|| 4 ⭐️ ||

The first half was a bit more philosophically dense than my brain could handle today, but everything I did absorb from this little book was excellent. Wiley builds a really good case for the role of the household as it relates to society and religion, in terms of duty, piety, and stewardship.

The concept of verticality especially stuck out to me—the whole idea that mainstream thought attempts to remove hierarchy (the vertical dimension; God being above humankind and everything in between) from every societal structure. With the elimination of verticality, it makes sense why the patriarchy is commonly considered oppressive nowadays; a father/husband could selfishly impose his own will on his household, without the possibility of divine accountability. But with a proper, biblical view of hierarchical structures, this isn’t the case. There is verticality above him, and he serves to represent the household to God, and God to the household. I never thought about hierarchy in this way.