11 Theses on Birth Control | Doug Wilson

children are a blessing from the Lord but not an automatic blessing from the Lord a man with a lazy son is ashamed proverbs 10 5 and it should be obvious that he would not be more greatly blessed if he had five Sons sleeping through the Harvest [Music] yesterday a friend called to chibi in a friendly way for the way in which I have not come down definitively on the question of birth control my reason for this has been that when it comes to families and the size of them we have more important things to talk about but I've also recognized that I've had to say something and I've done some of that in a couple of my books but sometimes you have to say something more so here goes one the rise of our birth control friendly culture and our abortion friendly culture happened as twin parts of the same Zeitgeist this was all part of our cultural apostasy and our rejection of the Christian view of marriage and family two we especially have to take care not to go beyond what is written slavish following of the world is bad but so is knee-jerk reaction to it three in making the previous point I recognize that I'm departing from a historic Christian tradition on this issue both Catholic and Protestant this means that I differ not only with the Pope but also with Calvin and Luther four at the same time because of the world's bias in favor of birth control the world's represented are not too scrupulous about distinguishing between forms of birth control that are border Fashions and those which are not this unfortunately includes some Christian medical professionals who have gotten their training from a medical establishment which doesn't give a rip as to whether the method prevents the implantation of a fertilized egg or prevents the fertilization itself this is the evil lurking behind the American College of Obstetrics and gynecology's redefinition of conception as quote the implantation of the fertilized ovum what this means is that someone can now sincerely say that a particular method isn't in the board of fashion although by the older definition of conception it was beware of being misled a culture that has killed more than 40 million infants thus far is not going to scruple about a few altered definitions five this said Christians also have to recognize the intent of a procedure and not build a dogmatic case on statistical likelihoods alone it is true that some methods might make it less likely for a fertilized egg to implant in the uterine wall but it is also possible that other daily activities might do the same thing jogging weight loss Oil of Olay beats me I don't know we need to trust the Lord and not the periodic worries caused by the great bail of Statistics that said and acknowledged all hormonal methods of birth control are known to work in one of three ways here they are from most to least common a suppression of ovulation B obstruction of fertilization and C prevention of the implantation of the fertilized ovum on the uterine wall many Christians know that the IUD is an aborted fashion use the older untinkered with definition of conception but primary intent notwithstanding there are also dangers with the hormonal methods the pill emergency contraceptive pills ecps Plan B Etc dangers that do not exist would barrier methods like the condom diaphragm and spermicide these don't Place unborn Children at Risk of an inhospitable welcome to their first bed six the scriptures do contain one example of birth control the example of Onan but this narrative is Complicated by the fact that the whole point of a levirate marriage was the president innovation of a deceased brother's name through a legitimate Heir Onan therefore defrauded his sister-in-law through the instrumentality of an act of birth control which makes it problematic to say that he was struck down by the Lord for the birth control simplicitor 7. all the scriptures don't say anything definitively about birth control as such they do teach an enormous amount about the blessing of faithful Covenant seed this is one of the three main reasons for Covenant marriage the beginning of a Godly seed Malachi 2 15. this should be taught and emphasized in the church and is the only really effective way to counter the world's anti-child bigotry if this is effectively done visitors to your church will think you must teach against birth control and they will think this because of the large teeming population at the three foot level that they concede during Fellowship hour eight more is involved in raising up a Godly seed than to have a man with dogmatic convictions about birth control matched only by his unwillingness to feed read to educate pay tuition for bestow upon and love the results of his dogmatism there are no promised covenantal blessings for the self-absorbed Proprietors of stud farms 9. children are a blessing from the Lord but not an automatic blessing from the Lord they are a covenant blessing which means the terms of the Covenant must always be believed and remembered a man and where the lazy son is ashamed proverbs 10 5 and it should be obvious that he would not be more greatly blessed if he had five Sons sleeping through the Harvest 10. pastors and teachers should take special care to make sure their teaching and their practice of discipline line up it is sometimes easy to say things in the Pulpit which if taken seriously would necessitate church discipline for any violators but to be all bark and no bite is a good way to bring the authority of the pulpit into disrepute don't call it something you are not willing to treat it as but the balance here should be determined exegetically and not by pragmatic cowardice 11. as each married couple makes their decision about this and as pastors help them they should take care to make careful distinctions with regard to motive as well as a sharp distinction between principles and methods we must learn to distinguish between a couple postponing fruitfulness for no reason other than that the worldlings told them they should spend some time surfing together in Argentina first and a seasoned married couple with six kids who stop having them because their covenantal hands are quite full it appears in the former do not understand the creation order at all and that the latter don't have any problem at all understanding it to focus on birth control and isolation interferes with such essential distinctions from being made foreign

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Length: 5min 58sec (358 seconds)

Published: Mon May 22 2023