Why Christians Should Care About Adoption
Caring for vulnerable children is one of the few causes that almost everyone instinctively supports and affirms. Christians and non-Christians alike hear statistics—like the fact that there are 140 million orphans globally—and universally agree that something must be done.[1] No one wants children to suffer. Virtually everyone is sympathetic to the orphan crisis and agrees that adoption is good and necessary. As Christians, we are thankful for the many who recognize the need and step forward to care.
Christian engagement with orphan care and adoption is rooted in something more significant than care, though. True understanding of the full goodness of adoption begins with the gospel, which anchors Christian identity, confidence, hope, and purpose.
Our Adoption Story
The gospel message is that while we were alone and in need, without hope and without an eternal home due to our sin, God mercifully sought us out and saved us. Though he saw us at our worst, he looked on us with love, wanted us, and claimed us as his own—not because of anything we offered him, but entirely to do us good and give us his best. God’s love poured out for us to the extent that Jesus willingly substituted his own life for our sake, dying on the cross to settle our record of wrongs so that we might be saved. Now, all those who place their faith in Jesus Christ belong to a family and lineage better than all imaginings.
To put it plainly, the Scripture teaches that all those who trust in Jesus Christ are adopted into the family of God. This means that the Father is our Father and Jesus is our brother (Rom. 8:12-17; Heb. 2:11). As children of God, we enjoy incredible access to him as he lovingly comforts, protects, encourages, corrects, and guides us. And when we look forward, we do so with the hope of an inheritance kept for us to be known in full on the last day.
This gospel affects the very center of who we are. The more we internalize it, the more it shows up externally.
Reliving and Retelling Our Story
Why does God so specifically call Christians into a life of caring? Why does he invite us to live close to the needy, to be mindful of the destitute, and to be present with the fatherless?
One answer is that he offers a particular blessing to the Christian who steps in on behalf of lives precious to the Lord. In caring for the vulnerable, he changes us. He expands our hearts and opens our eyes. In his kindness, he exposes our fear, selfishness, dismissiveness, distractedness, and he begins to cultivate responsiveness, compassion, and active mercy.
While there are many ways to care for the vulnerable, there is something especially profound about adoption for the Christian. Many think of it simply as a great option for those unable to have biological children. And it is! But the invitation is broader and richer. It’s an invitation to reflect God’s love and mission. By its very nature, adoption is a retelling and reliving of the gospel story, as we care for others with the same posture God has toward us.
Think of adoption as the highest type of hospitality. We are bringing a child in, making space for them, and giving them a place to belong forever. Consider adoption as outreach. We are bringing a child in, sharing the love of Christ with them, and inviting them into the family of God. Think of adoption as working for the good of your city. We are stepping into need and repairing communities one life at a time. Think of adoption as a family ministry. We are uniting together for the cause of a child.
From every angle, our engagement with adoption is a way that we retell of God’s faithfulness toward us. And that’s important, because as Christians pursue this type of sacrificial goodness, our non-Christian friends tend to be drawn toward it and seek an explanation to why we might take the risk of opening our homes.
But adoption is more than retelling; it’s a call to goodness that invites us to relive our own adoption experience as we emulate our Father. Adoption has a sacred blueprint. Each step of the process mirrors our own salvation story. This calling is a personal invitation to directly do what has been done for us, and it’s sacrificial and sanctifying.
Motivated by the mercy shown to them, a Christian sees a child alone and in need, without hope and without a home, and seeks that child out. Though the Christian meets that child in his most vulnerable and helpless state, he looks on him with the love of God, wants him, and claims him as his own—not because of anything the child offers, but to do the child good and give him his very best. The family willingly pays a great price—in cost, energy, effort, and emotion—to redeem that child’s life. The family gives up life as they knew it so the child’s life might be saved. The adoption story is a story of a family learning to lavish grace and willingly offering a family and lineage better than that child's imaginings. As a son or daughter, that child enjoys incredible access to new parents, as they lovingly comfort, protect, encourage, correct, and guide him. With a new name and identity, the child has a new hope, built on a legacy of faith rooted in the goodness of God.
Faith is Required, not Perfection
To some, the idea of adoption seems like an impossibly challenging call for imperfect people. Yet, there are no people more equipped for adoption than those who have experienced the salvation and redemption of God. So Christian, let me encourage you.
Step out in faith. Remember, we are a people of obedience and trust; a people woven together as community and family. We were designed to grow into our calling. We were made to bear fruit and have been given a spirit of courage.
Approach life knowing that he who called us into this life of faith is faithful and will surely keep us to the end. And we do it all so that we might be changed from glory to glory and that others might see the grace and goodness of God in our good works. Of all the people in the world, it is Christians who carry light into darkness, hold up hope, and have both the anchor and comfort of the Father’s love.
And so, Christians, care about and champion adoption, and may our lives display the beauty of the Kingdom of God to a world in need of genuine loving kindness, which rebuilds, brings hope and a future, and finally, carries children all the way home.
Citations:
[1] UNICEF, "Orphans," last modified [date page showed], archived May 4, 2021, at the Wayback Machine, https://web.archive.org/web/20210504*/https://www.unicef.org/media/media_45279.html.
