The church and the family (Part 6)

This post marks another in a series of posts in response to the following statement at a church's website:

"We believe that the family is the first and most important institution that the Lord created. Moreover, following God the family should hold the highest priority."

In my first post of this series, I asked a series of questions regarding this statement. Since then, I have replied to one or two of those questions per post as I considered the relationship between the church and the family. In this post, I am responding to another question I asked regarding the statement above. The question is:

-- Does this mean the church is subservient to the family?

That seems to be the message from a particular segment of evangelicalism today. It may be an unintended message, but it appears to have that practical effect nonetheless. Ministries and churches identified with this movement seem to have concluded: The local church should be structured around the nuclear family with a focus on the perceived needs of families. At least some of them define the church as a "family of families."

This is another version of the consumer-oriented approach to church life, Michael Lawrence observed a few years ago. The Portland, Ore., pastor wrote about this approach: "To systematically and holistically define and organize the church around biological families is to put the church at the service of yet another customer and to insist that it provide what that customer needs. We've simply traded the individual religious consumer for a collective."

This is not, of course, how the New Testament portrays the church. We see no evidence in the gospels, Acts or the letters of the church existing for the family.

The church and the family are not foes. They are -- or can be -- partners. The church is not subservient to the family. The church is the one true family, one that will last forever by the unbreakable bond established by the cross-work of Jesus. The nuclear family has no such cord of everlasting existence. Death will break up the nuclear family. Neither death nor anything else will break up the family of God.

To elevate the nuclear family above the family of God is a disservice to both, especially to the only family created by the life, death and resurrection of God the Son. The nuclear family -- especially marriage -- is a picture of the ultimate marriage and family established by Christ. The nuclear family is not the ultimate institution before which the church of Jesus is to bow in subservience.

The church and the family (Part 5)

This post marks another in a series of posts in response to the following statement at a church's website:

"We believe that the family is the first and most important institution that the Lord created. Moreover, following God the family should hold the highest priority."

In my first post of this series, I asked a series of questions regarding this statement. Since then, I have replied to one or two of those questions per post as I considered the relationship between the church and the family. In this post, I am responding to another question I asked regarding the statement above:

-- Does this diminish the church and thereby diminish the work of Christ in His perfectly righteous life and totally satisfactory, substitutionary death that created the church?

Jesus' work brought into being something that did not previously exist. That something -- referred to in the Bible by such terms as a people, a body and a family -- was, and is, made up of human beings not just from one nation, one ethnicity, one tribe, one language, one skin color, one gender or one biological family. No, Jesus has produced a family made up of people unlimited by differences.

That family is the church. Jesus is the head of the church, the New Testament declares, and the church is the body of its head.

Prior to his conversion, Saul was "breathing threats and murder" against Jesus' disciples, according to Acts 9. He was on the way to Damascus to capture Christians and take them to Jerusalem. When the resurrected Jesus spoke to Saul on the road to Damascus, He asked the future apostle Paul, "[W]hy are you persecuting me?" When Saul asked for identification of the One speaking to Him, the Lord said, "I am Jesus whom you are persecuting." How was Saul persecuting Jesus? By persecuting His body, the church. In this exchange, Jesus closely connects His body to Himself.

If we say the nuclear family is the "most important institution" created by God and exalt it to the "highest priority" after God (and that includes the Son and the Holy Spirit), we are saying what Jesus produced by His sinless life and sacrificial death is less valuable than what God established in the natural realm.

Marriage and family are blessings established by God for humanity's good, but any man and woman can establish a nuclear family by marriage, and they can expand that family by birth or adoption. Only God can produce a family that will live forever under His Fatherhood. And God could only create such a family through the life, death and resurrection of His Son.

So, yes, the Bible seems to indicate categorizing the nuclear family as the "most important institution" and exalting it to the "highest priority" after God is diminishing the church. And diminishing the church diminishes the work of Jesus. May we love, appreciate and guard the nuclear family, but may we not exalt it above our head, Jesus, or His body.

