What are to be our top priorities in our family life?

In the realm of married life the wives, the subject ones, are first addressed, "Wives be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord." The husbands are next exhorted, if wives are to be subject they must be given every encouragement so to be. "Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them." Love provides very fertile soil for a happy marriage and surely in the midst of the Christian company nothing can be so honouring to the Lord than for the partners to go on happily in love. Family life is not excepted from divine admonition. If there ever was a day when children were encouraged in defiance of parental authority that surely is the present day.

Passing over the disorders which sprang up in David's family, disorders which constitute a very solemn warning for all parents, we come now to the positive exhortation given to fathers by the apostle. It is remarkable that, both in Ephesians and Colossians, he should begin by urging them not to provoke their children to anger.* From this we learn, in the first place, the tender solicitude of God for the children of His people. He would have their parents to remember and to consider their weakness, the quickness and impatience of the flesh, and thus to avoid vexing and irritating restrictions and directions which might indispose them to listen to godly teaching and counsel. For it should never be forgotten that children, as well as saints, even if in another way, need to be in a collected and calm state of mind to receive divine instructions. This will help us to understand that the conduct of parents, even in the maintenance of authority in their household, should be governed by their responsibility to bring them up for the Lord. What dependence, what wisdom, and what watchful care are thus required! For, indeed, the family is the vineyard which Christian parents have to keep, and which they dare not, if they would be faithful to God, neglect in order to attend to any other vineyard.

In the epistles we find children mentioned. In the epistle, which contains God's highest revelation, Ephesians, children are treated as belonging to the Lord in the believing family. "Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is just. Honor thy father and thy mother, which is the first commandment which has a promise, that it may be well with thee, and that thou mayest be long-lived on the earth. And ye fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and admonition of the Lord" (Eph. 6:1-4). The last means to instruct them in the things of the Lord. We have come occasionally in touch with good Christian people, who declared it wrong to teach a child to pray and who refused to tell little ones to pray to God. As far as certain forms of prayers are concerned we are, of course, fully agreed that a parrotlike repetition of prayers is to be avoided and harmful. But to teach the child prayer, the expression of weakness and dependence on God, as well as confidence in Him, is the first lesson to be taught. We think it a wrong, where this is not done. No day should pass in the home of believers, where the Word is not read and the knees of all bow before Him, who is the Head over all, the Lord Jesus Christ. And if through the grace of God the sweet instructions of Ephesians 5:22-32 are carried out in the Christian family, the home will become a place of fragrance, influence and blessing.

It is essential to family peace, harmony and comfort, that all the members should "consider one another." We are responsible to seek the good and the happiness of those around us, and not our own. If all would but remember this, what different households we should have; and what a different tale would families have to tell! Every Christian household should be the reflection of the divine character. The atmosphere should just be the very atmosphere of heaven. How is this to be? Simply by each one, parent, child, master and servant seeking to walk in the footsteps of Jesus, and manifest His Spirit. He never pleased Himself; never sought His own interest, in anything. He did always the thing that pleased the Father. He came to serve and to give. He went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil. Thus it was ever with that most blessed One — the gracious, loving, sympathising Friend of all the sons and daughters of want, weakness and sorrow; and if only the various members of each Christian family were formed on this perfect model, we should, at least, realise something of the power and efficacy of personal and domestic Christianity, which, blessed be God, can ever be maintained and exhibited, notwithstanding the hopeless ruin of the professing church. "Thou and thy house" suggests a great golden principle which runs through the volume of God, from beginning to end. In every age, under every dispensation, in the days of the Patriarchs, in the days of the Law, and in the days of Christianity, we find, to our exceeding comfort and encouragement, that personal and domestic godliness has its place as something grateful to the heart of God and to the glory of His holy Name.

It must be entirely a question of individual faith. You must walk before God in happy loving fellowship. You should both wait upon God together and seek to be of one mind in the Lord. This is your happy privilege. It is of the utmost importance for man and wife to cultivate the daily habit of waiting together on the Lord. It has a marvelous effect upon the whole range of domestic life. Bring everything before God, pour out your hearts together. Have no secrets, no reserve. Then will your hearts be knit together in holy love, and the current of your personal, conjugal and domestic life will flow peacefully and happily on, to the praise of Him who has made you one and called you to walk together as heirs of the grace of life.

God never meant the family to be superseded in this world, nor to give to the Church the work which rightly belonged to the family. Any weakening of family ties is to be greatly dreaded as a sign of the final apostasy. All other giving must take place after the needs of those, who have the ties of relationship, have been met. This is emphatic, and no work or service for the Lord so-called should set it aside.

