Thread by @sometimesalight

Yesterday I had a couple threads on link btwn men & family & how modern western culture works against male flourishing by enabling natural inclination toward individualism

For those coming from a theological frame or Christian ethic, this link is all through the Scripture, starting as early as Creation Mandate in Gen 1 that inseperably links family & dominion.

BUT by far, one of my favorite texts on this subject is Nehemiah 4:14 : biblegateway.com/passage/?searc…

"After I looked things over, I stood up and said to the nobles, the officials and the rest of the people, 'Don’t be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your families, your sons and your daughters, your wives and your homes.'”

Nehemiah calls the Israelite men to greatness by calling them to remember the greatness of God and to fight FOR their families.

What's fascinating about this text is that it assumes

1) Male power & position in society is distinct
2) Men are sometimes afraid
3) Men need awareness of God's might to become courageous
4) Men need something to fight FOR

When a society does not hold men to the familial responsbilities associated with sex, it strips them of a fundamental motivation for personal growth & work. It works against their flourishing.

Sure, we should all just want to be better people & we should all just lean into our callings & be productive, etc. But we are not that strong. Often, we need external support (structure, pressure) to better ourselves.

IOW, we all need people to work for. Biological/legal family provides a natural community to work for. We love them so of all people they'll be the most likely ones who can call sacrifice from us. But...

Even saying this, we have to acknowledge the decimation of the western family. We must also acknowledge how we've neutered it, restricting it to a place of consumption & limiting it to the nuclear family.

That's the world many of us live in. Family is too often a place of pain, loss, confusion, disappointment, & neglect.

Those who long for marriage & children find few eligible partners, not simply b/c there are not enough uncoupled individuals, but b/c fewer & fewer of us believe in & are committed to the hard work of creating family.

So this is the world we live in, but it is not the world as it is meant to be. We were made for deep commitment to other image bearers over the course of generations. We must remember this.

We must also remember family is larger than nuclear family. It includes biological/legal family but it's not boundaried by it. Home is starting point of our commitments to others, whether we find ourselves as daughters, sons, aunts, uncles, husbands, wives, sisters, or brothers.

Anyway, all that to say, family is worth fighting for. But not some artificial vision of family that enables & coddles us, that lets us remain as we are. We need a vision of family that calls us to greatness through sacrifice, faithfulness, & selfless love.