Does God Expect Married Couples to Have Kids?

[00:00:09] Speaker A: Welcome into think deeper presented by Focus Press. I'm your co host Joe Wilkie, joined as always by Jack Wilkie and Will Harib. And we have a fantastic outline brought to us by Will today about childlessness. And in that vein, doctor Brad Harab, Will's dad and of course the, the president of Focus Press has been working for a long time on a parenting book. It is in the proofing process and it will be available soon. So it's, it's going through the proofer. We've already, we've been discussing design. We're very excited about it. He sent us some of the chapters. It's going to be really good stuff. [00:00:40] Speaker B: We think this, him and, him and his wife. My mom worked on it too. [00:00:43] Speaker C: Correct? Yes. [00:00:43] Speaker A: Yes. Brad Melinda, the co author as well. Yep. So very, very good stuff. We're excited about that offering. [00:00:50] Speaker C: We think it's, if you think will turn out semidecent, then you might. Yeah, that's right. [00:00:55] Speaker B: If you don't, then maybe it's not for you. [00:00:59] Speaker A: Pick it up anyway. Just to see. Just to see what went wrong. No. [00:01:02] Speaker C: Yeah, it might be what not to do. [00:01:07] Speaker A: But yeah, we've had some meetings. I had two meetings last week or so, just about the direction of the company and getting things on the books for future and scheduling out. And we're excited. We got a lot of books in the pipeline, uh, from here until the end of the year. I think we had what, three, four books that should be releasing that we're working on currently. Jack's got one. I've got one uh, working on some devo books, uh, that are coming from the Patreon. And um, so we're excited about the future of the business. Just stay tuned for a lot of those things. Stay tuned for Brad's. Brad Melinda's book, um, which is I believe. Has he released the, the name of it? [00:01:39] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:01:40] Speaker A: Okay. It's arrows in the hands of a warrior. Correct. [00:01:43] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:01:44] Speaker A: Okay. Want to make sure. Get that one wrong. There you go. So in that vein, that's exactly what this is on, is raising children. And we're not taking the parenting because we're not parenting experts. We're all young. Yes. We do have what, ten kids between us? Um, us three. But they're all six under. Wow. Yeah, I know. I know. They're all six and under, though. And so we're, we're not coming in as parenting experts. This is specifically on childlessness. As I said, we'll put together a fantastic outline. I'm going to let him transition us into the main discussion here. [00:02:16] Speaker C: Sure. [00:02:17] Speaker B: So this is a question that we have thrown around in other episodes before, but never, we wanted to devote a full episode to this. The kind of the, I don't know what Jack's going to call it. Jack's done a great job lately, by the way. Shout out to Jack with the titles for these episodes. They've been really intriguing. I really liked what he's done with them. But what I put at the top of our outline just is simply childlessness. Colon is not having children when wrong. I think this is. A lot of people would answer this question with a no. A lot of people might answer this question with a yes, and I think it's very much going to be worth a deep dive. Thus, this episode of why this does not seem to be a consensus answer for Christians in the church of Christ or, you know, in the United States. Again, is not having children wrong. You're going to get a lot of different answers on that, and a lot of it just kind of is based around the question of should a christian couple have children if they are able? Should a christian couple have children if they are able? What answers do you usually get when people ask that question? One of the, we've kind of thrown this around on social media before as well. I know when, when my dad posted about the female, the woman who chooses to kind of go live the Instagram lifestyle and not get married, this discussion was kind of a different branch of the same tree with that of should a christian couple have children if they're able? A lot of people are going to say, well, you can't say that. No, you can't say that a christian couple is supposed to have kids or that they should have kids. We know. What about the couples who can't have kids? You'll hear a lot or so, you know, the classic one that everybody always gives. So you're telling me it's a sin if me and my wife or me and my husband don't have kids telling me that's a sin. Or I think, I think ultimately it can be summed up with most people's opinion, or I, maybe I shouldn't say most a lot of people's opinion, but specifically a lot of people who have voices in the church. So there you have your preachers, you have your church leaders. Pretty much their take on it is if a couple decides to not have kids, that's totally fine. And if a couple decides to have kids, that's fine, too. There's not really a superior option. Both sides, both of those options are presented as equal. That couple a over here, who decides I'd ra we'd rather not have kids. We, you know, got, for whatever reason, we'll get to all the potential reasons people have later. But, you know, we've got, you know, high powered careers or that's just not really what we want to do. We just want to spend time together. Whatever. That couple a is just. That is equivalent. That is equal in value to couple b. Who says, no, we want to have kids. We desire to have kids. We desire to have, you know, a good number of kids. And so that's kind of what we. [00:04:58] Speaker C: Looked at is weirder than zero. [00:05:00] Speaker B: Exactly. That's a great way to put it. Five kids is looked at as those are weirdos if you come in with zero kids. [00:05:05] Speaker C: Okay, cool. [00:05:06] Speaker B: That's just what they decided. Both are presented as the same. And so that's what we're going to deep dive with this episode. That's what we're going to take a look at and kind of answer. That question is of if people are choosing not to have children. Again, we'll get the qualifiers out of the way. We're not talking about people who can't, but people who actively choose not to. Is that wrong? So that's kind of the introduction where we're going to head. Guys, what would you add to kind of this introduction before we get to the way the culture all around us for decades upon decades has devalued children, what would you add before we get into that, any addition to the intro. [00:05:38] Speaker C: I want to say on the those that can't because, okay, you see a couple that comes in and has zero, yet don't just assume they've decided not to and they're. They're against having kids, that is kind of the hard part. But on the other hand, that does not. We're going to put our cards on the table here a little bit. That in itself does not prevent christians from saying, hey, it's good to have kids. Like, this is a blessing from the Lord. This is something the christian couple should pursue, knowing for folks like that, it is not a judgment against them whatsoever. I've beaten this dead horse a million times in writing and on podcasts of like, don't make them your human shield to hide behind. For the people who aren't interested in them, those are two totally different things. Those who can't and those who don't want to. And so, yeah, not being judgmental and just assuming that somebody has just made that decision and they're living that way. But on the other hand, like, it's really not somebody's business to decide, okay, well, that person, that's probably because of this. But when you find out, like, because when we're talking about it, it might be a decision couples are making behind closed doors. You might not know if that couple can't or they don't want to. So we just say these things publicly of this is how it should be and ought to be and what christians should pursue. And here are the exceptions, but there. [00:06:50] Speaker B: Are certain people who make it pretty well known among their circle or among their friends or whatever it is. That's just they don't want to have kids. [00:06:57] Speaker C: I knew a christian, young girl, 17 years old. It was a friend of my wife and her sister who was saying before she ever got married, had looked into surgery so that she could never have kids. And it's like, you don't even have a boyfriend yet. You know what? I'm just going to put that on the table. And that way if I get married, then he'll just know from day one it's never going to happen. It's like, that's not a great idea. And I think she was lamenting that it's very hard to find doctors who will do that and let you make that kind of commitment. I'm sure that's changed in the few years since there's more and more of that happening. But, yeah, I mean, like, to your point about being open about it, there are some people who are just fully saying, I don't like kids. Don't want them, don't want to be around them. [00:07:36] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't think I have too much to add intro wise. I was just thinking about that. Jack, you've used the illustration before the shopping cart. We should, you should put your shopping cart back. There are some people that are in wheelchairs. You know how difficult it is. There's some people that just don't have any arms. How are they supposed to put the wheelchair or how are they supposed to put the carts back in? [00:07:51] Speaker B: I'm a single mom with four kids. [00:07:53] Speaker A: Yeah, right. Like, we're not talking about that. We're talking about those that have the ability to do it. The best principle is this. And so, yeah, we're putting our cards out on the table from the very beginning, but I think that is where the discussion has to start, is, yeah, we're, we're getting the caveats out of the way because we don't want the but, but, no, we understand there are going to be those. And it's a very sad situation. And a lot of them are looking to adoption. And. And it's a difficult thing. We never want to make light of the fact that there are some couples that very much struggle in having children, and they're praying to God for it and everything else. And we lament that with you, and we pray alongside you because we do believe children are