What About Birth Control?

Most of Protestant Christianity has taken a laissez faire attitude towards birth control in modern times, giving individuals freedom of conscience to decide for themselves whether or not to use it.  But in recent years, movements like "Quiverfull" have begun to preach decisively against birth control.  They say that the Bible says we are to receive as many children as God blesses us with, and that birth control is against His plan.  Using a question-and-answer format, I'm going to take a close look at the Scriptures they use, and also at the whole of the Bible, to see if their restrictions on freedom of conscience in this area actually hold up.

I'll start with the passage on children being a blessing, Psalm 127:3.

Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord, and the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows in the hand of a mighty man, so are the children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them; they shall not be ashamed, but shall speak with the enemies in the gate.

Children are indeed a blessing from God!  This is not the real question, however.  The question is, does the Bible teach that if we just let nature take its course, the amount of children we will have will be God’s plan for us?

Look at the curse that comes upon Eve after the Fall, in Genesis 3:16: “Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children. . .”

The King James Version here brings out very well what the original language actually said. A Hebrew interlinear, which gives a direct, word-for-word translation, reads this way: “I am increasing grief of you and pregnancy of you; in grief shall you give birth.” (Emphasis added.) There are actually two different Hebrew words translated “grief” in this verse (“sorrow” in the King James). They are synonyms, both meaning “labor, hardship, painful toil.” The first of these words is also used of Adam in Gen. 3:17-18, where God says to him, “in sorrow [painful toil] shalt thou eat of it [the ground] all the days of thy life; thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee.” God is telling the couple that the result of their sin is hardship, labor and toil.

The words to Eve in Gen 3:16 comprise a Hebrew poetic structure in which the whole of the phrase, “multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children” refers to the whole process of childbearing, from conception to birth. It is not just talking about “pain in childbirth,” as many other translations say. The hardship and painful toil includes the whole process. This would include everything that is difficult or goes wrong for women in pregnancy, from conception to childbirth. It would include pain in labor, certainly; but it also includes miscarriage, stillbirth, difficulty in conception, and even, naturally, the "multiplication" of conceptions themselves-- the ability of the woman’s body to conceive more frequently than is safe or healthy for her, sometimes before she has even recovered from the last pregnancy.

The writers of the Old Testament recognized children as a blessing—but they also recognized all of the different hardships of childbearing (and of course, these are different for different women). “Multiply thy sorrows and thy conception” can mean pain and hardship in conception is increased, but it can also mean that conceptions themselves are increased. The fact that some women cannot conceive is part of the curse. But the fact that some women’s bodies can conceive more often than they can bear in safety and health, is also shown in the Bible to be a result of the curse; it was not God’s original plan.

But Christ came to bring justification to us from the sin that brought death and sorrow to humanity (Romans 5:12). And even before Christ came– through the ages, in fact– men have invented tools to help them deal with the toils and sorrows of tilling the ground. There is no passage in the Bible that says God, in His mercy, ever forbade men to use those tools. Neither does the Bible say God has forbidden women to decrease the toils and sorrows of their particular struggles with conception and childbirth. God does not forbid women to decrease their pain in childbirth through the tools of medication. Neither does God forbid women to decrease their conceptions through the tools of birth control.

Q:  But there was no birth control in Bible times except for coitus interruptus, and in Genesis 38:9-10, God struck Onan dead for “spilling his seed on the ground.“ This must have been about Onan’s crime of birth control ~ since the penalty for simply not giving your brother’s widow a child was only public humiliation, according to Deuteronomy 25:7.

Actually, there were many other kinds of birth control used in Bible times. The Ebers Papyrus of Egypt, which dates from 1500 BC, lists a number of barrier methods. Here is a translation of one of them: “To make a woman not become pregnant for one year, two years or three years, acacia leaves are ground fine with honey, lint is moistened therewith and placed in her vulva.”  Eerdman’s Handbook to the Bible places the Hebrews’ time in Egypt (between Joseph and Moses) from 1700-1300 BC. It is impossible, given the Israelites’ presence in Egypt during the same period that the Ebers Papyrus was written, that the Israelites could have been completely unfamiliar with the methods set forth in this papyrus. And yet the Bible says nothing whatsoever about any of these Egyptian remedies. The only time a method of birth control is mentioned is the story of Onan. I'd like to take closer look at that story.

