Proverbs 25:16 and the Full Quiver Movement

I have just recently got finished with another discussion with some full quiver advocates. As most people know, full quiver advocates will repeat the mantra that children are a “blessing.” I have often challanged full quiver advocates to show, either from the Hebrew term hk’r’B., or from the context of any text where children are called a blessing, that children are somehow something that must be received.

I had one full quiver advocate with the screenname of Zenas argue a different tact. He tried to say that, if we are correct, then having another child when you could not reasonably afford them would mean that children were a financial burden. Since children are called a blessing, we must be wrong because blessing and financial burden are mutually exclusive ideas.

Now, I sat and thought about what the best way to answer this was for quite some time. I even posted a couple of posts that I don’t think got to the heart of what I was thinking. Then, I remembered this brilliant text from the book of Proverbs!:

`At*aqE)h]w: WN[,ªB’f.Ti÷-!P, &’Y<+D: lkoåa/ t'ac'm'â vb;äD.

[If] you find honey, eat [only] what you need, lest you have enough of it, and and vomit it up.

In this text, you clearly have the presentation of a blessing, namely, honey. Yet, this text says that you are to take only what you need, because too much of a blessing is still a bad thing. Consider the comments from these scholars:

Overindulgence transformed the sweet and healing honey into repulsive and sickening food. Ecclesiastes instantiates the exemplar of honey, too. In other words, “too much of anything is bad” (cf. Sir. 37:29).

Waltke, Bruce. The Book of Proverbs, Chapters 15-31. William B Eerdmans Publishing Company. Grand Rapids, Michigan.2005 p.326

These two proverbs are joined by their second cola, each warning against overdoing good things and the bad consequences that follow from such behavior….While both of these proverbs have their applications in a particular aspect of life (eating and social relationships), they still raise the question of application even more broadly. Too much of virtually any good thing will have negative consequences.

Longman, Tremper. Proverbs. Baker Academic. Grand Rapids, Michigan. 2006. p.455

Don’t overdo good things (v 16) even friendship (v 17). Just as you should not overindulge on sweets, so you shouldn’t overstay your welcome. However pleasant you may be, your neighbor will get fed up (in two senses) and “vomit” you out. Both verses can stand as separate proverbs and very likely were originally independent. In context, v 17 applies v 16 to a particular circumstance. The idea of v 16 is also stated in 25:27a and 27:7a.

Fox, Michael V. Proverbs 10-31, A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. Yale University Press. New Haven. 2009. p.785

This is important because, as you can see, JoyFullMom tried to ask whether God knows whether or not he has blessed us sick. Obviously, the simple response is, “Does God know when he has blessed us sick with honey? Does that mean we should always eat all the honey even if we “think” it is more than what we need?” The point of this text is that God expects his people to show moderation in relation to the blessings he deals out, because too much of any blessing is not a good thing. I never heard a satisfactory answer to this text.

There was something else I learned about full quiver advocates. When they talk about children as a blessing, what they really seem to mean is that they are a blessing in a way that nothing else is a blessing, and thus, they can be arbitrary in how they apply this idea that children are blessings. Even when they could not come up with a reason why I was comparing apples and oranges, I must be comparing apples and oranges, since children are uniquely a blessing. Also, the personal stories about how people had way more children then they could reasonably afford, and ended up financially okay were repeated over and over ad infinitum ad nauseum. Of course, they ignore all of the bad personal stories that come from this movement. This kind of arbitrariness was all over the thread.

Also, the lack of a sense of humor from some of these folks was amazing. Some of these folks, like JoyFullMom, did seem to have a great sense of humor. However, that was not the norm. I even made a little rhetorical joke. I was pointing out that only having twenty-five extra dollars a month to take care of a child in the current family budget was not realistic. Someone asked me who decides what twenty-five dollars “extra” was, thus, not getting at all what I was saying. So I responded with, “The federal reserve.” All he could say was, “huh?”

However, I do think the weakness in this movement is exegetical, and it really showed in their trying to deal with Proverbs 25:16. I would commend it to you as a text you can use in your discussions with full quiver advocates.

Full Quiver Movement Proponent Supports Murder

I have just gotten done with a conversation with someone from the full quiver movement. The first thing I can say is that I wish I would have stayed with the exegesis of the text of scripture. That is the weakness of the full quiver movement. Hence, I don’t think my comments will be overly useful. However, I wanted to post some of the incredible statements I heard on this forum. The first comment came from a man whose wife has a disorder. Here was his message:

This may not fall into this argument but I think that it provides a unique perspective.

