[12/16/19]
Sin has also had its impact upon family structure. This might be one of the more obvious bits of fallout from sin. The Law of God, as we have seen, opens its second table with the positive commandment to honor your parents (Ex 20:12). In point of fact, it is the only positively stated commandment in that table, and, as Paul later observes, the first commandment to come with a promise (Eph 6:2). Yet we abide in an age when our news sources inform us that today’s youth suffer a veritable plague of disrespect, are raised in disrespect. They honor nothing and nobody. They respect nothing and nobody. This, I think, is both due in part to and fueling the whole social justice, public shaming, ‘unpersoning’ movement that seems to provide daily outrages in the news.
It starts, however, in the home. Here is the first, most closely knit unit of social cohesion. Here is the smallest group, and hopefully, the most loving group, in which we discover the limits of autonomy, the need for rules and authority. That’s not to say we necessarily like the experience. We don’t, because we are sinners and we seek autonomy and lawlessness by nature. We do not like being told what to do, or being required to do that which we find unpleasant. But God in His wisdom has caused man to live by family units, with strong, emotional ties between its members.
Here I must differentiate between design intent and sinful outcome. The intent was a strong bond of loving relationship. We see it carefully delineated in Scripture. We have, multiple examples from Paul’s letters to the church – a church, we might recall, being established amongst pagan cultures with ideas of family structure that might not always have aligned with biblical principles. We could start with that bit already noted in Ephesians. “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother (which is the first commandment with a promise), so that it may be well with you, and that you may live long on the earth. Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Eph 6:1-4). Here, it seems to me, we have instruction that has all but utterly failed to find compliance. In how many households do you suppose it is the father who is primarily involved in ‘the discipline and instruction of the Lord’? I suspect we could find many homes in which the father is the chief disciplinary officer, but in how many is he also the primary religious instructor? In how many is discipline tempered by the bounds of love imposed by the Lord? Discipline, but not so as to provoke anger. That’s a hard command to obey. It requires great care and purposefulness to even come close.
Ephesians also provides clear, if difficult, instruction for the other chief relationship in the family; that of husband and wife. “Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body. But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything” (Eph 5:22-24). Now there’s a passage sure to be popular with the modern woman. This flies in the face of everything society is teaching today. What? The husband is head of the woman? She is to be subjected to him in everything? What sort of benighted teaching is this?
The message is, however to both parties. “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of the water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless. So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourished and cherished it, just as Christ also does the church, because we are members of His body” (Eph 5:25-30). This is a tall order, isn’t it? It may be an easy enough thing to love your wife. Presumably, at least in modern practice, one had concluded he loves his wife before ever he married her. But see the depths of love to which you are commanded, husband! Love her like Christ loves the Church. Give yourself up for her. Do your utmost to present her cleansed and washed by the word, spotless, blameless to Christ. Love her like Christ does the church.
It must be recognized that if the husband will love his wife as commanded, her commandment to be subjected to him in everything should be no burden at all. Of course, even here, we must assume a non-existent paradigm to approach the ideal. That paradigm would require us to be a sinless couple, fully devoted to Christ and fully compliant to His leading. We may desire to be as such. We may strive to be as such. But we cannot begin to lay honest claim to actually being as such. To be thus devoted to Christ would require us to be sinless individuals, and frankly, were we such sinless individuals, we wouldn’t have much need for Paul’s teaching, or of Christ for that matter.
Now, we might be inclined to find an escape clause in all of this. Paul emphasizes, ‘in the Lord’. For children, the call is to honor your parents in the Lord. Is that describing which parents they are to honor, or how they are to do so? Likewise, husband and wife may try to over spiritualize the instruction so as to be able to limit the application. It is my husband in the Lord to whom I must submit. It is my wife in the Lord whom I must love. But what is that? Is Paul instructing the Church to take on certain of the less savory practices of paganism? Are we talking temple prostitutes here, priests and priestesses or some such? Of course, we aren’t. But the sinful flesh is ever looking for an out.
Peter pretty well removes any such idea, though. “In the same way, you wives, be submissive to your own husbands so that even if any of them are disobedient to the word, they may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives, as they observe your chaste and respectful behavior” (1Pe 3:1-2). Well, if there is this possibility that the husband to whom you are submitting may not even be a believer, it can’t very well be your ‘husband in the Lord’ to whom you are to submit. Rather, your submission is ‘in the Lord’, and we might add that you ought yet to regard that marriage as having been arranged and consummated ‘in the Lord’, in spite of current conditions.
