The following "Question" was asked by a member of the congregation at Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, and "Answered" by their pastor, John MacArthur Jr. It was transcribed by Brenda Rivera of Orlando, Florida from the tape, GC 1301-S, titled "Bible Questions and Answers Part 21."  A copy of the tape can be obtained by writing, Word of Grace, P.O. Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412 or by dialing toll free 1-800-55-GRACE. ©1982. All Rights Reserved.

Question

My question is about your sermon on “How to be a Godly Mother” on 1 Samuel, you said in that sermon, that a woman’s duty, the highest duty would be not to leave her child or disrupt her routine in any way like in any way, like until the child is three. I was just wondering if you would feel that today’s woman would have to be that way, not to leave a child or not to leave it with a baby sitter? Also, I wondered how your family with your four children and your wife handled this?

Well, I believe that God gives us principles that are not subject to change. He didn’t give us suggestions, He gave us commandments and He gave us timeless principles for the good of man. And it’s like anything, you know the manufacture knows best how the product operates, right? And since God made women, and God made men, and God made kids, and God made families, then we want to listen to what He says about how they ought to operate. 

And it is very clear in the New Testament, in Titus chapter 2, that “Women are to love their husbands, love their children, and be keepers at home.” Now you have to understand that that was said in a society that was basically contemporary with our society today. Because they were having a "women’s lib" movement at the very same time, in fact there’s always been a women’s lib movement. Ever since the fall, women have been trying to be liberated, so the battles been on for a long time. But in those days women were seeking liberation from the marriage responsibility and so forth. You can go all the way back into the day of Malachi, you know where God says that He hates divorce and so forth and you’ll find even in that day that people were seeking to be liberated from the God ordained pattern for the home. So I don’t think there is any justification for changing that. 

Now Hannah becomes to us a model of the biblical standard, that is, that the man is the bread winner and the woman is the one who commits herself to the husband, to the home, to care for the widows, to show hospitality to strangers, to wash the saint’s feet and on and on, as 1 Timothy says. Hannah becomes a perfect illustration to that, because she would not go with her husband until, you remember the child, had reached the age where he was weaned, she saw this as her responsibility. I really feel that, that it is the obvious intention of God that mothers nurse babies, I mean I don’t think you have to be Phi Beta Kappa to figure that out. I mean when a mother has a baby she gets milk to feed that baby, I mean that’s just basic. I mean when you have a baby you don’t all of a sudden deliver 48 bottles of Simalac or whatever. You get milk in the place God intended that milk to be delivered, and that I believe is God’s plan. Now there are some medical or physical reasons why can’t happen, but it is the proximity of that child to that mother in those early years that is very profound in effect on the life of the children, of that child. And I think that’s a very obvious thing and I think Hannah provides a great model for us. 

I think the mother today, who has a baby, sticks the baby as soon as she can get over the trauma of birth, into some other deal and splits to go to work, forfeits the God given responsibility, she is saved in child bearing, that is she is delivered from a second-class consideration, in the fact that she has the greatest impact and influence on that life at its most formative time. So I really believe that God’s standard is for anytime, even today. 

Questioner

I stay home with my child, but I’m just wondering [if I could] leave it with a baby sitter for a few hours? 

Answer (continued)

Yes, within reason, within reason. 

Questioner

Like once a week or I was just wondering if God says absolutely never you’re responsible for the child, always stay with it. 

Answer (continued)

No, I think within reason, sure, there is no problem with that, I mean in the Old Testament you will note many occasions too where people had servants and they had folks within the house. There is in the New Testament the word paidagogos, which is a moral guardian, in the Roman society, and the Bible even honors this because Paul says “You may have 10,000 paidagogos but you only have one spiritual pater, one Father” [1 Corinthians 4:15]. 

So there is an honoring of the person who was a moral guardian. A person attached to the young child to help develop that child’s moral comprehension; to guide them in the things of life. So I’m assuming that there was also that aide to the mother. There were nurses, there were midwives, there were all kinds of people who would come in a very, a very close nit family society that would give that mother the freedom to do some things. Sure, I don’t see a problem with that. 

With our kids, all four of them, my wife’s priority was and still is to be with the children, I mean that is her absolute commitment. And in fact, I may say to her, “Honey, go with me over here to do this, I have to go there and do this” and she would say, “well I don’t think I should go, because I was away from the children once already this week and I don’t feel I want to be away from them again.” And they’re 18, 16, 14, and 9, and you know sometimes I say to her, “But they’re old now.” and she says, “But that’s what God has called me to do, is to be there with them.” And so I think you need to have that perspective and you’ll have a sense of freedom, you’ll know when it’s time maybe to step away and get a little rest and refreshment somewhere else and allow someone else the privilege to care for that child. 

Added to Bible Bulletin Board's "MacArthur’s Questions and Answers" by:

Tony Capoccia
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