The church and the family (Part 4)

This series of posts is organized as a response to the following statement at a church's website:

"We believe that the family is the first and most important institution that the Lord created. Moreover, following God the family should hold the highest priority."

In my first post of this series, I asked a series of questions regarding this statement. Since then, I have replied to one of those questions per post as I considered the relationship between the church and the family. In this post, I am responding to two questions. Here is the first question regarding the statement above:

-- Does this mean the government is more important than the church, since God established it (Gen. 9) before either Israel or the church and this statement appears to be based partly on chronology?

I don't think any believer would contend the government is more important than the church. The government is a vital institution God created for the good of humanity. It serves an important role in society, including the punishment of evil. Its importance and virtue do not mean it is superior to the church, however. Nor does its priority chronologically make it superior to the church. (I guess it is possible some would argue the church came first in time because God chose those who would make it up before the foundation of the world, but I am speaking here of the inauguration of the church on earth.)

This means we all should be careful about using the chronology argument regarding the family and the church. If the argument for the superiority of the family is based on chronology, then the same argument would logically apply for the superiority of the government to the church.

The chronological argument for the family's superiority over the church does not seem to be based on logic or Scripture.

The next question is:

-- Does this mean an institution based on flesh and blood is more important than one based on the blood of God the Son?

Now we are cutting to what seems to be one of the most important issues regarding this topic. The nuclear family comes into existence by the marriage of a man and a woman and grows through birth or adoption. The spiritual family comes into existence by the gracious work of God to provide new birth to sinners who enter His household by repentance and faith.

The death of Jesus creates God's family. It does not create a nuclear family. As Christian parents and grandparents, we all desire for and pray for our children and grandchildren to trust in Christ and His atoning work so they would become part of God's eternal family. We cannot guarantee that will happen by virtue of them being born or adopted into a Christian family. No, entering God's family requires His grace.

When we think this way about the church and the family, it seems difficult to me to think we would assert the nuclear family is more significant than the one Jesus established by His sacrifice.

The church and the family (Part 3)

My first post on this topic -- "The church and the family" -- asked a series of questions based on the following statement at a church's website:

"We believe that the family is the first and most important institution that the Lord created. Moreover, following God the family should hold the highest priority."

My second question in response to this declaration is:

"Is this consistent with what Jesus is teaching when He offers some hard sayings at various points in His earthly ministry regarding His disciples' devotion to Him in contrast to their devotion to family members?"

Here are some of those sayings of our Lord:

“Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household. He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake will find it." (Matt. 10:34-39)

Then His mother and His brothers arrived, and standing outside they sent word to Him and called Him. A crowd was sitting around Him, and they said to Him, “Behold, Your mother and Your brothers are outside looking for You.” Answering them, He said, “Who are My mother and My brothers?” Looking about at those who were sitting around Him, He said, “Behold My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of God, he is My brother and sister and mother.” (Mark 3:31-35)

Now large crowds were going along with Him; and He turned and said to them, “If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple. Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple." (Luke 14:25-27)

What are we to think?

First, I think Jesus would have a difficult time winning the family values vote if He ran for political office in our day with that kind of paper trail.

On a more serious note, these teachings by Jesus should shake our worlds if we have deified family or exalted it to a higher place than God intended.

For one thing, Jesus is establishing there is a relationship far more significant than the closest of relationships within the nuclear family.

For another, He clarifies the gospel cuts right through families, just like it does through other relationships and institutions. His gospel is the ultimate divider.

And for another, He establishes there is a family He is part of -- and His disciples are part of -- that supersedes His own earthly family and all other earthly families.

Marriage and families are good -- very good. God created them for a purpose as a blessing to humanity and society. We are blessed to be a part of them.

But God sent His Son to bring into existence an eternal family, a family not joined by blood or earthly adoption but by His blood and spiritual adoption. While we are to love our spouse and other family members sacrificially, we are to love Christ supremely. We are to realize the gospel of Jesus brings all of those He saves into union with Him -- and into a kinship with one another that is centered in Him.

So do the sayings of Jesus support the idea the nuclear family is the "most important institution that the Lord created?" They don't appear to.