The Evils of Contraception

[Vicomte13]

What wickedness or sin could they possibly be violating if there were no laws for the Gentiles at that time?

Of course there were laws for the Gentiles. We see some of them referred to in the early parts of Genesis. What God revealed to the Gentiles after Noah is not codified in the Torah. The Torah tells us the specific laws and applications that God gave to the Jews, very specifically. It says that on its face too.

God also talked to Gentiles, and gave them aspects of his law that he never revealed directly to the Jews through Moses. The most obvious example of this is the law of monogamy in marriage. That was never revealed to the Jews at all, and there are polygamous Jews to this day, particularly in Africa, or from Yemen. God DID reveal that law to the Romans.

The Torah is a highly codified and complex law, a written contract, given by YHWH specifically to the Hebrews, in the Sinai. The terms are: you do all of this, and I will give you the land of Canaan and each of your families a farm in it, secure, on good behavior. Good behavior was defined as following all sorts of rules of ritual, of organization, of worship, of governance. The other piece of the contract was the penalty clause: and if you don't, I will take it all away.

Monogamy is nowhere to be seen. Nor did Jesus ever say anything that specifically required it. Monogamy was revealed to the Romans and other Gentiles of the West, not to the Hebrews or Jews.

Obviously God revealed laws and other things to more than just the Hebrews. Melchizedek was unrelated to Abraham. He was a Canaanite. God spoke the Hagar the Egyptian and made a covenant with her also, concerning her boy Ishmael. Moses was married to a non-Hebrew, from the southern reaches of Canaan, and his Father in law, Jethro, through whom Moses was given the principles for governing the Hebrews, was likewise not a Hebrew, but from the tribes of the Southern part of Canaan. Balaam was a prophet to whom God spoke, and he most certainly was not a Hebrew.

The Old Testament records the Jewish experience of THEIR revelations from God, and their covenant with God. It does not record all of the revelations that God gave to the world. It does not record all of the law that God gave to the world, except to the extent that God ALSO gave that law to the Hebrews. We read the Hebrew form of the revelation, which was part of the land contract. Some of those things are likewise given by Jesus as rules for mankind - Jesus gave us all the rules. The Old Testament doesn't trace the history of the world after Genesis 10 or so. It does not speak of the interactions and revelations by God to the whole world. It speaks of the particular experience of Abraham and his sons and descendants, and then of what God revealed specifically to the Hebrews in the Sinai through Moses, and their interactions with this convenant thereafter.

In truth, the Gentiles had an easier time coming over to Jesus than the Jews ever did, or still have, because the law of Jesus is close to the Roman law in many respects, but without all of the massive edifice of additional law and restrictions in the Hebrew covenant.

The Law of Moses is simply not for us. It's the only detailed account of we have of God's ancient revelation to a people, and it contains a great deal of God's thought processes, but these laws are not for us. God's laws are for us, and there are overlaps. But to know what God wants of US we should do what God said and follow JESUS, not Moses.

The Law of Jesus is quite different from the Law of Moses in myriad ways. It was hard for the Jews to wrap their heads around the difference, and to let go of that which did not apply to the question of salvation and final judgment (subjects outside of the scope of the Torah). Most never did and still have not.

 

[Vicomte13]

just because the New Testament does not mention the condemnation of bestiality does not mean it is a command that is abrogated today.

Sure it does; sexual immorality. Everybody knows that bestiality is immoral.

 

[Vicomte13]

This law not only existed during Noah's time, but it existed during the time of Adam and Eve's first children, too. This would be God's eternal moral laws.

Not in the same form. Cain slew Abel and God put the mark on him and sent him a-wandering. But after the Flood, God told Noah that if man sheds man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed. That's a new commandment, and a different rule than he applied to Cain or to Lamech.

 

[Vicomte13]

The Old Covenant is no longer in effect.

It would be better to say, as Jesus did, that the Old Covenant will not change in so much a penstroke until the end of the world, but that Jesus pronounced the penalty clauses, and thereby made it literally physically impossible for Jews to follow it anymore. It never applied to Gentiles at all, and while it still WOULD apply to Jews - meaning that if they as a community followed it all they would obtain the farm in Israel that is all that it promises - God has made it such that they CAN'T follow it all - and since it can't be changed at all, that renders it neuter - still in effect, and unfollowable.

The only deal now is the New Covenant, and that's not with tribes but with individual people.

The covenant with Abraham and the covenant with Hagar and Ishmael have both been fulfilled: Abraham's descendants - Arabs and Jews - completely populate that land, and they don't get along all that well, as God promised they would not.