And Judah said unto Onan, Go in unto thy brother’s wife, and marry her, and raise up seed to thy brother. And Onan knew that the seed should not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in unto his brother’s wife, he spilled it on the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother. And the thing which he did displeased the Lord, wherefore he slew him also. Genesis 38:8-10

The context of this passage is Onan’s unwillingness to fulfill his duty in that culture to his brother’s widow. Onan married his brother’s widow and “went in unto“ her as a husband to a wife– but then emitted on the ground, “lest that he should give seed to his brother. This is sometimes compared with Deuteronomy 25:7, where the consequences of refusing to take a brother’s widow as wife are not death, but only public shame. But the situation in Deuteronomy 25 involves only refusing to marry the widow. What Onan did was much worse. He went ahead and married her, but then selfishly refused to raise a child that would be considered legally his brother’s and not his own. It wasn’t that he didn’t want children; it’s that he wanted children only for his own profit! But the woman could not marry anyone else. His act consigned her to childlessness whether she liked it or not. And it was a great deception for Onan to pretend to do his duty to his brother outwardly, but then to go back on it in the privacy of the home. It was not for simple birth control that Omar was judged by God. It was for fraud, greed, deception and covenant-breaking. The birth control was the means by which the crime was committed. The birth control itself was not the crime.

Since this is the only place in the Bible that a method of birth control is even mentioned, and since the Bible is silent about all other then-known methods of birth control– how can we say that the Bible, implicitly or expressly, forbids birth control? The vast majority of details about individual life and choices are neither commanded nor forbidden by the Bible. God permits people to decide where to live, what kind of houses to build, what to do for a living– there are no commands, explicit or implicit, forbidding these choices. Where the Bible makes no command regarding an issue of personal choice, then to take a certain position, insist it is God’s will, and expect everyone else to follow, is unfairly adding to the Scriptures and curtailing others’ freedom in Christ. (Romans 14:2-4, Galatians 5:1.)

Q:  But Psalm 127:3 still says children are a blessing! Even if we don’t have to have more than our bodies can safely bear, shouldn’t we seek to bear as many as we safely can? Isn’t the use of birth control for any other reason than the woman’s health, willfully rejecting the blessing of God and therefore choosing instead the curse of barrenness?

If “A” is a blessing, it does not necessarily follow that “Not A” is not a blessing. The apostle Paul makes it clear that choosing not to marry or have children is a lifestyle blessed by God just as much as marriage is. “I would that all men were even as I myself. But every man hath his proper gift of God, one after this manner, and another after that. I say therefore to the unmarried and widows, it is good for them if they abide even as I.” I Corinthians 7:7-8. Paul’s use of the word “widows” here makes it clear that by “men” he means not just males, but both sexes. It is a gift of God for both men and women to remain unmarried and childless, as he was. This too is a blessing from God, for “the unmarried woman careth for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and spirit.” I Corinthians 7:34.

Also, if something is a blessing, it does not follow that an unlimited amount of that something is an unlimited blessing. The Bible says nothing like this– and it is contrary to plain logic. In Genesis 13:6, it tells of how Abraham and Lot were blessed of God with wealth, including sheep and cattle– but when “their substance was great” to the point where the land could not support all their flocks and herds, they were forced to separate from one another. Clearly the sheep and cattle were not an unlimited blessing, when they became too numerous for the land to support them.

We must also ask ourselves: are we being good stewards of the resources God has given us, when we have more children than we can financially support? Is it loving to the children we already have, to keep having more, beyond the point where we can give adequate attention to them all? Romans 8:14 says that those who are led by the Spirit are the sons of God. Rather than laying down a law for ourselves about never preventing conception by any means, perhaps we should prayerfully seek to be led by the Spirit as to when we should conceive, and when we shouldn’t. After all, Paul counseled in I Corinthians 7:26 that in times of distress, it is better not to make major changes in our lives. It is not always God’s best to have more, and more, and more children.

