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 30 - Life Support - Baby Chris Weeks 29 and 30
This week we're profiling the surrogate pregnancy of Hagar, found in Genesis 16, using the reflections from former PPL Executive Director Marie Bowen's book, Pregnant with Promise. As her months of pregnancy move along, Hagar learns that God is a God who sees both her and her unborn child; that God will be her provision; and God who is her promised future.
Resources in this Episode include:
Pregnant with Promise by Marie Bowen
Khan Academy, Meet the Placenta! (12 min. video)
Animation Reel on Instagram of Heart bypass surgery
NASA umbilical technology for astronauts and deep sea divers
Scripture references used in this Episode include:
Genesis 12-15; 13:14-18; 16:1-16 Jeremiah 29:11 Acts 17:28
Romans 8:34 I Timothy 2:5 2 Peter 1:3
John 14:16; 15:10; 16:13 Acts 10:38 2 Corinthians 3:18
John 15:4-9
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 Presbyterians Protecting Lives Pro Life Kitchen Table. I'm still Deborah Hollifield, and I'm still your host! Last week we began our 13-week series of profiles of pregnant women in the Bible, using the reflections of former PPL Executive Director Marie Bowen from her book Pregnant with Promise.
Host:Our first profile was, of course, Eve, the mother of all living, who was the first woman to learn that God was merciful and that every mother has a role in the shaping of the future and every child has a destiny sourced in God. This week's profile is Hagar, a slave woman who is a surrogate, who is bearing a child that will be raised by her mistress Sarai and her husband Abram. She is in a powerless situation and she is kicking against the goads, rebelling to her own detriment. As her months of pregnancy move along, she learns that God is a God who sees her pregnant, who sees her unborn child, the God who is her provision and who is her promised future. Hagar's story is contained in Genesis chapters twelve through fifteen. There is a lot that happens to Abram and his family when God calls him to leave his father's home with his wife and family and travel to an unloan land of promised blessing. As they travel, they are overtaken by famine and they turn south to Egypt. Abram's wife, Sarai, is extraordinarily beautiful, and he is afraid that he will be killed by the Egyptians so that they can take her, and so he pretends she is his sister. As Abram expected, Sarai is taken into Pharaoh's house until God sends a plague on Pharaoh, and he releases her and sends her back to Abram to leave Egypt. Abram's nephew Lot had traveled with them to Canaan, and God had prospered Abram, Sarai, and Lot so much that their numbers and livestock were overwhelming the lands. Abram and Lot separated from one another to get more room for their herds. Now so far God has been faithful in keeping his promises to Abram and blessed him with riches. But there is one of God's promises to Abram that is yet to be realized. God had promised Abram that his offspring would be as numerous as the dust of the earth if that could be counted. Abram and Sarai eagerly awaited the children that were promised. God has promised them, but year after year goes by, and Sarai has not become pregnant. In chapter fifteen, God comes to Abram in a dream. Abram expresses his disappointment that he still has no son. God renews his promise and scripture tells us that Abram believed God and God counted it as righteousness. But Abram does not act like a believer toward Hagar. Genesis sixteen verses one through four read Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children. She had a female Egyptian servant whose name was Hagar. And Sarai said to Abram, Behold now the Lord has prevented me from bearing children. Go into my servant, it may be that I shall obtain children by her. And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai. So after Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan, Sarai, his wife, took Hagar, the Egyptian servant, and gave her to Abram, her husband as a wife. And he went into Hagar and she conceived, and when she saw that she had conceived, she looked with contempt on her mistress. While this may seem shocking to us, it was not uncommon among the Near Eastern people in that time. Both the code of Hammurabi and the tables from Ur and Nuzi revealed that the custom of substituting a bondswoman for a wife in order to obtain a legal heir was common. Is this chain of events sounding familiar to you? It reminds me of the pattern we heard about last week when we read about Adam and Eve. Eve was convinced by the serpent to take and taste the fruit she desired in spite of God's prohibition, and here Sarai fails to believe that God will fulfill his promise to give offspring to Abram through her. When her own age and barrenness make pregnancy seem impossible, she relies on her own reason for a plan to provide an heir to Abram through human means. Hagar is essentially powerless in this event, and she allows events to change her relationship with her mistress and looks on her with contempt. This rocky relationship gets to Sarai, and she blames Abram for Hagar's hard haughtiness toward her and calls on God to judge between her husband and herself. Abram fires back at her, "Behold, your servant is in your power, do to her as you please." The text tells us that Sarai did just that. We aren't told what Sarai did to Hagar, she could have been beaten or was verbally abused, but she dealt harshly enough that Hagar ran away. In Hebrew the name Hagar means "one who fled," or to "flee."
Host:The story goes on to tell that Hagar fled into the wilderness and came to rest beside a stream, where the angel of the Lord found her and speaks to her, saying, Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from? And where are you going? When Hagar answers that she is fleeing from her mistress, the angel of the Lord instructs her to return to your mistress and submit to her.
Host:Well this is unexpected. When we look for God to rescue us from abuse, it feels shocking to be told to return to her mistress. I do want to pause here and point out that some women have been subjected to pastoral abuse when they have turned to their church for protection from an abusive husband. And this text about Hagar and other scriptures were twisted and misused to tell them that they should return to their abusive spouses. This is a dangerous and a cruel twisting of this scripture by ignorant church leaders. And if you are in an abusive relationship yourself, please do not let yourself be shamed into returning to a dangerous situation. I would urge you to seek help from another source, like a professional Christian counselor or even family and friends. And if anyone listening is guilty of this sort of scriptural abuse, I urge you to repent and remove yourself from counseling situations and seek the education that you need before you do any more harm.
