restoration of Israel – 11:3 Restoration

New Infographics page!

We have a new infographics page for meaty shareable illustrations related to headship, marriage, and authority structure.

As we add graphics, feel free to peruse it an share!

Here’s our first piece, more in the pipeline….

Polygyny as a means of restoring kol Israel??

Selah!

Practical Patriarchy: Making Men (Pics)

Boys do not become men in a vacuum. Culturally, the expectation is that boys become men by virtue of age or osmosis, however such is not the case. Manhood requires intentionality.

What a weekend!!

The men in the home fellowship I help lead have been discussing masculinity and manhood, so we decided to take our sons on a weekend hiking trip in a wilderness area with a very challenging day hike planned for Saturday. We bit off a very rewarding mouth full and came home exhausted, but having learned a great deal.

Boys do not become men in a vacuum. Culturally, the expectation is that boys become men by virtue of age or osmosis, however such is not the case. Raising men, particularly Godly men, requires intentionality. I could spend a whole series of posts on this aspect alone, but I want to share a bit about steps the men in our fellowship have assumed for our sons.

Marxist Feminism and Weak Men

Until yesterday morning, I’m not sure I would have connected the terms ‘Marxist’ and ‘Feminism,’ but I’ll never make that mistake again!!

Thanks to a GREAT recommendation by The Transformed Wife, I heard Eric Conn’s Hard Men Podcast titled ‘Against Complementarianism.’ This may be the best investment of 39 minutes I have made in the last year!

Eric had my attention from the very beginning when he mentioned, negatively, John Piper and Wayne Grudem’s Recovering Biblical Manhood & Womanhood, A Response to Evangelical Feminism. I began reading the book a year or two ago as part of my study of Biblical manhood, but I never could quite connect with their position. Something was inherently wrong, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

Shame, Reproach and the Image of Marriage

Honor and shame are concepts almost completely lost on western culture. We watch memes, gifs and video clips of foibles and disasters that befall others and consider it humorous to mock and laugh at their misfortune. We even encourage and rejoice in the sin and shame inducing behavior of others while entirely ignoring our own reproach for things Scripture considers abhorrent. Our culture ignores widows and orphans, glorifies divorce, practices all manner of sexual deviance, encourages abortion and we are generally irresponsible toward all but self.

In fact, like a man with no sense of smell, we have become a people entirely unaware of our own stench or that of those around us. Like pigs, we wallow in our filth and think it okay, maybe even funny. We glorify our stench.

As I have been studying Scripture regarding the two houses of Israel, God’s relationship with each house and His use of the relationship between man and woman to image Himself and His people, I have become increasingly aware of how very wretched we are on so many levels, and, how wrong is our theology.

One of the deep concepts that God refers to over and over is that of shame and reproach, so I had to begin to search out why God uses this concept and what we need to understand in both the spiritual and the physical dimension. Foundationally, there are several basic concepts that must be understood. If these are new to you, I recommend reading and processing the links to gain understanding and insight.

The Global Fertility Crash

Two or three evenings ago, my eldest son read some information to me regarding the growing global fertility crisis. He is working on his Masters level degree as a Nurse Practitioner and is immersed in all things health related, so his interest being peaked by a report on fertility rates crashing was no surprise.

We had an excellent discussion about the relationship between the fertility rate and the rate at which women embrace the God-ordained role of bearing children and caring for the home instead of pursuing education and careers. I further explained that reversing this and walking according to Scripture in the whole area of patriarchy, family structure and marriage is imperative for the restoration of kol Israel. (Did I mention this blog has a whole series on the subject?)

Restoring Kol Israel: ‘Bene Israel’ and Headship

A week ago, in our post titled Restoring Kol Israel: No more male or female?, we made a huge statement that many may have glossed over. Because it is so monumental, we need to go back and parse it with implications spelled out. Here is the quote:

To be clear, Yah is delivering these commands through Moses to the men of the households and it’s the man’s responsibility to teach them and discern correct application for his women.
Se e post

As demonstrated earlier in the cited post, the Torah commands, over and over, as given by YHVH to Moshe, are specifically addressed to the men. While this understanding is not in conflict with most of Orthodox Judaism, it is a decided cut against the western egalitarianism and feminism that has overrun the church.

To review a couple things very quickly, our heart’s desire is to see kol Israel, all 12 (13) tribes restored. That cannot happen unless the most basic building block is restored. That building block is the man and, if he has one, his family. Call it what you will, manhood, masculinity, patriarchy, etc, the simple fact is that the structure of a nation cannot be assembled from broken or improperly functioning family building blocks. The basis of the entire structure that Yah designed and implemented is focused on the man leading his family. It began in Gan Eden with Adam and Chava.

“Greater Israel” explosive Topic!

Recently, while reading comments from an occasional commenter on my blog, I saw a link to a website with an intriguing name: “The Greater Israel” Immediately, I was intrigued and went to peruse the site. The first and, unfortunately, only post correctly identifies the topic of ‘Greater Israel’ as “explosive.”

A map of Greater Israel according to the promises of God to Abraham and the twelve tribes of Israel.

Indeed, this is a topic that sets the teeth of many, and I do mean MANY, on edge. But, why? It is another Biblical and truthful topic that is an inconvenient truth. This just happens to offend a different crowd than I am used to offending… Still, it must be dealt with.

Israel is and will be much, much bigger than the little sliver of land that Judah currently occupies and this should excite us. It means that in the future, there will be room for us and the hundreds of millions more who will latch onto the tzitzit of Continue reading ““Greater Israel” explosive Topic!”