Contraception

Can I ask a question since there are many on this thread who have done so much research on this subject (thanks, i've learnt quite abit and am asking God to form my conclusions... )

The question is: how many arrows did a quiver in Bible times hold?

 

Oh gosh, you slay me! In a good way!

This page talks about Assyrian weaponry. If you scroll down to the picture of a set of Assyrian weapons, the caption says:

Of course this may not be the type of quiver David was familiar with, but it indicates the number was likely fairly small.

It's not so easy to find the capacity of a quiver on the web.

Another find much much later (Roman and Saxon ruins in England):

 

Puh-leeeeeeze! David only needed one stone to kill Goliath, but he took 5. Besides, the quiver metaphor is in the context of warfare, not foraging.

Would you go to war with only one arrow?

I'm just pointing out that your arguments are weak and unscriptural, and that the guiding principle used in deciding for blessing prevention is NOT a consideration of what God has said concerning marriage and the family, but what the world says—at least as far as the arguments in this thread are concerned.

In short, you have presented no proof that God thinks it's right. ...prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God, Rom. 12:2.

[ July 23, 2005, 10:27 AM: Message edited by: Aaron ]

 

Why sure He is! Just as He is sovereign enough to overrule the thieves and murderers and rapists and, well, you name it. He can always overrule an act of self-will, but He doesn't always, does He?/QB]</font>[/QUOTE]Are you sugesting that thieves and murderes are are more powerful than God? God in His sovereignty allows them to fulfill their evil actions, if He wanted to stop them He would. This argument is not relevent to the one at hand, since murder, rape, and thievery, are condemed biblicaly, but birth control is not. At least you have yet to prove it. </font>[/QUOTE]Self-will is condemned, and since your argument here is "my will be done unless God overpowers me," my reply is eminently relevant.

 

i thought david took 5 stones because (according to numbers) goliath had 4 brothers just as large in stature as goliath. Now eventually David killed all 5 brothers of goliath's family. So perhaps (and i am speculating based on absence of evidence) David was shown by God he would not only defeat Goliath but also his whole family. i know when i was growing up if i beatup someone with an older brother......watch out. i am not dogmatic about it though, but the explination (also put forward by Dr. David Jeremiah) works for me, and still God get the glory.

thank you and God Bless

 

I'm guessing you probably take steps to avoid situations that you consider undesireable. However, it might be just as much God's will that these undesireable things befall you. So aren't you using your self-will to attempt to thwart God in these things?

For instance, do you:

1. Vaccinate your kids.
2. Go to the doctor when ill.
3. Check your tire pressure before a long trip.
4. Avoid walking down alleys at night.
5. Save for retirement.
6. Eat a balanced diet.
7. Get a good education.
8. Buy life insurance.

These are all commonsense ways of avoiding situations we wouldn't like, but which might be God's will.

It's been pointed out many times that children are a blessing, and people have said that seeing them as a burden is wrong. Others have replied that children are a blessing, but they're also most certainly a burden, and to say they aren't or they shouldn't be is a denial of reality.

God tells us he will take care of us, but it's also manifestedly certain that he does not always protect us from having bad things happen--even horrible things. I don't think it is wrong of us to take steps against undesireable things.

If a family is poor and they can't see how to afford another child, it's not wrong of them to use contraception to prevent this (in fact, I think God might be vexed with them if they didn't, had a baby, and then were praying, "But God, we're starving and homeless! Help!" He probably thinks, "Well, what did you think would happen?!") If a couple carries genes such that their child would have a 25% or even 50% chance of having a debilitating disease, I don't think it's wrong of them to decide not to have children. Likewise, I don't see why it is wrong to have three kids and then use contraception instead of continuing on to have six. It is as if one's righteousness is measured by the number of one's children!

Then again, even though children are a blessing, it does not follow that we should seek to have as many as possible before one's wife hits menopause. Others have pointed out that things like good wives, money, material possessions, and the good opinion of others are blessings, but it's unwise and sometimes sinful to try to collect as much of those things as possible.

After all, our children are blessings, but we should also be blessings to them. It strikes me that having children regardless of the consequences for them because a person perceives them as blessings to himself or herself is just as selfish as the person who decides not to have any children in order to compile the blessing of material wealth.

