Our country is about to receive and experience a consequential decision
from the Supreme Court
relating to abortion.
What does the Bible say about this important matter?
In the book of Psalms, the writer of the 139th Psalm gives a description of the pre-born state of a child. As we read this passage and define it, consider the use of the personal pronouns. I will highlight them in bold. The parentheses provide my commentary and definitions for the underlined words. Get your Bible and follow along.
Psalm 139:13–16
13 For thou hast possessed (created / brought into existence) my reins (a person’s inmost being where people know right from wrong…the conscience). 13 Thou hast covered (God knit me together…he wove me together…this body that I have…right now....he put it together…Where? in my mother’s womb....) me in my mother’s womb (who is the “me” and the “my?” DAVID - When I (David) was in my mother’s womb…When I (David) was in the womb…I had a mother....she had a son.)
14 I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made (The Eye, The Ear, The Nose, The Hand, The foot - Marvelous feats of engineering and design - These same personal pronouns that David uses of his present existence are the same ones used to describe his former existence in the womb).
Marvellous are thy works (The nervous system…the cardiovascular system....the Pulmonary system…The integumentary system....The digestive system....the muscular system....Awesome and phenomenal wonders of creation independently, but when combined and functioning flawlessly together....stupendous and remarkable); And that my soul knoweth right well. 15 My substance (The body and specifically the frame of it…the bones....Soon after conception) was not hid from thee, When I was made in secret, And curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth (a poetic way of expressing the mother’s womb - God was there! He is very concerned about what goes on in the womb…he, in fact, has ordered and arranged it). 16 Thine eyes did see my substance (“Substance” here is different than above. The term represents that which is not yet unfolded and developed..... it seems to me that the word could be understood as going back to the very moment of conception), yet being unperfect; And in thy book all my members were written, Which in continuance (throughout the process of development....God was there!) were fashioned (This word represents the fact that the development of the human body in the womb is an object of God’s planning…This process that occurs in a ladies womb is God’s planning and design), when as yet there was none of them.
These verses tell us that God forms that child in a mother’s womb, and that child is the subject and object of God’s love and concern.
A baby in the womb is not an “it” or a “thing” that can be removed like a tumor and destroyed. This is a person made in the image of God. And the Bible doesn’t distinguish between prenatal and postnatal life.
In the book of Jeremiah, we discover God’s plans for Pre-birth Jeremiah -
Jeremiah 1:5
5 Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.
Jeremiah was a prophet…He was consecrated a prophet before he was conceived....before he was formed in the belly, and before he was born! You don’t consecrate a gall bladder (or a liver, or a heart) to become a prophet, you consecrate a person.
This next fact is amazing! In Luke’s Gospel, we read that Mary, who was pregnant with Jesus, went to visit her relative Elizabeth, who was pregnant with John the Baptist. Listen to verse 41. “And it came to pass, that, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost:” At this stage of development, John the Baptist would have been a “fetus” and Jesus would have been an “embryo.”
The Greek word for babe (βρέφος - brephos) is used when it says that the baby leaped in her womb. That word can mean: “a preborn child, embryo, fetus, a new born child, an infant, a babe.” It is the same term that is used to describe Jesus, the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger (Luke 2:12, 16). In other words, there is no distinction made in the Greek NT between a pre-born baby and a new born child. No distinction.
What is the answer to abortion in America? It is really quite simple.
1. No sex before marriage - No sex = no baby
2. Pregnant? Options? (Killing the baby is not an option)
Keep the baby
Give the baby up for adoption - Let me say a word about abortion and adoption. The median cost of a first-trimester surgical abortion = $575 in 2020 (second-trimester procedure = $895). The Cost of adoption is $20,000-50,000 dollars. These figures need to be reversed
Social, religious, educational, legal support structures need to be developed and enhanced to value, encourage, and support life.