a great thing. And so we're not talking to those that can't. We're talking to the Instagram life. We're talking to those that. I saw something for a place that offers vasectomies, and kids are really expensive and over the course and shows, like, 250,000. The dad who's at Disney, and he's just got this look on his face like, ugh. Like, you can prevent all that. And it's just like, really? Really, you know, this is from, I think, a urologist or something like that. Like, really? That's the. What they're pushing. But you have a lot of young guys that go and get vasectomies, and then they come to it later in life, and it's like, well, maybe it can be reversed, maybe it can't. Sometimes you can, and sometimes it doesn't work out for them. But they're making these decisions at a young age because of the way we devalue children. And so will, I kind of want to. I want to kick you off into that because I really feel like children are incredibly devalued in our culture, in America. And it starts with comments like that. It starts with Instagram life of, like, I don't just, you know, I want to live my life the way I want to live it. And so they choose not to not have kids because kids will ruin that, quote, unquote. So in what ways are you seeing us devalue children here in America? [00:09:36] Speaker B: Yeah. And we'll obviously go ahead and as Jack already pretty well put our cards on the table with the question of should a, should. The question is, should. Should a christian couple have children if they are able? All three of us affirmatively answer, yes, absolutely. A christian couple should have children. This is not a, well, you know, one option as good as the other from our biblical perspective, from our view, that's. That's you. You should not have the right to say, eh, no, that's not really for me. And we can get to more of that later. But to Joe, to your question of the culture's devaluing of children, man, we, like I said, we've seen this for decades. We've seen this for decades upon decades of children progressively and even more so nowadays, as you just spoke to being viewed as a hindrance, being viewed as a nuisance, being viewed as annoying, being viewed as just kind of this thing you have to put up with for 18 years. And I mean, you hear parents talk about kid turns twelve or whatever happened, celebrating 12th birthday, just six more years. So they're out of the house. You only have to put up with this for six more years. Like just stuff like that where it's like they're not viewed in a joyful manner. They're not viewed, parents are not grateful or at least, you know, on social media or in, you know, day to day elbow rubbing conversation or whatever. Like, man, you gotta put up with your kids. They're just viewed as a hindrance. They're viewed as a nuisance by so many in our society, by even christian parents in many instances. But you go back to kind of how, how is our culture looked at kids throughout the decades? You have the concept way back in, I guess this was probably the eighties or so of latchkey kids. These kids that would get home from school, both parents are at work, they let themselves in and they're pretty much living their own life. You know, maybe they see their parents at night when they get home from work. You know, maybe if they're lucky, they'd share a meal together, but then everybody would go do their own thing. And kids were just kind of viewed as roommates, essentially. Like, yeah, they live in this house, but we give them a key, they let themselves in. Just no, once again, no gratefulness, no appreciation for, for their kids. Obviously, you have the children to be seen and not heard thing. That was real big. You know, I guess with my grandparents generation, kind of, not necessarily, you know, always a bad thing and probably not near as harmful as some of these other things we're about to discuss. But still, just the idea of like, you know, we're not going to show any value or appreciation for our children. They're to be seen and not heard. You have what all three of us have railed on before, the, you know, the idea of this being summertime, which we're getting closer to the end of this time now, or school Christmas holiday where people are posting on facebook, man, I just can't wait for my kids to go back to school. Like, man, only two more weeks till my kids are back in school. I can't wait. Or, you know, there's the, it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas song. Where they're talking about mom and dad can hardly wait for school to start again. It's a harmless song. You know, it's all, it's a seemingly harmless line, everybody. It's a happy song. But that line in there is like, hmm, why? Why can mom and dad hardly wait for school to start again? Because they've been around their kids too much. And culture is like, man, that's just too much for you to be around your kids. [00:12:30] Speaker C: Well, that's kind of where I'll come up. I'm going to challenge people. Do not share the meme about, oh, parents in the drop off line, you know, 06:00 the night before. Just can't wait to kick them out the door. Don't do it. Don't. Your kids might grow up and see that someday. But the other thing is, if you have that attitude and if you think that's funny, that's going to come into your house, that's going to come into how you view your kids, it's not funny. And it really is because at the end of the year, there's all the memes about the teachers going, oh, they're out of our hair. And then the start of the year, it's, oh, man, I get to kick them off to those teachers. Nobody wants the kids, and they feel it. I mean, that comes through. Don't do that, Jeff. [00:13:01] Speaker A: And then the parents get all upset when the kids hit the teenage, you know, the teenage level, and they want nothing to do with the parents. It's like, oh, I just missed when they were young, when they actually liked being around me. It's like, you didn't like being around them, so why would they want to be around you? Why is that a shock when they grow up and they basically are like, see ya. I don't really want to have much to do with you. And, yeah, boy, they barely call home, and I just wish they called. [00:13:24] Speaker B: They don't want to spend time with me anymore. It's like you didn't want, you didn't. [00:13:27] Speaker A: Want to spend time with them, so don't be shocked when that comes back around to get you. I think you're making a really good point with a lot of these. I think you see with birth control pill, you see with Roe v. Wade and the way that abortion has taken over, obviously, the, the woman's right to choose. They're choosing career, and we very much pit the career and the money and everything else against the kids. And what do you think that psychologically does to a kid as well? When they realize there really is a monetary element to my life, that if it was expedient, they could have just killed me if they really had decided to take the money. Well, and you do see families where there has been an abortion or whatever else. And. And I've worked with this as well, where people are like, I don't know why they decided to have me. I think maybe they wanted to abort me, but they ended up having me. They aborted two, you know, two of my siblings. Um, I have worked with that, actually. And it psychologically messes with people to. [00:14:19] Speaker B: Go wreck them and. [00:14:21] Speaker A: Right. Like, why? Why did they not want kids? And why did they want me? And. Or, you know, did they want me type of thing? Because they didn't want the other ones. And so that obviously messes with them. And it causes with each of these things, it causes the kid not to feel value. And we have to think about it through their eyes of, like, what would it feel like to feel no value from the parents or to feel annoying, annoying to the parents or to feel like you don't have a place or you don't, you know, like, your parents are always against you. There's always this friction. And when you have a woman's right to choose, even if you don't abort your child, if you support those things, what does your kid get? To see that you're allowing the choice to be made between finances and money and living that life versus kids. Your kids will see that. [00:15:02] Speaker C: Jeff. [00:15:02] Speaker B: Well, think about a couple hundred years ago in our country, what everybody, and even you could even argue, obviously, before the United States, what were people's lives revolving around? What was the center of their life? They had their work, their vocation, whatever, but the center of their life was their family. You know, and I'm not somebody who believes that we should elevate kids above everything else and, like, make our kids feel like they're, you know, above everything. Cause then you have in a, you know, end up having spoiled kids who think the world revolves around them. Not a fan of that. But the. What our society is now is everybody's life revolves around making money. Everybody's life revolves around stepping up in society, getting the next best thing, moving up here, moving up there. And so, yeah, kids are viewed as kind of a nice aside or in some instances, an annoying aside of where. Again, I'm not saying we should make the world revolve around them, but, man, family was the central component of everybody's life a couple hundred years ago, where it's like, hey, if you had to give up your, your family and your kids or other, the other thing, whatever that is, again, your, your career that you're chasing, all the money in the bank, your vacations, whatever, a couple hundred years ago, people are like, yeah, I'm choosing my kids. Every single time. I'm choosing my family. Nowadays, who knows what people are going to choose, right? If you say, hey, you keep your kids and your family, or you keep your high powered career, youre, your very luxurious lifestyle, your whatever it is. A lot of people that's a question in their heads are like, man, which one would I choose? And so that's just to the point of, we've devalued children to the point where they're not viewed as a blessing. They're just not. Even in a lot of christian circles, obviously, it's better there than in the world, but they're not viewed as a blessing. They're viewed as kind of a necessary thing. That's just what we're supposed to do. Or, you know, you know, we're supposed to