Host:Now back to Hagar. The angel of the Lord prophesies over her and says, I will surely multiply your offspring so they cannot be numbered for the multitude. And then goes on to predict the name and destiny of the child that she's carrying now, by saying, "Behold, you are pregnant and shall bear a son, you shall call his name Ishmael, because the Lord has listened to your affliction. He shall be a wild donkey of a man, his hand against everyone, and everyone's hand against him, and he shall dwell over against all his kinsmen."
Host:We can learn several things from the angel's message. First, Hagar is made aware that God knows her condition and that this child will be born. It means that Hagar will survive her desert experience. God gives her son a name that has personal significance for Hagar because Ishmael means God hears. Ishmael's name is God's testimony of his presence with Hagar in this pregnancy and his promise for the future that she cannot yet understand.
Host:Secondly, Hagar is given information by God about the nature of her son in a prophetic word that tells her not only about his personality, but foreshadows the centuries of conflict between Jews and Arabs that is to come. Before leaving, Hagar names the place where the angel appeared to her Beer-la-hai-roi , which means "the well of the living one who sees me."
Host:Hagar then returns and submits to Sarai. God provided for her and Ishmael was born. Abraham called his son by the name God had given to Hagar through the angel's visit to her in the desert.
Host:We may not be able to identify with being a bondservant like Hagar, and while surrogacy is a modern problem, few women are forced involuntarily into bearing someone else's child. But maybe you have experienced the bitterness of soul like Sarai over what seemed like a promise of God that has gone unfulfilled. Or maybe you felt powerless in a relationship abused and mistreated like Hagar. Or maybe, like Abram, you have allowed someone else to talk you into taking an action that you knew was wrong.
Host:Take comfort in knowing that wherever you are, whatever your circumstances, God sees you. He knows your name, he knows your character. He understands your situation and the things that trouble you. He has a plan to provide all you need even before you ask, and has provided in Christ a promise for your eternal future.
Host:Hear the word of the Lord. "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for evil to give you a future and a hope." Jeremiah 20:11." Thanks be to God.
Host:And now we've come to our stretch break, so take a minute to do exactly that. Stand up if you can, blink your eyes, stretch your arms, and put a bookmark in Genesis chapter 16 so that you can return to it in your own time and think about those questions I just asked you. And then come back and sit down for a few more minutes to learn about baby Chris's 29th and 30th week in the womb, and ponder with me what it means to be dependent on God.
Announcer:All of the materials and information presented in this podcast are sourced from the four decades of information and resources created by Presbyterians Protecting Life and accessible to you at its website. PPL is compelled by the gospel to equip reformed Christians of all denominations to champion human life from fertilization to natural death. Train yourself and others to become a lifeline for women and children and join us as a life support prayer partner at PPL.org.
Host:This week, our baby Chris devotional combines weeks 29 and 30 in an episode called Life Support. At 29 weeks, the umbilical cord is constantly coiling, but it will not crimp or cut off circulation because of Worton's jelly, a gelatinous substance. The bones are still soft and pliable, but are beginning to harden. The head is getting bigger to accommodate the growing brain as it adds billions of neurons.
Host:At thirty weeks, the body hair that covers the baby's body is beginning to disappear. The amniotic sac has stopped growing and the amniotic fluid will start to decrease as the baby fills out the uterus.
Host:Hear the word of the Lord. "For in him we live and move and have our being. We are his offspring." 17:28 Thanks be to G od.
Host:During the twenty ninth and thirtieth weeks, our baby's muscles are continuing to grow and mature. The umbilical cord is constantly coiling as he somersaults in the uterus. It will not crimp or cut off circulation because of a lubricant that's known as Wharton's jelly. The baby takes up more space in the uterus. The amniotic sac in the uterus together with the placenta are the principal means of life support in the womb. The placenta is the link between the baby and the mother, providing nutrients, oxygen, and other substances, as well as giving off carbon dioxide and other wastes.
Host:The umbilical cord is a rope-like structure between the fetus and the placenta, which contains blood vessels that link the fetus to the mother and transfers the placental nutrients. The baby's blood does not mix with the mother's blood. The amniotic sac in the fluid-filled sac that surrounds and cushions the developing baby. Technology uses the umbilical cord model to tether astronauts to the mother ship and to help them breathe during spacewalks. Astronauts train underwater using the same umbilical technology that transfers the right mixture of gases, communications, and heat under pressure to commercial divers. Patients who undergo heart bypass surgery are dependent upon a heart lung machine to circulate oxygenated blood during the procedure. Like the child in the womb, divers, astronauts, and heart surgery patients are all passively dependent upon their umbilical cords for what they need to survive.
Host:This is an important counter to those who argue the fallacy that preborn babies are part of the mother's body. They are separate in their DNA, in their blood flow, and their nutritional supply. When abortion advocates promote the idea that killing the preborn is permissible because the fetus cannot survive on its own outside the womb. The illustration of the spacewalking astronaut, the commercial diver, and the heart patient is helpful. Developmentally, even mature adults cannot survive in hostile environments without external life support.
Host:The uterine life support system is itself a bit of a Trinitarian metaphor. Through Christ, our umbilical cord, God, as our placenta, gives us all that we need for life and godliness, and we are enveloped in the love of God by the Holy Spirit, our protector and comforter, the believer's amniotic sac, as we develop into the image of the Lord.
Host:Our providential God has provided for our protection and survival from the first moments of life. Our survival after birth is no less dependent upon Jesus, in whom we are to abide throughout our lives until we are united in eternity.
Host:Hear the word of the Lord. "I am the vine, you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit. Apart from me, you can do nothing." John chapter 15:.5
Host:"And for in him we live and move and have our being. We are his offspring." Acts 1 7:28 Thanks be to God.
Announcer: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.
