Notes: Download
Series: LFL National Conference
Keywords: adoption, orphans, russell moore Speakers: Russell Moore
Detail:
Adopted in Christ was the theme as nearly 200 Lutherans gathered, August 5-6, 2011, from across the United States—with special guests from Australia—for the national conference of Lutherans For Life.
Dr. Russell D. Moore, author of Adopted for Life: The Priority of Adoption for Christian Families, said in his Friday night keynote address, “If we as pro-life people can understand that the issue of orphan care—whether that’s advocating for unborn orphans, or advocating for born orphans in the United States or around the world—is not simply stopping bad things from happening to children … Instead, there is also a deeper issue here, which is that our advocacy for women and children who are under assault by forces so dark and evil that we cannot even contemplate it, can teach us and show us how to be the Church, how to embrace the Gospel, how to live in the unity of the Spirit—and we see something of what this looks like by what the Spirit is doing in the life of Joseph …
“The Scripture says that when someone is adopted into the family of God, he or she is not some other kind of child. This person is now seated at the table with all the relationship to the Father … with all of the inheritance that is received in Jesus Christ. We see that first in the life of our Lord Himself when Joseph really and truly becomes His father through adoption. When we care for orphans, through adoption and foster care, and through other kinds of ministries to orphans, when we advocate for children whose lives are in jeopardy through abortion and through other ways, what we are recognizing is that we are doing so as ex-orphans ourselves who have been rescued through the Gospel. And we are also recognizing that when a child is adopted into a family there is a real family formed there. Our entire Gospel is at stake in that recognition because there is no such thing as an ‘adopted child,’ only children who were adopted. ‘Adopted’ in the New Testament is a past-tense verb, not an adjective.”