have kids, so I guess we will. And so it's no wonder why we have a lot of people saying, or a lot of young people deciding, guess that's not just for me. That's just not for me. We're not gonna have kids. [00:16:56] Speaker C: Well, you gotta look at it generationally, too. You go back a couple generations. The divorce thing started to become an issue as, growing up as a kid, and thank you. I'm very thankful for my parents that it wasn't this way. We weren't a daycare family. All the other kids were the kids in the neighborhood, the kids, when I went to school, daycare, the stay and after programs, things like that, had cousins where it was like, dropped off at seven in the morning so mom and dad could go to work, picked up at 07:00 at night or six, or, you know, whenever they could get home from work and go get the kids and then go pick up food on the way home. And you just think about as a generation, those kids grew up with that. And it's like, well, what was the point? And so you had a generation that loved the family, love their kids, raise their kids, and then the next one is like, well, the kids are an accessory, really, an inconvenience that I have to go stash them somewhere, pay for somebody else to care for them because I'm not doing it. Go get them. I don't really have a relationship with them, so we don't really like each other that much. And so the kids grow up and then like, well, why would I do that? Why would I go through the charade of having the kid like, yeah, I'm supposed to. Why? Well, you've got to go all the way back to that. [00:17:58] Speaker B: Why? [00:17:58] Speaker C: And what we'll saying generationally, like this was so important. You see so much in the founding fathers about to our posterity. They were doing this so that their kids could see a better day, so their kids and grandkids could have a great place to live and prosper and all those things. And we don't think that way anymore. We think individually, we think about what I want, what's, what's going to make me happy. And, and that really is the message coming from church is going back to our kind of start, is we've accepted the cultural thing. Like, well, if it's going to make you happy, do it. Having kids, if that's going to make you happy, do that. If having kids is going to make you unhappy, don't do it. Just keep going with that. No, you've got to ask, what is my duty? What is, what did God put me here for? What was I created for? You're always going to be happier when we're fulfilling God's duty than pursuing self. And you owe it to him to ask, what has he told me to do? [00:18:44] Speaker A: I'm also curious how much gentle parenting and doctor Spock parenting and all of that plays a role in this, of people not wanting their kids and not liking their kids. Because it seems like the couples that you see that do this, which is the predominant thinking of the day in gentle parenting. Look, if I'm a, if I am one of their friends and I'm 28 years old and I'm just, I got my girlfriend and my fiance, we're gonna get married. And I'm looking around at kids and I see my buddy, and he's gentle, his wife is gentle parenting the kids or he's gentle parenting and their kids are running their lives and just like running all over them, trampling them, and they're slaves to their kids. How much am I gonna want kids? I'm not. I'm gonna look at and go, absolutely not. Like I want to have a life where my kids aren't real. But we would know this if we didn't allow for gentle parenting when we had more family structure going back to maybe the twenties, thirties, forties type of thing where grandmas were stepping in and the moms understood that from that, and we didn't have all these books and psychology and everything that's trying to really hone in on the perfect parenting idea and all the trauma and everything we talked about of can't spank your kids when you have things like that, you end up having. And Jordan Peterson is big on this. Like, raise kids that you want to be friends with as adults. You can either be friends with them as kids, or you can be friends with adults. You can't be friends with them on both sides of. And a lot of people want to be friends with their kids when they're kids, when they're children, and that ruins them for life. And when you see that, the kids end up ruling everything, and you have a lot of people that are looking at this going, I'm out. No, thank you. I don't want my kids trampling my life. So we've done a very poor job in allowing the gentle parenting and allowing all these ridiculous parenting ideas out into the world where kids are both devalued while at the same time being held up above the parents in a lot of ways. So I'm looking at it like, I don't. I don't want to make the mistakes of my parents, so I'm devaluing kids, but I'm also looking at the people that hold their kids above themselves. And the kids in the hierarchy of the home is completely off. So I don't want my kids to rule my life and value them that much where I have no say in my own home, because whatever the kids say goes. So we're really at a difficult spot where they're either too high or too low. Finding that medium is where God is of. Like, yeah, kids are valued so highly, but there's also hierarchy for a reason. There's also a home structure, and the husband above the wife, above the kids. And that umbrella that we've seen, the further you get away from the umbrella, the more the kids lose out, because kids need boundaries. They need structure. They need parents that really love them and want to be around them. And we've created a society where nobody wants to be around their kids for things like this. For reasons like this, we have to get away from our parenting styles as well. Anything that's going to take us away from wanting to be around our kids. And unfortunately, millions and millions and millions of parents just don't want to be around their kids right now, and it's solely due to them and their own parenting choices. Uh, they just won't admit it because they did what was best, best practices of the day. Uh, and then at 20. They want nothing to do with their kids. Their kids want nothing to do with them. So it's a really, really sad situation. But, fellas, unless there's anything else I really want to get into, last. Yeah, go for. Go for it. [00:21:41] Speaker B: Last thing I'll say. And then I can drive us into kind of what the, what the Bible has to say about it is. Is so interesting to me. One of the big political debates that I have grown up around, um, you know, that I, you know, has been in the discussion that I'm very well aware of in my lifetime, is the gun control debate, the gun control discussion, and how obviously those on the left side, those on the left, the progressive left or the political left, are going to, you know, really advocate for pulling people's guns away and gun rights and, you know, more restrictions and whatnot. And one of the big arguments that obviously people on the right have made is that is essentially, if you parent your children better, these things will not happen near as often. Essentially, if we have better relationships between parents and children, that is going to be a much better solution than, well, let's just take the weapons away, or let's add more restrictions or add all these things. And that's kind of always stuck with me in the sense of how broken our society is, that we can't look at a simple solution. You know, it's not a simple solution, but to me, it's a logical. You follow it logically of kids acting out, teenagers going up and shooting up schools, the even, what was it last year at the Kansas City Chiefs parade? Just a bunch of young kids that were, you know, shooting up the place, and everybody wanted to jump to guns, guns, guns. It's like, these are 17 year old kids. Maybe we should start with looking at how are they being raised? Were they, were they valued as children? Were they, you know, how were they parented? There's an obvious correlation there. Um, when you combine, obviously, the fact of we're teaching kids, they came from apes and all these things. This is a major. The devaluing of children, treating children like a hindrance, treating children like an inconvenience. As Jack spoke to like, we're really not happy that you're here. We're going to ship you off to daycare, ship you off to public school. We'll see you for maybe 3 hours out of the day. And we're surprised when they act out in, obviously, these, the worst kind of ways imaginable. Again, shooting up a school or stuff like that is kind of the far end of the extreme. It's really bad. But it's like that's a manifestation of what happens when you spend 40 years treating children like. Yeah, we don't. We're not really interested in having you here. It's a necessary thing. You know, we just kind of were expected to, so we had you, but we will see you for 3 hours a day. And that's really all the appreciation about you we're going to have towards you. No wonder we having all this stuff going on. And this is not a political gun thing, but it's like, that's what some people want to blame. Maybe we should start looking at the parenting a little bit more. [00:24:10] Speaker A: Well, and when you're looking at just being happy, you got to be happy. That's where divorce rates come in. Well, I'm no longer happy. Yeah, but you owe it to the kids. I'm sorry, you do. And I'm not saying stay in a marriage where it's just about the kids. No, stay in a marriage because you made a covenant with God and make the most of your marriage. Well, as soon as the kids are out of the house, we're going to get a divorce. That's horrible. Work on your marriage to the point where that's not the case because kids still feel that. But there's also this level, like, I got to do what makes me happy. And so all of these divorce. What you love to see is how many shooters, how many of these kids are coming from two parent homes and functional two parent homes? Not like meth addict two parent homes, but like functional two parent homes. I bet you it's a rather low statistic. Yeah, I imagine there are some for sure, but by and large, it's fatherlessness. It's things like that that are really creating these kids that are just angry against the world. And it's a lot of times, boys going in and doing this. Angry young men who don't have anywhere to channel their anger. Yeah. Because