My husband and I have three children. We only recently have begun to question where God stands on birth control of all methods. I have heard scripture on "man spilling his seed", and wonder if this applies to some forms of birth control...

In Bible times Jewish people did tend to have large families because under the law of Moses couples could not sleep together during the wife's period for twelve days from the commencement or seven days after the end, so they came together at the most fertile time -- middle cycle. God wanted his people, the Jews, to be fruitful and multiply.

The verse about spilled seed is found in Genesis 38:9. God was not pleased with Onan because of what he had done. When a husband died without fathering any children his brother was instructed to marry his sister-in-law and ensure the family line did not die out. There are a number of possible reasons why Onan did not want to obey God's command and we can't be sure that God's anger at his use of this form of birth control means that God disapproves of this or any other method.

We agree that God will not give us more than we can stand and admit this isn't an easy decision to make because there doesn't appear to be any direct instruction from God for or against using birth control.

All we can do is apply principles that cover a variety of situations. Here are three for you to think about.

  1. We pray for God to deliver us from temptation, but this does not mean we should deliberately put ourselves into positions where we will constantly be tempted. If we apply this sort of logic we could say -- we shouldn't pray that our family doesn't increase unless we take some action to prevent it happening.
  2. We are told that our body is God's temple, and therefore we need to think carefully about what might cause harm to it. There are many methods of birth control available and some interfere with the wonderful body God had created more than others. Another factor to consider would be if a pregnancy were likely to cause medical problems.
  3. Children are God's reward to us (Psalm 127:3). Any form of birth control still has a risk factor. Even if we use birth control we can never be absolutely sure of preventing pregnancy, especially if it is God's will.