The answer seems obvious. Of course the family is important! Our western civilization is collapsing for this very reason: people have lost sight of the importance of the family. Leisure activities, career advancement, financial security, just about anything comes before family today. The family is the building block of society, and when the family crumbles, the society is doomed.
In all fairness, however, we must ask another question: Why does the New Testament have so little to say in directly addressing the family? Are there a few dozen verses? Apart from Ephesians 5:22-6:4 and Colossians 3:18-21, there are a few scattered references in 1 Timothy 4 and 5 and Titus 1 regarding elders and deacons, 2 Timothy 3:14-15 regarding Timothy’s personal life, and Peter’s exhortation in 1 Peter 3:1-7.
When the Lord discussed family issues, He repeatedly called us to recognize a higher claim on our loyalty: “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” (Lk. 14:26; see also Mt. 19:29). Did He mean that?
We can draw inferences from His blessing little children, attending a marriage in Cana, and reuniting family members who had been severed by death. Did Christ think the family was important? Of course! He designed it. Why, then, is there so little about the family in the New Testament? And why so much about the church? Is He telling us something?
Some Christians are putting all their energies into the family at the expense of the church. Others are prepared to leave their assembly to find a large congregation where their children will have more activities. How often we hear the refrain: “My parents put the assembly first and we suffered for it. We’re going to put the family first!”
But is it one or the other? Has the Lord forced us to choose one and lose the other? Did He give us two wonderful gifts–our family and His family–so we must decide for only one?
It’s easy to overreact to the carelessness of the pagan world regarding family by seeing our human family as the most important thing in life. It can become a kind of extended egotism. I can excuse my self-centered lifestyle by saying, “It’s not for me, you understand. It’s for my family.”
Many of God’s people, frantic because of the decay around them, are looking for some fool-proof formula that will guarantee success with their children. Parents do have a solemn responsibility, but children have their own response. Remember that the best Father in the universe has had much heartache with wayward children!
One is hard pressed to find model families in the Bible. With few exceptions, the families featured in the Word of God would be labeled dysfunctional by society today. You know the stories. The first son in history commits patricide. Abraham, father of the faithful, takes an Egyptian slave girl to bear him an heir, then disposes of her in the desert. Isaac’s family, rife with favoritism, is torn apart at the seams. Jacob’s boys hate their young sibling, Joseph, and plot first to kill him, then to sell him into slavery in Egypt.
The sordid tale continues. Eli has scoundrels for sons. And what of Samuel’s sons? Or David’s? Or Solomon’s? New Testament families fare little better. Our Lord’s own half-brothers, reared by godly Joseph and Mary, mocked His claims.
There are bright exceptions. Othniel and Achsah. Ruth and Boaz. Loyal Jonathan. Resolute Abigail. Timothy’s mother and grandmother (where were the men?). Aquila and Priscilla; Andronicus and Junia; Rufus and his mother.
Such a review teaches us to be vigilant for our families, to seek to be a bright exception to the rule. Of course, our families are important! But never forget that earthly relationships will no longer function as such in Heaven’s country. The best thing you can do for your family now is to set their sights on eternal things and invest your lives together in God’s Forever Family.