“You husbands in the same way, live with your wives in an understanding way, as with someone weaker, since she is a woman; and show here honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life, so that your prayers will not be hindered” (1Pe 3:7). If she is your fellow heir, she is not there for you to lord it over her. You may have authority. You may have responsibility. But authority and responsibility are to be exercised in an understanding way. Let me be exceedingly careful here. It would be very easy to temper that understanding as if instructed to recognize the woman as weaker. Now, as to physical frame, and in regard to general statistics, that may be true. But as to specific instances, and bringing spiritual matters to bear, it may very well not be true. Neither is that what Peter actually instructs. There is a comparative used. “Be understanding, as with someone weaker.” This is not saying she is. It is providing clarification on how that understanding is to work.
We might even see it as Peter providing men with a means of understanding the command based on their common interactions one with another. Amongst any group of friends or coworkers, there’s going to be one who is stronger, one who is weaker. There will be one with greater skill and one with less. Let it be supposed you are the stronger, more skillful one. How do you deal with that weaker, less skilled coworker or friend? Do you berate him for his inabilities? Do you beat your friend into submission to your plans? If you do, I dare say you won’t have a friend for long, and you will soon enough be doing all the work yourself, for coworker and friend alike will, at first opportunity, seek out a more amenable situation.
[12/17/19]
Marriage does not admit of such a release for the weaker partner. You’re stuck with each other, sad as that sounds when stated that way. As such, marriage presents us with a social structure that we must either learn to make good on, or suffer in a self-imposed hell. The right choice should be obvious. So, we learn to work at relationship. We come to recognize that our ways must find their limits in the one to whom we are married. If our spouse differs in viewpoint as to what will best serve the relationship, where we are to live, what sort of diet we shall have, what religious practices shall define our lives, when we need new vehicles, and of what sort, and all manner of other things that come to define life together, we had best learn to discuss these matters, and how to arrive at a mutually acceptable resolution.
As it happens, we were watching an old episode of Grand Designs last night. In this particular episode, an aging doctor and his wife, or approximation thereof, were looking to build a house. But it was soon evident that this house was the man’s passion and nothing much at all to do with the woman. She would put up with it, but she did not like the style. She did not like the expense. She did not, in point of fact, like anything about it. But neither did she stop it. It’s not clear that she could have, short of dissolving the partnership, and even then, one suspects she would only have terminated her minimal participation in the project. Even at the end of the show, with house built and occupied (and to my eye at least exceedingly beautiful in its unique style), she did not love the house she would not live in. It’s not clear she even so much as liked it. At most, I suppose, she tolerated it, bore it as her burden. What a sad life. Yet, this is what many a marriage winds up being, to individuals tolerating one another, bearing each other’s grating differences in resignation and perhaps gritty determination. We do it for the kids. How often is this heard? Let the kids be grown and gone off on their own, and odds of that marriage lasting suddenly decrease precipitously.
This is not the grand design for marriage. This is not the design for any social relationship into which man enters. It is not even the design for civil society, for cities, for nations, for whatever groupings you wish to consider. To be sure, there is a need for tolerance between us, but that’s not the end-point. That’s a tool towards achieving a truly harmonious co-existence. The closer the relationship, the more critical the harmony. Hear it from Scripture. “A man of too many friends comes to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother” (Pr 18:24). That pronouncement could have no point except the closeness of a brother be an established norm. Cain and Abel were not the template, but the exception. The same might be said of the sons of Israel. But even there, if you sort brothers out by mother, I think you see it. There is a closeness, a bond of shared existence that just about nothing can break.
Here is the sort of bond that defines expectations. “The soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as himself” (1Sa 18:1b). This is not even a family connection. It is a bond of friendship, and a rather devoted friendship. There are several things we can say in regard to this statement. First, we can recognize the reflection of the second great commandment, as Jesus announced it. “The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Mt 22:39). Here was the law of love being fulfilled, at least in regard to this one individual neighbor present in person of David. Second, we see that this bond was so strong that Jonathan regarded David’s welfare as more important than his own heritage. That may not be present in the particular matter of the verse quoted, but we know how that story plays out. Jonathan’s father, the king of Israel, observes that David is a threat to Jonathan’s inherited place as king after Saul. Now, I could look one step beyond and note that nowhere had it been promised to Saul that his kingship was to be the start of a dynastic rule for his family, at least so far as I can recall. However, that supposition, whatever its source, seems to have informed Israel’s understanding of her kings, and in David’s case actually was confirmed by God as applying. Here was a kingdom that would never lack a man on the throne. The line of David had been identified as the royal line. Kings from outside the line would arise, but they were, by definition, illegitimate.
