Adoption: What Joseph of Nazareth Can Teach Us about This Countercultural Choice QUOTES

1 " If the people in our congregation become other-directed instead of self-directed in the adoption of unwanted children, they are going to be other-directed instead of self-directed in their verbal witness to people in their community. On the other hand, the same self-interest that sears over the joy of birth will sear over the joy of the new birth. The numbness to earthly adoption is easily translated to numbness to spiritual adoption. But if people in our churches learn not to grumble at the blessing of minivans filled with children—some of whom don’t look anything alike—they’re going to learn not to grumble at the blessing of a congregation filling with new people, some of whom don’t look anything alike. If our churches learn to rejoice in newness of life in the church nursery, they’ll more easily rejoice at newness of life in the church baptistery, and vice versa. "

― Russell D. Moore , Adoption: What Joseph of Nazareth Can Teach Us about This Countercultural Choice

2 " Churches that don’t celebrate children aren’t going to celebrate evangelism. After all, the “be fruitful and multiply” clause in Genesis is echoed in the Great Commission of Jesus (Matt. 28:16–20), a mission that also seeks to fill the entire earth. "

― Russell D. Moore , Adoption: What Joseph of Nazareth Can Teach Us about This Countercultural Choice

3 " The followers of Jesus, though, did not kill their offspring, even when it would have made economic or social sense to do so.6 This is still distinctively Christian in a world that increasingly sees children as, at best, a commodity to be controlled and, at worst, a nuisance to be contained. "

― Russell D. Moore , Adoption: What Joseph of Nazareth Can Teach Us about This Countercultural Choice

4 " And then I remembered that my denomination, in whose deliberations I then sat, was formed in a dispute with other American Christians over the slavery of other human beings because of the color of their skin. And my people had been on the slaveholders’ side. Previous generations of preachers just like me (indeed probably some related to me) had argued that some children were unworthy of freedom because of the shade of their skin. My own ancestors had seen to it that children of a darker skin than themselves were made orphans. As the resolutions flew around the convention hall about “the sanctity of marriage,” I realized that previous generations of preachers in this very same context had propped up a system in which parents couldn’t marry legally because that would make it more difficult to sell them individually when necessary. "

― Russell D. Moore , Adoption: What Joseph of Nazareth Can Teach Us about This Countercultural Choice

5 " Perhaps what our churches need most of all in our defense of the faith against Darwinian despair is not more resources on how the fossil record fits with the book of Genesis and not more arguments on how molecular structures show evidence of design. Perhaps the most practical way your congregation can show Darwinism to be wrong is to showcase families for whom love is more than gene protection. "

― Russell D. Moore , Adoption: What Joseph of Nazareth Can Teach Us about This Countercultural Choice

6 " It’s easy to shake our heads in disgust at Pharaoh or Herod or Planned Parenthood. It’s not as easy to see the ways in which we ourselves often have a Pharaoh-like view of children rather than a Christlike view.1 What God calls blessing, we often grumble at as a curse—and for the same reason those old kings did, because they disrupt our life plans. "

― Russell D. Moore , Adoption: What Joseph of Nazareth Can Teach Us about This Countercultural Choice

7 " What’s also noteworthy about both of these dictators is that both of them take the rage they had against Jesus in particular and direct it toward babies in general. When it’s Jesus versus the self, babies are caught in the crossfire. And it’s always that way. Several years ago a friend sent me a copy of what just might be the most chilling Christmas card ever sent through the US mail. The Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the nation’s leading provider of abortions, unveiled a holiday greeting card in support of the group’s commitment to “reproductive freedom.” The card was beautifully designed, complete with embossed snowflakes and stars made of glitter. Across the card was the caption, “Choice on Earth. "

― Russell D. Moore , Adoption: What Joseph of Nazareth Can Teach Us about This Countercultural Choice

8 " It turns out, though, that the Planned Parenthood greeting card is quite appropriate for the time of year when Christians celebrate the incarnation. We ought to be reminded that Jesus is not born into a gauzy, snowy winter wonderland of sweetly singing angels and cute reindeer nuzzling one another at the side of his manger. He is born into a war zone. And at the very rumor of his coming, Herod—the Planned Parenthood of his day—vows to see him dead, right along with thousands of his brothers. "

