Then I said to them, “You see the trouble we are in, how Jerusalem lies in ruins with its gates burned. Come, let us build the wall of Jerusalem, that we may no longer suffer derision.” And I told them of the hand of my God that had been upon me for good, and also of the words that the king had spoken to me. And they said, “Let us rise up and build.” So they strengthened their hands for the good work.

-Nehemiah 2:17-18, ESV

After two centuries of feminism and various other -isms, the Western nuclear family is in shambles—in society and in the church.  As a result, many have given up on the concept of marriage, but the Cultural Mandate still stands, so we need to figure out how to raise up a new generation to restore the nuclear family to its rightful place at the center of society.  The burden of accomplishing this will fall on men—and as a single man that includes me—men who just as in Nehemiah’s day must rise up and build.

The Abysmal State of Modern Relationships

By the time Nehemiah arrived at Jerusalem, the Second Temple was completebut the city was still largely in ruins, so he had to convince people who had just rebuilt the Temple to rebuild the wall.  He started by pointing out their plight, so we must begin by acknowledging ours.  The family has likewise been assaulted on many fronts and has many breaches.  For millennia, the pattern basically aligned with the biblical family order: husbands worked outside the home to provide for their families and wives worked inside the home to raise their families.  But since World War II, a large percentage of women have worked outside the home, which has left much of the work of raising their children to daycares and public schools.  At the same time, the sexual revolution took that which was held in honor within the marriage bed and made it available to all without shame.  When combined with the exaltation of the career woman over the homemaker, this relegated children to a lifestyle choice, and when they were unwanted they could be easily discarded through abortion. Then, no-fault divorce began to rip marriages apart, and welfare incentivized single parenting.  Marriage was further cheapened by the advent of so-called “gay marriage”.  All the while, the distinction between men and women was weakened by egalitarianism then transgenderism.  This has been devastating for everyone, but especially men.  The feminine has been glorified and the masculine vilified, so men who do not fit the effeminate mold are demonized as toxic.[1]

For those who do desire marriage, getting there has become increasingly difficult.  Despite the breakdown of gender distinction in society, in dating men are still expected to initiate.  With online dating that means men send numerous messages without response and women are overwhelmed by those messages.   Dating relationships also get very expensive.  By one estimate, the first year of a long-term relationship costs the average man over $9,000.   For many men, relationships are simply not worth the investment, so they are opting out altogether.  And it is even worse in the church.  In society, feminists are starting to realize how they have been deceived and long for a more fulfilling “traditional” life.  Yet many churches are still clinging to feminism, having adopted the culture’s exaltation of the feminine.  They participate in man-shaming while never dreaming of confronting feminine sins like disrespect and nagging.  When it comes to relationships, many churches either go along with the world or hold onto purity culture.  While purity culture is admirable in seeking to restore sex to its rightful place within the confines of marriage, in practice it leaves people with no clear path to get to marriage.[2]  In an effort to protect purity, men and women never intermingle or show interest in one another at all—for that would lead to temptation and favoritism.  Women were told to simply wait for God to bring the right man, so they have waited…and waited, and waited.  But those men are not coming, in part because they do not know how.  One pastor described how most churches teach men by quoting Colossians 2:21: “Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch”.  So we have churches with single men and women longing to be married, unaware of each other and with no clear path to getting married.

It is as if the modern relationship landscape is a massive canyon separating men and women.  In the past, there were clear paths through this canyon.  Parents would guide their sons along those paths, while other parents would point out to their daughters worthy men making the trek.  But all of those paths are now overgrown, and very few parents remain who can act as guides.  Even if a man can hack his way through, it is fraught with peril.  In the past, the worst that could happen to a man was rejection, but being accused of harassment is now a real possibility, which could lead to ruin as men accused by women are often presumed guilty.  Men who are able to cross the canyon and get married must be wary of another danger: falling off the cliff of divorce.  The family court system stacked heavily against men leaves them financially ruined, humiliated, emasculated, vilified, and often with little access to their children.  It is no wonder then that divorced men commit suicide nine times more than divorced women.  For many men, the risks far outweigh any potential reward.  They instead align with the “red pill” narrative that identifies these problems but advocates abandoning marriage until the laws can change to incentivize men to marry again.  For the Christian, this is not an option, since we must build the Kingdom.  God builds His Kingdom mostly through families, which means those families need to exist.  Therefore, we have to find a way to fix this wall.

