The Blessedness of Motherhood
We do not live in a perfect world. Every household will make decisions based on their life circumstances, and Christians should avoid being overly prescriptive about matters that are truly secondary. God is honored when Christians prayerfully consider how to best pursue their God given priorities. Even though motherhood is diminished in the world, the church can uphold its glory and dignity.
Motherhood is Life
I recently rewatched “Saving Private Ryan” for what must have been the 10th time. Saving Private Ryan tells the story of a young man whose three brothers were killed in combat in WWII. Private Ryan was the only brother to survive D Day. When military officials realized this, they dispatched a special regiment of eight soldiers to track him down, somewhere in France, to retrieve him and bring him home.
Saving Private Ryan is a masculine movie. It’s all about brotherhood, war, duty, honor. But when I watched the movie this time, however, I noticed something I hadn’t noticed before—mothers. Many of these young men, who were fighting for their lives on another continent, were thinking about their mothers back home. In a particularly disturbing scene, a soldier lies on a beach in Normandy, clutching his bloody stomach that had been blown open, crying out “mama!” while he died.
The mission to save Private Ryan was deemed urgent because the military command wanted to spare his mother the overwhelming grief of losing her last remaining son. One scene depicts the awful moment just before she learned the news that she’d lost her other three sons. She is standing at the kitchen sink washing dishes as she notices a military vehicle approach. A man dressed in a military uniform exits the front passenger side of the vehicle, turns toward the back door of the car and opens it. A chaplain steps out. She knew immediately. She falls to her knees in grief, knowing that she’d lost one of her sons. Surely her mind is racing with questions. “Which son? How did he die?” But the audience knows the situation is much worse. She’d lost three of her sons in one day, and the fourth was still missing.
Scenes like this show the power of motherhood. When strong, young men in war are in the throes of death, their hearts are naturally drawn to the safety, comfort, and love of home. They long for the woman who gave them life. Mothers embody everything they hope for in dangerous times. War is death. Motherhood is life.
The World’s View of Motherhood
Many young women feel the need to suppress their maternal instincts because they’ve been culturally conditioned to devalue motherhood. They’ve grown up watching shows and hearing stories celebrating how “girls can do anything boys can do.” A friend once noticed a poster in a school highlighting girl’s potential in a series of pictures associated with different careers. One was a doctor, another was a business executive, a third was an astronaut. Of all these images inspiring young girls about what they could become in life, none of them depicted mothers.
During a small group discussion with some Christian friends, one young woman sheepishly admitted that what she most wanted out of life was to be a wife and a mother. She was hesitant to acknowledge this, because she felt that this was somehow aiming below her potential, wasting her gifts, and settling for second best. All her life, she’d heard about how exciting a career can be, but she’d heard relatively little celebrating the fact that she can create and nurture new life. In pop culture, pregnancy is depicted as a hurdle to overcome. But the testimony of scripture is that children are a blessing and motherhood is a glorious vocation (Ps 127:3-5). This is not to say that women should not get an education or have a job. For our purposes here, it’s simply a matter of priority. Motherhood is highly valued in Scripture but devalued in modern culture.
Motherhood has never been an easy calling ever since it came under the curse of sin (Gen 3:16). Nevertheless, throughout history, societies have always valued motherhood as a social good to preserve and nurture civilization. As the industrial revolution radically changed the household, some feminist thinkers began arguing that the traditional household was outdated, oppressive to women, and needed to be changed. It was holding women back, enslaving them to their husbands and children. But women could be liberated from this bondage by seeking careers outside the home the way men did. They assumed that women could be more free, more fulfilled, and more valued in the marketplace than in the home.
Even though most Christian women would quickly recognize the error of this thinking, the basic assumptions and desires of feminism can nevertheless seep into our unconscious minds, training us to devalue the vocation of motherhood. Women are being subtly conditioned to believe that the marketplace is immanently desirable—where true happiness and fulfillment can be found. Motherhood is a secondary endeavor if a woman chooses to succumb to her own biology. Homemaking should rarely be the top vocational choice, unless she’s going for a trendy, boutique, trad wife flex. This thinking is ungodly. Nevertheless, the feminine nature has a way of asserting itself. It cannot be so easily denied. Women are naturally and instinctively inclined to make homes.