 

[Vicomte13]

But these laws were intended for the Gentiles to eventually obey because it was God's plan in the OT for the Israelites to evangelize the Gentiles. I

No it wasn't. God never said that once in the Torah. And if it was his intention, he changed his mind later and did something completely different.

The Hebrews were indeed a LIGHT to the Gentiles, through their descendants. But the Light was the Son of God, and HE came with a completely NEW LAW and a NEW COVENANT. The Jews were mentally trapped by their OLD Covenant which they had extended by their TRADITIONS to mean also salvation and eternal life, neither of which were EVER offered by God for obeying the Mosaic law.

Jesus didn't say to them: Go consult the Scriptures, for in them is eternal life. He told them to go consult the Scriptures, for in them they think they will find eternal life. But it's not in there. That is one of those things that God revealed to all mankind as an inkling, a promise in the spirit. All mankind hearkened to it, Gentiles much more swiftly. The Jews had the problem of a massive contract, from God, that promised a farm but which they later, on their own, said also meant eternal life if it was followed. They said that and believed it, as their tradition, but YHWH never, ever told them that. You will never find it as part of the promise, because it isn't.

The first revelation from God about eternal life with God in the City of God, and punishment of sin in Gehenna (as opposed to simply death in Sheol) is revealed directly by Jesus, and he's the only one who presents a solution to the problem and the hope. The Hebrew Covenant is as silent on the matter as it is on polygamy.

 

[Vicomte13]

But you need not worry. I do not believe in following any of the ceremonial laws or judicial laws under the Old Covenant.

I'm not worried about it. I am astonished that you can read that text and see a basis in the Torah to make those distinctions in law that you claim to be there: ceremonial, judicial, moral.

That's a traditional Christian effort to mesh the old testament with the new, but there is no basis for making those categories IN the text at all, in either Testament. The Torah is presented as a complete law, that cannot be altered a jot or a tittle. Which means that it only ever applied to what it says it applies, and can neither be expanded to cover other things, nor contracted. That means that all of the traditions that purpose to append life after death to the Torah are illegal additions, and that all of the efforts to pare away things like the food laws are illegal subtractions.

The Torah stands as a complete - and irrelevant - set of laws. We have been given and entirely new set and a new covenant, and God has made it such that we CANNOT follow the Torah fully even if we WANT to - and as Gentiles we should not WANT to, because it was never intended for us in the first place.

We should give up on trying to somehow insert the Hebrew Covenant into the New Covenant. It doesn't fit. God never did that. It's just simply an error, an old one, and one that does nothing but diminish the whole book, because to do it, one has to disregard what the book actually SAYS.

It's really far easier to just read the Torah and realize that it SAYS THis is for you Hebrews in the desert and your circumcised heirs in Canaan. Follow all of this and I will give you a safe farm there. Break any of it substantially and I will drive you out and take it back. It says nothing about eternal life, or life after death, and it says that it only applies to Hebrews in the Sinai.

That's what it says. Jesus says that not a word can be added or subtracted. So as a matter of logic, of law, of reading comprehension and divine revelation, we should understand from the beginning that the Torah is COMPLETELY INAPPLICABLE to us, and was for all time, because that's actually what it SAYS, and it can't be changed.

That avoids having to make up traditions about "moral laws" versus ceremonial laws completely out of thin air, when there is not one single word in the Bible that suggests that can be done, and Jesus himself saying that it cannot and must not be done. Not a letter nor a penstroke can change. So the whole Torah stands, as written, and that means that it applies to nobody in the world - because God made sure of that by destroying the priesthood and the temple and the altar and taking the ark and the urim and thummim, and thereby leaving nobody on earth CAPABLE of fulfilling all of the terms of the law.

Break any of it, and you don't get the farm. God made it so that it can't be followed. The JEWS don't accept that judgement, out of stubborness and tradition. Christians should not join their madness by making up traditions that actually run counter to Jesus and the Torah both, to try to save the Torah as law. It isn't. It never was for us.

This simplifies things greatly, and removes vast swathes of contradictions that traditional Christianity has made for itself by trying to be partial Jews and trying to preserve the Torah law which - on its very face - says its not for us. We've added traditions that make it partially for us. Those traditions are utterly false and contradict Jesus' direct words, and YHWH's also - not to add.

Let the Torah go. It's dead law for all practical purposes for Jews - God made it such that they can't follow it -and none of it ever applied to us. Let it go and just follow Jesus. That's what we're supposed to do.