Let Us Rise: Pastors and Churches

Upon hearing Nehemiah’s plan and God’s providence, the people did not hesitate but committed to the project.  They took on the challenge despite knowing that it would be a massive endeavor with much opposition.  Nehemiah 3 then lists them by name along with the particular portion of the wall that each repaired.  Rebuilding the family will similarly require individual men and churches to rise up and take on the challenge.  This starts with taking responsibility.  While many of our current woes bear the bloody fingerprints of feminism, we must remember that feminism stems from and cannot exist without male abdication.  Male dominance is either constructive or destructive, but it is inescapable—and passive dominance by abdication is just as oppressive and abusive as domineering and violence.  Women are oppressed in our society because men have abdicated, choosing to be passive and lazy like Adam rather than to lead, protect, and provide.  This has forced burdens upon women that they were not created to bear, making them exhausted and frustrated. The only fix is healthy masculinity that takes responsibility and leads without domineering or abdication.  Male abdication got us into this mess, so male initiative is required to get us out. 

Modern dating is so irreconcilably broken that I see no way to build godly families on the scale required apart from significant and intentional effort in local churches, so pastors will have to take on the challenge of helping single people marry and start families.  While there is great value in godly parents and matchmakers, much of the burden will still fall on pastors.  We saw here and herethat good pastors are busy, but this is so vital to the Kingdom that it is worth adding to their plates.  As we discussed with singleness in the church, pastors should work with individual singles to gauge their desire for marriage and then help them to pursue it if desired.  This begins with a commitment to robust and comprehensive teaching on marriage, family, and biblical manhood and womanhood.  Feminism has so thoroughly infected people that it will take a substantial amount of instruction and discipleship for men and women to become biblically masculine and feminine respectively, but the focus will need to be on the men.  Pastors should focus on facilitating deep relationships between more mature and less mature men, which will be vital in preparing the latter for marriage. 

In order to be ready for marriage, a man should have his mission figured outsince that will dictate the kind of woman who would be his most suitable helper.  He also needs to be ready to take on the roles of head, provider, protector, and pastor of a family.  A man must also conquer any habit of pornography or other sexual immorality before he can even consider marriage.  The standard here is not perfection but a track record of fighting hard and experiencing victory. Some may argue that struggling with sexual temptation is all the more reason to marry.  After all, it is better to marry than burn with passion (1 Corinthians 7:9), but uncontrolled desires will destroy a marriage.  Scripture describes the wife as a well or cistern to be carefully plumbed with effort at the proper time for mutual benefit (Proverbs 5:15-23) not a faucet for her husband to abuse by selfishly turn on every time he is sexually thirsty. Instead, Paul exhorts men: “For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God” (1 Thessalonians 4:3-5).  If a man cannot control his body, he is not ready for marriage.[3]  All of this means that there are many men in our churches who are not ready for marriage.  Therefore, another crucial role of pastors and other mature men is to prevent immature men from pursuing romantic relationships with single women in their churches.  They should thoroughly vet any interested man before he is allowed contact with the woman, especially is she lacks a father nearby or has experienced abuse.  Any man who will not gladly subject himself to this type of vetting is not ready for marriage.  But for men who are ready for marriage, pastors should encourage and aid them in that pursuit.

Let Us Rise: Men

Ultimately, fixing the family hinges on men rising up and becoming heads of households, committing to take on the challenge of building a family.  Since divorce laws are unlikely to change anytime soon, men will have to marry despite that risk.  Fortunately, that risk is much lower than many assume.  Just as with theology, regular church attendance is a protective factor, reducing the chance of divorce by up to 50%.  Regularly praying together reduces the chance of divorce to less than 0.1%.[4]  The couple that prays together really does stay together.  If a man is prepared to say with Joshua “as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD” (Joshua 24:15), there is no reason this residual risk of divorce should dissuade him from marriage to a godly woman.  Still, men will most likely have to take on the challenge of complicated relationships.  God may call a man to marry a single mother, a widow, or a woman who has a history of relationship trauma and abuse, promiscuity before salvation, or a significant illness or disability.  Many wonderful, godly women fit these descriptions but would be excellent wives.  God often calls His people to do very difficult things, so we should not expect Him to call us into easy marriages.