The Feminine Design
I have pastored many women through infertility struggles and have personally seen how devastating this trial can be. For these women, their missing motherhood can feel like a personal failure. Why is missing motherhood such an emotional weight for so many women? Because it’s their design. Motherhood is the goal (or telos) of the feminine design. Women are physiologically oriented towards it. A woman’s menstrual cycle is a monthly reminder that her womb was designed to bear life, and her breasts were designed to feed and nurture life. This astoundingly powerful ability to create life should be affirmed and celebrated, not minimized or dismissed.
The Scriptures present motherhood as one of the greatest blessings a woman could receive. Similarly, a barren womb was one of the greatest trials she could endure. Womanhood cannot be properly understood apart from her potential for motherhood. It is the unique design of her body. When God created Eve, he was not merely solving a loneliness problem, but a reproduction problem. She was God’s answer to man’s inability to fill the earth on his own. This is why Adam named her “Eve, because she was the mother of all living” (Gen 3:20). God gave him much more than a wife. He gave him a potential mother.
A common word Scripture uses to describe motherhood is “fruitfulness” (Gen 1:28). This word appears in the Bible over 200 times, covering a range of interrelated meanings from gardening to sexuality. Fruitfulness is multiplication. Just as the Garden of Eden was meant to grow, expand, and multiply to cover the earth, Eve was meant to be fruitful and grow, like a garden. Women are uniquely equipped to multiply and amplify things. A woman’s body can take a single sperm from a man and knit together a new human being from it. Just as her name suggests, Eve truly did become the mother of all living, giving birth to the whole human race. This feminine ability goes beyond physical childbearing. Femininity represents the ability to expand what is received. As author Rebekah Merkle put it, “When God gave Eve to Adam, he was handing Adam an amplifier… Adam is the single acorn sitting on the driveway which, no matter how hard he tries, remains an acorn. Eve is the fertile soil which takes all the potential that resides in that acorn and turns it into a tree, which produces millions more acorns and millions more trees.”
The Vocation of Motherhood
Women are natural homemakers. Marriage is all about making a home, and wives will naturally devote themselves to it. The question is not whether she’ll do it, but to what degree she’ll prioritize it. Every household will need its cabinets stocked with groceries, meals prepared, and laundry washed. Beyond this, the children will need to be fed, nurtured, clothed, disciplined, and educated. Typically, the mother takes the lead in handling these chores. She may do them all herself, or she may outsource some or all of them to others. For example, a well-trained and qualified nanny can be hired to come into the home and perform all these tasks. A nanny may be a better cook, better housekeeper, and better teacher of the kids. This being the case, why not hire them to do as much as possible? Some families see this as the wisest option, since, after all, the nanny is the professional. She’s the expert. But homes need more than domestic expertise; they need a mother’s presence.
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Courage Is a Christian’s Only Path Forward from the Legal Hell the ‘Winsome’ Gospel Wrought
There’s a glaring problem with the “winsome” worldview: It ultimately measures a Christian’s fidelity to the gospel based on how he is perceived by God’s enemies — and in the process, it implies Christians who aren’t adored by their unregenerate neighbors are unloving. This version of Christianity doesn’t work. What you end up with on the one hand are craven Christians who pat themselves on the back for their likeability while being largely untethered from all principles save the approval of man.
303 Creative has finally been decided, and Christians — and all Americans — won. In a 6-3 landmark decision on Friday, the Supreme Court ruled that graphic designer Lorie Smith can’t be compelled to affirm values that conflict with her deeply held religious beliefs about marriage by designing wedding websites for same-sex couples.
As we celebrate this victory — and we all should because, as the majority rightly stated, “The First Amendment’s protections belong to all, not just to speakers whose motives the government finds worthy” — it’s worth reflecting on how we got here. Smith isn’t the only one to have fought this battle, and she won’t be the last. Life-destroying left-wing lawfare came for cake artist Jack Phillips and florist Barronelle Stutzman all the same.
