Is It A Good Thing To Have A Large Family?

In my last post I quoted remarks by Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod president Matt Harrison as he discussed the Biblical encouragement to "be fruitful and multiply" (Genesis 1:22). I focus today on the final sentences of that quote.

However, I think it's time for us to preach "Be fruitful and multiply." That's what the Bible says. And we ought to encourage young people and families who have the ability to have families. And encourage them. 

The church needs to be a place... It's no time to despise family ministries. It's no time to despise those kind of diakonic efforts in the church to care for marriages and families, etc. It's time to redouble our efforts in those areas and it's time to speak clearly that it's a good thing to have a large Lutheran orthodox family. If Muslims are having an average of 4.2 children a piece and we're having 2.1 children a piece, I would say God would be really happy if we'd bump it up to at least 4.2 per family. Don't quote me on that. [Laughter]

In my own life, Sylvia and I decided not to limit the number of children we would have. We were convinced that the LORD would provide. However, He declared, after a couple miscarriages, that we were to have three precious and wonderful children. We now have six grandchildren and one beautiful great-grandson. By the way, I write to and about him in another of my blogs, Dear Byron.

Contraception, the process of preventing child birth, in one form or another has been in existence for as long as humans have given birth, writes Caroline Collard. She says,

It was the ancient Greeks who first realised that male and female union caused pregnancy and since then many methods have been used with varying degrees of success. A wide range of products have been used as barriers such as lemon juice and essence from mahogany husks, acacia tree and honey, oil of cedar and lead ointment, frankincense and olive oil, salt, cabbage or willow leaves, onion juice, peppermint oil and, soft wool. Since most of these are either quite acidic or quite alkaline, it is quite likely that they all offered some degree of protection, in fact it is quite surprising how effective some of them could have been, although they would not have been as reliable as the methods that we use today. The first suppository that was commercially produced was developed in England by Walter Rendell, it was made of cocoa butter and quinine sulphate. Pessaries, suppositaries and spermicides are still in use today, unfortunately they are not the best forms available partly because they need to be inserted as near the time of intercourse as possible, this is not always easy to judge. However, they are often used in conjunction with other methods, particularly the diaphragm and as such prove quite useful. Vaginal douches have been used after intercourse since the 1600s, however, they do not seem to be at all effective.

She continues with what appears to be a carefully researched and detailed history of the subject. She concludes,

More recent methods are the injectable contraception, hormonal vaginal rings, skins patches and gels, nasal sprays, contraceptive vaccines and the male pill. Obviously research still goes in many areas and presumably always will unless the population starts to rapidly decline and there is an ever increasing range of options available which are also getting safer and more reliable. Despite this, many of the methods that have been used for many hundreds of years are still very popular and presumably will continue to be so.

For more on the history of contraception and related information see FPA, the sexual health charity of the UK.

All this takes us back to Dr. Harrison's encouragement and the question, Would God really be happy if we Lutherans bump up our conception rate to 4.2 per family like the Muslims? Frankly, I do not know how to speak for God on this matter. Dr. Harrison's remarks puzzle me, especially since I understand from Holy Scripture that children are gifts, not decisions we make to conceive. Doubtless our LORD permits us to participate in His creative activities (Genesis 1:22; 1 Cor. 3:9; 2 Cor.6:1). Does that mean He gives us the power to prevent Him from creating children? Perhaps we all need to rethink the entire question.

For today, consider this Psalm:

Children are a gift from the LORD; they are a reward from him. Children born to a young man are like arrows in a warrior's hands. How joyful is the man whose quiver is full of them! He will not be put to shame when he confronts his accusers at the city gates. - Psa 127:3-5 NLT