What does the Bible say about family?

AS CREATOR, God has set all His creatures in certain relationships to one another, instituting the whole circle of family relationships.

The honouring of both father and mother is the one positive command. In God's ordering of human society the family is the fundamental unit, and of that unit the father and mother are the responsible heads, and to be recognized and honoured as such. If they are not so honoured rapid disintegration sets in, and all the relations of life are adversely affected. Proof of this stares us in the face today. Men of wholesome mind — magistrates, and others — join in deploring what is called "juvenile delinquency," as directly traceable to the break-up of home life. In most cases the parents themselves are mainly to blame. Obsessed with the pleasures of sin, parental discipline is neglected, and the children left to their own devices.

The Apostle Paul points out in Ephesians 6:2 that this is "the first commandment with promise;" the promise being long life in the land which was to be given to them. Conversely, the flouting of this command was to entail severe penalty, as we see in Deuteronomy 21:18-21. The penalty pronounced against the "stubborn and rebellious son," who would not, "obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother," may seem to us very drastic, but it serves to emphasize the great importance of this fifth commandment in the thought of God. Were it faithfully and universally observed, there would be very little infringement of the remaining five commandments.

The family is especially dealt with in the epistles which treat of the Church. Those epistles which take up Church order and rule take up also the order and rule of the family; and those epistles which show the Church as the body of Christ, show also how this relationship, and the principles it involves, affect the family life. Family relationships were instituted by God in Eden, and confirmed after the fall. Christianity does not change their outward character, but infuses into them new and divine principles. The husband is the responsible head of the house, and the mutual obligation subsisting between him and his wife, his children, and his servants, is the subject of the portion now before us. The question is not one of rights on either side, but rather of the way in which each, as having the life of Christ, should exhibit this in his conduct towards the other.

We have souls also, and the soul seeks companionship; it needs relationships in which its affections can be exercised and developed. God's desire is that His creatures should be unselfishly happy, and in His wisdom and compassion He has said, “It is not good that man should be alone.” So He has ordained marriage and the family life. It is true that the Word says, “They that marry shall have trouble in the flesh,” yet, even so, every sensible person realises that the greatest natural happiness that any can know is found in marriage and the family life. And for Christians who dwell together as heirs of the grace of life there is the added joy of the home being the Kingdom of God, in which He is owned in dependence and prayer so that marriage yields a fuller communion with God than meats.

As well as God's seeking to impress on us the reality of the relationship of Christ and the church, however, He is showing how close is the unity of husband and wife in God's sacred ordinance of marriage. Today this has been terribly violated by the selfish independence of both men and women, but God's word is plain, "For this cause a man shall leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall become one flesh" (v.24). Thus God established marriage as the first of human relationships, and He makes it clear for all succeeding generations that a man should leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife. It is just as evident that the woman should leave her parents to become fully devoted to her husbands. The word "cleave" is beautiful here. It involves the reality of love, of devotedness and of faithfulness.

After these great and important principles of the new life the apostle enters into the diverse relationships of life, giving warnings against that which would endanger them, by showing what the christian character of each one of them is. To the wife, obedience — affection was natural to her. "Thy desire shall be to thy husband." To the husband, affection and kindness — his heart may be indifferent and hard. Children are to be obedient; fathers, gentle, in order that the children's affections may not be estranged from them, and that they may not be induced to seek that happiness in the world which they ought to find in the sanctuary of the domestic circle, which God has formed as a safeguard for those who are growing up in weakness; the precious home (if Christ is acknowledged) of kind affections, in which the heart is trained in the ties which God Himself has formed; and that in connection with the Lord, and which, by cherishing the affections, preserves from the passions and from self-will; and which, where its strength is rightly developed, has a power that, in spite of sin and disorder, awakens the conscience and engages the heart, keeping it away from evil and the direct power of Satan. For it is God's appointment.

But the Lord makes it transparently clear that the basic, original order in creation is not to be changed, but affirmed by the truth of the kingdom of heaven. God, in creating both male and female, made a marked distinction between them, but in marriage indicated a unity of vital character. Because of God's manifest order in creation it was right that a man should leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife. This verse settles many questions. First, when marriage takes place, the man (or woman) is no longer in the place of subjection to parents. Secondly, he cleaves to his wife:--only one wife, so that bigamy and polygamy are absolutely unscriptural. Cleaving to his wife involves genuine love for her, and faithfulness and devotedness.

