Answering 439 Bible Contradictions
Answer: No, childbearing is honorable and women that embrace feminine roles like motherhood give evidence of genuine conversion.
Problem: Genesis 1:28 commands fruitfulness and 1 Timothy 2:15 promises salvation through “childbearing”, while Leviticus 12 implies a woman has sinned by giving birth.
Explanation: Women should prize their childbearing years. Within this two-decade window, God has made women capable of bringing an immortal soul into the world. Genesis 1:28 commanded Adam and Eve: “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it.” The modern world rejects fruitfulness by lauding homosexuality, delayed marriage, unrestrained birth control, vasectomies, and abortion.
God loves children. God loves big families. He “blessed” Obed-edom by giving him eight sons (1Chron. 26:5). He blesses husbands by making their wives fruitful. “Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house; your children will be like olive shoots around your table” (Ps. 128:3).
Among the most difficult verses to interpret in Scripture is 1 Timothy 2:15: “Yet she will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.” Some believe this refers to spiritual salvation through the birth of the Messiah, such that sinners will be saved by the childbirth, Jesus Christ, God’s Son.
A better view sees this verse encouraging women to act like women. When they do, it is evidence of their salvation. Yes, Eve was “deceived” in the garden and Adam was not (v. 14). Yes, sinners are saved by faith alone (Rm. 4:5). But a woman gives evidence of being “saved” and having her sins forgiven by acting as a model wife and mother in the home, the place where she should find her deepest satisfaction.
The word “childbearing” is an example of a synecdoche, where a part represents a whole. “The White House”, for example, often refers to the entire US government. When I say “nice wheels”, I mean, “nice car”. “Childbearing” represents the whole of a godly woman’s responsibilities. Sinners are saved by works (Mt. 7:21) only in the broadest sense that they give evidence of faith in Christ. In the context, Paul is warning the Ephesian women not to aspire to preaching roles in the church but instead long for her crucial duties in the home. Satisfaction in motherhood doesn’t guarantee a woman’s salvation, which is why women who trust in Christ must “continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.”
Finally, a note about Leviticus 12:6-7, an Old Testament law which demanded that new mothers be purified after childbirth by bringing a lamb to the priest for a burnt offering. This would make “atonement” for her. Does this mean that giving birth is a sinful act? No.
When an Old Testament Israelite sinned, the law required him or her to bring an offering to the priest, after which their transgressions would be “forgiven” (Lev. 4:20, 26, 31, 35). But in the case of the new mother in Leviticus 12, she’s not “forgiven” (since she did nothing immoral) but instead is declared “clean from her flow of blood” (v. 7). Thus, the requirement for the offering has nothing to do with her sin but everything to do with the issuance of blood. Since, as Leviticus 17:11 says, “the life of the flesh is in the blood”, this law showed that the loss of a mother’s blood required some level of purification.
Sum
God gave childbearing as one of His greatest gifts. Christian women that cherish womanly roles like raising children prove they have become true followers of Christ.