Q:  But doesn’t Malachi 2:15 say that the primary purpose for which the Lord created the institution of marriage was to “seek a godly seed”?

Here's Malachi 2:15 in its immediate context.

Judah hath dealt treacherously, and an abomination is committed in Israel and in Jerusalem, for Judah hath profaned the holiness of the Lord which he loved, and hath married the daughter of a strange god. . . And this ye have done again, covering the altar of the Lord with weeping, and with crying out, inso much that he regardeth not the offering any more, or receiveth it with good will at your hand. Yet ye say, Wherefore? Because the Lord hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously; yet she is thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant. And did not he make one? Yet had he the residue of the spirit. And wherefore one? That he might seek a godly seed. Malachi 2:11-15.

The context in Malachi 2:15 is about how the men of Judah, upon returning to the Promised Land following exile in Babylon, abandoned their wives in order to marry younger women from the peoples who lived in the Promised Land, who served idols. The passage makes two main points: 1) they were being treacherous to their wives: “She is thy companion and the wife of thy covenant,” and 2) they were profaning the holiness of the Lord by marrying “the daughter of a strange god.”

This passage is not about the primary purpose of marriage, but about the sins of covenant-breaking and idolatry. But if a “primary purpose” of marriage applies at all here, it is stated to be “companionship.” The original wives of the men of Judah are spoken of as companions to their husbands– not as mothers of their children. The Lord views this covenant made with a woman, for companionship, to be just as holy and binding as any other covenant.

As for “a godly seed,” the emphasis here is on “godly,” not on “seed.” God made men and women of Judah one in marriage so that their seed might be godly– as opposed to the seed that might come from marriage to a “daughter of a strange god,” who might choose to serve the idols of their mother’s people.

Q:  But modern birth control methods are dangerous and can be abortifacient! And natural family planning isn’t very effective. Besides, the Bible says it is God Who opens and closes the womb. Shouldn’t we trust Him with our family planning and not take matters into our own hands?

Modern birth control methods are actually pretty safe when used with a doctor's advice.  It is my understanding there is no actual medical support for the idea that hormonal birth control is abortifacient.  But even if it were, there are non-hormonal methods that work very well instead. The diaphragm, for instance, is a barrier method that has been around for decades, is safe and effective when used carefully, and is completely non-hormonal.  A woman's doctor can help her find the type of birth control that is safest for her and that she feels most comfortable with.

And as for God opening and closing the womb, there are only a few Bible texts that speak of this. Genesis 20:18 says that God “closed the wombs” of all the women in Abimilek’s household because Abimilek had taken Abraham’s wife Sarah (thinking she was his sister). Then in verse 20, Abraham prays to God, and God heals them so that they can conceive again. Genesis 29:31 and Genesis 30:22 refer to God opening the wombs of women who had previously been barren (Leah and Rachel). Afterwards they both had more than one child. The text does not say God had to reopen their wombs each time. Finally, 1 Sam 1:5-6 says that God had closed Hannah’s womb, but when she prayed, God “remembered” her and she conceived (verse 19). Later the text says God “visited” Hannah so that she had three more sons and two daughters (1 Samuel 2:21).

Reading these texts together, they do not indicate at all that God opens every woman’s womb each time she conceives, or that He closes every woman’s womb every time she does not conceive. These texts are not about normal female fertility at all. Instead they speak specifically of barrenness and God’s specific acts to cause or heal barrenness at certain times, in certain women, for reasons unique to each situation. The human writers of the Bible texts knew, as we know today, that conception occurs after sexual intercourse and is based on a woman’s menstrual cycle. As with many other physical laws of our world, God set it up to work this way.

One other verse speaks of God giving conception to a woman: Ruth 4:13, in which God causes Ruth to conceive Obed, the source of David’s line of kings. This verse is speaking about a specific birth to a specific woman for a specific purpose in God’s plan. Again, Bible simply doesn’t say that God directly acts to give conception to every woman who conceives, or directly acts to stop conception in every woman who does not conceive.