― Russell D. Moore , Adoption: What Joseph of Nazareth Can Teach Us about This Countercultural Choice

9 " The demonic powers hate babies because they hate Jesus. When they destroy “the least of these” (Matt. 25:40, 45), the most vulnerable among us, they’re destroying a picture of Jesus himself, of the child delivered by the woman who crushes their head (Gen. 3:15). They know the human race is saved—and they’re vanquished—by a woman giving birth (Gal. 4:4; 1 Tim. 2:15). They are grinding apart Jesus’s brothers and sisters (Matt. 25:40). They are also destroying the very picture of newness of life and of dependent trust that characterizes life in the kingdom of Christ (Matt. 18:4). Children also mean blessing—a perfect target for those who seek only to kill and destroy (John 10:10). "

― Russell D. Moore , Adoption: What Joseph of Nazareth Can Teach Us about This Countercultural Choice

10 " Satan always uses human passions to bring about his purposes. When new life stands in the way of power—whether that power is a Pharaoh’s military stability or a community leader’s reputation in light of his teenage daughter’s pregnancy—the blood of children often flows. Herod loved his power, so he raged against babies. In the middle of all of this stood Joseph, an unlikely demon wrestler. "

― Russell D. Moore , Adoption: What Joseph of Nazareth Can Teach Us about This Countercultural Choice

11 " The universe is at war, and some babies and children are on the line. The old Serpent is coiled right now, his tongue flicking, watching for infants and children he can consume. One night two thousand years ago, all that stood in his way was one reluctant day laborer who decided to be a father. "

― Russell D. Moore , Adoption: What Joseph of Nazareth Can Teach Us about This Countercultural Choice

12 " Jesus’s identity as the Christ, after all, is tied to his identity as the descendant of David, the legitimate heir to David’s throne. Jesus saves us as David’s son, the offspring of Abraham, the Christ. That human identity came to Jesus through adoption. Matthew and Luke trace Jesus’s roots in Abraham and David through the line of Joseph. As the Presbyterian scholar J. Gresham Machen put it, Joseph’s adoption of Jesus means Jesus belongs “to the house of David just as truly as if he were in a physical sense the son of Joseph. He was a gift of God to the Davidic house, not less truly, but on the contrary in a more wonderful way than if he had been descended from David by ordinary generation.”2 It is through Joseph that Jesus finds his identity as the fulfillment of the Old Testament promise. It is through Joseph’s legal fatherhood of Jesus that “the hopes and fears of all the years” find their realization in the final son of Abraham, son of David, and son of Israel. "

― Russell D. Moore , Adoption: What Joseph of Nazareth Can Teach Us about This Countercultural Choice

13 " As Joseph images the Father of the fatherless, he shows us how adoption is more than charity. It’s spiritual warfare. "

― Russell D. Moore , Adoption: What Joseph of Nazareth Can Teach Us about This Countercultural Choice

14 " The only problem we had was with the judge,” the wife said. “The judge thought there was some mistake that we’d want this child because he’s dark skinned. The judge said no one would want a child like that and that there were plenty of light-skinned babies available. He just couldn’t believe that we would want him and almost treated us as though we were up to something shady because we did.” I wasn’t expecting that, and as I stroked this little boy’s cheek, those words struck me: “No one would ever want a child like that.” I picked him up from his stroller and hugged him, hoping I wouldn’t start crying in front of my denominational peers walking up and down the corridor of the convention hall. “You’re loved and wanted,” I told him. “Isn’t that great? "

― Russell D. Moore , Adoption: What Joseph of Nazareth Can Teach Us about This Countercultural Choice

15 " But wouldn’t we see more women willing to give their children life if they’d seen with their own eyes what an adoption culture looks like? And wouldn’t these mothers and fathers, who may themselves feel unwanted, be a bit more ready to hear our talk about a kingdom where all are welcomed? "

― Russell D. Moore , Adoption: What Joseph of Nazareth Can Teach Us about This Countercultural Choice