Should Christians Have Big Families?
Ask the Pastor with J.D. Greear
J.D. Greear
4.9 • 624 Ratings
🗓️ 19 December 2022
⏱️ 10 minutes
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Summary
Show Notes:
Proverbs 24:27: Establish your work in the field, afterward build your house.
Doesn’t mean you have to wait a long time or that you need to be rich. But you probably don’t want to be on the rocks.
In general, we are waiting too long to have kids and not having enough. Not high enough value on childbearing.
Genesis 1: Be fruitful and multiply.
Many would-be-prophets are currently telling us: too many kids causes poverty, global warming. We are headed for an apocalypse because of too many people. Countries that have low birth rates are the one economically struggling so that argument doesn't hold up.
Psalm 127: no magic number.
But what about taking time to get to know each other? I get it, honeymoon phase. But I got to know my wife so much better after we had kids; I didn't get less of her when we had kids, I got more.
Have a parenting strategy:
Contrary to Beatles, love is not ALL you need.
Parenting catches you so off guard.
Want to ask J.D. a question? Head to our Ask Me Anything hub to submit your question.
As always, don’t forget to rate and review this podcast!
Find Pastor J.D. on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, everybody. |
| 0:18.0 | Hey, everybody, welcome to Ask Me Anything. |
| 0:38.4 | I am Matt Love. I am here with J.D. Greer. And we are in the final two episodes of this series we've been in, this marriage and family series. So we've got two more episodes for you. And I think they're both really, really interesting questions to dive into. So we're going to do that. And today, we have a question, should Christians |
| 0:43.8 | have big families? And maybe, I guess there's an addendum to this as well, should we wait |
| 0:49.4 | to have kids? So should Christians have big families? Should Christians wait to have kids? What do you |
| 0:53.7 | think? So Matt, what I hear in this are actually a couple of questions. |
| 0:57.0 | One, should we wait to have kids? You know, you got a newly married Christian couple, |
| 1:00.0 | and they're trying to figure out, you know, is it okay? How long should we wait? |
| 1:03.0 | And the other underlying question is, like, is there a right number of kids to have? |
| 1:08.0 | I mean, should Christians have big families? I mean, you kind of, you know, |
| 1:12.3 | we sort of joke around our church, the four is the new two. And what does that, you know, what does that |
| 1:16.3 | mean? Is there a right answer to that? You know, let me just start with this question of should |
| 1:20.7 | we wait to have kids. There's a couple of, as with almost all questions in the Christian life. Rather than like a rule, there's more like biblical |
| 1:28.2 | values to hold intention. It is true. Proverbs 2427 tells the wise man establish your work in the field |
| 1:34.8 | and afterward build your house. And what he's indicating is, you know, if you're a young guy |
| 1:39.7 | getting out in the world before you try to build your house, it's good to be able to bring, whether it's a |
| 1:45.1 | wife or children, it's good to bring them into a stable environment. And so you want to first, |
| 1:50.3 | you know, get your career settled or at least get it started and then bring that in. That can apply, |
| 1:55.0 | not just a marriage, but having kids. I think there's certainly some wisdom and waiting until |
| 1:59.6 | you are able to have a steady |
| 2:02.6 | source of income. Maybe you're not a student anymore. You're able to responsibly provide for them. |
| 2:08.6 | That doesn't mean you wait a long time or that you need to be rich, but you at least don't want to |
... |
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