July 8, 2013 – 1 Chronicles 4:28 – 5:10

When you are reading these and they are talking about the cities and territories that the different families lived in and possessed and that they then spread into other areas, I was thinking about a family tree and how it grows.  I have done family trees from my dad’s mom’s family and just that one branch spreads far and wide.  But, that is also because they had so many children generations ago.

When a family only has 2 children, 1 family, over 100 years, with a generation being 25, will develop 8 new families.  1-2-4-8.  Now, what this assumes is that everyone survives and lives to actually has any children.  You can see how quickly things will not develop if 1 in 4 does not survive into adulthood.  1-2-3-4.  What if one doesn’t decide to have any children.  1-2-2-2 perhaps.  You can quickly see that we don’t actually grow as a family or a civilization when families don’t have more than 2 children.  It is not about religion or contraception or abortion.  It is about math and when we don’t have children to take our place, things will fall apart.  You can see what would happen if the average is 5.  Then you can account for those that decide to have none or those that die before adulthood.  But that is only if the average family is willing to have more children.  When the average family is only thinking about 1 or 2 children, we cannot compensate for those that have none or those that die early and we don’t have a population influx, we actual we begin to be in decline.