The First Commandment—A look at the chapter one of Be Fruitful and Multiply

“The very first recorded words that man ever heard from the mouth of God were these: “Be fruitful, and multiply’”

I never thought about this before. The very first command God gives us is the command to bear children yet this seems to be the one command that most people, even Christians, seem to ignore. I’ve heard many reasons why it is okay for Christians to stop their seed or take the chance of aborting their seed (through hormonal birth control), but none of the reasons given support God’s first command to us—be fruitful and multiply.

One of the excuses that people often use is “We can’t afford children (or more children).” I can go on an on about how you need to trust God to equip you to take care of what He gives, but I won’t at this time. I want to bring up Jeremiah 29:6 to you. He tells the Israelites, “Take ye wives, and beget sons and daughters; and take wives for your sons, and give your daughters to husbands, that they may bear sons and daughters; that ye may be increased there, and not diminished.” This word was given to the Israelites while they were in captivity! They did not have a lot of money. They did not have huge homes. They didn’t take vacations or whatever the reason why people won’t have more children, but God told them to multiply anyway! And why did He tell them to multiply—so “that ye may be increased there, and not diminished”! Just like back in Exodus when the Israelites left Egypt, the Egyptians were scared because they were large in number! The only way they could have grown so large was to continue multiplying even though they were slaves.

Another excuse people often use is the issue of “overpopulation”. This was brought to the forefront today when it was announced on the news that the world population has reached 7 billion people. That sounds like a lot of people, but back in 2003, the world population would fit inside the state of Texas with each person having 2,000 square feet! I think this world is plenty big enough for 7 billion people! All the reasons people give for overpopulation being an issue—space, lack of food, lack of resources, etc.—is due to mismanagement of what God has given us. We don’t need to stop having children; we need to teach our children proper management of the earth.

Something else to think about is “A growing population is necessary for a successful economic climate.” If there are more people working, there are more people spending money, therefore pushing the economy. While I know that unemployment numbers are up, I also know that a large amount of that is because people do not want to take lower paying jobs and would rather collect “free” money from the government instead of working. Of course, that is a whole different topic so I won’t discuss that further. More people in a family means more work can be done for the better of the family.