their home life is terrible. And this all comes from, I'm going to do what makes me happy. Yeah, but your kids are suffering the consequences of you devaluing them. And to Jack's point about no posterity, you have to think about the next generations. And we're willing to sell them down the river so as to be happy in the moment. I want to be happy right now. Like, you have to value your kids enough to make the difficult choice for the time being, which just work on your marriage, go to there, whatever you got to do for the sake of the kids. [00:25:33] Speaker C: So fellas, let's transition to assumption. You always talk about in marriage, you ask people, why do you want to get married? And they don't usually have an answer. When kids come up in premarital counseling, do you ask them that question, why do you want to have kids? Or do you want to have kids? [00:25:46] Speaker A: Because I always ask, do you want kids? [00:25:48] Speaker C: And I think the why kind of comes back to what we said earlier of like, well, because I want them. You know, a lot of, like, especially girls have not totally unraveled their wiring where girls, I mean, like, I've got a two year old that carries around baby dolls. I mean, like that. That wiring is in there. And I think sometimes the medications that people get put on things like that, cultural pressure tells them, no, you don't want babies. But, like, deep down, that's just kind of in there. You hand a woman a baby, she wants to hold it kind of thing. And so it's kind of, well, because I, you know, I want them. I've always wanted them. Like, okay, that's good, but why do you want them? And this kind of gets into our next point about God's design and all that. But I. I really think couples should think, why am I having children beyond just this is an accessory to my life in the story of my life, me and all my accessories that I have of parts of my identity. Well, I want to be a mom. I want to be a dad. I want to be whatever God's part of this. I'm doing my part in keeping a multiple millennia long genetic line that goes back to Adam and to Noah, and I'm keeping that going so that I don't arbitrarily decide, no, that's enough for now. We're just going to stop right there. That, yeah, that it is just bigger than what I want in a moment. And so that's kind of the next thing we're getting to here is the Bible. Part of it is that they are a blessing. We referenced psalm 127 earlier. It just states it clearly a heritage from the Lord. A blessing. Whatever your translation says to say, this is one of the gifts that you get. [00:27:20] Speaker B: As I said, new King James has reward. I was just real quick, and then I'll let one of you guys take kind of the rest of this here. You guys remember, I think it was. Might have been last year when Tucker Carlson came out and was like, you know, basically get married young and have a lot of kids. And we look at that, a lot of people look at that as just so countercultural. So like man, that's, that's kind of a crazy thing to get married young and have a lot of kids. That's kind of what the Bible prescribes. I mean that's kind of what you see in a lot of the Bible is you know, you know, obviously, you know, we don't necessarily have everybody's age of when they got married, but marriage was, was you know pretty early in life and having kids was a huge focus. And having lots of kids was a huge focus. And Jack already spoke to psalm 127. Children were looked at in many instances as a blessing from the Lord. And in fact you look in the Old Testament barrenness, the idea of a woman not being able to have children in many ways was viewed as like the worst thing imaginable. Like you know, they're, you know, worse than death in me. Many like I don't want to be a woman who can't have kids. That's what Baroness was looked at. Obviously. You have Sarah, you have Rachel, uh, Jacob's wife, uh, where Leah was able to have kids first. And Rachel was not until uh. Obviously until Joseph that was viewed as. And then Hannah in first Samuel one. Children were looked at in such a. And they were valued so much more um, than they are now. Get married young and have lots of kids. Very biblical concept there. Uh, that is unfortunately now very countercultural. [00:28:43] Speaker A: The funny thing is 5000 years of human history have been plus, plus, plus, plus from 5800 years, whatever. 5900 years is like get married young, have lots of kids. That has always been the case up until probably the 1960s. Right. When it's like, well hold on. [00:28:59] Speaker B: It's almost like saying make sure you eat well and drink a lot of water. It's basically the same thing. [00:29:04] Speaker A: I mean, yeah, like this has always been done. This is what we're supposed to do. But somewhere along the way in the last few decades we've kind of gotten away from it. I think. [00:29:14] Speaker C: John 1621, you get to that and I'll follow up with a point. [00:29:18] Speaker A: Yeah. I think it's very interesting what John 1621 says. When a woman, when a, whenever a woman is in labor, she has pain because her hour has come. But when she gives birth to the child, she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy that a child has been born into the world. And obviously Jesus is talking about his death and resurrection and such, but he makes his case. It still is a case we made. [00:29:34] Speaker B: Which principle is there? [00:29:35] Speaker C: Yeah, the principle of human beings appealing to. [00:29:39] Speaker A: Right. It's supposed to be a joyous thing when kids are brought into the world, Jack. [00:29:43] Speaker C: Yeah. To the opposite side where you're saying, like, it's only been in the last 50, 60 years we've gotten to this. You look at the start of Exodus, what does Satan try and do? Kill kids. You look at with Herod, what does he do? Kill kids. And of course, he's trying to get to Jesus through that, but it's killing the children. You look at Mola for no less. Yeah, the pagan people's, hey, give us your baby. Set it on fire, kill your children. Um, child sacrifice, you know, was all over the world. And killing your own children, uh, for, and in the same sense of abortion, of convenience, of prosperity, whatever it may be, um, has always been the case. And so abortion in itself, that's Satan killing children. And now it's like, he doesn't even have to do that if he'll just convince you don't to not have them. And you look at birth rates, it's below replacement. Places like Korea and Japan or a generation or so ahead of us, they're gonna collapse. They've got so many old people, they're not gonna have enough people to run the old folks homes. Nobody there to take care of them, nobody there to manufacturing food, any of the stuff that you got to do. It's like, where are these people going to come from? And so, like, this is, so we're basically running an experiment here on a world history of things that weren't supposed to happen. And it really comes back down to, and again, so many the get married young, have kids. A lot of churches would actively counsel people against that. They would get mad at us for repeating that kind of advice. What this all comes down to is God knows better than you do about how to be happy about what is best for your life. And all of this is saying, no, no, God, I got this one. Sit this one out. I know what I'm doing. I know what's going to make me happy. And not getting married, that's just a personal choice that some people are just not going to want to make. And, uh, and again, always appealing to the exceptions, those that can't, those that whatever. Same thing with kids. God knows better than you do. And if you look at it and go, no, God, I've got this, it never works out. [00:31:34] Speaker B: Ever, ever. Do you know how many people just blew off, uh, be fruitful and multiply? Whenever this discussion was kind of ramping up on social media, Facebook posts and all that, Jack, I know you've talked about it before, and again, it kind of was a different branch of the Brad post from a year and a half ago about girls and, you know, not choose not to get married. You know, how many people just blow off Genesis 128, you know, be fruitful, multiply. Oh, well, that was Adam and Eve, you know, that was start of creation. Okay, well, how about Genesis nine when he says the exact same thing to Noah and his family coming off the ark? Literally the exact same thing. Be fruitful, multiply. How many people that look at that as like, well, is that really a command? Is that really something we're still supposed to. I mean, they were trying to fill the earth, right? That concept is obviously one of the very most important things to God that he tells human beings as soon as civilization started, be fruitful, multiply. Like, that is the design. That is what we were designed to do. That is. And to your point, Jack, about, you know, christians or people saying, you know what, God? I think I know better here. I hear what you're saying, but I'm not going to do things my way. They do that in marriage. You know, the idea of, well, you know, I'll get married older, or maybe I won't get married at all, or whatever it is. That's the exact same thing here. Of the literal design for a married couple, since humans have been in existence, is to have children. That is the way we were designed. Obviously, the. The way reproduction works is we were obviously designed that way. And for someone to say, eh, no, thanks, that's not really for me, is just about one of the most, and maybe I'm sounding harsh here, one of the most arrogant things you could possibly say, one of the most arrogant positions you could possibly hold is to say, God, I know you designed me this way, but. And not to necessarily equivocate these things, but the transgenderism argument that I make of, like, God designed you as a. As a man, for you to say God, I think I know better than you on this one. I think I'm actually a woman. I think I'd actually identify more as a woman. It's just a slap in the face of the. Of the creator who created you. Again, it's different here, but the exact same thing here of, I know I was designed as a husband with my wife to have children, but I'm going to say I think I know better here. I think I'm going to go against my design here is just a slap in the face to God. [00:33:42] Speaker A: Jack's made this point before. It's such