Church and Family
What parent treasures Christ and does not earnestly seek the same for their child? What church makes much of Christ and does not sincerely long to see every child come to Him and grow in His knowledge and grace? Any discussion about reaching our children for Christ should begin here. The longings shared by every Christ-centered parent and church is that each child entrusted to our care and influence would come to know and love the Lord Jesus Christ—that Christ would be formed in them and that they would fear the Lord and walk in His ways all their days.
THE FAMILY
The family is the first, most basic, and original of all institutions created and ordered by God. It is not a convention of man (Matthew 19:4-6). Among the institutions of God, it alone was established, blessed, and commissioned before sin and the Fall (Genesis 1:27-28).
The family is designed to show forth a kind of dignity and glory, love and joy that properly belongs to the image of God (Genesis 1:26-27; 2:18, 24). In this way, starting with marriage, the family uniquely reflects the holy Trinity and presents a parable of the profound—Christ and His church (Ephesians 5:31-32). By design, the family is intended to model, in a limited fashion, the consummate glory of everlasting life with God as our Father and His people as our brothers and sisters (John 14:2; Ephesians 2:19-20; 1 Timothy 3:15).
Though cultural norms vary, God’s original design for the family does not. The Scriptures are a witness to many corruptions that have afflicted the family, such as polygamy, concubinage, adultery, barrenness, and child sacrifice, to name a few. This does not discount the fact that God’s original design remains the unchanging ideal for humanity (Matthew 19:4-6). A family is often described in Scripture as a “household” (Greek oikos, 1 Timothy 5:4, 8; Titus 1:11). In both Old and New Testament examples, a household extended beyond the nuclear family model. Servants and others were often adopted into a household as family heirs (Genesis 15:2-3). So members of a family need not be biologically related. In this present world, God’s purposes for the family have more to do with the relational order and economy of a household than biology.