My husband and I are starting the path of foster care and adoption. Growing up in foster care and kinship care, it is something I always knew I wanted to do. It was one of the first things we talked about when we started dating. And I knew he was “a keeper” when his response to this was agreement. But not all couples start out knowing they want to foster, adopt or even support other families. What we do know is that all are called. There are many bible verses about foster care and adoption. They show us God’s heart for vulnerable children and our call to care for them.
Before reading Bible verses about adoption and foster care, an important distinction needs to be made between the two. While both involve providing a home for children in need, adoption is considered a permanent, legal decision, while foster care is a temporary arrangement with the goal of reunification. While the following Bible verses are classified to each, they can still be applied to both.
Bible Verses About 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.
Psalm 68:5-6a
A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling. God sets the lonely in families...
Isaiah 1:17
Learn to do good; seek justice, reprove the ruthless, defend the orphans, plead for the widow.
Romans 8:15
For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!”
Ephesians 1:5
He predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will
Proverbs 23:10-11
Do not move the ancient boundary or go into the fields of the fatherless, for their Redeemer is strong; He will plead their case against you.
Psalm 82:3
Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed.
Deuteronomy 27:19
Cursed is he who distorts the justice due an alien, orphan, and widow. And all the people shall say, “Amen.”
Zechariah 7:10
And do not oppress the widow or the orphan, the stranger or the poor; and do not devise evil in your hearts against one another.
John 1:12
2 Corinthians 6:18
And I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty.
Galatians 4:4-7
But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.
Bible Verses About Foster Care
Matthew 18:5
Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me.
Psalm 68:6
God settles the solitary in a home; he leads out the prisoners to prosperity.
Galatians 6:2
Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.
Matthew 25:35
For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me.
Leviticus 19:34
You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.
Ephesians 2:19
So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.
Everyone Can Do Something
The call is clear. The good news is that everyone can do something! You may be called to foster. Or you may be called to adopt. Others will support foster or adoptive families. People will pray. Churches will serve. And all will be fulfilling scripture by caring for God’s children.
Additional Resource:
- Wait No More: A Focus program that provides free, biblically based information and resources for foster parents, kinship care, adoptive parents, wrap-around care, and more.
