This post examines Chapter 2: To Do Great Works! of Bill Gothard’s book, 7 Basic Needs of a Wife.
What is a “ Great Work”? A great work is a supernatural act that reveals the love and power of God. It can also be a natural work that brings glory to God. When a wife conceives in her womb and brings forth a child, she is doing a great work.
God is the one who initiated life, and He is the one who opens the womb, but it is the mother who cooperates with God and becomes the human instrument through which a great work is accomplished.
Pg.11
There is nothing “great” about conceiving and giving birth to a child; it is just nature operating how God set it up. The mother has done no “work” in conceiving. Yes her body is doing lots of work when raising the embryo to full-grown birth, but it is not “cooperating” with God to do so.
There is no great God-honoring work to conceive and bear a child. After all, the vast majority of pregnancies/birth are to pagans! And what about out-of-wedlock children?
When a father delights in a newborn child, he gives honor to the great work his wife. If he does not delight in children, he denies his wife the fulfillment of this basic need.
pg.11 sidebar
It gives honor to the man’s wife if he delights in the child?! And if he doesn’t he is denying her fulfillment of a “basic need”? Where in Scripture does it say that a woman’s “basic need” is to have children. A desire is not a “need.” As to the “great work” of his wife, did she conceive the child by herself?
A Great Vision of Godly Generations
It is quite natural for a bride to think of the happiness that she will enjoy in her marriage. However, this violates her basic need to trust God alone for her expectations.
pg.12
WHAT?!??! Thinking the happiness she will enjoy is violating her “need to trust God alone for her expectations”?!?! How does that work? Can she not do both at the same time?
Her expectations for marriage must rise above her own happiness and encompass the happiness that she can give to God and to her husband by raising up the foundations of many Godly generations. Her husband must also share this vision.
Pg.12
Wait—she can give happiness to God? Her expectations for marriage have to “rise above her own happiness”? Can’t her expectations for marriage include the happiness of both her and her husband? And what if she cannot have children—does that make God unhappy?
The Reward for “Spiritual” Children
Many wives who cannot have children try to fill the void by adopting them. This brings new challenges, especially if the mother is adopting in order to fulfill her own emotional needs rather than meeting the mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual needs of her adopted children.
The Apostle Paul had no physical children; however, he had untold numbers of spiritual children, and his relationship with them brought great fulfillment. He says of these disciples, you are “my joy and crown” (Philippians 4:1).
pg.15
I know from other Gothard materials that he is totally against adoption; he has the ideology that children bring inherited sin, “generational sin” into the family. THAT is why he stresses that the woman is wanting to satisfy her own needs.
For Paul and for us it is not enough to lead unbelievers to salvation. We also should train them up in the commands of Christ so that they will be spiritually strong and be able to disciple others. … The greatness of making “disciple makers” is seen in the potential of multiplication: if one wife would teach ten other women the forty-nine commands of Christ during a one-year period, and each of them would do the same thing, she would have 100,000 disciples in just five years! What a great work this would be!
Pg.16
So instead of adopting children, a wife unable to bear children should be teaching “forty-nine commands” of Christ in addition to the gospel. Gothard is focused on legalism—the 49 “commands” should be memorized well so as to pass them on! So, don’t adopt because you may have selfish reasons, just get out there and preach the Gospel with 49 commands!
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