Truth Unites - Abortion and Marriage Aren’t In the Bible?

Episode Date: February 20, 2026

Gavin Ortlund responds to James Talarico’s claim that the Bible is silent on abortion and gay marriage, showing from Scripture and early Christian history that the biblical vision of life and marriage is clear, coherent, and ultimately grounded in the good news of what God has done for us in Christ.Truth Unites (https://truthunites.org) exists to promote gospel assurance through theological depth. Gavin Ortlund (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) is President of Truth Unites, Visiting Professor of Historical Theology at Phoenix Seminary, and Theologian-in-Residence at Immanuel Nashville.SUPPORT:Tax Deductible Support: https://truthunites.org/donate/Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/truthunitesFOLLOW:Website: https://truthunites.org/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/truth.unites/X: https://x.com/gavinortlundFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/TruthUnitesPage/

Recently, James Tala Rico claimed that the Bible never mentions abortion or gay marriage. Well, for 50 years, the religious right, a political movement, that is the perfect description for it. They convinced a lot of our fellow Christians that the most important issues were abortion and gay marriage. Two issues that aren't mentioned in the Bible, two issues that Jesus never talked about. Now, it's true that you won't find the English word abortion. if you pick up an English translation of the Bible, but you also won't find the word Trinity. The absence of a modern term does not mean the absence of a moral vision. Scripture speaks directly to the status of life in the womb by portraying the unborn as personal subjects,

formed by God, known by God, attended to by God, addressed by God. David, for example, says, you knitted me together in my mother's womb, or God speaking to Jeremiah, before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. Or this is one of my favorite texts on this topic. Job, when he's giving a rationale for why he must never mistreat his servant, he says, did not he who made me in the womb make him? Perhaps most amazing, John the Baptist, in the womb, responds with joy to the presence of Christ. Another relevant text is Exodus 21, where a pregnant woman is struck and her child is harmed.

when this happens, legal penalties follow under the principle of life for life, which is very significant. Now, there is some debate about the details of this passage, but what is absolutely clear is that injury to the unborn child is not morally indifferent. It falls under the protections of justice, and this coheres with the biblical vision of the value of children, and, you know, God's fatherly care for children. Is there anything more precious in the entire universe than a child? And this is why Christians all throughout church history have opposed the practice of abortion. I put a video out on this just a couple weeks ago, and one of the things I pointed out is right there in the first century, in writings like the

didache, which probably dates to the first century, it's just explicit the way Christians are, and there's no controversy about this, Christians always opposed abortion, and they saw it as a violation of the Sixth Commandment. Their witness on that issue was consistent and clear and vibrant. The Bible is even more explicit about the nature of marriage. One of the first things we learn in scripture is that marriage is a covenantal union between a man and a woman. And this happens at the dawn of human history. This is the first institution, more fundamental than government or any other human institution. And Jesus explicitly reaffirms this definition in Matthew 19, appealing back to the Genesis text as normative. And the apostles continue to

treat marriage as a male-female union that reflects Christ's covenantal love for the church. Paul, for example, quotes the same text in Genesis 2 and says this refers to Christ in the church. So modern debates certainly raise new legal questions and cultural questions, but the biblical vision of marriage is not silent and it's not ambiguous. It's rooted at creation at the dawn of human history. It's affirmed by Christ and it's woven throughout the storyline of Scripture. And this is why the church has always read the book Song of Songs as ultimately pointing to the love of God. Jesus in Matthew 25 tells us exactly how you and I and every one of our fellow believers how we're going to be judged and how we're going to be saved by feeding the hungry, by healing the sick,

by welcoming the stranger. Nothing about going to church, nothing about voting Republican. It was all about how you treat other people. Don't, don't. Now it's certainly true that Christians should care for the poor and the sick and welcome the strangers. this is biblically accurate and it is spiritually urgent. So let us not slack off. Let's not take our foot off the gas pedal at all on those issues. But note the framing here. Those issues are given as the examples of how you should treat people and what it means to love your neighbor, with the implication seeming to be that issues like abortion or marriage or church attendance and voting are also mentioned there aren't important or aren't as important aspects of loving our neighbor.

But on a moment's reflection, we can see that this is a false contrast. Just take abortion, for instance. Is there any more pressing matter for neighbor love than not taking someone's life before they're even born? And boy, this is delicate to talk about. I don't mention this to create shame for anyone based upon their past. Truly, may God give you peace right now as you're watching this video, this is a tough topic for you. But rather, we talk about this to jolt us back to more. moral clarity about something because we can grow numb to this issue. What raises my compassion

about this issue the most is remembering that those in the womb are totally innocent and totally vulnerable. And the taking of innocent helpless life is about as urgent as it gets in terms of the responsibility of neighbor love. Christians believe that a human soul is eternal. So the child in the womb is not a disposable moment in history, but a soul attended to by God. Think of God's disposition to the unborn, reflected in some of these texts we've considered. They are, they are, God is attending to the unborn. They are precious in his sight. And being smaller and still in the womb versus a little bigger and outside the womb doesn't

change your value. So when Jesus speaks of the least of these or when we have scriptural injunctions to care for the vulnerable, we should not remove the unborn from the, that category. Similarly, how we define marriage is foundationally important for the act of neighbor love, because marriage and family is the context in which human beings are shaped at such fundamental levels. This institution lies at the very bedrock of human civilization. And I won't say a whole lot more about this because I gave a whole talk on this topic last year at the wonderful Petristic Nectar conference, which is the talks now out on YouTube. You can check it out. I'll put all these in the

video description, any video I mentioned, I'll put the link in there. And this is why I'm so happy to partner with Christians in different traditions to address these important social issues like abortion or marriage. Voting is obviously an act of neighbor love because political policies affect people. And even church attendance is an act of neighbor love. Because relationships with other Christians affect your life in every single way imaginable. By the way, my friend Rebecca McLaughlin has an outstanding book linked in the video description where she shows that church attendance profoundly impacts your mental health, among other things.

Also check out our discussion we had defining and defending a biblical view of marriage. That's also linked below. Christianity is a simple religion, not an easy religion, he would always clarify, but a simple religion because Jesus gave us two commandments, love God and love neighbor. Sometimes people collapse Christianity down into what it calls us to do. And this is a special danger when people are really using Christianity for their politics, whether it's politics on the right or the left. But what we do in loving God and loving our neighbor is not the heart of the Christian faith. It's the outflow or the consequence.

The heart of Christianity is what God has done for us. And this is why we call it gospel, one of my favorite words. Gospel means good news, not good advice, not good vibes, not good omen. good news. In other words, a joyous announcement of something that has already happened. And that announcement is that Jesus Christ, the son of God, died on a cross and rose from the dead so that anybody can be restored to friendship with God on terms of pure grace. All you have to do is turn away from our rebellion against God and place our faith in Christ and surrender our life to him. Get baptized, join a church, get going. It's the best decision you'll ever make.

So by all means, love our neighbor. Absolutely. By all means, love God. But we want to make sure that we are doing that out of the overflow of the fact that God has first loved us.