a good point. That's exactly what you're saying, like, how many years of human history have gotten you to this point? Your parents crossed over on some boat with harsh, you know, just incredibly harsh seas. 200 people died. They, you know, went through famine, they went through massacres. They went through everything. And somehow you are here as the result of all of the terrible things that they've been through, all the craziness, the wars, and. And, you know, everything else, you have arrived here, and you go, okay, I see all that in the past. I'm good. I don't really know. I'm here to watch genealogy. I'm here to watch Netflix. [00:34:20] Speaker B: Like, I want to go travel. [00:34:22] Speaker A: Right, like, you do you have any idea as to how you got here and everything they went through to make sure the seed stayed, you know, that their kids had a better life than them? And you go, well, because I just can't guarantee you my kids are gonna have a better life and might as well not have kids. Like, you've been here for a thousand years. Your generations have been trying to weather brutal winters and everything else to get here. You are in the prime of existence. And because you're afraid you might screw your kids up, you. You're just going to let your family line die out. I mean, that is, to your point about it, the arrogance, that is incredibly, incredibly arrogant, to get to this point of having that much in your. In your past of human history. To boil it down to you watching Netflix and getting to travel the world with your little puppy dog, which is your kid, quote unquote, and ending your generational line there, like, that's a disgrace. [00:35:09] Speaker C: Yeah, I was. I was going to go to that as well, because there's so many complaints you see online of man, my parents keep asking, when are we going to have kids? When are we going to have? And I just don't know that I want to. I've got my dogs and dog mom again. For those that can't have children, for those that want to be married but can't, like, pets are a wonderful companion. They are a blessing from God. It's not the same, you know? And you'll just see people of, like, oh, my grand dog. No, that. That's not what they wanted. They did not want a dog. They did not want, like, they wanted. They want the blessing of being a grandparent. Proverbs talks about that. And, like, these things are a joy. And keeping your family lineage on and realizing the world doesn't revolve around me. And this is a discussion. I don't know what we have time for. But it's like what children do to you in that sense of giving you a duty beyond yourself to the next generation and your life focus changes, your responsibility ramps up. The way you think about the church, the way you think about the culture around you, the job that you work, the things that you're buying, all of those things will change when you look at your children of, like, all right, I am here to set them up, and I'm going to train them to set up their children so that, like, this can just keep getting better and better, and they can bless the people around them, and they can be pillars in the church and all this stuff. It's not about me anymore. And that's such a beautiful thing that God designed because the modern world is all about me. [00:36:26] Speaker B: In our last episode about therapy culture, I kind of made the point that a lot of therapy culture is centered around inward focus, kind of navel gazing, looking at yourself a whole lot. To your point, Jack, children, having children forces you to not look at yourself near as much, to not be near as selfish, to not have. And some people can still do that with kids, and it's an awful thing. And what it does to the kids is everything we talked about to start the episode, but getting married young and having children, we've made this point on the godly I'm in podcast before. Is it a good thing to get married young? I think yes. Because it forces you. It really does force you to mature a whole lot faster, forces you to grow up a whole lot more. Exact same thing with having kids is it forces you to mature. It forces you to grow up because you have to realize, okay, what I want to do from 04:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. on a Friday night. I no longer have complete autonomy on that decision. I've got other people depending on me. That's a mature thing that a young person has to decide and kind of come to grips with is like, I've got a toddler, I've got a baby. It's not all about what I want to do anymore. And that's, I think that when we speak to why do, why do people want to choose not to have kids? A lot of it is that they don't want to give up the control of their schedule, control over what they want to do. Um, but, Jack, I'm really glad you brought that point in of what kids do to a couple and their life. I remember what it was like when Rachel and I were married without kids, and we did what we wanted to do, you know, of course, we were both working and, you know, we were both, you know, very active and busy people. But it was kind of like, what do we want to do? You know, once again, once the work was over or once we had a free night or whatever. Hey, what do we want to do? [00:38:04] Speaker A: Oh, cool. [00:38:04] Speaker B: Let's do this. You can still do that with kids, but it forces you to be less selfish. It forces you to mature and grow up a little bit. [00:38:10] Speaker C: Jeff, I will say this. It doesn't force you to, because a lot of people still don't. And that's the people you see complaining about their kids. And there is a. An entire gigantic Internet subculture of whining parents, and you just hate to see that because they're just perpetuating the daycare thing of a generation ago of, let's just somebody else take these kids off my hands. But it offers you an opportunity to mature in a way that you won't get otherwise. That's not an insult against the childless, it's not an insult against the single. It's just, it's an experience that there is no parallel for it. And it gives you the impetus to say, man, I'm not living for myself. And you know what? You take better care of yourself when you realize other people are dependent on you. My health is so much better because I have kids, and it's like, man, I got to be here when they're 15 years old, lord willing, unless I get hit by a bus or some crazy thing happens. But it's not of my account that. It's not that I'm dropping dead of a heart attack because of bad choices and things like that and providing for my family and my income and my spending and all these things. You start rethinking everything through what's best for other people rather than for me and post Malone. [00:39:12] Speaker A: I don't know. You're making me think of post Malone. [00:39:15] Speaker C: Bringing in all the philosophers this time. [00:39:16] Speaker A: That's right. [00:39:17] Speaker B: Tucker Carlson and Post Malone in the. [00:39:19] Speaker A: Same as, oh, yeah, the great philosopher. Post Malone is actually getting rid of, like, he's going off of alcohol and he's, I don't know if everybody's seen, but it's like he's gotten really skinny. And they asked him, like, what spurred on the change? And he said, I had a kid, and I wanted to make sure that I could actually play with him and that I was around for them, that I was healthy for them. And he's very much cutting out alcohol, and he's got major sponsorships from, like, bud light and such. And so he's trying to, like, walk the line of having the sponsorship, and yet my understanding is he's cut out all hard alcohol and is trying to get off of that as well. And this is all because of kids. Like, they do mature you if you allow it. And if parents. I would love for parents, and I see this on Facebook, too, but I'd love for parents to think about all the ways that kids bring joy. Like the Netflix show that I could binge on Friday night if it was just me and my wife while we eat our own pint of ice cream, of Ben and Jerry's ice cream or something, versus getting to see my kid walk his first steps. You know, I take my second son, take him to the dentist the other day, and he and I are both going to the dentist. And they always let the kids pick, you know, something and out of their treasure chest. And he comes and he picks a toy. And he also picked me a toy. They let him pick two because he wanted to give me a toy. And it was like, okay. You know, just as a dad, it's one of those moments. So, like, that is just so cool. And it just. It brings that smile to your face. As great as life could be with my wife, we could be traveling the world. That's fantastic. Nothing will ever beat something like that. Or them looking in your eyes and, Dad, I love you. And they give you that hug. Or when I come home and they scream and come to the door, like, the chills that you get of getting to see that. And this is why it's such a masculinity thing, because I got a couple points, so we'll move on. But it's such a masculinity thing of going, I want 500 years of the Wilkie name being established in middle Tennessee as. As good, solid Christian people who are doing amazing things or baptizing people, bringing people to Christ, raising healthy, you know, happy, healthy christian warriors for God. You look at who's a Jonathan Edwards. They said over 200 years, they had one delinquent, one delinquent of all. And they had, like, multiple. Multiple kids, every. Every one of them. And all down the line, you're talking us representatives and lawyers, vice presidents. Vice presidents. And, like, big deals. And this is his genealogy. What man looks at that and goes, I don't want that. That's what we want. That's what we as men. But because of our scare, because of our fear that we might mess them up, we are passing on potentially 250 years of warriors for Christ coming down the line. And, fellas, I want to get your thoughts on this real fast, and then we got to move on. But how much do you think the gnostic, you know, just evangelize and things like that, where we very much make it a spiritualized gnostic thing, is contributing to our lack of kids. Kids are real world. They are like, hey, we've got, I got four kids. My job is to get them to heaven. No, I just, you know, I'd rather not have kids because I'm just living for the gospel. I'm just going to go out and evangelize. And it seems like the spiritualized