Matt and Lauren Chandler to Married Couples: God's Design Is for You to Have Children
In a new Tuesday video series promoting Matt Chandler's upcoming book Mingling of the Soul: God's Design for Love, Marriage, Sex and Redemption, the Texas pastor and his wife Lauren told husbands and wives that God's big plan for them is to have children.
Examining God's command to Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply, Matt Chandler urged married couples, "You've been designed by God physically, emotionally to have children. … God's big plan is for a man and woman to marry … and have children unless they're called to singleness."
Couples questioning God's design in their lives should consider their motives, he said. "I think the question I'd like to ask back [is] I want to know why you wouldn't want to have children. I think more often than not what gets revealed is a selfishness of heart or some kind of fear that's either rooted in an experience or not rooted in reality at all."
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Matt Chandler concluded by advising married men and women to "pursue the gift of God in children."
Lauren Chandler made a distinction between married couples who are resisting children and those who are struggling with infertility, noting, "I do believe there are still people who … they're not able but maybe they don't feel called to adoption and there's some that don't, aren't able to have kids and they do feel called to adoption."
For those couples who are physically unable to have children, there are other ways that they can fulfill the mandate to be fruitful and multiply such as discipling others, she said.
The video response was the first in a series of weekly question and answer podcasts promoting Matt Chandler's book Mingling of the Soul: God's Design for Love, Marriage, Sex and Redemption. Mingling the Soul offers biblical insights on love and intimacy through the Song of Solomon. The book plus related DVDs and study guides are due out in bookstores New Year's Day.
