I’m also very interested in answers to this question. This is one of the practical questions downstream from thinking biblically about children and contraception. But I don’t know of many sources that provide biblically ethical ways to think about it.
Revisiting this thread, and looking back to the Russell Moore quote I included, I would now say: if we are going to emphasise women getting married and having children, then we also have to show the other side of the coin and get the message through to young Christian men, to tell them that God’s principal call on their lives, if they marry, is to commit to having children with their wives.
I grew up in a Pentecostal setting where the message I got was that the highest thing I could aim for was to be a Family Man. Things didn’t play out like that in my case, for whatever reason, but I’m pretty sure that younger men, even from that background, are not often being given that message now.
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Indeed the resources for this are slim. I even tried looking at some catholic resources and didn’t get much. As a side note the Catholics are apparently not as fertile as they used to be. 10 kid families are a thing of the past for them, it seems.
Anecdotally, I know of very devout Catholics that do their best to follow the rules and not have more than a couple of kids. This means no sex for a long time after a baby is born, since “natural” family planning doesn’t work during that time frame.
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Man just have the 12 kids already 
what a price to pay!
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Is it just as simple as leaving all of the procreative decisions up to providence and having the mutuality of sexual urge determine frequency of intercourse? Even through the end of menopause for the wife? Is that the truly faithful position? Is that the only faithful position? Does wisdom come into this at all, or is true faith what’s ultimately wise?
I’m asking genuinely here. And quite honestly, I’d love to see the older family heads chime in. Y’all helped push us on this path: help us understand what we’ve signed up for!
I joined the bandwagon in faith after gaining a better understanding of the ethics of chemical contraception. But that was a far cry from a full understanding of the marital and family dimensions of sexual ethics. RC stuff is very helpful, but it comes, at least in part, from a faulty understanding of the goodness of sexuality itself in marriage. So it seems to overemphasise the procreative aspect of marital sexuality as a reaction to the physical side of sexuality. Dissecting these questions from a reformed theological understanding seems to be a bit of uncharted territory.
Or maybe I’m just naively unaware of the good work others have done.
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As far as I know, until recently people would be far more likely to just keep having kids, hence large families. Obviously not everyone but it was much more common. There was probably a mix of timing avoidance and using other forms of interaction, but that’s just spitballing. Would also like to hear a fully reformed thought on it. Perhaps there is room for a never before written book??
Keep in mind Aaron that I am just another schmuck here, but what I have learned over the course of my repentance on the matter of fruitfulness is watch what others less fortunate than you do and be encouraged. The teaching of fruitfulness is both taught and caught by watching others be fruitful.
There are families in our church with less job security and money than I have who nonetheless continue to be fruitful, even when they don’t really know what “the plan” is for the new little one. And the question I must ask myself is if I will despise the faith of these families or rejoice with them? The answer is easy. I love these families. They encourage me to do likewise.
And if I rejoice with them, why not rejoice myself when a new little one is presented to me? Well, if I’m honest I’m not entirely joyful. I doubt. I am faithless.
Since we are so given to be stingy on the matter of children, every bit as much as the local abortionist or Planned Parenthood pink-hat activist, I think we just have to err on the side of being fruitful, on the side of more. Our own natural inclinations and desires will balance us out.
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To go way back to the original question, I wonder if thinking of “Be fruitful and multiply” too rigidly as a “command” is part of the problem. Here’s what I mean:
Genesis 1:28 says,
God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
The command to be fruitful and multiply is itself a “blessing.” (This is reiterated with Noah and his sons in Genesis 9:1.) Man and Woman get to multiply and fill the earth, which is to say, God grants them the privilege of doing so. Sure, it comes in the form of a command, but it is a blessing at the same time. Would it have even crossed Adam’s, Eve’s, or Noah’s mind to think, “But do we have to?”
Think about what comes next in Genesis 1:
Then God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you.” (v. 29, cf. Gn 9:3)
When God gives food to Man, He does so authoritatively: “it shall be food for you.” You could even call it a “mandate.” But we don’t think of it as a “command,” simply because to do so would be ridiculous. God’s provision of food is a blessing, and to consider not eating would be silly.
Think of it this way:
Mankind needs food to survive. God gives food and makes eating pleasurable. Why wouldn’t we eat?
Being fruitful and multiplying should follow the same paradigm:
Mankind cannot survive without having children. God gives a way to have children and makes it pleasurable. Why wouldn’t we be fruitful and multiply?
To separate sex from the procreation of children is like separating the consumption of food from physical nourishment. It’s like sexual bulimia. (Note here that not all acts of eating directly relate to nourishment; and yet the point stands that to separate one’s practice of eating from nourishment altogether would be ridiculous.)
Now, part of what gets uncovered here is a lack of understanding of generational faithfulness to the Lord. First, on a physical level, just as it’s necessary for a man to eat in order to not die, it’s necessary for Mankind to procreate in order to…not die. We easily lose sight of this because the timescales of food and procreation are very different. It’s easy to remember that I need food and I need it now! But when it comes to procreation, we must go beyond ourselves and think generationally.
