Marriage - 1.5 Children Oh Pr. Vers

Teaching and Modelling Parents ought to be both teachers of God’s truth and examples to their children, modelling goodness in the home as best they can, by the grace of God. To Discuss

• Why is it necessary to do more than simply bring up children as nice persons and responsible citizens?

• What more should Christian parents be doing? Training Gardeners

It is not enough that baby “gardeners” are born. We are to work, teach, discipline, and pray that they will grow into adult actual “gardeners”, who will learn to love God and care for his world. Nurturing children involves teaching both law (right and wrong) and grace (trust in Jesus Christ). Unless we teach them about grace and forgiveness in Jesus, right and wrong will simply be burdensome impositions to be resented. Limits of Responsibility Parents cannot live their children’s lives for them. They are responsible to God for loving them, teaching them, caring for them, disciplining them and praying for them as they are able. But they are not finally responsible for their children’s response.

To Discuss

• Are we more concerned about getting our children’ into good schools and their achieving success in exams, than about how they grow in faith and godliness?

• What can we do about this? Next Session The Reversal of The Fall Rather than God being in charge, with the man, helped by the woman, ruling creation for him, a complete reversal takes place of the roles assigned by God to the man and the woman.

Marriage OH 1.5 (Screen read version)

What Genesis 1-3 Teaches about Marriage

Having Children: Children in the Service of God Children are to be desired and welcomed because bringing up children is one of the most clearly distinctive ways in which a married couple can serve God. Children a Blessing The Bible consistently affirms what it poetically calls “the blessings of the breasts and of the womb.” - Gen 49:25 Unlike their contemporaries, the early Christians refused to accept either abortion or infanticide, Every child is a gift from God. The Purpose of Marriage: Procreation? Assumption: The purpose of having male and female, the reason for the. existence of sex and the essential role of marriage, is the creation of children. An important mandate given by God to Adam and Eve: Multiply! (Gen.1:28) ¨But is procreation the ultimate purpose of marriage? Rather than being the purpose of marriage and sexual intimacy, children should be seen as a wonderful blessing. To claim that procreation is the main purpose of sex and marriage is an insult to all of those who are not blessed in such a manner. It questions the validity of marriages that do not produce offspring. Gen 1:28 God blessed them (the male & the female) and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it Rule over the fish… birds… every living creature.”

BLESSING COMMANDS

As with meeting the needs of loneliness so the procreation and rearing of children must be seen in the context of the task given to man.

To Discuss •

In which account of creation does the mandate to have children occur?

• What does the context tell us about why we should expect to have children? Clue: is the context

•Adam’s loneliness, •Adam and Eve’s common task, •Adam’s delight at their union?

This pro-creational element is not the ultimate goal, since it serves the larger purpose of carrying out the task of bringing the earth under God’s control. Marriage (including its sexual aspect) for every godly couple is first and foremost about serving God together in this great task. The Purpose of Marriage: A Family of “Gardeners”!

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1st Passage

2nd Passage

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created man in his own image, In the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. God blessed them & said to them, “Be fruitful & increase in number; fill the earth . & subdue it Rule over the fish… birds… every living creature.”

The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” Now the Lord had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them,.. But for Adam no suitable helper was found. Then the Lord made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. The man said, “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman’ for she was taken out of man.” For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife. and they will become one flesh.

Marriage More than Having Children Children are indeed a blessing if they come! But marriage and sex is not all about having children, Marriage (including its sexual aspect) for every godly couple is first and foremost about serving God together.

Godly couples do not wish for children simply for themselves, but because begetting and nurturing children in faithful commitment to God, is part of their God-given task to look after the earth and bring it under God’s control or rule. The next generation, brought up knowing God, is required for this task. ¨Having children is part of serving God: i.e. producing a family of gardeners! The Creator entrusts to married couples the awesome privilege and responsibility of pre-creating (creating on his behalf) potential gardeners to join his team First Caring for God’s Garden, Now Extending His Kingdom Today we are no longer asked to care for a garden; Now there is a whole world to care for and bring into God’s Kingdom. We pray and work for God’s rule to be realised on earth. To Discuss

• What are some common reasons why couples have children? • Which of them fit the purpose of child-bearing that we find in Genesis 1?

• When should a wife resist pressure from her mother-in-law to have children? Children are not to be sought because the in-laws put pressure to produce a son, or to increase the future economy of the family, or the parent has a desire to be needed, or is looking for care in old age.

Training Children for God’s Service Genesis 18:19 expresses the will of God for Abraham in terms of ‘charging his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing righteousness and justice’. Prov.1:8 & Eph.6:1-4 exhort a couple to bring up their children to serve God.