{"id":5688,"date":"2026-08-26T08:24:31","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T12:24:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/?p=5688"},"modified":"2026-08-26T08:24:31","modified_gmt":"2026-08-26T12:24:31","slug":"adopted-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/26\/adopted-children\/","title":{"rendered":"Adopted Children"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here<\/a>
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each day this month of August we\u2019ll be looking at one of the extraordinary metaphors that the Bible uses to illustrate the nature of our relationship with God.<\/em>

During most of the 20th<\/sup> century, Malcom Muggeridge was regarded as Britain\u2019s most gifted journalist, satirist, and social commentator.

By his own admission, he threw much of his life away.\u00a0

He pursued toys. He craved honors. He drank, smoked, and womanized without boundaries.\u00a0During World War II he served Britain as a spy, even while contemplating the merits of communism.\u00a0He attempted to take his own life.

Something kept eating at Muggeridge. He yearned for life to mean something.\u00a0

After personally encountering Mother Teresa\u2019s ministry to the poor of Calcutta, he wrote a book about her life called\u00a0Something Beautiful for God. It clearly<\/em> signaled a change in his sense of what mattered.\u00a0Toward the end of his life, Muggeridge reflected:\u00a0

\u201cI may, I suppose, regard myself or pass for being a relatively successful man.\u00a0People occasionally stare at me in the streets.\u00a0That\u2019s fame.\u00a0

\u201cI can fairly easily earn enough to qualify for admission to the higher slopes of the Internal Revenue.\u00a0That\u2019s success.\u00a0

\u201cFurnished with money and a little fame even the elderly, if they care to, may partake of trendy diversions.\u00a0That\u2019s pleasure.\u00a0

\u201cIt might happen once in a while that something I said or wrote was sufficiently heeded for me to persuade myself that it represented a serious impact on our time.\u00a0That\u2019s fulfillment.

\u201cYet, I say to you \u2013 and I beg you to believe me \u2013 multiply these tiny triumphs by a million, add them all together, and they are nothing \u2013 less than nothing, a positive impediment \u2013 measured against one draft of that living water Christ offers to the spiritually thirsty, irrespective of who or what they are.\u201d

That\u2019s transformation<\/em>.\u00a0

Malcom Muggeridge got a do-over. He traded his old life, with its fleeting happiness, for the hope of something infinitely more durable.

It is really possible to start life over?

From a certain perspective, the ancient Romans thought so.

That notion was lived out in the practice of adoption. Bringing another human being into one\u2019s own family \u2013 assuming the sum total of their emotional, relational, and financial burdens \u2013 is a wonderful reality at any time and any place.\u00a0But adoption at the height of the Roman Empire \u2013 the very time the apostle Paul was writing almost half the books of the New Testament \u2013 was something uniquely special.\u00a0

The chief historian at UNRV.com, a website devoted to exploring ancient Roman practices, asserts that \u201cadoption was at the heart of Roman ideas about continuity, authority and identity.\u201d

When the male head of a Roman household adopted someone as a son (this would typically be a teenager or a young adult), at least three things happened to that young man.

First<\/em>, he got anew father<\/strong>.\u00a0

Even though he lost all the rights pertaining to his family of origin, he gained all the rights of his new household.\u00a0In most cases, that meant stepping into a world of greater prestige and enhanced security regarding resources and opportunities.

Second<\/em>, he became heir to his newfather\u2019s estate<\/strong>.\u00a0

Even if his adopted dad gained a dozen additional children by one means or another, nothing would ever affect the certainty of his new inheritance.\u00a0

Third,<\/em> his old life was completelywiped out<\/strong>.\u00a0All of his debts were erased.\u00a0It was as if he had never had that former life<\/em>.\u00a0He was now regarded as a completely new person \u2013 blessed with a new name, new identity, and new destiny. It was the ultimate social and relational do-over.

What in the world might prompt such a radical move?

The head of a Roman household may have feared that the family line was about to go extinct. A successor and heir was desperately needed \u2013 and there was no time to wait for a child to grow up. There also may have been a desire to redirect inheritance away from \u201cundesirable relatives\u201d (not that such an idea has ever occurred to any of us).

Sometimes Roman adoption was a way of cementing an alliance between prominent families. It could also have served as a means of giving a talented young man \u201ca leg up\u201d in his vocational aspirations. A tradesman or shopkeeper could choose to adopt the next owner of his business.

Did emotion ever come into play?

It did indeed. Personal letters and funerary inscriptions reveal that adopted sons frequently became beloved members of the household.

This is the point at which we begin to grasp one of the most compelling biblical metaphors of our relationship with God:

We are the adopted kids of our Father in heaven.<\/em>

Paul expresses this powerfully in Romans 8:14-17:

\u201c<\/sup><\/strong>For those who are led by the Spirit of God\u00a0are the children of God.\u00a0The Spirit\u00a0you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again;\u00a0rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry,\u00a0\u201cAbba,\u00a0Father.\u201d The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit\u00a0that we are God\u2019s children.\u00a0Now if we are children, then we are heirs\u2014heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ\u2026\u201d<\/em>

Notice that Paul \u201ctrades up\u201d one metaphor for something more intimate.

Is it legitimate to say that we are the slaves of God? It is. God is our Master, and we are his servants. But God is also our Father<\/em> \u2013 the one who has adopted us in love, welcomed us into his family, and granted us co-inheritance with Jesus. That metaphor overwhelms the metaphor of mere servanthood.

As God\u2019s adopted children, we have begun an entirely new existence.

You don\u2019t have to be a Malcom Muggeridge \u2013 someone who tried everything and discovered it to be dust \u2013 to realize that stepping into God\u2019s kingdom is the ultimate spiritual do-over.
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here Each day this month of August we\u2019ll be looking at one of the extraordinary metaphors that the Bible uses to illustrate the nature of our relationship with God. During most of the 20th century, Malcom Muggeridge was regarded as Britain\u2019s most gifted journalist, satirist, and social commentator. By his own admission,… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5689,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[484,1174,1159,758],"class_list":["post-5688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-adoption","tag-malcom-muggeridge","tag-metaphors","tag-roman-empire"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5688"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5688\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5690,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5688\/revisions\/5690"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}