And it’s more than just physical. We are charged by God to raise up a spiritual generation who will carry on the faith after we’re dead. And, actually, doing so is impossible without having physical children.
But someone objects, “Yeah, but I can have spiritual children without having physical children.”
Well sure, but where do those spiritual children come from? Even spiritually reborn children have to be born of the flesh first before they can be born of the spirit. It’s certainly possible for you as an individual to have spiritual children without having physical children, but disciple making would stop altogether unless somebody is fulfilling the cultural mandate and having physical children. Perhaps bearing physical children is the work that ignorant, poor people do so that we enlightened people can come along and do the real, spiritual work of bearing spiritual children…
In the end, the underlying problem for many may be seeing God’s commands as burdensome, rather than as the life-giving blessings that they are. “Be fruitful and multiply” is a command, but it’s more than that. It’s God’s privilege to Man, and essential to his survival.
This is why, until very recently, God’s people have universally understood the procreation of children to be one of the essential, God-ordained purposes of marriage, one which it would be absurd to even suggest opting out of.
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Now that’s funny-funny-funny! But really, more true than funny. Serious, actually. Bravo!
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And then I read this, and say out loud to myself, “oh my.” Put this up on Warhorn, Alex. Love,
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Does this mean that even asking the question of ‘how many?’ is a sign of a lack of faith? Or a misunderstanding of God’s goodness in sexuality?
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Could be. Sounds a lot like, “Who is my neighbor?”
It depends on your heart. It is written that the lawyer asking Jesus for clarification was trying to justify himself.
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I’m inclined to think that the question “How many?” is a bit like questions surrounding tithing: “Exactly what percentage am I supposed to give? Is that on the net or the gross?…”
To answer these questions, our Lord does not give us neat formulas and reassurances that God doesn’t require us to give more than we feel like or want to, and that it’s obviously ridiculous to think that we should give as much as we possibly can. Rather, He takes us to the widow and her two copper coins, who “put in more than all of them; for they all out of their surplus put into the offering; but she out of her poverty put in all that she had to live on” (Luke 21:1–4).
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Let’s not forget to raise our sons to be husbands. Teach boys to find a wife.
Here’s something that jumped out to me in your recent post…
versus telling men to have children
…and from the Moore quote…
versus
No mention of husbandry.
My mother raised me relatively very well to become a father, but I was left alone to find a wife, or rather to be found by women. The only dating & marrying advice I received from family and church was a little book titled something like, “Why You Should Marry a Christian,” given at age 18. It was signed by my pastor and elders, including my father. Dang, I sound ungrateful. My church session could have done better by maybe just once asking about the two-year relationship I was in. The book was not what I needed.
Back to dating. My paternal grandfather was asked out and later proposed to by my grandmother. Their three sons and one daughter married, thanks again heavily to the initiative and determination of the women, and each bore multiple grandchildren. My grandfather died in his nineties with no great-grandchildren bearing his name. His grandsons remain unmarried. My cousins and I have more mortgages than we have spouses. This is only one anecdotal family. But we’re a family of nice guys, generations of outstanding uncles. Still nearly all very conservatively Christian. Potentially decent fathers. But none of us were raised to be or become a husband. Until the age of 35, I’d only dated through being set up.
Finally, after finding a great church, where men try to make more men, though I’ve failed a lot, I’m finally making progress. I’m dating some, most years.
I use my stories not as my excuse but to show what we culturally and generationally need to fix.
Even as recently as in the last four years, a Christian brother from another church pulled me aside one night after prayer and admonished me for seeming to desire children more then a wife. This man was practically a stranger at the time, and it took a few months to set in with me. He saw something in me still that needed fixing. I was still focusing too much on family rather than marriage. He said it very carefully, and I’m glad he had the courage to say it.
Yes, some aren’t called to marriage. And I’ve been counseled carefully about that myself and considered it. But the norm and expectation is to marry. Other considerations should only occur if there’s some real reason to do so. Let’s not wait until a boy thinks he’s called to marriage before preparing him to be a man. Interesting that the traditional phrase is “man and wife” not “husband and wife.”
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Thanks for this. I would be grateful for men with more pastoral experience in this respect, to comment as well.
Debated whether to do this, but with the request that it be limited in its circulation given that most of it will be in our next book on marriage, here is one chapter I’m hoping is helpful. Loved this discussion, brothers.
Chapter 4.pdf (207.5 KB)
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I’ll guarantee a book purchase!
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I read it. Fantastic. It seems like most couples should have kids well into their fourties, if the body holds up and mom is not in danger. Maybe early fifties. I know we’ve discussed Onanism before, so I’ll go reread that to see whether it was a one time act that was condemned or the pattern. If one time act, then any form of sex outside of vaginal seems condemned.
Just for the record, most women won’t be able to have children into their 50’s. Fertility declines gradually with age, especially after age 35. 20% of healthy women are able to become pregnant any given month at age 30, and just 5% at age 40. Furthermore, though the average age for menopause is 51, fertility is generally done 5-10 years before menopause.
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