Saved in Childbearing?

            Late last summer I drew attention to the cover article of the August 12, 2013 issue of Time magazine: The Childfree Life: When having it all means not having children.  In it author Lauren Sandler notes that the birthrate in the United States is at all-time low.  “1 in 5 American women end their childbearing years maternity-free, compared with 1 in 10 in the 1970s,” she writes.  Though Sandler allows for the possibility that this population decline may result in economic decline – as it has in Europe, where less than a quarter of women choose to bear children – overall her article is critical of those who “scold” women who choose to live child-free and favorable toward those women who’ve been enlightened: “having it all doesn’t mean having a baby.”

            My main intention of that former post was to link to Kathleen Nielson’s thoughtful response to The Childfree Life, which was posted on The Gospel Coalition blog that same week.  In it she points out that the problem with choosing the child-free life is not that those who do so deny that children bring joy.  Nor is the problem ultimately the narcissistic attitude that typically drives the decision to not bear children, nor is it the threat of economic decline.  Rather, Nielson contends, “The most basic problem is that the childfree life does not take God into account.”  She maintains that the Bible speaks of children not as a choice, but as a God-given gift.  She also mentions God’s command to Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply, as well as the reality that God saves His people from generation to generation, as “babies are born and the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ is passed on.”  She notes the responsibility of all believers to care for the Church’s children, asserting that not one of God’s people lives child-free.  Lastly, she looks forward to coming of our Lord.  “In the new heaven and earth, there will be no marriage—and no having babies. This part of human life is temporary, until the whole family of God's people is perfect and complete…  Until then, we're in labor! With every birth we're aiming for new birth.”

            Not long ago, a single young man recommended that I listen to a sermon on 1 Tim. 2:15.  That text reads, “Nothwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety.”  It was an excellent sermon, as he had said it was, one that highlighted the blessing of children and the high calling of motherhood, yet I think I listened to it with an enthusiasm that was different than his.  My enthusiasm was tampered at times with tears.  It was interrupted as our one-year-old emptied the contents of a kitchen drawer on the floor, by a dispute between our four-year-old and two-year-old, and when the clinic called to confirm my next OB appointment.  After the sermon was over, I reflected that I am not unaffected by same the narcissistic attitude that drives the birth-rate down.  Sometimes it is hard for me to look past the laundry, the messes, the quarreling, and the physical discomfort to see this: children bring joy.  And too often, my perspective on motherhood does not take God into account.  What He deems a high calling often seems to me to be the most lowly and the most lonely.  If you are a mother, my guess is that you face these same struggles, too.

In the weeks ahead, I plan to consider I Tim. 2:15 and other passages in the Bible that speak about childbearing.  How do we apply God’s Word about childbearing as mothers?  As single women or married women to whom God has not given children?  As all of God’s people, not one of whom lives child-free?