As I said, there are many things in our world that God designed to work on their own. In Matthew 4:6-7, when Jesus was in the wilderness being tempted by the devil, the devil suggested that Jesus cast Himself down from the top of the temple, trusting in God to send angels to bear Him up. Jesus answered, “It is written, thou shalt not tempt [test] the Lord thy God.” Jesus knew that the Father had set up the world so that gravity would cause anyone who threw himself off the temple to die. It was set up that way, and it was going to work that way unless God directly stepped in. It was wrong, Jesus said, to force God to do a miracle.

In the same way God has set up normal female fertility so that a woman’s ovaries will release an egg to be fertilized once a month. If a fertile woman has sexual intercourse with a fertile man during a period when an egg is in her fallopian tubes, she is going to conceive. It’s not unlike the game of “Russian Roulette.” In Russian Roulette, two people will put a bullet into one chamber of a six-shooter gun, and then take turns to point the gun at their own heads and pull the trigger. If the bullet is in the right chamber when the trigger is pulled, that gun is going to go off. If you play Russian Roulette and want to live, you are certainly “tempting God”!

Having sexual intercourse without birth control is not “trusting God.” It’s more like playing Russian Roulette. If the egg is in the right place at the right time, conception will occur. For it not to occur, God would have to do a miracle. Jesus said it’s wrong to force God into doing a miracle. Tempting God is not trusting God. If you’re in a position where a pregnancy would be a hardship and a sorrow (though this isn’t to say you wouldn’t welcome the child if it came!), you don’t have to play Russian Roulette with your womb every month.

As I said before, trusting God actually means being led by the Spirit of God. Romans 8:14-16. God wants us to pray to Him for guidance on when it’s a good time to have a child, and when it’s not—just as we would with any other major decision in our lives.

So to people involved in Christian movements like Quiverfull, I would say this.  Children were precious in the Old Covenant, but in the New Covenant, Christ shows them to be so much more than simply “arrows” for their fathers. In Matthew 19:14 He makes it plain that He loves and calls children to places in His kingdom as individuals in their own right. So if we already have children, few or many, God desires that we should care for them and love them with all our hearts (Matthew 18:1-6). But if we are feeling under pressure from other Christians to have even more– Galatians 5:1 says, “Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.” 

Parenting is a high calling, but no one has the right to add to Scripture and claim there is only one way to serve God– not for men, and not for women either. It is being “a new creature” that matters, says Galatians 6:15, not how many– or even whether– you have children.  Each Christian couple should be free in their own consciences to decide together when-- and whether-- to have children.


For more information see:

Eerdman’s Handbook to the Bible, Lion Publishing.

Ancient Inventions, Peter James and Nick Thorpe, Random House, 1994.

Household: Family and Household in Ancient Israel, by Michael Kruse: http://krusekronicle.typepad.com/kruse_kronicle/2007/06/household-famil.html

The Scripture-4-All Online Interlinear Hebrew Bible:http://www.scripture4all.org/OnlineInterlinear/OTpdf/gen3.pdf

Thoughts on Legalism

Legalism is often defined by Christians strictly in terms of whether a person is doing “works” to attain salvation or win God’s favor. As Paul said in Galatians 2:21, “I do not frustrate the grace of God, for if righteousness comes by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.” I know of no Christian who would argue that this is legalism.  But many Christians limit it to that.  They say that as long as your reason for following your particular group's rule or practice is not to earn God’s love but rather as a grateful response to His love for you ~ then it’s not legalism.  But after journeying through legalism and coming out the other side, I have come to disagree.

The New Testament teaches that legalism means more than seeking to be justified by works of the law. You can love Christ with all your heart, and you can believe that you are doing everything you do out of love for Jesus, and still be walking in legalism. In fact, a person’s very zeal to go the extra mile for God can make them especially vulnerable to legalistic practice. It’s very easy, when you want to serve God with your whole life, to listen to the myriad of voices in Christianity that say, “If you really love God with all your heart, you will do A, and B, and C. Those who don’t do these things aren’t really on fire for God.”