Yes, Paul and Peter and the other apostles struggled with the Torah and wrote about it. THEY WERE JEWS. They had a terrible overhang of tradition to contend with. ANd they came to opposing conclusions. Jesus cuts through the fog. What he said is the clear and correct answer.

 

[Vicomte13]

And the coming physical Messiah who was to be their salvation.

Where is that in the Torah?

 

[Vicomte13]

"...abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication." These are all things that existed in the Law. Granted, they were not under the Law now. But the point is that God has laws that can be carried over from one Covenant to another.

But Jesus made ALL foods clean. So the Jewish men at the Council of Jerusalem added back something from the Torah - not eating blood, and thereby created a conflict between what Jesus said and what they said.

Jesus made all foods clean. Blood sausage is food. Whole civilizations: ancient Scandinavia, the steppe peoples and the East African, subsisted (and still do) heavily on blood as a food staple. People north of the Arctic Circle subsist to this day on animal fat.

So, this is an example of the clergy of the Church making a rule that made sense for a time, and for reasons having to do with their own overhanging Jewish squeamishness (perhaps to prevent many Jews from leaving the Church), but the Church later erased the rules of the Council of Jerusalem and returned to the clear and complete law of Jesus: all foods are clean. That means that blood sausage and Masai blood pudding and Mongol horse blood milk are all perfectly licit foods for a Christian. The Jews at the Council of Jerusalem could not stomach the full implication of Jesus' revelation regarding food and imposed an intermediate tradition, for a time - as Jesus empowered them to do. But in the fullness of time the Church corrected this error and returned to the rule of God, which is that all food is clean - and that we do not have to abstain from any of those things that the Jewish Apostles at the Council of Jerusalem said (erroneously) we had to. Jesus is God - and he said ALL, which means ALL, not "All, except these".

But it is good to obey the clergy in such small matters, for a time, in order to not drive people away from Christ. That time is past. All means all. Blood sausage is licit. Jesus said so.

 

[Vicomte13]

God has eternal moral laws. Yes, there are temporary moral laws. But there are also eternal ones that God gave to us.

Yes. And to know what they are, you have to listen to Jesus, like God said: This is my beloved son, listen to HIM. And Jesus said so many times: Follow me! And later: "What good does it do you to say you follow me if you don't keep my commandments?"

 

[disciple1]

On another thread someone commented that Christians should be able to figure out the “evils of contraception.” I’m not going to post the quote because I’m not trying to call anyone out. And I decided to start a new thread so as to not derail the other. That being said...

Excluding contraception that terminates life (Plan B, for example), please discuss how contraception that prevents fertilization (condoms, for example) are evil.

1 Timothy chapter 1 verse7, 8
They want to be teachers of the law but they do not know what they are talking about or what they so confidently affirm.
We know that the law is good if one uses it properly.
Galatians chapter 3 verses 24,25,23
So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith. Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law. Before this faith came, we were held prisoners by the law, locked up until faith should be revealed.


I think these verses apply, since your trying to force something.

1 Peter chapter 4 verse 8
Love covers a great many sins.

 

[Bible Highlighter]

Not in the same form. Cain slew Abel and God put the mark on him and sent him a-wandering. But after the Flood, God told Noah that if man sheds man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed. That's a new commandment, and a different rule than he applied to Cain or to Lamech.

No. It is still murder. The justice of how to deal with murder varied but the actual sin of murder is still the same.

 

[Bible Highlighter]

Sure it does; sexual immorality. Everybody knows that bestiality is immoral.

But you miss the point, it is not mentioned in the New Testament and yet we know it is something that is immoral. Immoral. It is one of God's Eternal Moral laws for man.

 

[Bible Highlighter]

Yes. And to know what they are, you have to listen to Jesus, like God said: This is my beloved son, listen to HIM. And Jesus said so many times: Follow me! And later: "What good does it do you to say you follow me if you don't keep my commandments?"

I am not arguing against that at all. I am for that 100%. I am saying that there are God's Eternal Moral Laws that have been incorporated into the New Covenant but they can also be seen in the Old Testament times because they are God's Eternal Moral Laws.

It's why Paul says we fulfill the "righteous" aspect of part of the Old Law (i.e. God's eternal moral laws) by walking after the Spirit under the New Covenant.

 

[Bible Highlighter]

Sure it does; sexual immorality. Everybody knows that bestiality is immoral.

