Generational Wealth: The Foundation
A Response to GVS
GVS has started what I hope will be an interesting series on generational wealth. In it he proposes a list of three different forms of generational wealth. However, in his opening paragraph, he proposes a fourth form of generational wealth, and that is what I would like to address in this post.
The fourth form of generational wealth is actually the first form, namely children. Or better marriage and children, or better a godly marriage with a quiver-full of children.
It should go without saying, but unfortunately, it doesn't, that in order to have generational wealth, you have to have generations. And it should go without saying, but definitely doesn't, that the most important parts of generational wealth are the generations themselves.
And Abram said, Lord GOD, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless, and the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus?
And Abram said, Behold, to me thou hast given no seed: and, lo, one born in my house is mine heir.
Genesis 15:2-3
Our modern society. Including, unfortunately, the church places marriage and children almost at the bottom of its list of priorities. We live in one of the most anti-marriage, anti-family, and anti-children ages in all of history and yet we have pastors preaching sermons about making marriage and family an idol. We have a pretty, intelligent, supposedly Christian women writing long blog posts about how unwelcome they feel at their church because they aren’t married.
And almost nothing is being done about this. The most conservative, the most reformed, and the most theoretically family-friendly pastors and churches still cling to false and unbiblical ideas of courtship that have left the church bereft of marriages.
But coming down from that screed I would encourage my readers to look back at the Scriptures and to see how many times and in what way, God lists the concept of generational blessing as first and foremost being the production of lots of children. Nations worth of children
.Let us turn to passages that must be utterly mystifying to modern Christians let us look at the blessing that God gives to Abraham concerning Ishmael.
And God said unto Abraham, As for Sarai thy wife, thou shalt not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall her name be. And I will bless her, and give thee a son also of her: yea, I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of people shall be of her.
Then Abraham fell upon his face, and laughed, and said in his heart, Shall a child be born unto him that is an hundred years old? and shall Sarah, that is ninety years old, bear?
And Abraham said unto God, O that Ishmael might live before thee!
And God said, Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed; and thou shalt call his name Isaac: and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him.
And as for Ishmael, I have heard thee: Behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly; twelve princes shall he beget, and I will make him a great nation. But my covenant will I establish with Isaac, which Sarah shall bear unto thee at this set time in the next year.
Genesis 17:15-21
Here's a conundrum for you. Abraham has just been given a blessing: the promise of a son of the covenant, a son from his faithful and loving wife… and he insists on turning the conversation back to Ishmael. Ishmael, the son that he got by sleeping with his wife's maidservant. Not the son of the covenant, not the son through which Christ would come.
And the conundrum deepens because God answers. He does not rebuke Abraham. He does not condemn the polygamist or adulterous relationship with ‘that woman Hagar’.
He answers Abraham with the blessing on Ishmael. And not a blessing of his health, wealth, happiness, and a big house in the suburbs. But a blessing that from the loins of Ishmael, a nation would come. God says he will make him fruitful and multiply him exceedingly.
Generational inheritance is an incredibly important concept. Much needs to be said and written about good economic management, proper use of land, and faithful and consistent teaching and training of the household. But we must not forget the generations begin with marriage and children. If the choice ever comes between having another child and having another acre of land, or 10,000 acres, we need to remember that there is no choice.
Our culture's minimization of childbearing as an aspiration and an occupation will ultimately be, I think, our biggest civilizational flaw. It's one which we've exported around the world. A country which could maintain our political emphasis on individual liberty and the dynamism of markets while celebrating and incentivizing family-formation and child-rearing would be a formidable country indeed.