINKs are receiving a lot of internet attention a lack of marriage looks like it’s a more common situation than DINKS although many DINKS are in relationships that are not marriages so they might fall into both categories.
The problem is less that young married Christian couples aren’t having kids and more that young people are increasingly neither Christian nor married.
I think these are well made points and a well written essay but I’m not entirely sure who the audience is. Christians are going to agree with the message already and the DINKs and young people who need to message aren’t going to listen to it because they deny the authority of the Bible and Christianity as a whole.
Our experiences have been different. I wrote this from a concern I had from Christians whom I have met that are dedicated in many other ways but choose not to have children. My wife and I have wrestled with aspects of this in the past. Thankfully, it is no longer a struggle of ours. This essay also forms a launching pad for future writings in which I intend to discuss sex, family size, and birth control. Contained within this essay are the fundamental principles I believe are essential to understand in order to address these further topics.
Christians are influenced by the culture. When I released this paper among my friends and family, I was surprised to hear many Christians express that I should not "get involved" in other Christians' bedrooms (not what I intended), that this is a liberty issue, and that God created sex primarily for pleasure. I do believe worldly philosophies can affect the heart of good Christians. The sexual revolution has changed a lot more than we sometimes realize. The world attacks our doctrines from all directions and it is hard to defend every attack at once. I hope this essay at least helps Christians reflect on whether they have a Biblical mindset on this issue.