Social structure: All of this comes down to social structure. What we can also learn from the establishing of a kingdom in Israel with a human king upon the throne, is that much of what we experience by way of social structure is set in place not as the ideal, but as a necessity imposed by our fallen nature. Israel was established with God as her king, but fallen Israel could not accept this. It didn’t look like what happened in other nations, and Israel wanted to fit in. Saul was not given as the ideal design, but as a concession. The same, in fairness, must be said of David, for all that he was a man after God’s own heart. He was a better king than Saul, but hardly perfect. He was not the original design for Israel’s rule. He was a step down from the ideal, and rather a large step down.
Marriage as we experience is, I fear, not in accord with the ideal. I’m not particularly convinced that much of anything about our social order is in accord with the ideal. We are a very mobile society. If the local situation doesn’t suit, we move. If the job situation dries up here, we simply pack up and go where the situation is better. Now, there is certainly a great deal of personal benefit to us in being able to shift so readily to meet changing conditions. But I think we must recognize that it doesn’t do much for social cohesion. Too often, our reason for relocating has less to do with providing for our family, or even ourselves, than with trying to leave our problems and difficulties behind. But of course, we are our chief problem and difficulty, and in short order we are forced to admit that all those things we thought to leave behind came with us, because they are us.
This is part of what is experienced with what we have come to call blue-state migration. Folks of a particular mindset, whether we take that mindset as formed by the social structures in which they have lived or as forming those social structures to suit personal preference, suddenly discover that the present conditions of living amongst those of like mindset has become intolerable. So, this being the highly mobile society it is, they pack up and go somewhere where the rot that defines their current locale has not set in. They think they have escaped. There is an outside chance that they have, but it requires a degree of self-awareness that is in fact exceedingly rare amongst fallen man. It requires the recognition that they are in fact part of the problem they seek to escape. If they cannot recognize the laws of consequence that connect their worldview to the result they are departing, then they will simply repeat the pattern, destroying yet another social structure.
The sum of it, on every scale, comes down to this: Fallen man does not like change, does not want to change. He wants things his way in every aspect of life. He wants to live untroubled by outside demands, but at the same time wants his every demand met without question. This diseased viewpoint infects everything, every relationship we enter into, from the most casual to the most intimate. It infects our marriages. It infects our child rearing. It infects our work associations, our interactions with schoolmates and teachers alike. It infects our church. It requires conscious, God-guided effort to set aside our personal agendas and pursue a truly good – or even an approximately good – social structure. Harmony takes work. Harmony requires of us that we are able to look beyond ourselves, beyond our personal preferences and desires, to consider what will work best for the whole.
Harmony, if it is to be found and established, must start from the instruction of Jesus. We can start with that commandment He set forth as the second most important: Love your neighbor as yourself. We can proceed to this. “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those who have authority over them are called ‘Benefactors.’ But it is not this way with you, but the one who is greatest among you must become like the youngest, the leader like the servant” (Lk 22:25-26). Or perhaps we should look to the somewhat blunter version of this message from Matthew. “Do not be called leaders; for One is your Leader, that is, Christ. But the greatest among you shall be your servant. Whoever exalts himself shall be humbled; and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted” (Mt 23:10-12).
From the outset, His ministry had this message, didn’t it? “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even tax collectors do the same? If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt 5:43-48).
Social structure requires a bit of give and take of us, but it requires that this give and take occurs on both sides of whatever interaction we may consider. If we are always on the giving side, never receiving consideration in return, what we have is not harmony. If we are always taking, having our way, and never giving another theirs, the same truth holds. We have not achieved a harmonious social structure, but a localized tyranny. We are either lording it over, or being lorded over.
