Adopting and caring for orphans give believers the opportunity to be God’s hands and feet, to practice serving another human being. What those who have adopted soon discover is that their efforts to become a servant by adopting and ministering to orphans bless them as much as they bless the child or children they bring home. Caring for orphans is mandated by God throughout the Bible – not because he can’t care for them himself – but because it is part of God’s plan for his people to show others what he looks like by their willingness to help those in need.

In ancient times, when Rome ruled the world, infanticide ran rampant – with sick, disabled, or orphaned infants literally cast aside, sometimes sacrificed. The first Christians believed in the sanctity of life and demonstrated that by taking in the unwanted children and caring for them, even Roman children. The Romans took note of this, and it began to change society.

Christians today can change the world by putting their faith into action and showing the world that every human being is wanted and loved. Until we care about orphans around the world as much as God does – enough to surrender our plans in exchange for his call to care for the unwanted and unloved – we miss an opportunity to play a hugely significant role in God’s “big picture,” his plan for drawing the unreached to him.

Adoption in the Scriptures

In the King James Version of the New Testament, the word adoption is used six times. In each instance, adoption is the term by which Jesus Christ has reconciled human beings to God. It is through adoption that God becomes our Abba, our Daddy, according to Romans. Adoption is synonymous with his love. Galatians 4: 4-5 states:

But when the fullness of time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. (KJV, bold added)

This kind of spiritual adoption is mentioned again in Ephesians 1:5. Adoption means that God loves us enough to bring us into his forever family.

But what about actual, physical adoption of one human being to another? Does God have an opinion about this? Does he care one way or the other? Christians can see by looking through Scripture that the answer to those questions is a resounding Yes! God shows that he is concerned about the way orphans are treated not only by commanding his followers to care for widows and orphans, but also he demonstrates the importance of adoptive relationships by placing key adopted characters throughout the Bible.