BE FRUITFUL AND MULTIPLY
Bible Studies
on responsible parenthood
Community Health Department
Chogoria Hospital
P. O. Box 35
Chogoria, Kenya
A WORD TO READERS
What does the Bible say about responsible parenthood?
What does it say about planning ahead?
May Christians practice birth spacing?
What about limiting the number of births?
May Christians use modern contraceptives?
To understand these subjects better, a group of Christian health workers in Africa began a series of Bible studies. Together they read and reflected on some passages that trouble many Christians nowadays. Then they asked the opinions and comments of several other people and produced this little book.
You will not find here a great theological masterpiece. Instead, you will see a Bible passage (New Jerusalem Bible translation) and then some questions for group reflection. Next are different comments from Christians, both pastors and lay people.
We welcome comments and questions from your own Christian group, women and men, young people and adults. Write to us.
Community Health Department
Chogoria Hospital
P.O. Box 35
Chogoria, Kenya
1999
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GENESIS 1:27-28 AT THE CREATION
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God created man in the image of himself, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them . God blessed them, saying to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. Be masters of the fish of the sea, the birds of heaven and all the living creatures that move on earth.”
Questions for reflection
-- Reflect as a group on the meaning of the words “image of God” and
“subdue the earth”.
-- To whom did God give these instructions: to the first human beings long ago, or to us also in our day?
-- Do these verses say anything on the subject of family planning?
-- Do they forbid the use of contraceptive methods?
Some comments
A woman: “The image of God” means a being who acts with love, wisdom, intelligence, and reasoning.
A theologian: The idea of “the image of God” is the foundation of human dignity. Thus it is with dignity that the human being must be conceived and born. We must take human dignity into account when we “fill the earth”.
A pastor: This commandment to fill the earth: it’s probably the only one we have obeyed....
A man: Children? Yes, you should have them, but not in a disorderly way. “Be fruitful” and “multiply” — those are not synonyms for disorder.
A pastor: Yes, these verses say something about family planning. God gave the couple the ability to have children and to reason, in order to plan a birth in an orderly way, with wisdom.
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GENESIS 2:22-24 ONE FLESH
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Yahweh God fashioned the rib he had taken from the man into a woman, and brought her to the man. And the man said: “This one at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh! She is to be called Woman, because she was taken from Man.” This is why a man leaves his father and mother and becomes attached to his wife, and they become one flesh.
Question for reflection
What words best express the relations between man and woman: competition, domination, tenderness, mutual aid, honesty, friendship, love, nearness, jealousy...etc.?
Some comments
A pastor: Since God considered it good to satisfy each of His creatures, He desires here that the man be faithful to his wife and vice-versa. And also, that they help each other, that they pardon each other, and that they have a love, a friendship that goes all the way to intimacy.
A woman: The last phrase of this passage is cited several times in the New Testament, each time for a particular reason:
Matthew 19:4 Jesus speaks against a man divorcing his wife.
I Corinthians 6:16 Paul is writing on the subject of prostitution. The body must be well cared for, because it is the temple of the Holy Spirit.
Ephesians 5:31 Paul writes that the love of a man for his wife is like the love of Christ for his Church.
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GENESIS 3: 16-19 AFTER SIN
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To the woman He said, “ I shall give you intense pain in childbearing; you will give birth to your children in pain. Your yearning will be for your husband, and he will dominate you.” To the man He said, “Because you listened to the voice of your wife and ate from the tree of which I had forbidden you to eat, accursed be the soil because of you! Painfully will you get your food from it as long as you live. It will yield you brambles and thistles, as you eat the produce of the land. By the sweat of your face will you earn your food, until you return to the ground, as you were taken from it. For dust you are and to dust you shall return.”
Questions for reflection
- What are the different curses mentioned here?
- What did the Lord intend at the beginning of His Creation?
- What changed with the coming of sin?
Some comments
A woman: Now every pregnancy has become troublesome and a risk for women. And men must work with difficulty. But human beings have invented ways to avoid too much suffering.
A man: African men are pro-nasalis. But when we expose a woman to the risks of pregnancies, is that an expression of love for the neighbor? Don’t we expose them to early death? Is it African to eliminate people before old age?
A grandmother: The life of men becomes difficult after the curses. He must work a lot to meet the needs of his family. And the risk of delivery or the suffering during pregnancy complicate the life of women. So we see the importance of family planning, not to do away with the curses, but to make them less severe.
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GENESIS 38: 6-10 THE STORY OF ONAN
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Judah took a wife for his first-born Er, and her name was Tamar. But Er, Judah’s first-born, offended Yahweh, and Yahweh killed him. Then Judah said to Onan, “Take your brother’s wife, and do your duty as her brother-in law, to maintain your brother’s line.” But Onan, knowing that the line would not count as his, spilt his seed on the ground every time he slept with his brother’s wife, to avoid providing offspring for his brother. What he did was offensive to Yahweh, who killed him too.
Question for reflection
-- Why did God punish Onan?
A conversation among Christians
-- God punished Onan because he wasted his sperm. Nowadays our word for doing that is “withdrawal”.
-- No, that’s not what his sin was. What he did wrong was disobey his father.
-- No, it was God that Onan disobeyed, and the law of Moses.
-- It seems to me that Onan’s sin was selfishness. He didn’t want to produce children in his brother’s name, because they would compete with his own children for the family property. It was for his selfishness that he was punished.
-- His hypocrisy brought on the punishment. God sees the heart, not the outside of a person.