everything takes away from the real world of, hey, have kids, keep house. And then you have the women that go work careers because it's like there is no house to keep. They don't have any. Like, they really don't have kids, right? They don't have anything that's, that's tethering them. And so we get women in the workplace. I just feel like our insistence on choose your own way, choose your own adventure, right? Choose your own adventure. Christianity type of thing that Jack talks about and the gnostic way of spiritualizing everything is taking away from the very physical blessing of children. And yes, they're very, very difficult, no doubt. My four kids, hey, not every day is sunshine and daisies, but it's a real world, hands on. Got living out the gospel like every single day, trying to let this work me into being, showing more grace to my kids and working through my own issues and not showing up angry and everything else. Like, again, I'm talking a lot, but I'm curious your guys thoughts on it. Am I off on making any connection between that and the lack of kids? [00:43:10] Speaker C: Both the lack, but also how we think of them. The simplest way you can look at that is the well, I send my kids to school to be lights. No, your job is to strengthen and solidify your kids souls, not hold them out as evangelistic bait. And we are so evangelism heavy all the time that that's, we've talked before. That's everything to modern christians. And it's like your first duty? My first duty is to make sure my kids are fed, clothed, sheltered, but also raised in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. And if somebody else is going to come between me and that, I'm sorry. Like, Brad always makes this point. It's such a good point. Noah got his family on the boat. He didn't get anybody else on the boat. He got his family on the boat. He would love to have other people convert, come over, get on the boat. They didn't. His family was. That's your first duty. And so many christians, I mean, you think about how many ministers or elders have their kids drift away, how many guys sacrifice for the gospel and see what it does to their family. And John Piper, the Baptist bigwig, millions of books, sold all that stuff. His son, the, not the one that's on tick tock as an apostate, but one that I guess stayed somewhat in Christendom, wrote a book about growing up, and his dad moved him to inner city Minneapolis, and they were living in a very rough neighborhood to serve the church there. And the son got the bike, his bike stolen as a young kid. I don't know if he's 810 years old, something like that. And his bike got stolen and his dad pulled him aside to say, these are the sacrifices we have to make for the gospel. And it's like, john, wake up. Your first duty is to your kids to protect them, to watch out for them and not tell them, well, sorry, buddy. Tough, tough break. That's. I made this decision and you're suffering for it. And it's like you, no wonder one of his kids walked away like, but again, we hold our kids out as bait. We sacrifice them the gospel and evangelism and all that stuff matters most of all. But your family is your first duty. And so to Will's point earlier about it, you know, having kids forces you to mature. It should. But there are some people who are so gnostic, so over spiritualized that even having kids doesn't get them to realize where your priority base should be. [00:45:16] Speaker B: I'm going to say something that's probably going to be a little controversial here, but I'm curious your guys's thoughts on it. I believe with every fiber of my being that in the churches of Christ lectureships, at camps, from our pulpits, just in general, if we spent the same amount, if we took the amount of time, money, effort, and energy spent on the evangelism side of things for door knocking and going out and bible studies and converting people and baptizing them and whatever, if we took that and devoted it to raise your kids in this way, disciple your kids, make your, you know, make your kids being faithful legacy. Jonathan Edwards stuff. If we made that the focus, the church would be better off. The church would be growing a whole lot more than it is now instead of shrinking. I'm not trying to denigrate you know, door knocking and evangelism and Bible says those things are great if we spent the same amount of time or again, took some of that time and effort and again, the lesson topics and the lectureship titles and the camps that are devoted to and all these things, if we took that and poured that into fathers and mothers and said, raise your kids in this way, you know, devote your life to discipling your kids in this way, to Joe, to your point of, like, treasure that and value that and make that your focus. If we did that, our. I think our churches would be stronger. I think we'd probably be growing a whole lot more than we are. I think the. The impact, the cultural impact that we as christians could have would be so much more powerful if that was the focus. Again, not to say we shouldn't do those other things, but I've lamented so many times before that we always were always wanting to go disciple other people. How about we start with discipling of the kids that are already in our congregation? How about we start with discipling the twelve and 13 year olds that are already in our congregation versus let's have an evangelistic day and an evangelistic weekend evangelistic camp where it's all about, go. [00:47:10] Speaker A: Out, go out, go out, go out. [00:47:11] Speaker B: Those things are great. We're losing our kids. Kids are walking away from the faith. So how about we start pouring some time and energy into that instead of let's go have a door knocking campaign? Like, give me a break. It's so frustrating that the church would be stronger. [00:47:25] Speaker C: You're trying to fill a bucket with holes in it. [00:47:27] Speaker B: Yes, exactly. [00:47:28] Speaker A: You talk about replacement rate. We're losing 70% of our kids. How many people do we have to baptize to fill up the churches of 70% of our kids? And what are we going to lose their kids, too, when they grow up? Like, if we focus on getting down to, like, 10% losing, obviously we love zero. But if we got it down to 10% of our kids walking away because we had really strong christians, how many more people would we have in our churches today? And how much more invigorated would our church is? B instead they have a bunch of old churches that are 60 on up because all the kids are gone. Like, one of the things I love about where we go, whereas three go is, what do we have, like, 19 kids at our church? I mean, obviously ten of them are from us, but we have, like, 19 kids in our church. That's incredible. Like, it is. It is a growing, vibrant congregation. Yeah. They're young. But we also have guys our age, right. We have some younger folks that are around our age. It's refreshing to see you walk into these other churches, country churches, there's nobody young. We've lost them all. And then we try to just make it up through evangelism. We're doing ourselves a grave disservice. We're not focusing on the family. And it brings us back around to christians ought to be having kids, because this is what's going to nourish the church going forward. And to my point about spiritualizing, everything is we think the way we're going to build the church going forward is by evangelizing. Having a ton, maybe, it certainly helps. That's great. But how much more could the church be if everybody had four kids? And you go, well, whoa, not everybody's able to have four kids. Look, I understand, but if everybody had two, three, four kids, and all of them stay faithful, the majority stay faithful, we would be booming here in two generations if we weren't losing 70% to 75% of them. So, yeah, that's. That is a big issue. [00:48:56] Speaker B: Well, with my job. Go ahead, Jay. Did you have something? [00:48:58] Speaker C: I was just say, the math is not hard. I mean, yeah, every christian couple, you know, that can have kids having three, some are gonna have more. You hope it's that. But have three and keep 90% of them. Yeah, you start growing again, the church obviously grows. [00:49:10] Speaker B: And this is the last thing I'll say on this point, is just, Joe, your question about the over spiritualization triggered this for me, of, like, in my. What I do for chick fil a kind of my position. There's a lot of different aspects that, you know, need to be, obviously, with as busy as Chick fil a is as big as a, you know, thing. Like, there's just so much to look at, so many different metrics, so many different things need to focus on. And our operator and another one of the business coaches that I work with, they both make the point that, hey, what's focused on gets fixed. What's focused on gets fixed. If you place the emphasis in a certain place, it's, you know, almost always going to get taken care of. That's, to me, that, to me, is the biggest issue with exactly what we're talking about. Our focus and our emphasis is in the church is out there, out there door knocking out their missionary out there, bible studies out there, out there, out there. Our focus needs to be shifted. Our emphasis needs to be shifted to discipling our kids. What's focused on gets fixed. And so, yeah, in a perfect world, it'd be great to have both, but I think we should start with the disciples or the discipleship potential that we already have in our congregations. And it just, again, it furthers this point about devaluing kids. Guys, we are running short on time. I want to get to this question that we've kind of been hitting around. Is it wrong? And to what level is it wrong? Is it wrong for a couple decide to. For a couple to decide to not have kids? We've said the qualifiers. We'll get the qualifiers out of the way. We're not talking about those who physically can't. I'm not even talking about people. I mean, there's obviously, I know there's women who, they've been told by their doctor, you are going to put yourself at serious risk if you decide to have kids. Not really talking about those types of people. What we're talking about is fully capable, fully healthy couples who decide that that's not for them, for whatever reasoning. And obviously, we can talk about the various reasons that people have. Some people want to say, I wouldn't want