Prolife Kitchen Table
Join us as we share information and answer your questions about life issues from fertilization to natural death.
All of the materials used in this podcast are the product of four decades of work and research by Presbyterians Protecting Life – www.ppl.org. This isn’t just a podcast for Presbyterians – all of our materials are useful for anyone with an interest in protecting human life at every stage from fertilization to natural death.
We’ll use both scientific and philosophical sources, and for our Christian listener, there will be plenty of grounding in Scripture and a Biblical worldview. The show notes in each episode contain links to articles and scripture references. With the average 15 minute podcast length, and the addition of the list of scriptures and articles, each episode can be used for older student and adult Sunday Schools, group studies and personal study.
Most of the weekly topics will be available in hard copy from the PPL.ORG website and will cover a variety of subjects. We’ll talk about what it means to be human and how everyone is human from the moment of fertilization, and that our time in the womb is only a stage of development like being an infant, a toddler, a child, an adolescent, a mature adult and, if we are blessed with a long life, becoming elderly and how all those categories are categories of personhood and deserving of life and human rights.
Prolife Kitchen Table
Episode 29 - Booting Up - Baby Chris Week 28
The profiles for the next 13 weeks will be excerpted from Pregnant With Promise: A study of the character of God who cherishes human life as shown through the stories of women in the Bible, by former PPL Executive Director, Marie Bowen. This is our first character profile of pregnant women in scripture - of course, Eve, the mother of all living.
Scripture References in this Episode include:
Genesis 1-4, esp. 2:17-24; I Chron. 12:18; Psalm 54:4; 118:7; John 14:26 (God & the Holy Spirit as "Helper,"using the same Hebrew word that refers to Eve; it does not refer to subordination, but to oneness.)
Gen. 3:1-20; 4:1-2 Ephesians 5:21-32 Romans 5:5-18
Numbers 12:6 Job 33:14-18
https://www.ppl.org/baby-chris
Abortion Pill Reversal https://abortionpillreversal.com 24/7 Helpline at 877.558.0333 Email: help@apr.life or Chat at the weblink above
Post abortion recovery for both women and men at https://www.rachelsvineyard.org
Life Training Institute https://www.prolifetraining.com
Charlotte Lozier Institute https://lozierinstitute.org
Guttmacher Institute https://guttmacher.org
Compelled by the gospel, PPL equips Presbyterians to champion human life at every stage. PPL.org
Welcome back to the Pro Life Kitchen Table. I'm Deborah Holyfield, and I'm looking forward to switching things up a little for the last 13 weeks of the Baby Chris Devotional Project. We're going to continue with each week of the development through week 40, when Baby Chris will be delivered. But instead of sharing an article or essay in the first segment of each episode, like we've been doing so far, I'm going to share a story about the pregnant women in the Bible, Eve, Hagar, Sarah, Mary, and the others. And best of all, from my point of view, these character studies that actually reveal the character of God are excerpts from a wonderful book written by my dear friend Marie Bowen, entitled Pregnant with Promise, a Study of the Character of God who Cherishes Human Life as Shown Through the Stories of Women of the Bible. Marie served as the executive director of Presbyterians Protecting Life for many years and is a wealth of knowledge of the scriptures, the pro-life movement, and the issues of pregnancy and abortion. Her book was first published in 2010, and while it is presently out of print, it may still be available with a few online sellers. The book itself is a Bible study, and of course, this podcast format won't lend itself to Q ⁇ A, but I will put the scripture references in the show notes. I hope you will enjoy these upcoming weeks as we explore the lives of our pregnant sisters who met difficult pregnancies with faith in God. The first five mothers mentioned in Scripture are in the book of Genesis, so we will also spend some time exploring the themes of Genesis that will continue to reveal the character of God throughout the stories of the next seven mothers. Our first young mother, both literally in Genesis and for our series here, is of course Eve. Eve discovered that God is a god of surprises, and she learns about grace, hope, faith, and life. A little bit about the backdrop of Genesis is that it's important to remember that Genesis covers a huge span of time. The stories and events recorded are chosen specifically for a purpose to help us consider what is God's intent in preserving this particular story for future generations. What is God telling us about Himself? How can we better relate to God as His people? In the first pages of chapter one, we read about the account of the creation of the world from the darkness and void of chaos to light and order, and where there is nothing, he goes on to create beauty and life. On the sixth day he creates humans in his own image. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him. Male and female he created them, and then God blesses them together with the command to be fruitful and multiply. In chapter two of Genesis, we find that God has planted a garden where every tree is pleasant to the eye and good for food, but two trees are mentioned specifically the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Verse seventeen records the single prohibition that while the man and the woman have permission to eat of any tree, they are forbidden to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. So the man and the woman live and work together in the garden in a special relationship that is unique among all creation, that the two should become one flesh. There is mutuality, intimacy, and shared responsibility. They are both naked and unashamed. But in chapter three, there is an account that we describe as the fall, where their disobedience in eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil immediately changes their relationship. Their intimacy is destroyed. The open trust in their relationship with God is gone. They are afraid of God's presence, and they hide from him. When God confronts them with the question, have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat? They don't deny eating the fruit. But Adam blames the woman and she blames the serpent. God pronounces his punishment for all three. The man and the woman rightly expected to die that day because God had warned them, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die. But the mercy, grace, and justice of God is evident in their punishments. The serpent is condemned to crawl forever on his belly, and is now at war with the woman, and the serpent's offspring will be at war with her offspring. Adam is now condemned to battle thorns and thistles for his very food, and worse death would come, and he would return to the dust from which he had been made. And to the woman God said, I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing. In pain you shall bring forth children, your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you. Remember, her intended relationship with Adam was mutuality, shared responsibility and intimacy, but the fall had made it more difficult and destroyed much of it where it had once existed in the relationship between the man and the woman, and now shame, selfishness, conflict, and competition have been introduced. Still, where Adam is relieved to find that their deaths will not be immediate, he gives his wife her new name, Eve, which means living, so that she will forever be known as the mother of all living. Eve's name defines not her origins but her destiny. Humanity will not end because Adam and Eve disobeyed God's word. Instead, embedded in Eve's punishment is God's promise of a future for humanity, salvation, and the restoration of eternal life. Genesis chapter four begins Now Adam knew Eve, his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord. And again she bore his brother Abel. For any woman who has conceived a child and lived through nine months of pregnancy, and then endured a hard, painful labor bringing that child to birth, this terse description is totally inadequate. Yet we have all that is needed for us to see God's grace. Eve has already suffered for her disobedience. Her childbirth is painful. Harmony, intimacy, and mutuality are difficult in her marriage. But looking into the face of her child she must have understood the great grace of God. Not only has her life been extended, but through her seed God has promised to bruise the head of the serpent who is now warring against her offspring. Eve does not know all that is to come. Her firstborn Cain will murder his brother Abel. God will give her a third son named Seth, and it is through him that our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the very Son of God, will eventually be born. When he comes, the broken relationship between humanity and God will be restored. Eve doesn't know any of this, but she does know that God has granted life where death was deserved. Like Eve, in our daily decisions about right and wrong, we rarely think about the impact of our actions on future generations. I can think of many times when I rationalized a behavior or an attitude that I knew was wrong by saying, Surely God didn't mean that. Have you ever adjusted your interpretation of the meaning of Scripture in order to accommodate your actions? Do you now find that your behavior has been changed in significant ways by your relationship with Jesus Christ? Now more than ever, we live in a society that uses power and control in relationships as something to be achieved. We spend a lot of time and money trying to make ourselves appear better than the other and in control. It's no wonder that women rebel against the part of God's word to Eve that says, and he shall rule over you. It's a challenge to set aside our cultural concepts of what that means and see God's promise in what we see as a punishment. Yet as we have all learned, God leads us to believe that He intends this for our care, provision, and protection. Hear the word of the Lord. Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all people because all sinned. For indeed sin was in the world before the law was given. But sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one to come. But the free gift is not like the trespass, for though many die through one man's trespass, much more hath the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ, abounded for many. And the free gift is not like the result of that one man, for the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. For if because of one man's trespass death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ. Romans chapter five, verses twelve through seventeen. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. And now we are ready for our break, so you can go and check and see if the baby is still asleep, because when we come back, we are going to hear about baby Chris's dreams.