Except for the people who indulge in it and or view it. Also, if everybody knew it was wrong, then why did God have to say this within the Old Testament? Surely it was important enough for God to put it in His Word so as to let people know God does not approve of such a sin.

 

[paul1149]

So if you decide to have sex only on infertile days, no foul. If you can know which of those days are infertile days you can avoid pregnancy pretty successfully. And no sin.

Thanks for a cordial reply. It seems to me that the above is gaming the system. The couple is reduced to a laborious enslavement to the details of the system, and to an anxious hoping that they get it right. This hardly seems to be consistent with the spirit of trusting the Lord, keeping it simple, and rejoicing always in Him. It is more like a heavy yoke.

I can see your difference between the above and actually placing some kind of barrier as a protection against pregnancy. But I wonder which method allows the couple to better rest in the Lord?

Are all Christians called to divide this thing out to the Nth degree, as we are doing here, in order to have a clean conscience? This hardly seems to conform to "the simplicity that is in Christ" (2Cor).

 

[truefiction1]

You are right about rocket ships and the specifics of stem cell research but you're not right about contraception in the first century and earlier. There were physical methods and chemical methods though by modern standards they were unsophisticated.

Birth control and abortion are well documented in Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt. (See History of abortion.) The Ebers Papyrus from 1550 BCE and the Kahun Papyrus from 1850 BCE have within them some of the earliest documented descriptions of birth control, the use of honey, acacia leaves and lint to be placed in the vagina to block sperm. Another early document explicitly referring to birth control methods is the Kahun Gynecological Papyrus from about 1850 BCE. It describes various contraceptive pessaries, including acacia gum, which recent research has confirmed to have spermatocidal qualities and is still used in contraceptive jellies. Other birth control methods mentioned in the papyrus include the application of gummy substances to cover the "mouth of the womb" (i.e. the cervix), a mixture of honey and sodium carbonate applied to the inside of the vagina, and a pessary made from crocodile dung. Lactation (breast-feeding) of up to three years was also used for birth control purposes in ancient Egypt. (wikipedia)​

As I said, there wasn't much in the way of artificial contraception in the days and places in which Scripture was produced. Hence, there is no mention of these things (as far as I know) in Scripture that would affirm or support their use. We do know, however, from more ancient manuscripts, that contraceptive methods of the Roman empire days in the early centuries A.D were abortive, not preventative. We also know that abortion in the Roman Empire mostly was done by taking the newborn infant and leaving them exposed to die out on a hill somewhere. The early Christians would go out looking for these babies who had been left by their parents to die and raise them as their own children

 

[Bible Highlighter]

Of course there were laws for the Gentiles. We see some of them referred to in the early parts of Genesis.

All 9 moral laws out of the 10 commandments (Sabbath excluded because it is a ceremonial law) are referenced before the written Law. Other moral laws like: The condemnation of sleeping with one's parents and the sin of Sodomy can also be seen in the Holy Scriptures (Genesis) before the written law.

What God revealed to the Gentiles after Noah is not codified in the Torah. The Torah tells us the specific laws and applications that God gave to the Jews, very specifically. It says that on its face too.

Not true. Before Israel became a nation, God's laws existed in the life of certain men of God. These laws existed before Moses wrote them down in the Torah. They existed in the past for him so as to write about them. Examples like "do not murder" are imbedded into the stories like with Cain and Abel. Examples like do not commit sexual immorality like with the Story of Lot, and the Story of Joseph.

God also talked to Gentiles, and gave them aspects of his law that he never revealed directly to the Jews through Moses. The most obvious example of this is the law of monogamy in marriage. That was never revealed to the Jews at all, and there are polygamous Jews to this day, particularly in Africa, or from Yemen. God DID reveal that law to the Romans. Monogamy is nowhere to be seen. Nor did Jesus ever say anything that specifically required it. Monogamy was revealed to the Romans and other Gentiles of the West, not to the Hebrews or Jews.

Not true at all. The Israelites were told by God that marriage is between one man and one woman and they shall be one flesh.

3 "The Pharisees also came unto him, tempting him, and saying unto him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?
4 And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female,
5 And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?
6 Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder." (Matthew 19:3-6).

Meaning, ‘the two will become one flesh’, not more than two.

Also, the 10th Commandment ‘… You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife [singular] …’ (Exodus 20:17) also presupposes the ideal that there is only one wife.

The Torah is a highly codified and complex law, a written contract, given by YHWH specifically to the Hebrews, in the Sinai. The terms are: you do all of this, and I will give you the land of Canaan and each of your families a farm in it, secure, on good behavior. Good behavior was defined as following all sorts of rules of ritual, of organization, of worship, of governance. The other piece of the contract was the penalty clause: and if you don't, I will take it all away.