Both instances when God told men to marry specific women were difficult situations.  When the angel told Joseph to proceed with his marriage to Mary, he knew how scandalous the virgin birth would appear.  God was essentially calling Joseph to marry a single mother and raise a child not biologically his.  Yet he saw past this to the righteous and worthy woman that Mary was, and he likewise trusted God.  God also thrust Hosea into scandal by telling him to marry an adulteress (Hosea 1:2-3).  His wife Gomer may have had illegitimate children before marriage, or perhaps she only became an adulteress and bore illegitimate children within marriage, or promiscuity was so prevalent that every woman was essentially an adulteress.  It has even been suggested that the entire story was a vision.[5]  I favor an interpretation where Gomer was a real woman that Hosea actually married, whose adultery within marriage was so rampant that she ultimately became the property of another man.  God then tells Hosea to buy her back, which he does for fifteen shekels and a supply of barley (Hosea 3:1-2).  A slave was normally thirty shekels (Exodus 21:32), so perhaps the barley made up the difference or served as her meager rations while she dwelt in his forgiveness and care but before full reconciliation (Hosea 3:3).  Regardless, the price was low to reflect how Israel had pursued worthless idols and thereby become worthless.  Perhaps another reason for the barley was that Hosea could not afford the full price in money, demonstrating that he redeemed Gomer at great cost to himself.  Both of these stories demonstrate how God sometimes calls men into very difficult marriages.

Another man who faced a difficult marriage situation was Boaz.  Since we idealize the story, we can easily forget the challenges he faced by marrying Moabite widow Ruth.  No descendant of a Moabite could enter into the assembly of God (Deuteronomy 23:3), so the would-be redeemer had a valid concern when he declined because his own inheritance would be impaired (Ruth 4:6).  Plus, when Boaz married Ruth he also took on the responsibility of caring for her mother-in-law.  But as a descendant of Rahab—a foreigner who by faith joined the people of God—Boaz understood that Ruth was a true Israelite by faith, so his descendants by her would not be excluded from God’s people.  He looked past Ruth’s external status to see a worthy and hard-working woman who with proper provision and protection from a worthy man could exemplify the Proverbs 31 wife.  The would-be redeemer couldn’t see past the externals, so I imagine both he and Boaz left the deal smiling.  The would-be redeemer thought he had dodged a bullet, while Boaz knew he had just acquired a priceless pearl.  The would-be redeemer protected his inheritance, but his name and descendants are lost to history, while from Boaz and Ruth came David and ultimately Jesus.  God blessed Boaz because he saw past the external and took on the challenge.  The state of the Kingdom in our day will require many men to take on similar challenges.

In conclusion, the state of the family in the West is dismal but not hopeless.  The need of the hour is for men to rise up and take on the challenge of building families.  And as a single man, I am speaking as much to myself as anyone else.  There will be opposition both inside and outside the church—after all Nehemiah’s primary enemies were related to the Jews (Nehemiah 13:4,28), but the future of the Kingdom in many ways depends on this.  If we fail, it will set back Kingdom building for at least a generation, but if we succeed we may reverse the trend and get well on our way to restoring the family to its rightful place in the church and in society—and that is a worthy endeavor.  So men, let us rise up and build the next generation!

NOTES:

[1] See also: George Gilder, Men and Marriage, Moscow, ID: Canon Press: 2023 (orig. 1986); Michael Foster and Dominic Bnonn Tennant, It’s Good to Be a Man: A Handbook for Godly Masculinity, Moscow, ID: Canon Press: 2021; Rebecca Merkle, Eve in Exile: The Restoration of Femininity, Moscow, ID: Canon Press: 2016; Joe Rigney, Leadership and Emotional Sabotage: Resisting the Anxiety That Will Wreck Your Family, Destroy Your Church, and Ruin the World, Moscow, ID: Canon Press: 2024.

[2] Some books give a good path to marriage, but are predicated on existing godly families and geared toward young people:

• Douglas Wilson, Her Hand in Marriage: Biblical Courtship in the Modern World, Moscow, ID: Canon Press: 1997.

• Douglas Wilson, Get the Girl: How to be the Kind of Man the Kind of Woman You Want to Marry Would Want to Marry, Moscow, ID: Canon Press: 2022. 

• Douglas Wilson, Get the Guy: How to Be the Kind of Woman the Kind of Man You Want to Marry Would Want to Marry, Moscow, ID: Canon Press: 2023.

[3] Douglas Wilson, Fidelity: How to Be a One-Woman Man, Moscow, ID: Canon Press: 2012.

[4] Ellison, C. G., Burdette, A. M. and Bradford Wilcox, W. (2010), “The Couple That Prays Together: Race and Ethnicity, Religion, and Relationship Quality Among Working‐Age Adults”. Journal of Marriage and Family, 72: 963–975.

[5] Commentaries consulted: Matthew Henry’s Unabridged Commentary; Sir William R. Nicoll’s Expositor’s Bible Commentary; The Complete Bible Commentary Collection of John Calvin; Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown Commentary; ESV Study Bible Notes; MacArthur Study Bible Notes;  Reformation Study Bible Notes