ADDENDUM as of 2/5/09: While I am still excited about the materials I discuss in this post, it is with great sadness that I feel compelled to note I have discovered there are reasons for greater caution with respect to Mr. Phillips than I was aware of at the time I first wrote this post. I call your attention to the series of articles at Ministry Watchman and Jen’s Gems. There is much more, if you care to search. I believe these sources should provide warning enough.

–A continuation from Keeping the long view.

The word toledoth is the Hebrew word translated as “generations” in such passages as Genesis 2:4, 5:1, etc., in the King James version of the Bible:

• “These [are] the generations of the heavens . . . “
• “This [is] the book of the generations of Adam . . . “
• “These [are] the generations of Noah . . .”
• “Now “These [are] the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth . . . “
• And so forth.

According to Wilhelm Gesenius’s Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testamament Scriptures, toledoth means “genealogy” or “pedigree” or, “As a very large portion of the most ancient Oriental history consists of genealogies, it means . . . history.”

Strangely, Doug Phillips uses this Hebrew word as a key component in the title of his second set of presentations concerning a 200-Year Plan, two presentations he described as “The Family Toledoth.”

He mentions that toledoth means “generations,” but then, Read the rest of this entry »

Estate planning is–or should be–about a family’s pecuniary interests, of course. But what about the things that money can’t buy? The best estate planners say you should deal with them. But these same planners, it seems to me, have a difficult time explaining what, exactly, these “other” assets are, how, exactly, these “other” assets can impact an estate, and what, exactly, you should do to maximize their benefit for future generations.

Gerald Le Van wrote an article for the American Bar Association’s Experience magazine (Summer 2006, p. 28) titled “A Family Council for the ‘Relational Estate.’” I think he begins to unpack the meaning of these “other,” intangible assets very well. He suggests that some of them are comprised of the family’s “relational estate.” Read the rest of this entry »