SPEAKER_00:We have answers to your questions, referrals to specialized care like abortion pill reversal and post-abortion recovery, current statistics and information, discussion starters, and devotionals to help you think about and share about pregnancy and abortion, adoption, foster care, and even suicide, assisted suicide and end-of-life challenges. Visit ppl.org to learn more.
SPEAKER_01:This week twenty-eight baby Chris devotional is called Booting Up. Hear the word of the Lord. When there is a prophet among you, I, the Lord, reveal myself to them in visions, I speak to them in dreams. Numbers chapter twelve, verse six. Thanks be to God. At twenty eight weeks, baby Chris's brain development is continuing rapidly, and his head is now in proportion to his body. He has rem rapid eye movement during sleep phases. In adults, rem indicates a dream state. Scientists are intrigued by the idea that if babies have rem in the womb, it follows that babies also dream. But what could he be dreaming about? The voices he has heard today? Harsh, soft, exciting voices reading of stories? Do babies have the same kind of surreal images and sensations in their dreams as adults? Some scientists believe that instead of dreaming in the womb, baby's REM activity indicates the development of neural connections related to language. Whatever is happening a lot is happening while we sleep, no matter what our age or stage of development. And it happens without input from or activity by the sleeping human. There is a computer term boot that describes the process when a computer is powered on and the very first program starts up, followed by a series of processes. When we reboot a computer, we are forcing the computer to refresh and repeat those steps again. Maybe REM is something like that. Our mental programs are running in the background, embedding memories, processing information, cleaning up neural pathways as we sleep. And when we reawaken, rebooting afresh for maximum cognitive functioning in the next wake period. To be made in the image of God means many things. Unlike animals, humans share the attributes of our creator love, self awareness, justice, grace, and mercy. While we acknowledge the existence of DNA and the multitude of unique characteristics and propensities it carries, the spiritual aspects that separate human beings from the animal world are more than just the sum of chemicals and the mechanics of cell division. These spiritual aspects of our being, the expression of the imagode, is something thought of as personhood. Some philosophers argue that the sentience that comes with personhood, the self awareness and the ability to relate emotionally and consciously to our environment and other human beings, should be the utilitarian litmus test for when life begins. But REM in the womb, coupled with the ability to recognize human voices at weeks twenty five through twenty eight, respond to music at week sixteen, react to touch at eight weeks, recoil from pain at twenty weeks, and self soothe at twenty seven weeks, indicates that self-awareness and environmental interaction are present in utero. It seems there is a point in our earliest fetal development, or even before, when God begins equipping and gifting humans with whatever it is that they will need to become the fullest expression of the Imago Day in their unique selves. There is a Kairos time designated by God when we are equipped and gifted to answer God's call and fulfill God's purposes as evidenced in the prenatal call stories of the patriarchs, prophets, and Christ Himself. I would not go so far as to call it programming, but perhaps mapping the hard drive isn't too much of a stretch. There is something intentional going on. God is fashioning a dream come true. Hear the word of the Lord, for God does speak now one way, now another, though no one perceives it. In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls on people as they slumber in their beds. Job chapter thirty-three, verses fourteen through eighteen. Thanks be to God.
SPEAKER_00:We hope you enjoyed this week's reflection. We encourage you to share it and join us next time on Pro Life Kitchen Table. May God bless you.