Of course, a major piece to the puzzle is that we live in what Aaron Renn astutely terms the “negative world.” This era of Christian living began around 2014, just after Phillips first declined to design a cake celebrating a homosexual union and just before the Supreme Court’s Obergefell decision cemented Christians in what Renn called a “new low status.” In this negative world, church attendance has plunged, intolerance of traditional religious values has skyrocketed, and Christians have been dragged into court for their faithfulness — many into the court of public opinion, if not an actual courtroom.
We’d be foolish to ignore the other contributing factor, however, and it’s not one that can be wrapped up into a nice little bow called Obergefell and draped around the necks of our political foes. No, this other factor comes straight from within the church.
Go Forth and Be Charming?
It’s called “winsomeness.” Being winsome is not a novel idea, obviously, nor even a Christian one. To be winsome is to be charming, attractive, or appealing with one’s demeanor or character — an admirable goal, to be sure, and one that should apply to Christians.
But in coopting the idea into a veritable doctrine, Christian leaders morphed winsomeness from a desirable trait into a hermeneutic through which they judge all Christian conviction and conduct. Thus as America hurtled toward the negative world, and Christian leaders were suddenly faced with the prospect of a Trump presidency, winsomeness became a trump card in matters of spiritual significance. Religious and thought leaders, such as Russell Moore and David French among many others, became victims of the mind virus and infected hordes of others.
It might have started as an understandable — if short-sighted — response to Donald Trump. Just be nice. But then it spread vindictively, and with each mutation, it looked a little more like worldliness and a little less like godliness. The gist of the “winsome” ethos is that for Christians to be faithful, they must be perceived as kind and likable by the unbelieving world they hope to evangelize. And the symptoms are easy to identify.
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PCA Minister George C. Miladin, 88, Called Home to Glory
He gave dozens of “Pianistic Pilgrim’s Progress” and “Listen to Love” concerts, weaving his musical journey into his Christian testimony. He played piano weekly at New Life until his final Sunday in worship, desiring to bring glory to God who had been so gracious to him. George always wanted to live to see 88 years, as that was the number of keys on a piano, and the Lord honored that hope. He even took him home on the Lord’s Day, George’s favorite day of every week.
George Chistopher Miladin, born January 19, 1935, in Long Beach, CA, went to be with the Lord on July 2, 2023, in his home in La Mesa, CA, after a short illness from a malignant brain tumor.
He is survived by his wife of 64 years, Londa, son Christopher (Cheryl) Miladin, daughter Jennifer (Bob) Cordell, five grandchildren and four great- grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his brother, Jimmy.
The testimony of George’s life is God’s sovereign grace which transformed a self-seeking nightclub piano player into a grateful servant of the Lord Jesus Christ.
His piano career started at age 5 when his mother discovered he had perfect pitch. By age 12, he was playing the heavy classics but changed to playing the trumpet in high school. From 12 to 20 were years spent in rebellion – no more piano, no more Sunday School, and no more thinking about God. He excelled at trumpet, playing a brief stint with the Lawrence Welk band at the Aragon Ballroom and spending most of a summer at the National Music Camp at Interlochen, Michigan, where he became ill with pneumonia.
Unable to practice trumpet, he lost his embouchure, which brought him back to the piano. George shifted gears to popular music, practicing two hours every day. By night, he performed in night clubs and piano bars in Hollywood and Beverly Hills and, by day, attended UCLA. When George was 19, he met Johnny Grant, a local Hollywood disc jockey, who invited him to join his band to travel overseas and entertain U.S. troops. This opportunity took him to Japan, Korea, and Europe as Musical Director of Grant’s overseas shows.
After returning to Los Angeles, he continued at UCLA, majoring in music and minoring in history. During these years, God used two events in his life to draw George to himself. When a young starlet George accompanied attempted suicide, he was affected deeply and began to think of the reality of eternity. God then use a young Christian to invite George to study the Gospel of John and attend University Bible Church. After several months, George bowed the knee to Jesus as his Savior. He began playing piano for the worship services. It was at UBC that George met Londa, and they married in 1958. George taught 8th grade music and Boys’ Chorus for two years, while they lived in Santa Monica. Following that, they moved to St. Louis, MO, where he taught Music Theory at Covenant College.
