Tim Challies has a [post up](http://www.challies.com/archives/001376.php) on a family in Rogers, AK, which has just “celebrated the birth of their sixteenth child,” which has made them a bit of a local celebrity. They’re a godly Christian family, which seems to have determined that a good chunk of their “witness” is going to be through the godliness (and fecundity) of their family. In fact, from all reports, it sounds like they’re accomplishing with their family very much what I would *love* to do, though I doubt we’ll ever manage to reach **sixteen**.
The odd thing, though is the angle that Challies takes. The last time the Duggar family had a child, he wrote an article titled “How Fruitful is Too Fruitful?”, as if there could possibly be such a thing. The modern concept of family planning, i.e. limiting your numbers to how many children you can afford to pay flute lessons for, is clearly contrary to scripture. One wonders how Abraham, Isaac and Jacob might have reacted to such a suggestion.
After much thought and discussion, Tim and his wife decided that it’s “not necessarily wrong to have such a large family,” and then presents their reasoning, which seems to consist of a summary of the entire tenor of scripture. Not ***necessarily*** wrong? Good heavens! If you just use scripture as your moral compass, and shield yourself just a little from the mindset of modern Western culture, you should come to a more inverse conclusion:
Depending on your circumstances, and God’s particular direction for your family, it may not *necessarily* be wrong to **limit** your family’s size.
They’ve come up on a few forums I go to. A lady I talk to used to live down the road from them and said they’re a great family.
On a different forum, someone said that what the Duggars do – willing to take as many kids as God wants to give them – is known as Quiverfull, and said you can find a lot of website about it by searching google.
My question is, with all the J names available, why use Janna, Joy-anna, and Johannah? That just seems a little too confusing. Nothing wrong with the names, but they sound incredibly similar. Of course, then there’s the benefit of only yelling once for them..
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