 

Wow. Never thought this thread would get so long. Thanks, Paul, for your lucid and eminently scriptural contributions!

The point is, that no one prepares for battle with one bullet. The forces of evil are more numerous than what can be seen challenging God's elect. Who knows where Goliath's brothers were hiding? I wouldn't have gone unprepared to meet them either.

In the case of our civil defenders, do cops carry only one bullet or a full clip? Do they have spare clips?

Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them.

It would be very demoralizing to send a warrior to meet the enemy with only one or two arrows. I mention this to show that the quiver full in Psalm 127:5 cannot, by any stretch of an informed imagination, be made to mean one or two.

 

Petrel, your post didn't even come close, but I'll answer later. It is God's will that we keep a clean and orderly house, and I have a basement to put in order.

 

If you see the archaelogical evidence I showed above, a quiver full could mean four or five, possibly even three (I found an example of a holder for three darts). Moreover, it just says that if you have a quiver full you are blessed, not that if you have a quiver 1/2 or 3/4 full you are sinning or are cursed.

Since I can't afford the blessing of a house, I've chosen to rent and don't have a basement. But I'll go clean the kitchen presently.

 

You know, Petrel, if that quiver is TOO full of arrows, you'd be dead before you could quickly retrieve one and load your bow.

Again, quivers never held 25 or 30 arrows and most women are fertile for 40 years or more.

 

Fertile for 40 years or more??? Tell that to those unfortunates who waited a long time to get married or to have children because they "couldn't afford it" and then found they had left it too late and are now desperately trying IVF. Your chances of conception decrease dramatically with age. Liz

 

You mean that is POSSIBLE in the US?? Someone can adopt just like that without a whole lot of agency clearance first??

Liz

 

[/qb]Blessing prevention??? Talk about a bad argument. Sophistry abounds. More children than you can care for are not a blessing. Having your wife die or be ill because of too many childbirths is not a blessing. The Bible declares children are a blessing. It is patently unbiblical to suggest that means that birth control is wrong. That is simply bad argumentation that is easily seen through. I have shown the silliness of that argument by other analogies that should put that argument to rest.

Not entirely true. There are certainly those who are using wrong motivations, but there are others using right motivations.

[God said that if a man doesn't provide for his family he is worse than an unbeliever. Those are strong words of proof about what God thinks about families. Part of that consideration must be the size of one's family.

Aaron, your arguments are extraordinarily weak, as are most attempts are arguing against judicious use of birth control. I wish people would get past the piety and deal with the actual text and the reality of life.

 

Larry,

The eugenicists of the 1910s would be proud of you. Margaret Sanger would absolutely love you.

 

One would think that if God pre ordained families to have many children, that God would not allow prevention of pregnancies by divine intervention.

Now I don't believe God micro-manages our lives and allows us to make good and bad choices but as I've said before, I always thought I'd have four children and wanted four children, my husband chose to have a vasectomy after our third. Our daughter got pregnant toward the end of her senior year and gave him up for adoption, to us. I got my fourth.

 

I hardly doubt that they would appreciate much about me, least of all my commitment to the revelation of God in Scripture. Guilt by 90 year old association won't play any better than the previous arguments.

 

And that pretty much sums the attitude toward children expressed in your post, doesn't it? Maybe not the first or second one, but heaven help that third. We'll call her, "Boo." Short for "boo-boo." As in unintentional, a mistake, someone you didn't want. An undesireable. Especially if she's weak and sickly.

What a legacy.

It boils down to the stark contrast of what God has said, and what men say. And that's the fatal flaw in your post. Is there anything in it of which it can be said, "Thus, saith the Lord,"?

He has already spoken His mind concerning marriage and the family, and there's nothing in your post whatever that even comes close. And this is your argument that God wants you to use contraception?

He has already spoken concerning birth defects as well. Who hath made man’s mouth? or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? have not I the LORD?, Ex. 4:11.

But you are one who would answer back to the Creator, "Why hast thou made me thus?" I know more than one family who have ministered to their severly disabled adult children. Adult children who had the minds of infants. These were eighteen- and twenty-one-year-old children who literally could barely chew their own food. When these situations are approached in faith, these families have learned what it is to serve, to support the weak, to lay down their lives, and genuine love demands no less.