to bring a child into the sinful world, or, you know, whatever their reasoning is. Guys, I guess I'll open it up here. Is it wrong? And to what extent is it wrong? We don't want to make everything a, you know, is it a sin? Do I have to? Give me the list. We talked about that ad nauseam, I'm sure, for our listeners on this podcast. But is it wrong? Like, what, I guess, what is our recourse? I think all of us probably agree. Yeah. That that is a wrong attitude. That that is something that is nothing in line as we made the point to start the episode. That is not in line with God's will for you as a christian couple. So I guess, what do you do? What do we do with those couples who have that mantra, who have that opinion of, yeah, we're gonna kind of let it be known we don't want to have kids? [00:51:38] Speaker C: I think it is wrong. I mean, I. Where on earth? I know we get real odd about the Old Testament sometimes. Oh, that was then. This is now. As you established earlier, it was to Adam and it was to Noah. That's not law of Moses kind of stuff. That is humankind. And it wasn't just Noah and the Jews and Abraham's family. It was every human being. Go and be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth. And somebody'd say, well, the earth already is full you know what? God still gave us childbearing ability. I think we're supposed to keep doing that. There's no point in scripture that says, all right, that's enough. You guys can stop now and just decide if it works for you. You can get to the design element. One thing just briefly that we haven't touched on in all of this is what it does for a marriage. Like, it gives you a purpose. Together and intentionally fruitless marriage is going to lead to problems, and it often does because you're just living. You know, sex is solely for pleasure and it's all for yourself. And somebody would say, well, the childless couple, what about them? There's a reason childless couples often struggle like there's a marital struggle. There's, there's frustration in that and, and all that, because they would tell you more than anybody, this is a difficult thing for a couple to work through. And if you can't have children, you dedicate yourself to the Lord, because as a couple, you need a mission. And one of the missions God gave you was to have children for the wife to keep, the home, for the husband to provide and protect, and all of the roles that you get. And so, no, as a. There's, there's just so many reasons why. But start off with, God told you to do it. And I'll add to that, the rest of the Bible takes that into assumption. When Paul is writing to families, he's talking about believing children with elders and fathers, raising your children in the nurture and admission of the Lord, everything in proverbs talking about parenting, all of this just assumes that you have kids, because the other thing about it is God created the bodies, he created the system, he created the desires. He created a man and a woman. This is how it's going to work. And so you literally have to stage an intervention of some sort to make it not happen. And so, yeah, I mean, when. Yeah, go ahead. [00:53:31] Speaker B: When Paul wrote ephesians five and six, he didn't say, husbands, love your wives. Christ, love the church, wives do this. And also, for those of you who aren't married, dah, dah, dah, dah. He didn't say, in ephesians six, one, children, obey your parents in the Lord. With israelite fathers, don't, wrath and all of you who aren't going to have kids, da da da da. The natural assumption is, obviously, there's the exceptions that we can talk about, but the natural assumption is, to your point, Jack, christian people are going to be getting married and they're going to be having children, that is. That is the assumption that is made. And for anybody to say, well, no one is. One is as good as the other is. Is pretty anti biblical, Joe. [00:54:07] Speaker A: Well, and this. I'm not answering your question, actually, but all of the people that are, are you going to college? And, oh, your son has that for a career. And all of those people are who kind of devalues this because we've held up those things. Look, we're strive for greatness, Jim, podcasts, all that stuff. Yeah, you want to strive for greatness, but there's an element of, like, you know what? Just having kids and just being happy with kids and making that a mission of, like, we're going to set up this next generation. That should be a main mission for couples. We talked about the triune element of this kind of the trinity of a family of the father and the mother and the children. I think that is intended, or it's very intentional, that a trinity is basically spoken of in Genesis one, with spirit of hover and over the face of waters, and the father, you know, he's speaking in existence with the word of, you know, like, we see the Trinity in Genesis one and Genesis two, we start seeing all of this and then be fruitful and multiply and what they're told to do. And so it's just kind of a trinity element of it. So is it wrong? Is it sinful? I don't think it's for us to necessarily, you know, for us to come down hard on judgment in terms of like, you're going to hell if you don't. I very much hate that question of, are you going to hell? I don't know what God does with it. I know what is best practices. I know what we ought to be pushing for. So, you know, is it wrong to, um, trying to think of other things where it's like, it's not necessarily. We can't say whether it's wrong or right. We know what's best. We know what we ought to be doing. And how much does ought to get into sin? How much does God judge the ought to. [00:55:38] Speaker B: A question that I've asked before for this whole discussion, what is one legitimate reason that someone can get, again, other than health and all those things, what is one legitimate reason someone can give for choosing to not have kids? Does it exist? Is there a legitimate explanation? Because if you really. What I can't get past with this discussion is if you really boil down every couple that has decided we don't want it. We don't want to do this. We don't want to have kids. If you boil every single one of their decisions down and their explanations and their reasoning, what could it possibly come to other than basically a root of selfishness, basically some line of, some root trace of, we want to live the way we want to live. We want to both have careers, we want to kind of not be restricted. We don't want the inconvenience, we don't want the hindrance. Again, nobody's ever necessarily going to say that, but I struggle to come up with any other explanation. Again, you might have the people that say, well, I wouldn't want to bring a child into this cruel, simple world. I think that's a bit of a cop out, you might say. I mean, I guess some people might say that and that you could look at that as somewhat legitimate. I just, I would disagree with that position. But other than that, what, what possible reasoning could somebody have if you just ask them, why? Why do you not want to? Nobody's ever going to come out and say, because I don't want to be restricted and because I want to live my life the way I want to. But I can't think of any other explanation that somebody could possibly have that would be looked at as legit. [00:57:03] Speaker A: A lot of, a lot of people are afraid they're going to screw up their kids. You know, I don't want to screw them up the way my parents, I feel like the parents screwed me up. The good news is we are, we have more information and knowledge as to how to parent if you find the right ones. And, you know, we got so many people that you can ask and talk to. And it's kind of the point of the church is being able to go to the couples that you feel like did it well and ask questions. And so I don't think you're out on a limb all alone having to figure this out. For those that say that, that would be one of the only legitimate, quote unquote legitimate things. But even to that, I feel like we have answers to say, go do your research and go, go figure out, like, what is it that makes a healthy attachment? What is it that makes healthy christian kids? How did this couple over there, they've kept three kids faithful. How did they do it? You know what I mean? [00:57:47] Speaker C: Like, I get that. [00:57:48] Speaker B: And the, the concern is I get it. It's daunting. It can be overwhelming. Why get married? I don't want to screw up my marriage, man. I'd really hate to get divorced. So I'm just a lot of people are. Yeah, that's kind of a ridiculous thing to me as well. [00:58:01] Speaker C: Well, I was going to say there are a lot of parallels with this discussion and the deciding not to get married, except there is a biblical precedent for exceptions of people who are not going to get married. It's called the gift of singleness. That's wrong. It's the gift of celibacy. Like, you can live without that burning desire. If you have the burning desire, if that's something you want, if that's a temptation that's going to trip you up. Paul says, go seek marriage. Right. Right after that. If you seek marriage and you did because of sexual desire, was a big reason. A healthy couple that's gonna procreate. And of course, children are bad. We did an episode on birth control. And the options there, some are abortifacient. That's something you should not do. There are others that aren't. And I'm not of the opinion. There are people like this that believe, basically have as many kids as you can. Like, just basically at all times, be ready for a kid every. Every time a couple. [00:58:50] Speaker B: The Duggars, basically. Right? [00:58:52] Speaker C: Yeah. That. That view, obviously, we, my wife and I, after having the twins, it was like, all right, we're gonna slow things down for a little bit because this is really, really, really difficult. And I think that's okay, because it's fundamentally, we are pro kid people, and somebody and others would make the argument, well, then you don't have faith that God is going to. Okay, maybe that's a possibility. I mean, there's definitely room to have a discussion there. But the fact of the matter is, if you got married, if you're not somebody with a gift of celibacy, then you have sexual drive, and God created your sexual drive. It's not the only purpose. We are not those that hold the. The