Situational Truth

Psalm 127:3-5

Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD:

and the fruit of the womb is his reward.

As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man;

so are children of the youth.

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

they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.

There is a phenomenon that I have seen happen over and over again, and I am calling it here ‘Situational Truth’. It goes like this: you hold a belief, typically a belief grounded in God’s Word, and then something in your own, personal, situation changes… and you change the belief.

I read a post the other day called “Motherhood is not a woman’s ‘highest calling’”. Now, we could get into a very interesting discussion on why that post uses scare quotes. My guess would be to avoid having to state what the author thinks really is the highest calling of woman, ie open the issue up to debate. Instead she wished just to criticise the historical idea that motherhood is a woman’s highest calling (to be accurate, marriage and motherhood, but who’s counting?)… so she couldn’t have a comparison.

But that’s not what this post is about. It’s about the way the author, herself, admitted that she went about arriving at this new belief of hers that motherhood wasn’t a woman’s highest calling. She openly admitted that it was… her own personal situation. As a youngish woman she was all in favor of it, and it is implied she might have stayed in favor of it except… she didn’t get married. She didn’t get married and had no children. She didn’t get married, and had no children… so obviously marriage and motherhood couldn’t be a woman’s highest calling!

Truth is not Situational

It would seem to go without saying, but obviously doesn’t, that one woman failing to marry and have children… or even lots of women failing to marry and failing to have children… is not an evidence against the truth of God’s Word. Something changed in her situation, not in God’s Word. Her interpretation did not change because someone discovered a new gloss of a particular Greek word… it changed because the ‘I do’ never happened, there were never any pink lines.

Leaving this particular situation behind, this is a development that happens all the time. We think our life is going to go one way, and are happy with the doctrinal truths that support it and then, when our life changes, so do our doctrines. This was the temptation that Job faced… and mostly conquered. He knew he was rightous, he expected to be blessed… and was… until he wasn’t. Until the day came when his goods and children were taken away, and he was left to sit in the dust and scratch his boils.

His wife encouraged him to change his doctrine along with his circumstances:

Job 2:9

Then said his wife unto him,

Dost thou still retain thine integrity? curse God, and die.

To which he replied in agony but in faith:

Job 2:10

But he said unto her,

Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh.

What? shall we receive good at the hand of God,

and shall we not receive evil?

In all this did not Job sin with his lips.

Our situation might not be as dramatic as Job, but we can each face situations that might cause us to reject Biblical truth. We could find out we have a Sodomite son. Or a transgender teen. Or we might face temptations that we never imagined. Each of these could cause us to reject clear doctrines.

What Happened?

Genesis 15:2-3

And Abram said, Lord GOD,

what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless,

and the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus?

And Abram said,

Behold, to me thou hast given no seed:

and, lo, one born in my house is mine heir.

Let me propose four possibilities for understanding the situation where God’s Word clearly speaks on an issue; and our situation does not fit it. Where God speaks of something as a blessing from Him, and we do not receive it. Where the Scriptures are utterly clear on the importance of something to the believer, and we are alienated from it by circumstances.

1. Maybe this thing doesn’t apply to you. Maybe you are the exception to the general rule. Sight is wonderful… but some are blind. For a time, or for this life, maybe God doesn’t have that blessing for you.

2. Maybe it fully applies to you, but your sin is keeping you from it.

3. Maybe it fully applies to you, but someone else’s sin is keeping you from it.

4. Or maybe you are called to walk a different path.

The Exception to the Good

John 9:1-3

And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth.

And his disciples asked him, saying,

Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?

Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents:

but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.

Is there any question that sight is a good thing? That God made the world good so that we can see it? Didn’t Christ, and don’t we read in other Scriptures, God using the metaphor of ‘blindness’ to reflect wilful sin and ignorance? How than can anyone be born blind? At the very least no innocent man should be born blind, no?

Or let us speak of verses such as,

1Co 13:11

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child:

but when I became a man,

I put away childish things.

