Children Are Arrows | Psalm 127 (Part 3)

“We all love the fact that children are a blast, and nobody should mind the fact that we love it. But this psalm is not about the patter of little feet around the house. This is not about your Christmas photo album. The ancient world, when they went to war, had a clearer view of what was at stake than do we. A kindergarten class is a packet of warrior seeds. A quiver holds arrows... The blessed man who has children in his youth is a man who has grown children when he is still active and in the fray. But here is the difference between faith and presumption. Children are not an 'automatic' blessing. Samuel would not have been more greatly blessed if he had five sons who took bribes instead of two sons who did (1 Samuel 8:3)... The city council of an ancient city was found in their gates. It is where their elders sat. It is where decisions were made, and where transactions were conducted. If a showdown occurred, that is where it would occur. So there are two things to note about this. The first is that a man is contending with his enemies in the gate, and his sons are there with him. His sons are present in the gates when this happens, and (this is important), they are on their father’s side. He has not brought up soldiers for the enemy. The second thing is that these are not foreign enemies, besieging the city from outside, but rather domestic adversaries, belonging to the opposition. A righteous man, together with his arrows, stands against all enemies, foreign and domestic. The issue is righteousness, not party, or tribe, or nation. And a blessed father brings his children along with him in their shared loyalty to truth and righteousness. The glue that holds such families together is [a shared allegiance to Christ]. This is fundamental. Every attempt to get families, or nations, or churches to hold together apart from Christ (Colossians 1:18) is idolatry. And according to our psalm, it is also vain.” -Doug Wilson