Thank you very much Randy, and we'll go to our phone callers
Steve in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada - CJCA - Hi Steve!
Hi Hank!
Hank I wanted to ask:
From the Bible, what is the advice I should give to my daughter who is pregnant out of wedlock?
Is - is she a believer?
I would say yes, but she's 23 years old and believing is - you know
Yeah.
Well you know this is this is sort of the essence of the issue Steve. I mean if your daughter is a pagan,
She's gonna live her life by a different standard than if she is a Christian.
So if she's a pagan, pagans do what pagans do, which is
to say they don't live within the parameters that God sets forth for them to live within,
and therefore they bear the consequences.
Conversely, if she is a Christian,
Then she will be sorry for her sin,
turn from it with God's help,
And we should be involved in that process. Which is to say,
That we should be restorative in a relationship - in this case with your daughter -
Whereby you don't shun her,
but you are the balm of Gilead in her life.
Because, the reality is sin always comes with his consequences. I mean no better example can be given than David.
Here's a man after God's own heart,
sins with impunity, gets Bathsheba pregnant,
kills Uriah to cover it up,
and then he repents.
And when he repents,
it's a genuine brokenness - "A broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise"
says David in Psalm 51.
So there's genuine contrition.
Now,
obviously there were consequences to David and those consequences follow inexorably like night follows day.
But we don't have to be the one exacting the consequences, what we can do is be -
In this case as a father - the comfort.
The comfort not in saying:
"I agree with what happened", but the comfort in the sense of restoring,
And, being that person that
reintegrates that family into the love and context of Christ in His Church
Ok, um
- in
The quandary that we're faced with is the -
fact that she wants to move back in with her boyfriend,
and he is definitely pagan.
And I don't think there's any hope for her or the child in that situation.
Well, there's not- -And right now
Yeah. Right now she lives with us, so we have some considerable influence over that,
but we're stuck with: do we let her go and do what she wants to do, or do we exercise the influence and -
- and get her to stay with us. I-
-And I'm not sure... Well, I mean you can't handcuff her, right? She's 23 years of age
- Yeah You can't handcuff her, and you know quite obviously from what you're describing
She is not one who is walking in the ways of wisdom or in the ways of the Lord.
I mean that's plain and simple.
If she wants to move in with a pagan boyfriend - as you've described it -
She's going from the frying pan into the fire. Now, you can give her counsel and
Evidently you have a relationship with her, she lives under your roof and you give her all the counsel,
You can warn her, but ultimately you can't tie her up and stop her.
So I - in this case - what I would do is I would pray,
and whatever opportunity you have to
affect her, in terms of
the testimony of your life, and your love, and your lips - by all means use that to the full.