Again, that does not mean that the written Law did not borrow, copy, or take from God's eternal moral laws that have been mentioned before the written Law.

Read this article here (And see my following note):
The Law Before Sinai – Sin not Imputed without Law

Important Note in regards to the link here: Please take note that I do not believe the author's idea that the Saturday Sabbath is binding for the believer today or the keeping of the OT Passover, etc. The point I wanted to make was to show you that certain "Moral Laws existed" prior to the written law.

Obviously God revealed laws and other things to more than just the Hebrews. Melchizedek was unrelated to Abraham. He was a Canaanite. God spoke the Hagar the Egyptian and made a covenant with her also, concerning her boy Ishmael. Moses was married to a non-Hebrew, from the southern reaches of Canaan, and his Father in law, Jethro, through whom Moses was given the principles for governing the Hebrews, was likewise not a Hebrew, but from the tribes of the Southern part of Canaan. Balaam was a prophet to whom God spoke, and he most certainly was not a Hebrew.

This proves my point that there were Eternal Moral Laws in existence. In fact, the Gentiles did by nature the things contained in the Law (i.e. the Moral Law).

Romans 2:14 says,
"For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves."

The Old Testament records the Jewish experience of THEIR revelations from God, and their covenant with God. It does not record all of the revelations that God gave to the world. It does not record all of the law that God gave to the world, except to the extent that God ALSO gave that law to the Hebrews. We read the Hebrew form of the revelation, which was part of the land contract. Some of those things are likewise given by Jesus as rules for mankind - Jesus gave us all the rules. The Old Testament doesn't trace the history of the world after Genesis 10 or so. It does not speak of the interactions and revelations by God to the whole world. It speaks of the particular experience of Abraham and his sons and descendants, and then of what God revealed specifically to the Hebrews in the Sinai through Moses, and their interactions with this convenant thereafter.

Because salvation is of the Jews. Jesus (Who was Jewish) was to be to be the Savior of the entire world.

In truth, the Gentiles had an easier time coming over to Jesus than the Jews ever did, or still have, because the law of Jesus is close to the Roman law in many respects, but without all of the massive edifice of additional law and restrictions in the Hebrew covenant.

God would not ask the Hebrews to do something that was impossible under the Old Covenant. Granted, it is easier to obey the New than the Old, but it was still possible for OT saints to obey the Old Covenant ways being a Hebrew if they were born again spiritually by God and the Lord lived within them. But currently the Old Covenant is now no longer in effect (For it ended with Christ's death); Along with this change in Covenant, was a change in the Law and the priesthood, as well (Hebrews 7:12).

The Law of Moses is simply not for us.

At one time in the past: The Law was ultimately was supposed to be for the Gentiles because Isaiah says that Israel was supposedto be a light to the Gentiles. They were supposed to evangelize the Gentiles but that never happened by the nation of Israel. They missed that window of opportunity. When Jesus came, He was the One to evangelize the Gentiles, but instead of putting the Gentiles under Old Covenant Law, the Lord instituted an entirely New Covenant with New Commands (that supercedes the Old Covenant).

It's the only detailed account of we have of God's ancient revelation to a people, and it contains a great deal of God's thought processes, but these laws are not for us.

No. God's eternal moral laws exist in the written Law. They existed before and they exist now under the New Testament. Murder, lying, adultery, theft, idolatry, coveting, etc. are all considered to be God's Eternal Moral Laws. Just because the written Law mentions them, does not mean they are not binding for believers today. They are mentioned before the written Law and they are mentioned in the New Testament for New Covenant believers.

God's laws are for us, and there are overlaps.

Then you cannot say that that none of these laws under the Old are not for us then.

But to know what God wants of US we should do what God said and follow JESUS, not Moses.

No argument here. I agree.

The Law of Jesus is quite different from the Law of Moses in myriad ways.

No argument here. I agree.

It was hard for the Jews to wrap their heads around the difference, and to let go of that which did not apply to the question of salvation and final judgment (subjects outside of the scope of the Torah). Most never did and still have not.

The key is to tell them that the Law has changed as Hebrews 7:12 and that all law whatsoever was not abolished. For Jesus came to fulfill the Law into it's true intended purpose with the commands we see in the New Testament (i.e. to Love God and to love our neighbor - which includes a ton of other new sub unique commands that is based upon these greatest two). A believer should look primarily to the New Testament to obey God. None of the ceremonial laws or judicial laws have carried over into the New Testament. Only God's Eternal Moral Laws still exist for the believer today.


