Bible Verses for Adoption
If you are considering adopting, are an adoptee, or work for an adoption agency, you might be curious what the Bible has to say about adoption.
The Bible is full of verses about God’s love for the fatherless and how we are ALL adopted by God.
Ephesians 1:4-5
For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will
Did you know that when we become Christians, God says that we are adopted into His family through Jesus? God is the ultimate adoptive father, and calls us all his children.
Matthew 18:4-5
Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me
Caring for the children is close to God’s heart, and He loves it when we welcome children into our homes and hearts, just like adoption.
James 1:27
Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
Christians are commanded to take care of those who are most lost and in distress, and this includes the orphans. Adoption into our homes is inherently Christian.
Psalm 68:5
A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows is God in his holy dwelling.
God cares for all His people, and the Bible tells us that He especially cares for those who have on one else like orphans and widows. If He is a father to the fatherless, He is the ultimate adoptive parent.
Galatians 4:4-7
But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship. Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.” So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir.
Jesus came into the world to save us. And through Him we are adopted as children of God and heirs to His kingdom!
Psalm 27:10
Though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me.
When a child loses their parents, it is a terrible thing. God cares for all those without parents and brings them to Himself.
Isaiah 1:17
Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow.
Doing good is core to what Christians are, and when the Bible tells us to “take up the cause of the fatherless” that means caring for (and even adopting) those who don’t have anyone to take care of them.
Acts 7:21
And when he was exposed, Pharaoh’s daughter adopted him and brought him up as her own son.
In the OId Testament, Pharoah’s daughter adopted Moses, and called him her own child. The Bible gives us examples of earthly adopted children and parents!
Written in partnership with Reach The Lost.