day no. 16,279: love your neighbors near and far

"I do say, to start with, 'What can we do for posterity, except deal fairly with our contemporaries?' Unless a man love his wife whom he has seen, how shall he love his child whom he has not seen?" -- G.K. Chesterton, Eugenics and Other Evils

The best gift a man can give to his children is to love their mother. A man cannot love his children well by doting on them to the exclusion of their mother. He cannot love them by neglecting them for the sake of their mother. He loves them well by loving their mother well and them as an extension of their covenant. A good and godly man practices hospitality and this begins by being warm and welcoming to those God invites to your home through the intimacy of your marriage bed.

Hebrews 13:4

Let marriage be held in honor among all

You teach your children to honor their future marriage beds by honoring the one down the hall from their bedroom. You teach them hospitality by inviting brothers and sisters into their home to share their rooms, toys, attention, affection, and inheritance.

A man who ignores his immediacy despises his legacy. If he does not love his neighbor who is nearest, he cannot love his neighbors who are far off. If he does not give himself for the one in his bed, he will not give himself for the ones made in it.

Malachi 2:14–15

The Lord has been witness between you and the wife of your youth, with whom you have dealt treacherously; yet she is your companion and your wife by covenant. but did He not make them one, having a remnant of the Spirit? And why one? He seeks godly offspring. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously with the wife of his youth.

Why does God bring a man and woman together? That in becoming one they may become many. His desires is that oneness would lead to fruitfulness and fill the world with the grace and knowledge of the one God in whose image they are made.