PART 1: SIMPLIFYING THE TERM "POSTERITY"

#pastorbiodunsoretire

The word POSTERITY should not sound big or strange. Let's quickly demystify it by consulting the renowned American educationist, Noah Webster, who believed the Bible should be the foundation for learning. In his 1828's dictionary, the first ever American English Dictionary to be published, he wrote,

POSTER'ITY, n. [L. posteritas, from posterus, from post, after.]

 1. Descendants; children, children's children, etc. indefinitely; the race that proceeds from a progenitor. The whole human race are the posterity of Adam.

So, posterity does not only include your children but your children's children, on and on. I can safely say the sense of posterity picks it up where the direct definition of children stops. No wonder the Bible's definition of a good father has more of posterity in view:

A good [man] leaveth an inheritance to his children's children: Prov.13:22

That is, you are not yet a good man, according to heaven's rating, if the good and godly inheritance you leave ends with or is exhausted by your first generation children. I love another Proverb's comparison between children and children's children:

Children's children [are] the crown of old men; and the glory of children [are] their fathers. Prov.17:6

Let me take some liberty to do a paraphrase: your children celebrating you is good, but it should not get into your head until you can see that they are "crowning" your efforts by transmitting the same virtues and values you put in them into their own children. That makes you a man with posterity in view.

And even when you have succeeded over your children's children, posterity has just begun. Don't forget Webster's definition, "indefinitely." 

Our concern in this study should therefore be how can we do it that our posterity will constantly and consistently be known for goodly and godly virtues and values; how can we be fulfilled "posterity-wise"? This is very necessary because the ultimate desire of God for any marital union producing children has been expressly stated in the scripture. Let's see that divine desire from the Amplified Bible...

Part 2 comes up tomorrow