Both of these children died recently, and the families mourned—mourned. There was no sigh of relief. No worldly, diabolical thinking that they could "get on with their own lives now." They mourned.

Your post seems written by one who has no faith, and no love. No faith because you say, "I can't see how I can provide," and no love because you say it's better to have healthy children than unhealthy children.

Again, I'm not arguing for or against contraception here. I'm just pointing out that no argument for it yet has considered the Scriptures. Now to Larry's post.

 

Larry, when you're right, you're right, and when you're wrong, you are so incredibly wrong that it's hard to imagine it's the same man writing these posts. On this one, it's like you've never read the Bible at all.

First, you need to read ALL my posts to understand why I'm employing that term. It's more a jab, than anything, but it's an accurate jab. Second, your carnal reasoning is answered in a reply to a similar statement you made below.

Having your wife die or be ill because of too many childbirths is not a blessing.

Who are you arguing with on this one? Okay guys, who got Larry's skivvies in a wad by suggesting we should impregnate our women to death?

'Fess up, guy's! It wasn't a nice thing to do!

Don't worry, Larry. I'll get to the bottom of this one.

The Bible declares children are a blessing.

Well, there you go. That settles it for me. What about you?

It is patently unbiblical to suggest that means that birth control is wrong.

Who said anything about the rightness or wrongness of blessing control? Children are either a blessing or not. You don't get to have it both ways. If children are a blessing, and one wants to prevent conceiving one, then you're preventing a blessing. You want to call it birth control or contraception or something else, go ahead. I choose to shine this particular light on the subject, and it's no less true. It's blessing control.

That is simply bad argumentation that is easily seen through. I have shown the silliness of that argument by other analogies that should put that argument to rest.

Would love to see it.

God said that if a man doesn't provide for his family he is worse than an unbeliever. Those are strong words of proof about what God thinks about families. Part of that consideration must be the size of one's family.

So, in other words, despite Christ's teaching to the contrary, we are to take thought for the morrow saying, What shall eat, or, What shall we drink, or, Wherewithall shall we be clothed. Glad you were here to set me straight on this one.

Aaron, your arguments are extraordinarily weak,

What arguments? I'm just weighing your arguments against the Scriptures. Like this pagan notion about the "reality of life" and being able to afford children, when God has clearly said He would provide our needs.

You're basically saying that money is the central concern when deciding God's will in this matter, and that money is what empowers one to enjoy the blessings (children) that God gives.

In fact, what it boils down to, Larry, is that you're saying money is the only real thing in life.

Like I said, when you're wrong, you're REALLY wrong.

 

Three(among many) basic guidelines(with comments) from the scripture regarding procreation:

1. Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth--a command still in effect-- from God.

2. What God has joined together, let no man put asunder--more than 50% of marriages in the U.S fail.

3. Marriage is honorable in all, and the bed undefiled--yet AIDS (spread by fornication) is pandemic globally.

How can God bless America again?

Other "carnal" observations:

Abstinence is still the best contraception.

Is the "thought" of contraception a sin?

What about the ones who get their "tubes" tied (males and females)?

Man has failed miserably in all of "his" endeavors--including procreation.

God has taken care of these problems: "Behold the Lamb of God who takes a way the sin of the world".

Selah,

Bro. James

 

And? If you have a child who is born disabled (or you find out in the womb is disabled), you care for the child as best you can and love him or her. This has no relevance to anything I said.

On the other hand, if you know that your future child who doesn't exist yet has a 50% chance of living a short life of misery, then I'd say it's selfish to go ahead and have children.

I saw recently on Discovery Health an episode about a disability where a person is born with short limbs ending in pincers, without fingers and toes. They quoted one man with this disorder as saying that he hoped his future child would carry the disability (I believe it was one of those 50/50 chances)! Is that love? If so, I'll stay far away from that type of "love"!

I'd say in these cases the parents should adopt (especially as this would care for the needs of someone who actually does exist!), not go ahead and have children when they are likely generously gifting their child with a curse.