Except for a brief reference to divorce in the sermon on the mount, the first definite teaching as to marriage in the New Testament comes from the Lord's own lips in Matthew 19. But He only gives emphasis to that which God ordained at the beginning. He sweeps aside the theory of evolution, the popular folly of the day, and puts His imprimatur upon the second chapter of Genesis, saying; "Have ye not read that He which made them at the beginning made them male and female" (v. 4). This was the crowning act of God's creative work, the result of His own counsels, and accomplished for the great good of man. The consideration of this would make the relationship thus created exceedingly sacred to all who fear the Lord. Hear, in this connection, the word in 1 Corinthians 11:12, "For as the woman is of the man, even so is the man also by the woman; but all things of God." From God Himself the relationship originated. It is His own special design and work.

Up to the time of a man's marriage the chief relationship in which he stands is that of a son, and his responsibility is towards his parents, but when he marries he leaves his father and mother and cleaves to his wife. Henceforward she becomes his chief care, for he and she are no more twain but one flesh.

A Christian is not his own. His children, therefore, as they were given to Him by the Lord, are to be possessed in Him, and brought up in His way. The desire of the natural man is to fit his son to play his part creditably and with advantage in the world. The desire of the saint should be, to educate his child for heaven, and not for earth; not failing, indeed, to teach him that which may qualify him to maintain good works for necessary uses (Titus 3:14, margin.), but labouring to instil into his earliest mind the conviction that he belongs to Christ, and not to the present world. His father's God will be his God, if faith and patience have their perfect work in the single-eyed discharge of parental duties, according to the obedience of Christ (Prov. 22:6). It is plain that the responsibilities of Christian parents are of no light kind. To discharge them effectively, a man should be walking very near to God. There are, indeed, few things that put practical godliness to a severer test than the ordering of a man's house. For it is the will of God that the children of His saints should. learn their first ideas of Christ from such reflection of Him as they see in their own parents words and ways. A father, therefore, who ruled his children by the mere force of natural authority would be no true nursing father in the Lord. He would obstruct, instead of transmitting to the heart and conscience of his child, the rays of that blessed and holy Light which he should be reflecting upon all within his house. if the conduct of a parent does not commend itself to the conscience of his child, he is unfaithful to his trust. Personal inconsistency (so quickly penetrated by a child's discernment), especially when combined, as it sometimes is, with a harsh and repulsive system of religious restraint, forms about the strongest possible provocation to angry fretfulness in a youthful mind Discouragement is the effect of this (Col. 3:21). Thorns and briers seem, to the misguided heart, to be the only fruit of a way which it nevertheless hears daily extolled as a way of pleasantness and peace. On the other hand, a firm and resolute control by a parent of his children's wilfulness is no cause of discouragement. Anger may rage for the moment, while the rebellious will is yet unconquered; but conscience secretly approves. the parent's course. Severity is not unkindness, when its justice is appreciated. No father who wisely loved his child would nurture him in wilfulness. To do so would be to encourage him in sin, and to sow for himself a harvest of future sorrow, by despising the commandments of the Lord (Prov. 29:15). The perfect but holy kindness of God towards His children is to be the pattern of the Christian father's way. A fond connivance at his children's faults, on. the one hand, or an unsympathizing arbitrariness of conduct towards them, on the other, would be almost equally remote from the true nurture and admonition of the Lord. We are priests to God through grace; and His priests should make the law of the sanctuary the rule of their own house (Rev. 1:0; cp. 1 Sam. 2, 3.).

The Lord said, "He that loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me" (Matt. 10:37) and again, "If any man come to me, and hate not his father and mother and wife and children and brethren and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14:26). In these words the Lord declared the condition of discipleship. This condition was based upon the acknowledgment of His authority as paramount and absolute. No human tie should have a superior claim to that of the Lord Jesus. And in the utterances quoted, He contemplated a case where family authority sought to override His word as Master. Even in national government parental claims or filial responsibilities are not allowed to absolve a subject from allegiance to the Crown, or to screen a criminal from retributive justice. Must the Lord of all ask less than this from the subjects of His kingdom? If patriotism demands that a man shall leave all to serve his country, who should complain when the Master calls His disciples to leave all to serve Him?