I have been noting with interest, as I read
through the Bible this year, what the Lord has to say about a father’s
authority in his family. I am only in Genesis, so I have a ways to go,
LOL. But so far:
Adam was the first husbandman. He was called to this responsibility
before the Fall as well as after it, and as the first husband and
father, he sets the pattern for the rest of the husbands and fathers.
“Husbandman” is a very interesting word, not in use much these days, but
both of Adam’s roles as keeper of the garden and husband to Eve (thus
head of his family) are embodied in its meaning:
Husbandman. A farmer; a cultivator or tiller of the
ground; one who labors in tillage. A husbandman is also the master of a
family.
Cultivate. To nurture, to feed and protect, to
improve and advance the growth of, to refine by correction of faults, and
enlargement of good, to cherish, to foster, to promote, to increase, to civilize.
– Webster’s 1828 Dictionary
In other words, the husbandman cultivates both the ground, and his
family. His job is to nurture life and growth, and to deter the curse
and death, in both his crops, and his wife and children. This is the
first biblical picture of a husband and father, and his authority
delegated by God cannot be divorced from or even contradictory to his
calling as husbandman.
Then today I read this of Abraham:
“For I have chosen him, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD.” Genesis 18:19
Abraham
lived in a time when the whole world, it seemed, had gone after false
gods to serve them. And God says of Abraham, that he was chosen as His
covenant partner, since he would command his children and his
household to keep the way of the Lord. That word “command” is not a
very popular one in today’s society. It means just what you think it
means, to give commands and issue orders, in the Hebrew. To rule.
This brings to mind another statement by a husband and father in the Old Testament:
“And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the
LORD, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your
fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the
Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will
serve the LORD.” Joshua 24:15
This is very un-pc. Aren’t children supposed to be raised with an open
mind, and when they are old enough, chose for themselves what is the
best morality and religion? Freedom of worship, right? God apparently
didn’t think so. We know a Christian homeschooling family where the
father felt it was wrong to “impose” his religion on his children, so
when the children became old enough to walk in their own ways, and not
in the Lord’s ways or the father’s ways, for that matter, he did not
command them otherwise. Most of those children are not serving the
Lord today, and there is one child, in particular, who has, at age 18,
absolutely ruined their life already, because of walking in his own
ways.
Authority is a blessing, not a curse. Let us put that myth to rest. Of
course, God does not condone abuse. God opens the human story with the
picture of the husbandman, remember, who nurtures life and growth. But
commanding his children after him is an act of sacrificial love, of
lifelong blessing, not tyranny. Just felt someone had to say that.
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