Here's a sort of recipe for success that God imparts through Paul. “Don’t be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. Don’t get drunk with wine. That’s dissipation. Rather, be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord; always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father” (Eph 5:17-20). Let me pause there for a moment. Does this define your approach to life? Does it even come close? Or, let me ask this: Have you ever found yourself around one who does? If so, how did you react? Did you join in, or did you find it somewhat annoying? I know that my own answers don’t reflect well on me. To be around such a one, quite frankly annoys me more than it should. My flesh is busy asserting itself, thank you very much, and this sort of thing just forces me to confront my failure. That is not a particularly spiritual response, now, is it? But there remains one more step in Paul’s instruction for social harmony. “And be subject to one another in the fear of Christ” (Eph 5:21).
It's interesting that this passage moves directly into the discussion of marital relations. Wives be subject, husbands love. But it should be clear from that introduction that husbands are not cleared of a call to be subject themselves. Indeed, we can argue that the love they are called to express toward their wives leaves them very much subjected to said wives, setting their needs first and foremost in every thought and action and prayer. These are not disconnected bits of instruction. What Paul has just described as body life, where we all sing and pray together, starts in the home. If it is not reflected in the home life, it will be week in the church life.
We are too much inclined to allow social structures around us to offload our responsibilities, and sadly, given those structures are the product of fallen man, and for the most part, godless, fallen man, the social structures to which we offload are too near to being idols. We offload our responsibility to train up our children to day cares and schools run largely by unbelieving teachers, and in fact teachers actively hostile to godliness. We offload our responsibility for moral training to the local Sunday School, but that Sunday School can at best serve to reinforce the moral training and values imparted at home. If that Sunday School is the sum total of your child’s religious training, then they are effectively untrained. They will enter those other social structures with nothing of godliness by which to preserve themselves against the onslaught of worldliness. And we wonder at the result.
[12/18/19]
What, then, shall we say to a world in which the family structure is under assault? Marriage is alternately perverted and declared unnecessary. If it’s not marriages being twisted so as to permit same-sex couples to claim the status, it’s unwed cohabitation. Again, referring to that Grand Designs series we’ve been watching, it’s a bit discouraging, really, to see just how rarely a normal, married couple appear. We’ve got gay couples who may or may not be wed in the eyes of the law. We’ve got men and women who are partners, even partners with children. Yet, there are but few who are introduced as husband and wife.
We can note, again, the very public notice of a generation that has absolutely no respect, and no perceived use for their parents. Think about the sundry movements happening around the world. We’ve got the child held up as paragon and wise counselor to the adults in government. Granted, she’s sixteen and not terribly well-informed on anything about how life works, let alone the matters of climate upon which she sounds forth as if an expert. But I cannot lay the blame, whatever it may be, at her feet. Rather it is to be laid at the feet of those who are manipulating, enabling, and thereby abusing this young child for their own nefarious ends. We could lay pretty much the whole antifa movement in that same group, or the Black Lives Matter movement, or the Occupy movement of not so many years back. Pick your movement, and you soon realize it’s largely kids being manipulated and encouraged against the adults. It’s sons and daughters being turned against mothers and fathers.
What shall we say of abortion? This is a full-on assault on family by making every attempt to prevent the very possibility of family. I should have to include the encouragement of gender dysphoria and sex reassignment ‘treatments’ in the same category. The goal, it seems, is extermination, not “go forth and multiply.”
On every side, the family is under assault. If it’s not the sorts of things I have already noted, it’s efforts by educators and government agencies to take over the parental role, to discount and discredit the parents in favor of whatever the current government program and policy happens to be. Education, certainly here in America, but it seems to me in many other countries as well, has become little to do with educating and rather a lot to do with indoctrinating. And the message of that indoctrination is largely to be found in the message, “Parents wrong. Government right.”
All of this, it seems to me, serves as clear evidence of the fallen state of man, and of the sin nature that defines man. Mankind is in a sorry state apart from God, and since (and here I have to acknowledge that it is by God’s design, else it would not be at all) he is in such a sorry state, every social structure, from the family unit on up, must be fashioned to account for that state if it is to succeed at all. Our first responsibility as Christian parents must surely be to see to the structure of our family unit, to do our utmost to establish it in firm, gospel-centered foundations. It must be followed up with constant vigilance, in order that the structure of the family may be preserved, and may stand against the myriad pressures of life in this fallen world.
