Introduction to Christian Perspectives on Family and Adoption
Live from the Mecca of Mormonism, this is Heart of the Matter, where we are re-learning how to live in the age of fulfillment. And I’m your host Shawn McCraney.
Let’s have a word of prayer, shall we:
Father . . .
Show 9A Adoption
Taped February 18th 2020
Airing February 24th 2020
Issues Surrounding Sex and Marriage
We’ve hit on the biblical definition of marriage. We’ve talked about homosexual unions. We’ve talked about sexual practices within marriage and we have talked about masturbation. Masters and Johnson and Kinsey would be proud.
Tonight, I want to wrap the whole thing up by hitting on the ancillary issues that orbit around sex and marriage in the age of Christian fulfillment:
Artificial insemination
Invitro fertilization
The morning after pill
And then especially . . . adoption.
Simply put, to all of these things it seems to me that the Christian world ought to respond collectively with –
It’s between you and your God. All of it. That is the age we live in – thanks be to God through Christ. Those who seek and love Him will choose according to the dictates of their own conscience relative to the Spirit and those who don’t will do the same.
And we will all be accountable before God (before GOD) for the choices we make – its as simple as that.
We therefore do NOT have the right nor the duty to judge anyone else ever for their choices – do we?
I just don’t think there is much more to say – with the exception of the topic of adoption. And the place I go to search out everything for answers is the Bible.
Adoption in the Bible
Interestingly, the Bible directly and indirectly talks about adoption – and it is always a magnanimous act. The conversation starts back in the Tanakh where God himself is called “the Father of the Fatherless,” making him the biggest adopter of people on earth.
Our father has a deep and abiding heart for the orphans and fatherless on this earth and the act of adoption ranks up there with one of the most loving things a human being can do in this world. But it is all in accordance with the Spirit moving in your lives which takes everything into account and teaches us how to proceed.
I have long wanted to adopt children who aren’t wanted or babes being born to mothers out of wedlock. I think Mary has wanted to do the same – especially when we were younger. But it was never right or the right thing for us to do. It never played out when we stepped into that arena nor was it a cog in the works of our lives.
Are we lesser of Christians? Not in the least. We have our lot and we live it to the best of our abilities – by the Spirit, trusting that the course we have taken is in harmony with the will of God.
Acts of Selflessness
Those who adopt, and who are lead to adopt, God bless them – it is a selfless act when done for the benefit of the lost, or parentless, or destitute. In fact, caring for the widows and fatherless is the very definition of religion by James, who wrote:
“Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.”
That Greek word translated visit is EPI-SKEP-TOMAHEE and it means “to look out for, care for.”
What is interesting is that this passage is typically broken up, separating the fatherless from the widows – making adoption in the United States a multi-billion dollar industry. But the fact of the matter of that verse is it more speaks to widows who have children (making the children fatherless) and not just orphans who have no parents at all.
That’s an important distinction to understand if we are going to use the Bible to tell us how to be.
Nevertheless, adoption is a central theme of the Gospel as God took the Children of Israel and made them his own, his people, actually his bride. She would ultimately reject Him and His Son who He had sent and God would, by virtue of the faith abiding in non-Jews (gentiles) “adopt” each of us as His Sons and Daughters, making us Children of Abraham by adoption!
The Example of God's Love
That’s quite an endorsement for the act isn’t it?
The beautiful thing about it – this perfect example of adoption – is that it is executed by a being who is called love in scripture. In other words the God that is called LOVE
Adoption and Love
Adopts us as His children, into His family, as Sons and Daughters.
I say this because when it comes to adoption, whether it be by God of His children, or of humans of other human children, the key component – the Key – is love:
With THAT kind of love being defined as Kind, patient, longsuffering, temperate, good, true and selfless.
Is this love always and only present in married couples? No, its not. Is this love always and only present in single parents? No, it is not. Is this love always and only present in homosexual couples? No, it is not. But WHEN this love for children NO MATTER WHO IS INVOLVED, and they are moved to adoption, adoption is good, adoption is right, adoption is acceptable.
Love Beyond Traditional Models
I mean we know that there are men who lose their wives and raise children alone – and they do it well. We know that there are women who lose a husband and raise children and do it well. So we know that single people, who love, CAN adopt and raise a child or children . . . WELL.
Is it ideal? Not always. In fact single parenting is pretty damn tough. But it DOES NOT mean a child cannot benefit from the love and devotion of a single parent.
In our day and age we see images and examples of movie stars adopting children from all over the place – and even doing it alone. The natural tendency among the faith is to criticize this and see it as unnatural and leading to problems in society.
Everything – including married couples raising their own children – leads to problems.
We have to shift our thinking as believers toward this stuff, let go of the biased traditions we bear about what is right and wrong, and rejoice when any child anywhere is being cared for with love by anyone.
Shifting Perspectives on Adoption
Is this the model God established from the beginning? Of course not. But they again how much on this earth really is anymore?
In the age of fulfillment, and as a means to help future generations see the value of having a relationship with God in their lives, believers must decide to put their prejudices to death – and not just rearrange them – but to putting them to death – as far that is possible, realizing that when it comes to children, the raising and adopting of them, that selfless agape LOVE – whether it’s coming from Elton John and his partner toward their two sons, a single mother and her brood of fatherless children, a happily married heterosexual couple and their family or a single woman who adopts several unwanted children – is the factor.
Love is the key.
God will reach any and all of these children and others in His way and in His time. But it is love that gives them the chance to even hear the message in this world.
So in the age of fulfillment, as with most other things, those who do not care for Him will do as they please, and those who do care for Him will try and do as He directs- by the Spirit, and in love.
Write your comments below! We will cover them tomorrow night . . . here on Heart of the Matter!