view that procreation is the only thing that sex is for. But if you remove that from it, that if you have no intention of that, you. It's not interested. I mean, that. That is not something that God gave you the option for. That's not what God created it for. You're removing and saying, God, I don't need this part of it. Well, anytime, as I said before, that doesn't work that well. But as we start to kind of get our closing thoughts, one thing I want to say is, I think we are 510, maybe 1520 years away. The dinks is kind of the lifestyle that has been called dual income, no kids. Right. Of living it up. You're married, but you don't want to have kids so you can have the nice stuff, travel, all those other things. We're again ten to 20 years away from people realizing that was a gigantic mistake. There's nobody for me to care for again, the married couple, we don't have a purpose together. Now that all of this is starting to get old and there's, as you're seeing right now, people going, man, feminists going, I didn't get married and now I'm miserable. You're going to be seeing people say that about this, of, man, why didn't somebody tell me? The most damning thing possible is that their churches didn't tell them? Is that the one place where they should have gotten the answer was their churches. And their churches said, well, just do what makes you happy, whatever. We're not going to tell you one way or the other. The Bible doesn't have anything to say on it. This is totally up to you. If we can't give them the answers, they're not going to find them. Like, we've got to be the place where the truth is set on these things. And it really is frustrating to me that in many cases it's going to be that their church was one of the leading places that told them, do what you want, I'm going to hands off. Just do what makes you happy. They're going to end up unhappy and they're going to turn and blame us because we didn't tell them. And it'll honestly. Fair enough. [01:01:05] Speaker B: Well, and just the comments, what was the actor Seth Rogen? I think it was and was based was basically like, yeah, I don't want to have kids because then I wouldn't be able to work as much and I wouldn't be able to basically live my life. What's that going to look like in about 20 years from now when, you know, nobody, he's not in movies anymore. Nobody really cares about what Seth Rogen does. He's just going to have him and his wife. That's a bit of a depressing outlook, to think that you're going to get into your fifties, you're going to get into your sixties, you're going to have no kids, no grandkids, obviously. What's your life going to look like? That entire aspect of family that is supposed to make life so beautiful and so joyful and you get blessings from and all that, you just don't have that. And so I think that's an interesting point to kind of wrap up on. Jack as you talk about the dinks, the dual income, no kids, that, man, what an empty life is all I have to say. Like when you hit your sixties and you're retiring, like what, what does Christmas look like? What does thanksgiving look like? You know, empty is all. [01:02:02] Speaker A: Who's going to visit you? Who's going to visit you in the nursing home? Seriously, who's going to visit you in the nursing home? You're going to be bumming off of somebody else's kids who come in to see their parents and it's like, oh, they're in the room across the hall. Maybe they come visit you because you're the old crotchety person who has nobody to come visit them. Yeah, that's, think about these things. Think down the line. Is this what's best? And every single time God asks us to do something, it's because that's what's best doesn't mean it's easiest. It means it's what's best for us. And, man, I mean, you just, this whole discussion of putting these and acting like they're the same, they're, they're, you know, there's this equitable, like, these things are equal, these decisions. My decision to have kids versus not having kids is equal. Not in the grand scheme of things. Not as, not as you head down life like, there are so many reasons to have kids. And the reasons to not have kids begin mainly with selfishness, and they will end selfish. And we realize that when you start selfish, the end result is not going to be good. The end result is going to be being alone. Being alone and, you know, just with nobody there to bless you, to rise up in your old age and to bless you and to thank you for everything that you've done. Seth Rogen, nobody's going to care about his work in a while. But you know what? If I can, Lord willing, you know, and with what we've created, our church. And Lord willing, as a parent, when my kids 200 years from now are doing fantastic things for the country, fantastic things for the church, fantastic thing. They're good people. And, and Lord willing, again, by the grace of God, all of them are faithful, that's going to matter a whole lot more than some stupid Joe Rogan movie that he made back in the year 2004. Nobody cares. Nobody cares, man. But they will care about my kids in 200 years who are doing amazing things because we've set the vision and that's where we're going. So don't shortchange the process. The here and now is going to it's going to hurt a lot of people, not just for the nursing homes, but for the next 200, 5500 years out. [01:03:52] Speaker B: I think my closing comments would be, and I've got a lot of interesting questions that I was really hoping we're. [01:03:56] Speaker A: Going to have time to get to deep end. [01:03:58] Speaker B: Yeah, I know we're going to have to plan for an hour for the deep end guys because there's some man, I was curious, y'all thoughts? And I think it would make for really good discussions that we just don't have time. [01:04:05] Speaker A: Mention a couple of them. Mention a couple of them for people to. [01:04:07] Speaker B: Yeah, there go. So if you're not subscribed to focus plus and you don't have access to the deep end, here's some questions I had that we probably will be discussing. Do you believe in having kids, quote unquote, when you're ready? So the idea of couples that they do want to have kids, but wait till we're ready, wait five years, wait six years, whatever it is. So there's that. Is it acceptable to plan having kids versus not having kids? Like, is basically like it's acceptable to plan out when you're going to have kids or is that kind of going against God's will and then is it wrong to have a desired number of kids in mind? Interesting questions. I'm really curious these guys thoughts. We've discussed a little bit of it before, but I think it'll make for some good discussion. So there's your weekly plug for focus. Plus you'll get access to basically a whole other episode. We answer people's questions, comments for our subscribers, and so it's a really good time. But I think the last thing that I'll say, and then if somebody else wants to wrap up or if anybody else has anything else to say, the ridiculousness of the position of having kids versus not having kids is totally equal. No option is better. We've got to stop insinuating that from our pulpits. Church leaders have got to stop making that kind of the default answer of, well, you know, whichever, whichever you prefer. If you want to have kids, great. If you don't, great. The fact that we have church leaders who are, again, never saying it in those words, but that being the insinuation, that being the implication, um, has just has got to stop. I mean, the refusal for pulpits to preach this, um, the refusal for, you know, the. Imagine a preacher getting up and saying, hey, if you're a christian couple and you're in the room, you don't have kids. You should be having kids. Oh, the backlash, though, you know, did he really say that? What about the, you know, again, everything that everybody always says, you can't say that it is. I'm calling any preacher, any ministers, any church leader to stop with that ridiculous equality position. Those two positions are not equal. Choosing to have kids, choosing not to. They're not equal. One is better than the other, and we know that from the Bible. So that's the, that's the lot. Those are. Guess those are, I guess, my closing comments of man. We need to start teaching what is good, better, best. And obviously, in this case, what's best is having children according to God's will. [01:06:14] Speaker C: I'm going to wrap briefly with two those that, that can't. My heart seriously goes out to you because I realize as we're talking about the consequences the intentionally childless are going to face are also consequences that the unintentionally childless are going to face. And it wasn't by their doing. It wasn't by their choice. That is a really sad thing. And so what I would say is dedicate yourself extra to the work of the Lord. I think of Anna early in Luke, where her husband died. Early on, she was a widow late into her life. Just all those years, no husband, no children. But she got to see the Lord's Christ. She got to see Jesus presented. She got to see the hope of Israel. I mean, like, how beautiful a story that is that she just dedicated herself to the temple. Be an aunt and uncle in the lives of the church members, you know, of with their kids. But the other thing is, if for christian couples, if you've got people at your church like that, bring them around, have them be a part of your family, because one of the easiest things is when couples start having kids, you want to, you naturally gravitate toward other couples having kids. Those people get left out, incorporate them, bring them in, be a part of your family, and again, they can play that aunt and uncle role. We had a couple back in Texas who our kids just loved. You know, we're in that way. And so really, my heart goes out to you guys. This is an episode that you might not listen to because it is a very hard listen. And so we don't want you to be left out in this again, everyone else really put our arms around them. But, yeah, that's all I wanted to close with of all the things. And again, to the people who want to hide behind them. No, stop that. This is on you to do your job. And then let's care about them as a separate issue as well. And so we're going to stop right there. We'll talk to you guys Friday in the deep end, focuspress.org plus or next Monday. And thanks for listening to think deeper.