Source Used for two sentences within this post:
Does the Bible clearly teach monogamy? - creation.com

 

[Bible Highlighter]

Yes. And to know what they are, you have to listen to Jesus, like God said: This is my beloved son, listen to HIM. And Jesus said so many times: Follow me! And later: "What good does it do you to say you follow me if you don't keep my commandments?"

Well, I am not one of those types of Christians who think we can break Christ's commandments and still be saved. I know most non-Catholics you encounter may think that way, but I am not one of them. I believe that looking at a woman in lust can cause one to be in danger of hell fire (Matthew 5:28-30). It is why we as believers need to live holy as a part of saving grace. Grace is not a license for us to sin. The grace of God teaches us to deny ungodliness (TItus 2:11-12). I am strongly against Eternal Security and or those who think they can sin just a little and still be saved. Jesus says if you will enter into life, keep the commandments. Of course this would be the Lord helping us to obey His Word and it would not be by our own power alone. So we cannot take all the glory but we would give that glory to the Lord.

 

[truefiction1]

You are right about rocket ships and the specifics of stem cell research but you're not right about contraception in the first century and earlier. There were physical methods and chemical methods though by modern standards they were unsophisticated.

Birth control and abortion are well documented in Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt. (See History of abortion.) The Ebers Papyrus from 1550 BCE and the Kahun Papyrus from 1850 BCE have within them some of the earliest documented descriptions of birth control, the use of honey, acacia leaves and lint to be placed in the vagina to block sperm. Another early document explicitly referring to birth control methods is the Kahun Gynecological Papyrus from about 1850 BCE. It describes various contraceptive pessaries, including acacia gum, which recent research has confirmed to have spermatocidal qualities and is still used in contraceptive jellies. Other birth control methods mentioned in the papyrus include the application of gummy substances to cover the "mouth of the womb" (i.e. the cervix), a mixture of honey and sodium carbonate applied to the inside of the vagina, and a pessary made from crocodile dung. Lactation (breast-feeding) of up to three years was also used for birth control purposes in ancient Egypt. (wikipedia)​

Thanks, this is interesting information. I don't know of any of these methods mentioned in the Bible though. Manuscripts from the age of the Roman empire only refer to abortive means of birth control as far as I know, but abortion was mostly performed after an infant was carried to full term and born, after which they were carried out into the countryside and left alone out on a hill somewhere in order to die from exposure. Tradition tells us that the early Christians would go looking for them and bring them home and raise them as their own.

 

[chevyontheriver]

Thanks for a cordial reply. It seems to me that the above is gaming the system. The couple is reduced to a laborious enslavement to the details of the system, and to an anxious hoping that they get it right. This hardly seems to be consistent with the spirit of trusting the Lord, keeping it simple, and rejoicing always in Him. It is more like a heavy yoke.

First, it's not the requirements of 'the system' but of basic human biology. It's not hard to figure out when ovulation occurs. There are signals. You graph it out. The pattern presents itself. There is a day or so where it's not clear, but then it becomes obvious that ovulation has occurred. You talk. You decide what you want to do. If you have the ability to have another child, you act. If you don't, you wait a few short days. No hormones clogging her body, no IUD, no plastic barriers, no sterilization, just do what is right for you. Natural Family Planning works well to become pregnant if that is the plan, or to not become pregnant if that is the plan. If you have sex when fertile, God does the rest and you accept it. If you get surprised, you accept it, because you know and accept that sex has one of it's purposes as creating a new life. That's not alien to you. Not a tragedy. Not a failure.

I can see your difference between the above and actually placing some kind of barrier as a protection against pregnancy. But I wonder which method allows the couple to better rest in the Lord?

You might have to try it and see. If you dare.

Are all Christians called to divide this thing out to the Nth degree, as we are doing here, in order to have a clean conscience? This hardly seems to conform to "the simplicity that is in Christ" (2Cor).

But then how is contraception at all simple? Depending on the method, it's not very reliable. Depending on the method, there are side effects. Depending on the method, they induce abortions. Depending on the method, it's not rapidly reversible. And it is all about saying no to God. It is all about saying fertility and potency are a disease. It's all about saying pregnancy is failure. And what I find most telling is it has me say that I love my spouse, but just not her fertility, that I don't love her enough to accept her as she is, but rather only when chemically neutered, or isolated by plastic.