Comment from a Christian health educator: I remember one pastor who would not let me talk about sexuality or condoms in his parish. Even after a long conversation about the story of Onan, he wasn’t convinced. Finally he asked me, “Have you ever used condoms yourself?” I answered, “Of course, many times.” Then he said, “Okay, fine. Go ahead and talk about them to our church people.”
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I SAMUEL 1:1-8 A STERILE COUPLE
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There was a man...whose name was Elkanah. He had two wives, one called Hannah, the other Peninnah; Peninnah had children but Hannah had none....One day Elkanah offered a sacrifice. Now he used to give portions to Peninnah and to all her sons and daughters; to Hannah, however, he would give only one portion: for, although he loved Hannah more, Jahweh had made her barren. Furthermore, her rival would taunt and provoke her, because Yahweh had made her womb barren. And this went on year after year; every time they went up to the temple of Yahweh she used to taunt her. On that day she wept and would not eat anything; so her husband Elkanah said, “Hannah, why are you crying? Why are you not eating anything? Why are you so sad? Am I not more to you than ten sons?”
Questions for reflection
For Peninnah, who counted more — her husband or her children?
For Hannah, who counted more — her husband or having some children?
And for Elkanah, who counted more — his wives or his children?
A conversation between a mother and her son
Son: In our African culture, it is children that a person considers the most important.
Mother: Why is it never the husband or wife?
Son: I don’t know any woman happy to be without children.
Mother: Oh, I do — women who are busy with adopted children or other children in the family.
Other comments:
A man: A couple can love each other and stay together without having children. Love is not dependent on the presence of children.
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PSALMS 127-128 AN INHERITANCE FROM THE LORD ___________________________________________________________
Read these two Psalms out loud, to hear clearly the words and the images.
Questions for reflection
- Reflect on the different pictures and images:
Sons = a birthright from Yahweh, arrows, shoots of an olive tree
Children = a reward
Wife = a fruitful vine
- What can you say about each of these images?
- Are they still relevant in our day?
Some comments
A mother: In Bible times, a man needed a lot of sons to defend him in war. That is no longer the case nowadays.
A father: Procreation is a blessing and a reward of God to the faithful. But we shouldn’t abuse it.
A grandmother: Some children become enemies of their parents, selfish....
A mother: My children are my jewels, my best dresses, my treasures.
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MATTHEW 24:15-21
WOE TO THOSE WHO ARE PREGNANT...
So when you see the appalling abomination, of which the prophet Daniel spoke, set up in the holy place (let the reader understand), then those in Judea must escape to the mountains; if anyone is on the housetop, he must not come down to collect his belongings from the house; if anyone is in the fields, he must not turn back to fetch his cloak. Ala for those with child, or with babies at the breast, when those days come! Pray that you will not have to make your escape in winter or on a Sabbath. For then there will be great distress, unparalleled since the world began, and such as will never be again.
Questions for reflection
- What do these verses say?
- What pictures come to mind when you read this passage?
- Have members of your family been through experiences
like this?
Some comments
A man: Horrible things will happen, and we must be wise about having children. Those who have a lot of children will not be able to flee with their children. Women who are pregnant and breastfeeding will have the greatest difficulties.
A woman: But why speak only about the future? We see such pictures on television every day. To give birth to little ones for that sort of life makes no sense. It’s cruel.
A pastor: People should plan their births to prevent destitute and abandoned children in the streets and markets — what we see today. God is a God of order.
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LUKE 14:25-30 BE MY DISCIPLE...COUNT THE COST
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Great crowds accompanied him on his way and he turned and spoke to them. “Anyone who comes to me without hating father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, yes and his own life too, cannot be my disciple. No one who does not carry his cross and come after me can be my disciple. And indeed, which of you here, intending to build a tower, would not first sit down and work out the cost to see if he had enough to complete it? Otherwise, if he laid the foundation and then found himself unable to finish the work, anyone who saw it would start making fun of him and saying, ‘Here is someone who started to build and was unable to finish.’ ”
Questions for reflection
- What is Jesus saying about family ties?
- To follow Jesus, must you hate your family?
- Whom or what must you renounce?
- Can you give other examples of a lack of planning?
Some comments
A woman: Building a house, building a family — both take planning.
A pastor: God is the greatest planner.
A man: The act of giving birth is given by God and should be well thought out. You have to take responsibility for raising the children all the way to the end. Otherwise, it’s a sin. You have to plan births according to the resources that will be needed.
A couple: When we were first married, we planned to have six children. But later, we decided to stop with two. Why? To raise our two children properly, and also so that we could give our time to our work, which is to help poor and needy children.
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I CORINTHIANS 7:1-6
DO NOT REFUSE YOURSELVES TO EACH OTHER
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Now for the questions about which you wrote. Yes, it is a good thing for a man not to touch a woman; yet to avoid immorality every man should have his own wife and every woman her own husband. The husband must give to his wife what she has a right to expect, and so too the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does; and in the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. You must not deprive each other, except by mutual consent for a limited time, to leave yourselves free for prayer, and to come together again afterwards; otherwise Satan may take advantage of any lack of self-control to put you to the test. I am telling you this as a concession, not an order.
Question for reflection
- During what periods in a person’s life is sexual abstinence appropriate and recommended?
Comment
A man: The couple owes each other mutual fidelity, and they should have sexual relations regularly. To avoid sexual abstinence, and also to avoid unwanted pregnancies, they should use a contraceptive method.
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