I know this from personal experience. When I was in college, as I have mentioned earlier, I was in a campus ministry group that became well-known for its coercive religious teachings. Our hearts were right, but many of our practices amounted to what Jesus called “binding heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and laying them on men’s shoulders.” (Matthew 23:5.)

For example, this group forbid all music, television, movies or books that did not meet its high standards of spirituality, based largely upon verses like Psalms 101:3 – “I will set nothing wicked before my eyes.” Many of us went even further and threw our television sets away or burned our books and recordings. But does “I will set nothing wicked before my eyes” actually mean, “throw out your TV”? Or was the Psalmist describing how he expressed his devotion to God, in terms of where he put his focus? In fact, the Bible itself is full of all kinds of things that, if you applied the Psalm as we did, we shouldn’t have been reading about at all! Murders and rapes and warfare and adultery are all things that come “before our eyes” when we read the Scriptures. So is just reading about these things, or watching The Ten Commandments on TV, “setting” wickedness before our eyes?

In fact, my group was going way beyond what the Bible texts actually said, to impose on ourselves all kinds of restrictions and “oughts” and “shoulds” that weren’t really there. And then patting ourselves on the back and looking down on others for not measuring up to our standards.

So what is legalism, if it’s more than just seeking to earn God’s favor through works?

Colossians 2 and Galatians 4 both talk about legalism in terms of bondage to the “rudiments” or “elements” of the world, such as “do not handle, do not taste, do not touch.” All of these sorts of things, Colossians 2:20-22 says, are “ordinances of the world“ which are “to perish with the using.” Verse 23 goes on to say that such things “have indeed a shew of wisdom in will[ful] worship and humility, and neglecting of the body,” but are of no real spiritual use. Galatians 4:9 calls following the “elements” of the world “bondage,” and gives as an example (v. 10) the observance of “days, and months, and times, and years,” as if these observances were what following Christ were all about.

That word translated “rudiments” or “elements” in Colossians 2 and Galatians 4 is the Greek word “stoicheion,” which means “first things from which others. . . take their rise; an element, first principle.” (An Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words, W.E. Vine, 1966 Ed., p. 22.) When used in conjunction with God‘s word, it refers to the first principles of God’s truth (Hebrews 5:12), but when used in conjunction with “the world,” the word usually means the basics of the physical nature of the earth or of the body. Legalism, then, means living in such a way as to be in bondage to physical, time-bound, earthly principles. These would include rules about eating and drinking, observing special days, and how we treat our bodies (especially, as Col. 2:23 says, neglectful or harsh treatment of our physical bodies as a way to show worship or humility). Jesus even said that marriage was of this physical world (Mark 12:25), and Paul said it’s easier to focus on spiritual things when you‘re not married (1 Cor. 7:7, 32-35) — so being focused on marriage and childbearing, as if these were what Christian living was about, could become bondage to earthly principles as well.

So even if you love Jesus, and consider all your physical, earthly actions as a way to show devotion to Christ, it is possible to still be legalistic. Colossians 2:20 says we should consider ourselves “dead with Christ” to earthly “rudiments,” considering them to be of lesser importance– because we are “complete in Him” according to verse 10. Christ is the “body” or substance of a reality of which earthly things are only a “shadow.” (v. 17), and we are therefore to “let no man judge you” regarding how we handle the rudiments or elements of the world (v. 16). Outward acts of devotion are not wrong; they can even be good– but they can also turn into bondage for us in the way we practice them.

Here are some characteristics of what I have come to recognize as legalistic practice:

1. Making something in the Bible about physical living on this earth, which is not set forth as a commandment, into a commandment. Ways of living that people practiced in the Bible become prescriptive rather than descriptive– we are all supposed to live our lives the same way they did in Bible times, because that’s the “biblical way.” Or we take something the Bible is silent about, and read that as a reason to consider that thing suspect. “The Scriptures speak only of parents training their own children, so sending them to school-- any school-- is at best a poor substitute for homeschooling.”

