What Married Life is About

The Childless Generation

Two years ago, I preached a Mother’s Day sermon on Mark 5. The second half of the chapter brings together two beautiful stories to celebrate motherhood. That turned out to cause controversy. Some women in their 30s took offence that all I talked about in the sermon was the wonder of a woman being a mother. That is, I failed to present mothering as one option among many for women. This was on Mother’s Day. In a sermon about mothers.

I began then to realize how pervasive the cultural disdain for bearing and raising children had become in the American protestant church. And I grieved to see people tortured by a mental duality. Among Millennials, even women having children seem resentful of being identified as mothers. It is, “I’ll do it but don’t you dare reduce me to this role.”

The first command given in the Bible, to the man and woman, is to bear children: “God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth…’” (Genesis 1:28). It would seem, then, that for man and woman together, this is what life is about. Singleness is a high calling but this passage addresses the married. Yet some now seriously question, asking, Is this verse a mandate for individual couples? Are there not other ways to fill the earth? Does everyone (meaning, me in my marriage) have to do it? Or, in more religious dressing: Does the equally momentous mandate of Jesus Christ to make disciples, made at the end of the gospel of Matthew (Matthew 28:18-19) and patterned after the Genesis mandate, supersede it?

How does one answer such questions?

Making the Point

We could point out that if you went back and asked such questions of anyone at any other point in history besides our own, that person would look at you like you were from Mars. But that point doesn’t really answer the question. Innovation is sometimes good.

There is the rather practical detail that even if every couple decided to have only one child, this decision would quickly halve the population. We would soon die out. The fact that the world now actually faces such a population collapse should bear some relevance to seeing what happens if people (or governments) no longer take Genesis 1:28 as giving direction for individual lives. But many generations in the West are now so trained to presume the earth’s scarcity that this looming disaster hardly registers on them.

No, to help such questioners, who are Christian believers at least, we must go back to the Book.

Back to the Book

What do we find there? Well, there is the consistent witness of the Holy Writ that children are a blessing (Genesis 49:25, Ruth 4:12). God opening the womb is a recurrent plot device in the Bible’s dramas showing His gracious favor to people. God repeated promises to “multiply your offspring” (e.g., Genesis 16:10) as a goodness, as something people should want. He also gives overwhelming testimony that His story is multi-generational, dependent upon the seeking and having of children (E.g., Genesis 17:9, Deuteronomy 32:7, Psalm 132:11, Act 2:39).

In other words, bringing children into the world and sacrificing for their prosperity is everywhere assumed in the Bible, notwithstanding some exceptions, to be what life is about. Marriage is first for intimacy, and second, for fruitfulness. The prophet, Malachi, in exhorting faithfulness in marriage, gives this explanation for God instituting it (Malachi 2:15):

“Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth.”

Thus, as the Old Testament opens, so it closes. This is what God seeks. Marriage should lead to godly offspring.

In the New Testament, Christ does not abolish marriage. While our closest tie is to Christ and our first allegiance is to the Kingdom of God, earthly families still build that kingdom (2Timothy 1:5), until the marriage supper of the Lamb fulfills their meaning. So Christ does not abrogate the original mandate but combines it with that to make disciples. This is why the qualifications of Christian leaders, who serve as examples, include references to their children. (Titus 1:6, 1Timothy 3:4, 3:12).

Reasoning Deeper

One way to argue against the mandate is by citing exceptions. What about when a couple is either unable to conceive or on the foreign mission field, facing whether children are a wise move? I have counseled couples in both circumstances about the expansiveness of God’s plan. In the end, it is God Who opens the womb (Genesis 29:31, 30:22, 1Samuel 1:5, 1:19, 2:21). And He has very good purposes for sometimes closing it. And, certainly, there are the rare missions where marriages should not bear children. But I would err to make these situations a rationale for making child-having “one option among many.” I am sad to see those given the privilege of childbearing miss out on multiplying the people of God.

Underneath, there could be several different reasons why otherwise able couples decide to not be fruitful. (“It’s a terrible world,” “It’s an over-crowded world,” “We’re not ready,” “I like the way my life is,” “I’m a mess and will do a bad job,” “I need to get my career better established first.”) More likely, it is not a decision not to but an ongoing putting off. We do not prepare our lives or open our hearts or allow our bodies to bear the fruitfulness of intergendered love. These reasons we should closely examine, for, with enough time of not preparing, it becomes too late.

We should feel the force of the Scriptures questioning us about what married life is about.