In 1965, Londa convinced George that, even with two small children, they could handle his attending seminary. George enrolled at Covenant Seminary and, upon graduating, was ordained and called to be the church planter of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in Woodland Hills, CA.
The Miladins moved east when George accepted the call as pastor of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in Lookout Mountain, GA, located across the road from Covenant College. In 1977, he accepted the call of the Point Loma Orthodox Presbyterian Church (now New Life PCA) in La Mesa, CA. The story is that George was enticed to accept the call with a large manila envelope full of menus from Mexican restaurants around San Diego.
The Miladin family arrived in San Diego on January 1, 1978, and George immediately set his sights toward outreach and evangelism. No one would describe George as an extrovert, but he was with the gospel. God used him mightily to spread the Good News: knocking on doors, planning outreach events, playing concerts, etc. He loved to tell the story of his Savior and regularly turned casual conversation to the Lord. He faithfully pastored his flock at New Life for over 27 years, until his retirement in October 2005.
In the years following, after a brief call as a church planter in the mountains east of San Diego, he grew into his role as “Pastor to All.” He particularly enjoyed teaching and preaching on the Gospel of John and the books of Hebrews and Romans. Over the years, he pastored, baptized, married, and taught hundreds of people who remained near and dear to him. He authored several books on Reformed faith and life, one of which has been translated to Spanish. Thousands of copies have been used to train Spanish-speaking Reformed ministers.
George became known as “the piano playing pastor” and combined his progressive jazz style of piano playing with sacred hymns and arranged and recorded four albums (to listen to some of his playing go here, here, here, here, and here).
He also developed an instructional piano course called “See and Hear Piano Series” which has taught hundreds of pianists to play professional sounding arrangements of pop ballads and Christian hymns. One highlight was being sought out by RC Sproul at a conference to help RC with his piano playing. He gave dozens of “Pianistic Pilgrim’s Progress” and “Listen to Love” concerts, weaving his musical journey into his Christian testimony. He played piano weekly at New Life until his final Sunday in worship, desiring to bring glory to God who had been so gracious to him. George always wanted to live to see 88 years, as that was the number of keys on a piano, and the Lord honored that hope. He even took him home on the Lord’s Day, George’s favorite day of every week.
Miladin wrote several books that were extensions of his pastoral teaching:
Is This Really the End? A Reformed Analysis of The Late Great Planet Earth (1972).
The Reformed Faith for the World Today and Tomorrow (1974); (translated into Spanish as Le Fe Reformada)
Getting It Together in the Home: A How to Do It Manual on Family Devotions (1975).
Revolution, Martyrdom, Flight and Reconstruction: A Timely Study of Today’s Christians and Their Relationship to the “Powers that Be” (1976).
Knowing and Growing: A 5-Part Study Manual for New (and Old) Believers Personal Evangelism Made Less Difficult (1995).
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Kinsman Redeemer
Pawn shops, foreclosures, and bankruptcy highlight the reality of financial crisis that people experience in our day. Have you ever needed financial assistance? Maybe you have asked a family member to help pay your credit-card bill, student loan, or mortgage payment. Or maybe a family member has asked you to help pay off a debt.
The need for financial help is a useful way to introduce the idea of the kinsman redeemer. In short, a kinsman redeemer is a relative who, at his own expense, pays off the debts of another. But this theme points beyond finances, because our greatest need is not for someone to pay off financial debts—however great that need might be—but for someone to redeem us from the debt our sins have incurred. This is how the Old Testament idea of the kinsman redeemer bears on our understanding of redemption through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
The idea of a kinsman redeemer is laid out in the Levitical laws, displayed by men such as Boaz and Jeremiah, and fulfilled by Jesus, who paid for our sins with His precious blood.
Instructions for a kinsman redeemer are given in Leviticus 25, in close connection to the Year of Jubilee, when debts are forgiven, family land is returned, and prisoners are set free. If an Israelite went into debt, he might have to sell his inherited land or perhaps even sell himself into slavery. If this were to happen, a close relative would pay the price to redeem the land and/or buy him out of slavery (the closer the family relation, the greater the obligation to act as a kinsman redeemer). The cost of redemption was calculated proportionately to the Year of Jubilee.
