Motherhood in the Bible

By Hazel Nisbet, Woonona Presbyterian Community Church

I lost my mother when I was 20, and I know Mother's Day is a sensitive time for many people, often associated with relationship breakdown. We need to be sensitive, but God loves us to celebrate mothers, and there's much we can learn from mothers and grandmothers in the Bible.

For one Mother's Day at Woonoona, our welcome committee handed out daffodil bulbs - purchased in bags of 30 for $24 from Bunnings. These cost about $3 per gift and include planting instructions and a welcome note. They've been really popular for neighborhood connections. Our welcome flyer is inclusive, celebrating mothers, grandmothers, and all those who mother (including spiritual mothers).

Here are some of the mothers in Scripture that I believe give us profound theological insights into the calling of motherhood - any one, or all of these would be ideal to reflect on for a Mother's Day sermon:

Eve: The First Mother and Her Legacy of Grief, Guilt, and Shame

Eve gives us an opportunity to look at bad decisions and their fallout, a tendency to cover up sin and shift the blame. She helps us examine the shame and guilt that mothers carry, which we often feel acutely from the moment our babies are born. This guilt is magnified in the quiet moments of reflection, especially as we lay awake at night.

Eve also provides us a chance to reflect on deep grief, as she experienced the murder of her son Abel by her firstborn, Cain—what could be more horrible than that? Through Eve’s story, we witness the unraveling of God's good world and see that life is unmanageable without God. There are terrible things happening to people throughout Scripture, and particularly to women: women rejected, raped, and murdered, as well as women doing terrible things to other women. Even during the fall of Jerusalem, we see compassionate women cooking and eating their own children. Eve’s story reminds us that our parenting is powerless without God, and life itself is fragile and full of pain.

Noah's Wife: Faithful Support in the Midst of Unimaginable Struggle

Noah's wife supports her husband faithfully and obediently. Can you imagine them watching their friends and neighbours and extended family drowning around the boat, and then managing this floating household, living so close with their sons and daughters-in-law? The cleaning, the meals for one year... I take my hat off to Noah's wife. And I’m not sure if she was there at the end, when Noah struggled with drinking and the behaviour of their youngest son. It’s so hard to be married to an alcoholic and to rein in an adult child.

Lot’s Wife: A Warning Against Longing for the Past

And then there’s Lot’s wife. Lot’s wife and the mother of their two daughters is a great warning. Lot’s wife looks back enviously on her former life, looks back at her previous sinful lifestyle. As we seek it out, we’re in danger of the life-sapping consequences—not just for ourselves, but also for our children. Go on to read what happens with Lot and his wife’s daughters after her death—it’s really ugly and tragic, and it leads to generations of families living without God.

Sarah: The Mother of Promise

Sarah, we see her great support of Abraham and moving away from their family. She struggles to get pregnant and the way she takes matters into her own hands with disastrous generational consequences. And Sarah agrees to go along with Abraham that she was his sister, rather than his wife, to Pharaoh in Egypt. And who knows what happened to her in Pharaoh’s palace? The consequences of lies and cover-up from a husband who God credited with righteousness, yet like us, can lead their family outside of God’s good plans.

Rebecca: The Mother Who Faced Difficult Decisions

Rebekah, wife of Isaac and mother of Jacob and Esau. We read that Esau gets married at 40, and he marries two Hittite women, and we're told that these relationships were a source of grief to Isaac and Rebekah. How do we manage and behave when our children don't actively walk with Jesus, when they marry non-Christians, when they say and do things that are against our core Christian beliefs?

I see this on my Facebook feed: doing life with your adult children—keep your mouth shut and the welcome mat out. In some ways, I like it, and I appreciated my mother-in-law always welcoming us but never judging our parenting. But it also makes me uncomfortable because I know the wisdom about speaking the truth in love and the power of godly rebuke for redirection.

Sue Milne, a local psychologist, spoke to us the year before about this on Mother's Day. Part of her talk highlighted how, as parents, we often focus too much on self-esteem. She referenced research by psychologist Roy Baumeister, who generally recommends that, as parents, we should focus less on boosting self-esteem and concentrate more on fostering self-control and self-discipline in our children.

It's really interesting how to know when to speak and when to stay silent. I'm encouraged that Rebekah and Isaac struggled with it, and I continue to struggle with it—finding the balance with God's help, with God's wisdom, to walk in truth and grace.