As to your children, dear brother, may God guide you, and may He not allow you to subordinate Christ to anything whatever. If Christ calls you more or less to leave His work in order to take care of your children, He will bless you in caring for them. Our only rule of duty is Christ Himself. We have to do many things in all kinds of relationships. If you follow His will, He will take care of your children: outside His path all your care would come to nothing. I must stop, I have too much to do even; I can hardly hold out longer, but the Lord is sufficient for everything. Greet the brethren very affectionately.

But if I see a husband coming home from the busy city, sitting down to the repast which tender and loving hands have spread for him, and then taking his hat and hurrying off, evening after evening, to some church meeting, to give them the benefit of his assistance and counsel; or to some Scripture reading, where divine truth is discussed metaphysically, whilst the precious souls of his wife and children are starving at home; and then, when returning late at night, chiding with his wife, or expressing his regret at her want of spirituality, what shall I say to him? I would say to him: "My dear brother, is this the way that Christ loved the Church, and gave Himself for her? Is this the way that Christ sanctifies and cleanses His body with the washing of water by the word, that He might present it to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish? Is this the way that the Lord nourisheth and cherisheth her? I know that the word of exhortation told the Hebrews, not to forsake the assembling of themselves together, as the manner of some was, but to exhort one another, and so much the more as they saw the day approaching; but it told them also, to consider one another, to provoke unto love and to good works. And does this term "one another" mean any one else but your own wife, your own body? Charity begins at home. I should certainly be the last to encourage any forsaking the assemblies, but if I see a husband every evening in the week hurrying away from wife and children to attend meetings, there is but too much reason to fear, that he will get surfeited, whilst his wife is starving.

I know there are servants of Christ, especially gifted by Him, whom He may call away from wife and children, for a longer time, into the regions beyond, "to make known the glad tidings of His gospel, or visit, edify, and instruct, and encourage the body of Christ in those parts. For such, especially, the word of the Apostle would hold good: "But this I say, the time is short. It remaineth that both they that have wives, be as though they had none." The Lord would know in such a case, how to provide. And this is true, not only for such, but for every Christian husband. But it does not warrant any one to neglect his wife, which would be nothing less than a flat contradiction of the injunction given by the Holy Spirit, through the same Apostle, in our chapter. On the contrary, if a Christian husband would make that passage a warrant for his neglecting his wife and children, day after day, and evening after evening, in order to practise his gift (which is often very different from "stirring up the gift,") in a wider circle, or, if he has no gift, to maintain his place and influence in the Church, the inevitable result will be, that the condition of his wife and children soon will become such, as to close the door upon his service, or deprive him of his place in the Church. There have been lamentable illustrations of the truth of this.

Suppose an officer in the commissariat department of an army or garrison, who daily provides every soldier, from the general down to the drummer boy, with their due rations; or the steward of a ship, who gives to every individual in the ship, from the captain to the cabin boy, their meat in due season, would leave his wife and children to starve. Would this be taken as a proof of his strict honesty and faithfulness in his service to the queen and the country? I should think, his queen would be the very last to praise him for it. And what is the verdict of the Divine Code in such a case? "But if any provide not for his own and especially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel [or unbeliever]."

May the Lord grant to us an earnest self-denying spirit, a devoted heart to Him and to His most holy service, a true desire for the spread of His gospel and the prosperity of His people. May the time passed of our lives be sufficient for us to have lived and labored for self and its interests, and may the time to come be given to Christ and His interests. Let us not allow our treacherous hearts to deceive us by plausible reasonings about domestic, commercial or other claims. All such should be strictly attended to, no doubt. A well-regulated mind will never offer to God a sacrifice arising out of the neglect of any just claim. If I am at the head of a family, the claims of that family must be duly responded to. If I am at the head of a business, the claims of that business must be duly met. If I am a hired servant, I must attend to my work. To fail in any of these would be to dishonor the Lord instead of serving Him.

But, allowing the widest possible margin for all righteous claims, let us ask, are we doing all we can for “the regions beyond” and for “our brethren in every city where we have preached the Word of the Lord?” Has there not been a blameworthy abandonment both of evangelistic and pastoral work? Have we not allowed domestic and commercial ties to act unduly upon us? And what has been the result? What have we gained? Have our children turned out well and our commercial interests prospered? Has it not often happened that, where the Lord's work has been neglected, the children have grown up in carelessness and worldliness? And as to the business, have we not often toiled all the night and gazed on an empty net in the morning? On the other hand, where the family and the circumstances have been left with absolute confidence in the hand of Jehovah-Jireh (the Lord will provide), have they not been far better cared for?

In this respect, too, the Lord is our perfect example, and we can be sure that He understands us and in every actual situation that arises will help us to get our priorities right, so that we do justice to our family relationships and yet live decisively for Him.