Over the last couple of years, I’ve become a casual fan of the old TV show “Bonanza.” A few years ago I ran across one of those DVD specials at Wal-Mart where I picked up a box set of 30 episodes of Bonanza for $5, and now every so often when I want to relax, I’ll put on an episode and get lost on the Ponderosa.
One thing you can always count on when you watch an episode of “Bonanza” is that no matter what kind of fights the Cartwrights have with each other during the course of the show, they will always be fighting for each other by the end. Ben and his sons has their disagreements, but they could always count on each other in a gun fight, or when the cattle got loose. They always pulled together to protect each other and to help each other out.
I think that aspect of “Bonanza” captures what King Solomon was trying to say in Psalm 127. In this Psalm, he describes how children are a precious gift that God gives for the success and protection of the family [READ Psalm 127].
Now at first glance, this psalm appears to have two halves that have very little to do with each other. Solomon starts out the psalm talking about building a house and guarding a city, and then he wraps it up by talking about children. How does all of this fit together?
Well, to put it simply, we can trace the main idea like this: Solomon starts out by talking about the necessity of God’s blessing for our well-being and protection. Then, in the last part of the psalm, Solomon states that children are one such blessing that the Lord gives for the well-being and protection of the family.
He begins talking about the blessing of children in v. 3 when he writes [READ v. 3]. Then in vv. 4–5, he gives a simile and an illustration of how children provide protection for the family. In verse 4 we find the simile—he writes [READ v. 4]. Here he pictures children as being a weapon of defense for their parents. We have to keep in mind that Solomon was writing in a time in which there was no Social Security or Medicare, there were no retirement communities or anything like that. So who would take care of people in their old age to make sure that they were cared for and not taken advantage of? Their children would—and of course we still see a lot of that today, even if the circumstances are a little different.
Then Solomon goes on in v. 5 to offer an illustration of how that protection might play out. He continues the archery imagery in the first part of the verse as he writes [READ v. 5] Now what is he talking about with the “gate” here? Well at that time, cities were all built with walls around them for protection against invasion, and there was a main gate in the wall where people could enter and exit the city. That meant that the gate was a high-traffic area; it was a public place, and because of that, in most towns legal proceedings and court cases were held in an area right by the city gate so that they would be open to the public.
So what Solomon is talking about here is a situation where the family has some kind of legal dispute with some enemies, and it seems that what Solomon is saying is that the family can band together to see to it that they don’t become the victims of injustice. He may again be thinking of parents in their old age—elderly people could have been taken advantage of if they were all alone, but their children could ensure that they received justice.
Overall, I think we can take a lesson from this psalm that we desperately need to hear in our society today, and the lesson is simply this—children are a blessing, not a burden. Ever since the sexual revolution of the 1960’s and the legalization of abortion in 1973, children have been increasingly viewed as something of an optional accessory in life, which we can take or leave according to our whim. Our society has correctly observed that raising children requires parents to make personal sacrifices, but rather than affirm the inherent goodness of those sacrifices, people have increasingly concluded that such sacrifices are a burden, and our birthrate has plummeted accordingly.
But Christians must never view children as a burden when the Bible so clearly calls them a blessing. Let me briefly spell out a few of the implications of the Bible’s view of children.
First, I think this tells us that every Christian couple should desire to have children. When two Christians get married, there should be no question about whether or not they will try to have children. Now we know that God, for His own reasons, does not always allow that to happen, but that should be the desire of every Christian couple.
Second, we should never downplay the importance of our role as parents. God has made us caretakers of His blessings, and we should take that very seriously. That means we should never shove our kids into second or third place behind our careers or our personal hobbies or anything else. We need to place our role as parents ahead of those things. Dads, we shouldn’t think that raising children is “women’s work” and thus neglect our responsibilities. Moms, you shouldn’t think that dads are optional either, like many people sadly seem to think today. Nor should we as Christians ever be guilty of suggesting that a stay-at-home mom isn’t really doing anything important. We need to elevate our role as parents to a position of primary importance in our lives.
Third, we as Christians should be at the forefront of protecting and caring for all children—including the unborn and the orphan. This has been a hallmark of Christianity since its earliest days. Who do you think have been the first to build orphanages in countries around the world? Who do you think cares for AIDS orphans in Africa and children in China who have been abandoned because of that country’s policies? Christians have always made this a priority, and we must keep that alive. This means that we need to stand up for the lives of unborn children and live in compassion toward the needy children around us. We need to be supportive of families in our church who might adopt children, and in all honestly this probably means that many of us should consider adoption as a way to express God’s love for orphans.
Children are a blessing, not a burden, and that lesson should influence every aspect of the way that we think about children in this world—from desiring to have our own to loving those whom no one else wants. Let’s ask God to help us love these little blessings that He sends into our world.
No comments:
Post a Comment