And Rebekah gets it wrong lots. She shows favoritism to Jacob. She's deceitful. I don't know what to make of it, but I'm encouraged that God redeems us, and this includes our bad parenting mistakes, and uses even those for His great rescue plan and for His glory

Jochebed: Trusting God Amidst Our Tendency to Catastrophise

At a time when Pharaoh was ordering the Egyptian midwives to kill all the Israelite baby boys, Jochebed, Moses’s mum, prepares a basket and puts him in the river, and he floats down, and Pharaoh’s daughter hears him and scoops him out of the water. And he grows up with Pharaoh and Moses’ sister, though, at the time, she runs and asks, ‘Can I get a Hebrew mother to breastfeed him?’ And, of course, goes and gets her own mum. It’s God’s great rescue plan for his people.

We worry about our children, and we have tendency as mothers to catastrophise, especially as we lay in bed at night. And we can do all we can to prepare and, you know, ensure our children are safe. But we can also think of Moses as a mum sending him down the river, trusting God with her precious boy.

Hannah: Faithful Trust and Surrender

Hannah, Samuel’s mother, is similar to Moses’s mother in the way she faithfully trusts God with her little boy. Soon after he’s weaned, she takes him to Eli at the temple to serve God. That’s worrying because Eli is generally a God‑fearing man, but his sons are wicked bully thugs—they sleep with the women who serve at the temple and steal meat from the offering. Yet Hannah is faithful to God, knowing that He’ll keep His promises, and she trusts Him. Samuel is later used powerfully by God as the last of the judges, all made possible by this early trust in God by his mother, Hannah.

Rahab’s Redemption: A Prostitute’s Legacy of Faith

I love that Rahab the prostitute is mother to arguably one of the most beautiful, gentle, wonderful men in the Old Testament—Boaz. Boaz had every opportunity to take advantage of Ruth when she lay at his feet and slipped under his blanket, but he didn’t. Boaz is the kind of man Christian parents today hold up to their daughters as the ideal husband. I saw this quote once: ‘While you’re waiting on your Boaz, don’t settle for any of his relatives— Dumb az, drunk az, cheap az, lazy az, broke az, “wait on your Boaz”. .’ And I’m sure Rahab knew all too well what it meant to be used and abused, yet God chose and redeemed her and brought her into His people. Her son’s character is still held up today as the model of a godly man.

Naomi: A Journey from Grief to Renewed Trust

Naomi shows us a broken life and grief following the death of her husband and her sons, and we see her blaming God. But we also see such a great transformation in her and a renewed trust in God. And we also see in Naomi a glimpse of her as mother‑in‑law. She’d clearly spoken to her daughters‑in‑law about God and modelled loving God and others. Her daughter‑in‑law, Ruth, follows her faithfully.

Naomi’s story reminds us that even in our deepest sorrow, God can bring restoration. Despite her loss and bitterness, Naomi’s faith is rekindled, and her influence as a spiritual mother draws Ruth into God’s family.

Samson’s Mum: Wrestling with Pride and Pain

Samson’s mum encourages me, because she and her husband are told by God that their baby would be used powerfully. But we feel for Samson’s mother, because he does go on to do dreadful things. He marries a Philistine woman from outside of God’s people; he sleeps with a prostitute; he falls in love with Delilah and is a fool for her over and over again. What would his mother have thought—how ashamed she must have felt of her son at times? But God does use Samson powerfully. What a hero, but well done. To Samson’s mum, she must have wondered how God was at work in her son.

Samson’s mother stands as a symbol of a mother’s hope and heartbreak. Though her son’s choices brought shame, she witnessed God’s sovereign plan unfold through his flawed life.

Lois and Eunice: Intentional Faith Across Generations

Lois and Eunice—Timothy’s mum and grandmother—Paul writes to Timothy and refers to his sincere faith, which first lived in his grandmother Lois and mother Eunice, and now lives in him. And we read also that Timothy knew the Scriptures from infancy because of their influence. What a challenge to us. How can we pass on our faith to our children and to young people in our church? Lois and Eunice remind us about being intentional, about maintaining our faith and about our children and grandchildren: prioritising church and youth group, finding ways to pray with them and pray for them, offering Bible resources and just hanging around with them, being a mentor or a godly influence on our young people’s lives, speaking blessing over them.

Lois and Eunice model the power of deliberate discipleship. Their faithfulness challenges us to invest in the next generation—through prayer, presence, and intentional mentoring—so that our children too may “know the Scriptures from infancy.

A Picture of Imperfect but Faithful Motherhood

What we see in all these women is that motherhood is complicated, messy, and filled with challenges, but it is also a divine calling. God uses imperfect mothers to fulfill His great purposes. Whether it’s Sarah’s trust in God’s timing, Hannah’s surrender, Rebecca’s difficult decisions, Rachel’s painful waiting, or Mary’s faithful obedience, each of these mothers plays a unique role in God’s story.

And so, I believe that motherhood, though imperfect, is a reflection of God’s grace. God doesn’t expect us to be perfect mothers, but He does call us to be faithful, trusting Him with our children, with our struggles, and with our lives.