WHERE THE FATHERS FIT IN

In the past three articles (see them below) we have been looking at how two different Greek cultures desired a perfection of their respective cultures:   Sparta for their physical bodies being  in a perfect a shape as possible for battle, which also included competition among themselves.  Athens on the other hand sought the perfection of their intellect or the arts.  We still see today Greek statues and architecture, both of which represent the standards of excellence in the human body and of their buildings.  In both cultures, we saw how they practiced infanticide, doing away with babies that appeared to be weak in any way which were not expected to meet the standards of their respective excellence.  In the case of Athens, babies were also seen as being in the way of their search for “the good life” they sought to lead.  
 

Homosexuality was also regarded as normal, especially in Sparta where men spent a good bit of their lives in the army. With few fathers at home, what children there were (who were kept alive; see the previous article) tended to be somewhat at war with their mothers as to who would run the household. Women had been raised to be competitive in Sparta, through wrestling and running races. The young boys were taught from the ages of seven to begin to live the hardening life of a soldier.  In short, the family was hardly a family at all. And the society was devoid of enough children to provide a thriving  second generation. It would appear that the parents never gave thought to how all that baby-killing and homosexuality would deplete the population sufficiently to jeopardize the very continuation of the culture they so tried to perfect or enjoy.  

Let’s shift now to how the Hebrew culture was dealing with their cultural and familial structure.  When God called Abraham, He chose him for this reason: “For I have known him, in order that he may command his children and his household after him, that they keep the way of the Lord, to do righteousness and justice, that the Lord may bring to Abraham what He has spoken to him” (Genesis 18:19).  For a people to become the strong nation that God called them to be, they would have to have a strong patriarchal society.  The fathers would be a parental mentor who would teach his children to honor God and to maintain a family of honor for one another in the ways God would teach them.  This in no way minimizes the role of the mother as Proverbs 31 reveals.  Israel would be a nation of God-honoring families.  

We can see this emphasis carried out even in Paul’s life when he exhorts Timothy to be sure that any man he puts into spiritual authority would be a man whose household is in spiritual order and his children are obedient to him and to God. If a man’s household is not in godly order, he would not be qualified to be a leader in the church. 

While children’s learning was accomplished mostly by the father, the family life did not center around the children. Though the children’s training was a major focus of the family life, part of the training included the children learning that life did not revolve around them.  They were to be respectful toward and obedient to their parents.  The family structure also assumes that the parents respected one another. In this way Hebrew parents laid a foundation of honor and respect for one another.  And a life of obedience to God in their respective roles.   The theory behind this is that it is much easier to submit to God when you are older when you learn it as children.  

In the Ten Commandments, the 5^th Commandment is to “Honor your mother and your father” which the sages and rabbis of old consider is one with the four commandments above it which are all about our relationship with God.  The following five regard relationships among people.  Honoring one’s parents has much to do with how you honor God.  To honor God, you will honor your parents. To dishonor your parents then is to dishonor God for the commandment is His. So that commandment is considered having to do with one’s relationship with God.  It is, then, a major factor in the foundation and stability of the culture. 

Back to Athens and Sparta, despite the diminished next generation, what young ‘uns there remained, there was a great expectation that they would carry a greater achievement than their parents did. They were the hope of the future. They would be stronger, or smarter, or more artistic, or more poetic…. They would succeed in greater measure than their parents had.   We see, of course, the unfortunate and frightening similarities between ancient Greece and America today.  Aside from the societal acceptance (and legalization) of both infanticide – we in America today don’t even allow the babies to be born before they are cruelly done away with – and homosexuality having to do with both sexes, one of the distinguishing marks of the 20^th and now the 21^st centuries is an exaltation of the youth.  Do we not all try to look younger? Do we not allow the ways of youth to dominate and dictate many aspects of our society?  One might ask of many of the families today, “Where are the fathers?” Or in some cases, the mothers are missing.  Part-time parents, or even parents living in the house but who are not intimately involved in the moral and cultural upbringing of the children are all abandoning the responsibility of raising the next generation well.  The media seems to have more involvement than the parents.

In Israel the hope of the future was not in the hands of the youth. It rested firmly on the shoulders of the fathers as heads of the households as well as the elders of the community.  The elders did not look to the youth for wisdom, nor did the youth look to their peers for wisdom or understanding. They looked to their parents – because the hope of the future was in the adults! 

As it has been said, “As went the fathers, so went the nation!”  If a child was to enter into wisdom and blessings, it was the fathers who would lead them there.  He was the real hope of the future.  What does that say about our single parent families today?  Israel was definitely an elder-oriented society.  There was no exalting of the child or elevating the youth. Rather the elders were looked to and revered for their wisdom.  In striking contrast is Athens which treated aging persons unkindly, as they feared and mourned old age, of growing older.  Is there any similarity in America? Why do we all try to look younger? What does that say about our culture?  Who carries more of our cultural values, our elders or our youth? Which generation is defining our values? 

The individual Hebrew family is part of something much larger than itself – a community with a common history and mutually shared values.  Hebrew children, as well as their parents, were constantly reminded of their common unity, through Shabbat, and the six moedim, holy days that are celebrated every year that consisted of feasts and festivals and other remembrances.  Coming together for all these as well as a public readings of Scripture reminded them of their history and the place God of God in their lives. They maintained an awareness of who they are and where they came from which was regularly imparted to young minds.  To use the previously quoted statement another way, “So goes the family, so goes the world.”  While Sparta was all about capturing other city-states, the Hebrews were concerned about a person’s inner character. They would be more concerned with this:  A man or woman, a boy or girl with self control in his or her life is a person who can control his own self and is stronger than one who captures an entire city.  (Proverbs 16:32).

The ultimate center of Israel was not the king, or the elders at the gate, or the priests in the temple, and not even the fathers. But it is the living God to whom they were all equally accountable – young and old, parent and children, common man or monarch. It was on God they were to focus their love and service. The results speak for themselves in so many different ways. 

The question presents itself in light of all this information. What does the church have to learn from her Hebrew roots? Has the church strayed away into more of a Greek mindset?  Are we more focused on looking good on the outside, as the Greeks did, or are we entirely absorbed with the kind of persons we are becoming on the inside, in our characters, integrity, values and in the things that our hearts are focused on.   

 We have been told that we, who are truly the Lord’s, are to be continually  conformed(reformed) into the likeness of Yeshua who was the perfect Hebrew Man.   

 Perhaps the Lord is making known more of what Hebrew culture is in order that it would have influence on His people elsewhere. After all, He has made us to be “one new man” – really “one new culture,” the foundation for which was that which Yeshua embodied for us as it should be lived.