Be Fruitful and Multiply

I can remember a time when even Protestants knew birth control was wrong.  I’m not talking about abortion here.  I’m talking about birth control. When I was young, although condoms and diaphragms were widely available, birth control was actually illegal throughout the United States. It wasn’t until 1965 that a law banning birth control was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Today, almost every believer is familiar with the passage in Genesis Chapter Two where God tells Adam he must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  But how many people realize God gave mankind an EARLIER commandment in Chapter One? The very first commandment God ever gave mankind is found in Genesis 1:28, and it begins, “Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it.”

I suspect that back in the first part of Genesis nobody had any problem with Part A of that commandment (Be fruitful and multiply). But by Genesis 11 mankind had trouble obeying Part B (Fill the earth and subdue it). Instead, “Then they said, “Come, letʼs build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens so that we may make a name for ourselves. Otherwise we will be scattered across the face of the entire earth” (Genesis 11:4 NET Bible). 

We know what happened. God wanted mankind to fill the earth and subdue it. Mankind wanted to stay right where they were. Verse 8 says, “So the Lord scattered them from there across the face of the entire earth, and they stopped building the city.”

I am older than the modern State of Israel, so birth control is something I no longer need to worry about. But if you’re young and you’re married, and you’re seeking God’s will about having children, I can tell you what the Bible says:  it tells you to “Be fruitful and multiply.” It is the first commandment God ever gave mankind. I suspect He thinks it is important.

Margot Armer