(I apologize in advance if this is too revealing, but I will proceed anyway)

My wife recently found out (about six months ago) that she had a blood clot in one of her ovaries. She was advised by her hematologist that if she were to get pregnant before it dissolved that she ran a serious risk of dislodging it and sending it either to her heart or brain. Both of which could result in serious ailment including stroke, heart attack, or death. She was placed on blood thinners and pain relievers (as it caused tremendous pain at times) and ordered to rest as much as possible.

Now, having said that, my question is this: Should we have not taken every precaution (which we did in limiting our marital activity and using prophylactics) or should we have run the risk of not taking said precautions and allowed whatever would have been?

It also would seem to me that some issues of stewardship should be considered when dealing with this matter!

To which the full quiver advocate responded:

And if the Lord knows that conception will harm her, He will ensure that your wife does not conceive. (And I think He does know!) Nowhere does scripture tell us to cross the street without looking but it does tell us that man and wife are to love one another freely.

To which the gentleman responded:

I’m not sure that you, or anyone else for that matter, are qualified to say that God would prevent that from happening. What if it were God’s will for her to get pregnant and die as a result to bring about a greater good? (Praise God that that didn’t happen!) Who are we to say what is in the mind of God or what he will use to bring about his will in our lives and the lives of all of his children?

Certainly God could have prevented it, and did for that matter, but it is very dangerous to say that He would have. That is somewhat akin to jumping off of a cliff and saying God will save me as opposed to God could save me if it is according to His will.

P.S. Don’t jump off of a cliff!

However, here is how the full quiver advocate responded by first quoting this section from the gentleman’s post:

I’m not sure that you, or anyone else for that matter, are qualified to say that God would prevent that from happening. What if it were God’s will for her to get pregnant and die as a result to bring about a greater good? (Praise God that that didn’t happen!) Who are we to say what is in the mind of God or what he will use to bring about his will in our lives and the lives of all of his children?

and then responding:

If He does not, then such is His will for His people. Amen. Don’t waste it.

(See Piper’s quote on cancer in an earlier thread – sorry, can’t find it, but here is a link to the quote: Don’t Waste Your Cancer :: Desiring God Christian Resource Library)

Worse, he made this comment afterwards:

I know that my above post seems like a harsh post, but I feel uniquely qualified to make it. I have seen my wife’s life be threatened by her pregnancy, but have seen God’s hand in saving her and providing for her each time. Obey His word and the blessings will come, in one form or another.

Now, the only thing I can say to this is “amazing.” Again, these guys will not defend themselves exegetically. In that whole thread, these folks avoided exegesis like the plague. These ideas are adding to God’s word plain and simple.

However, worse than that, in the name of counterculturalism, here we have the sixth commandment being violated. For those of you who do not know, in reformed circles, we believe that there is both a positive and negative meaning to the ten commandments. For example, “You shall not steal” is not only a command to refrain from taking other people’s property, but it is also to show respect for other people’s property. Similarly, the command to not murder also means that we are commanded to take every precaution to preserve human life, as well as refrain from taking human life. One of the clearest explainations of this commandment comes in the following law:

Deuteronomy 22:8 “When you build a new house, you shall make a parapet for your roof, so that you will not bring bloodguilt on your house if anyone falls from it.

The reason why there is bloodguilt that is brought upon the one who does not put up a railing is because he was showing negligence in the protection of human life.

In the same way, imagine a person who builds a very tall skyscraper, and does not put a railing around the roof. He may get many blessings. People may come from far and wide, since his view is unimpeded by a railing, and, therefore, is the best. However, the first time someone falls off that skyscraper, and he gets sued, is he going to respond, “Well, we should just not waste it, just as we shouldn’t waste our cancer.”?

As far as I am concerned, Biblically, this position is equal to murder. If a woman is in this man’s situation, and his wife gets pregnant because the man refuses to protect his wife, and then she promptly dies from it, I believe that the man is Biblically guilty of murder, and should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. What is ironic is that the full quiver advocates claim to be consistently “pro-life,” and yet, here they have made children such an idol that even human life is meaningless. Also, as far as I am concerned, anyone who openly promotes murder like this is a heretic, pure and simple. As far as “obedience to God,” I think full quiver advocates need to wake up and realize that professional exegetes are not buying their arguments. They are way too reductionistic. That is the one thing I keep hitting myself about this. I wish I would have stayed with the text of scripture. Keep a full quiver advocate in the text, and he will have a hard time.

I guess this is my concern. Yes, this man is a wacko, and does not deserve any kind of serious hearing. However, my question to those who put up this “countercultural” rhetoric is simply this: how far are you willing to go? If you can read things into the text that allow you to say that delay of marriage is a sin, or that not having children is a sin, and say that they are justified in that they are “countercultural,” well, so is this guy’s arguments. This is why counterculturalism doesn’t work. We should not accept something just because it is old fashioned and countercultural. We have to go back to scripture, and engage in responsible exegesis of the text of scripture.