Mothers- A Biblical Introduction
One of the strangest moments summarizing the lost state of unbelievers today occurred during recent US government proceedings. During those meetings, a person of great academic education and career success was asked to define what a woman is. The answer was unhelpful and downright a rejection of objective truth. The present value placed upon ambiguity, fluidity, and ever-shifting definitions is a recipe for disaster for individuals, families, communities, and whole nations. Rejection of truth is now often the barometer for trustworthiness and enlightenment. It is as though to appear to be a person who knows something nowadays, a person must demonstrate all of the intellectual permutations of what that person has gone through, what tribes that person represents, and what assumptions that person wants to avoid by giving anything close to a definitive statement. Decisions and definitions seem to be rooted and guided more by personal experiences and preferences than by any appeal to objectively observable principles.
Mothering Throughout Scripture
I begin this discussion today in this way first to say that I am a man, a married man, who has never been a mother. In my experience personally, I have zero seconds spent existing as a mother. Instead of appealing to experience, I will be appealing to the objectively observable principles we see throughout the Old and New Testament about mothers.
The First Reference to Mother
As with many of the spiritual things, we ought to start our discussion in Genesis. In the first few chapters of Genesis, we have both the first occurrence of the word for mother in Hebrew (2:24) and the first Mother named (3:20).
The first occurrence of the word for mother is in an explanation of marriage based upon the first marriage between Adam and Eve:
Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. 23 The man said,
“This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.”
24 That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.
We can observe a few things about mothers in this brief passage. Mothers for a time, are in a relationship with their children in regular daily living. What exactly that relationship looks like is not detailed here, but there is an assertion that it is normative, expectant, and good, that children are raised with fathers and mothers. We also observe that marriage is the event that changes the relationship between children and their parents. Marriage moves a child from the daily regular provision, protection, care, and support of a father and mother, to their own family unit of husband and wife. In sum, we can say that the first instance of mothers in the scripture assumes a relationship to children. It is not ridiculous to come away from even the most introductory statement of God’s Word with a few foundational principles in mind - to be a mother is to have a specific caring relationship with her offspring.
I am loath to write this next observation due to the sheer absurdity of present cultural claims, but I am thankful God’s truth reveals another foundational aspect of motherhood - and that is that motherhood is a unique role for women. To bear children, and produce offspring, comes up amid God’s confrontation and curse of the first sin (Genesis 3:14-16). God speaks specifically and directly to the serpent that the woman’s offspring will achieve great victory, crushing the serpent (3:15). God speaks specifically and directly to the woman (not yet named Eve) that she will be the one who bears children and gives birth to future generations (3:16). The first foundational mention of mother’s in the scriptures speaks in no uncertain terms, mincing no words that husbands are definitively men, wives are definitively women, fathers are definitively men, and mothers are definitively women. To be a mother, biblically speaking, means to be a woman who has a specific caring relationship with her offspring.
The First Mother-Eve
Moving from the first reference of mother to the first person who was a mother, we come to Eve. Eve, who was the first human mother, shows us a very vivid and surprisingly encompassing example of what it means to be a mother. In Genesis 3:20 we’re told of Adam naming his wife Eve “because she would become the mother of all the living” (NIV). This is a foundational statement in further reinforcing what it means to be a mother. A mother is one who has a special relationship with her offspring, to those who proceed from her. Motherhood necessitates bringing forth life. Eve would be the first mother, not just as a prototype or an archetype, but as the defining example for all of humanity. The first children would emerge from Eve, and this would be for her a special defining activity. No other creature in all creation would suit this uniquely special role, the growing, nurturing, and raising of the human race. Eve was a mother, and we can take from this that it is a very uniquely special relationship. From Eve came all future generations of humanity. To be a mother is to bring forth, raising up future generations of offspring.
The last thing to observe for our purposes in this discussion from Genesis 3:20 is the tense and timeline of when Eve was named. Eve was not named sequentially after she gave birth to Cain or Abel (Genesis 4). Eve was named in hope by Adam, with anticipation that the promises of God would come true regarding future generations. Eve was so named before she ever bore a child. In this way we can say that there are integral and inseparable connections between being a woman, becoming a wife, possessing hope, having expectations for the future, becoming a mother, and having a uniquely special relationship with her offspring.
There are many caveats and more detailed discussions we could get into in the future, about the tragedies of sin and how it affects women and mothers in the present fallen world. Issues relating to barrenness, impotence, abuse, and roles are all worthy of biblical study. To summarize those discussions in a single sentence today I’ll simply say this: every aspect of womanhood and motherhood that relates to death and unrealized dreams all come as a result of living in a sinful world that will only ultimately be resolved when the Lord Jesus Christ returns.
All throughout the scriptures women are named and spoken of with great honor and hope as mothers. Eve, Sarah, Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Hannah, Elizabeth, Mary, Eunice Lois, and many more wonderfully Godly women are spoken of in their unique and special relationship as mothers to children. Mothers, even in the fallen sinful world we live in, with all the curse and its effects, are a blessing. God continues to bless future generations through their mothers. Mothers provide care and support in a way no one else can. God has designed for mothers to have this uniquely special relationship with their offspring.
The Lord as he rescued the ancient Israelites from Egypt gave special instructions to His newly redeemed people. One of those special instructions was set in stone originally written with the fingers of God in Exodus 20:12 “Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you” (NIV). While the world and current culture may not know how to define or recognize or differentiate what a woman or mother is, it is a foundational part of God’s expectations for His redeemed people that we would know and honor the women who have carried and brought us into this world.
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