Here is where we stand or fall. Here is where we succeed or give up hope for future generations. That is, perhaps, marginally too stark an assessment. God, after all, is able where we are unable, and that, properly understood, is most everywhere. But are we crying out to God for rescue? For strength? For wisdom and knowledge by which to produce in our families a resilient godliness? Are we crying out to God for those families around us, whether we are considering relatives or fellow church members or neighbors generally; that they might likewise commit themselves to living godly lives? Are we crying out for those in authority in the church and in the civil government? Are we prayerfully considering how we might serve as agents of change where change is needful? Are we looking at those matters of governance in which we have a say with an eye to godliness, or are we allowing ourselves to be satisfied pragmatists?
But start in the house, as we must. Start in the smallest, most intimate social units. This is in full accord with God’s design. Husbands love your wives sacrificially, as Christ loved the Church, giving Himself for her. Spare nothing for yourself if by your efforts you can aid her in becoming a truly godly woman. Wives, honor your husbands, submitting to them as unto the Lord. Develop a habit of respecting godly leadership by starting here. No, we don’t allow ourselves to be drawn into sin in the name of submission to our spouses. But neither do we rebel and stomp our feet because we have not got our way this time. If we can’t get this sorted between husband and wives, we are effectively dooming our children. For they will learn from us, whether they are learning by our instruction or by our example. Best we think about this and become intentional in our efforts before it’s too late to have real impact.
Is it ever too late, this side of the grave? By God’s grace, I would have to say that no, it really isn’t. But the work is harder and the outcome made less likely to be to our liking the longer we delay. I write as the father of adult children – not, I hope, in the clinical sense, but simply as a matter of age and situation. They are grown and out of the house. Have I done my duty by them? Not by my measure, no. I don’t for a moment suppose I was nearly as intentional as I ought to have been in forming their character as godly women. I have too often been a rather poor example by my own actions and decisions, and I have been entirely too ready to let others do the work of training. But have I ceased to be a father to them? Not in the least. The nature of my teaching changes to that of advisor, rather than instructor or the more nearly dictatorial powers of early parenting. I am dealing with fully-formed adults, and must respect them as such, must address them as such, must leave them to face their failures as such. But I can advise. I can seek to speak godly wisdom into their situation when opportunity arises. I not only can. As a father and a man of God, I must. I am not granted to toss up my hands in resignation and say, “Oh well, I tried.”
The same must apply between spouses, surely. God does not give a grant to give up. He requires us to sort ourselves out, to live godly lives together. I’ve looked at it once already, but it really is something of a formula for success in marriage, isn’t it? “Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God. Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father” (Col 3:16-17). Honestly, it’s the formula success for life, for all our social interactions. But it starts here. Paul sees it. He moves immediately to address the husband/wife relationship, the familial relationships (Col 3:18-21). It starts here, and only as we get this localized, intimate social unit sorted can we have hope of managing things on the wider scale. Only with the family properly addressed and equipped do we turn to matters of workplace and church. But it does go there. “Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance. It is the Lord Christ whom you serve” (Col 3:23-24).
What will change should we begin to look at our home life in this light? Whatever you do in the home, do it as for the Lord Christ whom you serve. When it falls to you to teach and admonish, chances are it’s going to be harder than you’d wish. Face it. If there is need to admonish, it’s already harder than you’d wish. Admonishment is rarely received well. “All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness” (Heb 12:11). Well do we know the truth of that first statement. We loathe discipline. Discipline hurts. Or if it doesn’t, it certainly annoys. It’s that old autonomy thing rising up again. We don’t wish to be told what to do, and we certainly don’t care to hear that we’re wrong. Add charges of sin to it, and frankly, we will do everything in our power to justify ourselves in our own sight, and if we can, in yours as well. Of course, everything in our power is nothing. The most we can manage is to fool ourselves for a bit, maybe pull the wool over your eyes, too. But God is not fooled, and God will not be mocked. Neither will He cease from providing the necessary discipline until it has had its desired effect on us.
Are we willing, then, to be the tools God uses to discipline, to admonish? Or are we too addicted to comfort, however false that comfort may prove to be? Will we allow God to so use us as to address the real issues that are damaging our family, our relationships, our ability to live godly in this ungodly world? Or will we insist on our own self-satisfied capitulation to sin? Those really are the choices. Either do the hard work and arrive at a relationship which is as God intended, or give in an enter into a living hell.