2. Taking a real or perceived commandment in the Bible to a level of restriction or obligation that goes beyond what the Bible actually gives. The Pharisees had a way of doing this with the law of Moses. The law said, “Don’t work on the Sabbath.” The Pharisees said, “Healing someone is work, and therefore you can’t heal someone on the Sabbath.” The law said, “Don’t eat what is unclean.” The Pharisees said, “You must follow the traditions of ceremonial hand washing in addition to not eating foods that the law calls unclean.” Jesus angered the Pharisees by refusing to follow these over-and-above rules. But some Christians take a verse in the Psalms like “children are a blessing,” and take that to mean that we should never restrict our family size– even when the mother's body is weak and worn out from constant pregnancies.   This comes very close to that neglectful or harsh treatment of our bodies in “bondage” to the “rudiments” that Colossians 2:23 warns against. (Note: 1 Corinthians 9:27, where Paul says, “I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection,” must be balanced with his warning against willed harsh treatment of the body in Colossians 2:23. In 1 Cor. 9, Paul is speaking of keeping himself free of fleshly self-indulgence, and likening this to the physical discipline of training for a race. This passage in no way commands us to ignore our bodies’ warning signs and push them beyond their limits when it is within our ability to protect them.  Our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, after all, and we need to take good care of them.)

3. Setting a standard that, though it gives nominal freedom of choice (“this is only what God‘s speaking to me. You don‘t have to do it if God‘s not speaking it to you”), in every practical sense, effectively eliminates that freedom. “The Bible doesn’t actually command you to live like this, but if you really loved God with your whole heart, you would hear Him speak this to you, and you would come to the same convictions I hold.”  I have found that this kind of thinking is at the heart of coercive, spiritually abusive religion-- where religious guilt is used to manipulate and control.

4. Confusing the meaning of a text with the application of a text, and making that application universal. “Application” refers to how the meaning of a passage applies to our own personal lives in the here-and-now. Any one passage of Scripture can lead to a variety of personal applications, and no one application constitutes the meaning of a passage. This is what my religious group was doing with Psalm 101:3, when we treated the text as if it actually meant, “No TV, no non-religious books or music,” to be followed by any Christian who was serious about serving God– when in fact, we were choosing a certain sacrificial lifestyle as a means of applying the meaning of the text, and not very accurately at that!

Legalism is not just thinking you can be justified or earn God’s favor with your works. It’s living in terms of elemental physical principles instead of spiritual freedom. It’s imposing those terms on both yourself and others, in order to (as Galatians 3:2 puts it) “be made perfect by the flesh.” It’s thinking you can become part of God’s extra-special people (“God’s Green Berets,” my religious group used to say) by choosing a "sold-out" lifestyle. There were all kinds of things we did– all kinds of sacrifices we made– not to earn favor or salvation, but to be (and show ourselves off as) more holy.

I know that Jesus said that if we love Him we will keep His commandments. But He also said, “Learn what that meaneth: I will have mercy and not sacrifice.” (Matthew 9:13.) He was talking about living life in terms of what is within instead of what is external– a heart of mercy and love taking precedence over outward acts of “holiness.” What I have come to understand-- the hard way-- is that it's mercy within that God considers the most holy. Outward acts are not wrong– but I've learned to keep them in their proper place and not enter into bondage to them. I've learned not treat them as if they were the substance of Christian life. That means holding mercy in my heart both for myself and for others. 

When we as Christians do that, our “moderation will be known to all” (Phil 4:5), and we will not bind heavy burdens and lay them on anyone’s shoulders to carry.

Not even our own.

March 28, 2012 - Prayer Walk for Women's Equality

Baptist Women for Equality and Christians for Biblical Equality are asking Christian women and men everywhere to participate in a Prayer Walk tomorrow, March 28, 2012. If you want to express solidarity with your sisters in Christ, please unite in prayer for women to become full, functional equals with our brothers in Christ. Please pray for your neighborhood when you step outside your door, when you're walking to your car or to the bus stop. Pray for your community as you drive through your town. Pray that Christ, who scandalized His own culture by talking to women in public, making them His disciples, traveling with them, engaging them in theological discourse, and revealing His Resurrection to them before He revealed it to any man, would reveal His true heart to His church today. Pray that His people's hearts would be open to the message that His truth sets us all free.