And ask how it is that the innocent child of believers should get childhood cancer and never grow to become a man? Or the lame, who is unable to walk. The deaf, who cannot hear the gospel.

It is utter folly to try to say that sight, hearing, maturity, or the ability to walk are not ‘good things’. Good things spoken of in Scripture as good things. Things that should be aspired to, and the deliberate rejection of which should be condemned. The existence of the man born blind does not negate the goodness of sight.

The Punishment of Sin

II Samuel 6:20-23

Then David returned to bless his household. And Michal the daughter of Saul came out to meet David, and said, How glorious was the king of Israel to day, who uncovered himself to day in the eyes of the handmaids of his servants, as one of the vain fellows shamelessly uncovereth himself!

And David said unto Michal, It was before the LORD, which chose me before thy father, and before all his house, to appoint me ruler over the people of the LORD, over Israel: therefore will I play before the LORD. And I will yet be more vile than thus, and will be base in mine own sight: and of the maidservants which thou hast spoken of, of them shall I be had in honour.

Therefore Michal the daughter of Saul had no child unto the day of her death.

It is no great secret that barrenness is a Biblical curse. That God has, at times and at seasons punished a person or people with the inability to conceive, the death of a child, or even the lack of a husband, because of their sin.

Genesis 20:17-18

So Abraham prayed unto God:

and God healed Abimelech, and his wife, and his maidservants;

and they bare children.

For the LORD had fast closed up all the wombs of the house of Abimelech,

because of Sarah Abraham’s wife.

Or the sin of another. Or the sin of a group.

And I might add that that sin might not be something obvious. It may not be seen to be directly related to husband and children. It may be a process sin, a faith sin or even, as with Michal, what one might call a priority sin.

Or Another Path?

I Samuel 1:5-6

But unto Hannah he gave a worthy portion; for he loved Hannah:

but the LORD had shut up her womb.

And her adversary also provoked her sore, for to make her fret,

because the LORD had shut up her womb.

There are two kinds of exceptions to the blessings of God. The first is as we touched above… a simple ‘not you’. A simple, if difficult, lack of the blessing. The inability to see, to walk, to hear… not from sin but for the glory of God.

But there is another kind of exception. A different kind of ‘not you’. And that is where a man is called to walk a different path. Not a simple lack, but a complex set of different blessings.

Let us look at the example of Job. Job knew, everyone knew, that God rewarded righteousness, and used suffering to punish the sinner. But the book of Job is about a time when God used suffering… to try a saint. When Christ told Peter that he was to be a martyr, Peter looked to John. But Christ had a different path for John.

We read that he who desires the office of bishop desires a good thing… and we are told that some are called to be deacons. It does not deny that being a bishop is a good thing that God calls some to be deacons. It does not speak of the importance of marriage and motherhood that God calls some women to be unmarried, and others to be barren.

Conclusion

There are several ways we can respond to a situation that challenges our long held understanding of Biblical doctrine. We can look to see if we have sinned, or others have sinned. We can look to see how God might be glorified in this situation, or what other path is being opened.

But what we must not do, what we must never do, is to use our situation to deny the clear truth of God’s Word. Our lack, our sin, another’s sin, God’s call… must never push us deny God’s Word.

So while it may or may not be accurate to speak of motherhood as a woman’s highest calling,¹ the truth involved is not changed one wit because of the existence of unmarried or barren women.

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Thanks again, God Bless, Soli Deo gloria,

Von

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Motherhood Is Not a Woman's "Highest Calling"

1. The argument has at least two parts:

a) It is perfectly true that the Scriptures never say exactly ‘Motherhood is a woman’s highest calling’. And when that is implied, it is almost always in conjunction with marriage, not standing alone.

b) It is also perfectly true, and obvious, that a comprehensive study of the Scripture will lead one to a conclusion that is very close to the idea that marriage and motherhood is a woman’s highest, Earthly, jurisdictional, calling. The number of passages dealing with this is enormous.