Born into Death but Adopted for Life

This afternoon I finally had the opportunity to sit down and finish Russell Moore's excellent book, Adopted for Life: The Priority of Adoption for Christian Families & Churches.

It was a book that I thoroughly enjoyed reading. I recommend it to everyone. It will change the way you think about adoption. Throughout the book Dr. Moore connected adoption with the gospel. Adoption is all about the gospel. Notice how he closes his book:

"The reality, though, is that in most ways parenting is parenting, and growing up is growing up. It's always hard. Some unique challenges go along with adoption - challenges related to finding a sense of belonging, to discipline and discipleship, to answering questions about origins. Count these as all joy. They point all of us - not just kids who were adopted - to the gospel. The gospel welcomes us and receives us as loved children. The gospel disciplines us and prepares us for eternity as heirs. The gospel speaks truth to us and shows us our misery in Adam and our glory in Christ. The gospel shows us that we were born into death and then shows us, by free grace, that we're adopted for life." (p. 214)

Seriously, I strongly recommend that you read this book. You are welcome to borrow my copy of the book if you like. Just ask.

Other Posts from the Adopted for Life series:

1. Our Birth Father Has Fangs
2. Develop an Orphan-Protecting Culture
3. All of Us Are Called to Remember the Fatherless
4. Adoption and Communion
5. Born into Death but Adopted for Life

Adoption and Communion

Here are some more excerpts from Russell Moore's book, Adopted for Life: The Priority of Adoption for Christian Families & Churches.

Dr. Moore points out that to foster an adoption culture, a church needs to create "a vision of the church as a household." (p. 175) His point is that when we go to church we should see brothers and sisters. We should see spiritual fathers and mothers. In a sense, these are all 'adopted' family members. A church that views itself in this way will naturally have an inclination towards furthering adoption.

In developing these thoughts Dr. Moore shares some interesting ideas about how the church should observe the ordinance of communion.

"Our concept of the church as household necessarily entails a recovery of the meaning of the Lord's Table in many of our churches. The Supper that Jesus gave us is itself a living sign of adoption. Table fellowship, after all, is a familial activity. This is why Jesus was so revolutionary when he announced, "Many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 8:11). Why do our Lord's Supper services so often look like the clinical, communal rinse-and-spit of fluoride at an elementary school than like a loving family gathered around a feast table?

Often I'll preach in churches about the Lord's Supper and will call on congregations to go back to using a common loaf and a common cup, with the bread being torn, not daintily picked up in pre-fabricated bits, and with each person drinking the wine and passing the cup along. I don't mind folks disagreeing with me on this. I'm just stunned by the reason they most often give for dismissing this ancient Christian practice: germs. The common cup is, well, gross to many Christians because they don't like the idea of drinking after strangers. That's just the point, though. You're not drinking after strangers. You're drinking after your own flesh and blood, your family." (p. 178)

Other Posts from the Adopted for Life series:

1. Our Birth Father Has Fangs
2. Develop an Orphan-Protecting Culture
3. All of Us Are Called to Remember the Fatherless
4. Adoption and Communion
5. Born into Death but Adopted for Life

All of Us are Called to Remember the Fatherless

Here are some more excerpts from Russell Moore's book, Adopted for Life: The Priority of Adoption for Christian Families & Churches.

"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." (p. 80)

"Joseph's faith was the same kind of faith that saves us. Very few, if any, of us will have a dream directing us to adopt a child. None of us will be directed to do what Joseph did - to teach Jesus Christ how to saw through wood or to recite Deuteronomy in Hebrew. But all of us are called to be compassionate. All of us are called to remember the poor. All of us are called to remember the fatherless and the widows. That will look different in our different lives, with the different situations and resources God has given us. But for all of us there'll be a judgment to test the genuineness of our faith. And for some of us, there'll be some orphan faces there. (p. 82-83)"

Other Posts from the Adopted for Life series:

1. Our Birth Father Has Fangs
2. Develop an Orphan-Protecting Culture
3. All of Us Are Called to Remember the Fatherless
4. Adoption and Communion
5. Born into Death but Adopted for Life

Develop an Orphan-Protecting Adoption Culture

Here are some more excerpts from Russell Moore's book, Adopted for Life: The Priority of Adoption for Christian Families & Churches.

"An orphan-protecting adoption culture is countercultural - and always has been. Some of the earliest records we have of the Christian churches speak of how Christians, remarkably, protected children in the face of a culture of death pervasive in the Roman Empire. The followers of Jesus, though, did not kill their offspring, even when it would have made economic or social sense to do so. 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. Think of how revolutionary it is for Christians to adopt a young boy with a cleft palate from a region of India where most people see him as "defective." Think of how counterintuitive it is for Christians to adopt a Chinese girl - when many there see her as a disappointment. Think of how odd it must seem to American secularists to see Christians adopting a baby whose body trembles with an addiction to the cocaine her mother sent through her bloodstream before birth. Think of the kind of credibility such action lends to the proclamation of our gospel."

"An adoption culture in our churches advances the cause of life, even beyond the individual lives of the children adopted. Imagine if Christian churches were known as the places where unwanted babies become beloved children. If this were the case across the board around the world, sure, there would still be abortions, there would still be abusive homes. 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 out talk about a kingdom where all are welcomed?" (p. 79)

May God help Faith Baptist Church be truly countercultural by developing an orphan-protecting adoption culture.

Other Posts from the Adopted for Life series:

1. Our Birth Father Has Fangs
2. Develop an Orphan-Protecting Culture
3. All of Us Are Called to Remember the Fatherless
4. Adoption and Communion
5. Born into Death but Adopted for Life

Our Birth Father has Fangs

This week I began reading a new book, Adopted for Life: The Priority of Adoption for Christian Families & Churches. It is written by Russell Moore. Here's an except.

"Imagine for a moment that you're adopting a child. As you meet with the social worker in the last stage of the process, you're told that this twelve-year-old has been in and out of psychotherapy since he was three. He persists in burning things and attempting repeatedly to skin kittens alive....She continues with a little family history. This boy's father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and great-great-grandfather all had histories of violence, ranging from spousal abuse to serial murder. Each of them ended life the same way, death by suicide - each found hanging from a rope of blankets in his respective prison cell.

Think for a minute. Would you want this child? If you did adopt him, wouldn't you keep your eye on him as he played with your other children? Would you watch him nervously as he looks at the butcher knife on the kitchen table? Would you leave the room as he watched a movie on television with your daughter, with the lights out?

Well, he's you. And he's me. That's what the gospel is telling us. Our birth father has fangs. And left to ourselves, we'll show ourselves to be as serpentine as he is." (p. 29)

In spite of this. In spite of who we are, God has still chose to adopt us into His family. What an amazing thought.

Other Posts from the Adopted for Life series:

1. Our Birth Father Has Fangs
2. Develop an Orphan-Protecting Culture
3. All of Us Are Called to Remember the Fatherless
4. Adoption and Communion
5. Born into Death but Adopted for Life