Begotten Through the Good News

The apostle Paul had no wife. He says so himself, and he says it without regret, as a gift he wished others could share.

1 Corinthians 7:7-8 Yet I wish that all men were even as I myself am; but each man has his own charisma χάρισμα khar'-is-mah(grace-gift) from God — one in this way, another in that. But I say to the unmarried and to widows, it is good for them if they remain even as I am;

The word Paul uses for the unmarried is agamos, one who has not married. Paul was such a man, and he counted his state a charisma, a grace-gift from God. Nothing in his letters suggests that he had children of the body. Yet the same Paul writes about himself, boldly and often, in the language of fatherhood. The barren woman’s song is heard again in his life.

“I Became Your Father”

To the believers in Corinth, who had many teachers, Paul wrote this.

1 Corinthians 4:15 For if you were to have countless instructors in Messiah, yet you do not have many fathers; for in Messiah Yeshua I became your father through the good news.

The Greek verb behind “I became your father” is gennao, the ordinary word for begetting a child. It is the verb of the long family lists in Matthew 1, where one man begets the next. Paul does not reach for a softer word like “teacher” or “guide.” Others had taught them; he begot them. What he begot them through was the good news, and the children were the believers of Corinth.

He applied the same verb to one man in particular.

Philemon 1:10 I appeal to you for my child Onesimus, whom I have begotten in my imprisonment,

Onesimus had been a slave in the house of Philemon, and Paul asks Philemon to have him back “no longer as a slave, but better than a slave, a beloved brother” (Philemon 1:16). Again the verb is gennao. A man in chains, with no wife, begot a son.

He spoke of Timothy in the same language.

1 Timothy 1:2 to Timothy, my true child in the faith: charis χάρις khar'-ece(grace), mercy and eirene εἰρήνη i-ray'-nay(peace) from God our Father and Messiah Yeshua our Lord.

“My true child in the faith.” The Greek is gnesion teknon, a child born legitimately, a true-born child rather than a stepchild. Timothy had a father in the flesh, a Greek, as Acts 16:1 tells us. Paul does not compete with that. He speaks of a birth of another kind, and he says it was a true birth.

In Labor Until Messiah Is Formed

Paul goes further than fatherhood. To the Galatians, who were being drawn away, he wrote as a mother.

Galatians 4:19 My children, with whom I am again in labor until Messiah is formed in you —

The verb is odino, the word for the pains of a woman giving birth. An unmarried man of the first century, writing to whole communities, chose the word for a mother’s labor to describe what it cost him to bring them to faith. He had already labored over them once, when they first believed, and now he labors again. And he tells them what the labor is for: “until Messiah is formed in you.” The verb for formed is morphoo, to give shape or form. Paul does not only beget. He carries those he has begotten until Messiah takes shape in them.

So the unmarried apostle had a large family. He begot children through the good news, he called one of them a true-born child, and he went through labor for a whole community. This is what the barren woman’s song looks like in the New Testament. The words themselves carry this reading: Paul chose the vocabulary of fathering, childbirth and true birth for people brought to faith, and he used it again and again.

Born, Not of Blood

How are such children born? John answers at the very beginning of his Gospel.

John 1:12-13 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the exousia ἐξουσία ex-oo-see'-ah(authority) to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the thelema θέλημα thel'-ay-mah(will) of sarx σάρξ sarx(flesh) nor of the thelema(will) of man, but of God.

“Children” is tekna, and “born” is again gennao. John names three things that do not produce these children: not blood, not the will of the flesh, not the will of a man. All three belong to the birth of the body. These children are born “of God.” Yeshua said the same to Nicodemus: “That which is born of the sarx(flesh) is sarx(flesh), and that which is born of the pneuma πνεῦμα pnyoo'-mah(spirit) is pneuma(spirit)” (John 3:6).

The Seed That Does Not Die

Scripture speaks of the new birth in the language of seed and conception.

1 Peter 1:23 since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable — through the logos λόγος log'-os(word) of God, which lives and abides forever.

“Born again” is anagennao, to be begotten again. “Seed” is spora, the seed that is sown, and it is aphthartos, imperishable, unable to decay. A seed that cannot perish is plainly not a seed of the body, so the question presses: what is it? Peter answers in the same breath: it is the word of God, living and abiding. Yeshua had said it just as plainly in the parable of the sower.

Luke 8:11 Now the parable is this: the seed is the logos(word) of God.

The seed is the word. That changes how a believer hears the word of God. It is not only information to be agreed with or a lesson to be admired. Received, it is the seed from which a life begins that does not perish. John adds one more word.

1 John 3:9 No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, because God's seed abides in him; and he cannot keep on sinning, because he has been born of God.

Here the Greek is sperma: “God’s seed abides in him.” The seed that begets the child of God does not leave once the child is born. It abides, and because it abides, the one born of God does not go on making a practice of sin.

Receiving the Word Like Mary

Luke tells how the angel said to Mary that the Holy Spirit would come upon her and the power of the Most High would overshadow her (Luke 1:35). Luke calls her Mariam, and her answer to the angel belongs here.

Luke 1:38 Mariam said, "Behold, the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your rhema ῥήμα hray'-mah(spoken-word)." And the angel departed from her.

The word of God came to her, she received it, and the Spirit gave life within her.

The new birth follows the same pattern, and the words themselves draw the comparison. Every believer is born when the word of God, the imperishable seed, is received and the Spirit gives life. In that sense every believer is called to be like Mary: to receive the word and bear what the Spirit begets. And every believer is called to be like Paul: to beget children of faith through the good news, and to labor until Messiah is formed in them.

Yet Mary’s conception itself was unique. The Son of God was born of her once, and that birth is never repeated. The comparison is about receiving the word and the Spirit, not about repeating what happened in her womb.

The Barren Woman’s Children

Now the barren woman’s song has its answer. The barren woman has more children than the married one because her children are born of the word and the Spirit. As Isaiah promised, the eunuch who keeps God’s Shabbat receives a name better than sons and daughters. The unmarried apostle has a household of true-born children. None of this lessens the blessing of children of the body. It shows that God was always preparing a family that the body alone could never produce.

But a birth is a beginning, not an end. No child is meant to stay a newborn, and Scripture speaks just as plainly about the growing of God’s children as about their birth.