Previous chapter: Chapter 11: The Textbook of Righteousness
(TOC)
What more would God ask of a man than He would of women and children? That the man would accept the responsibility to form and sustain a family – that is, to seek a woman willing to be his wife and have children, providing for and protecting them all, both spiritually and physically, for as long as he lives. Put succinctly, the duty of a man is family.
The Sacredness of Family
The nuclear family is unique among all human institutions in that it is the only one that God Himself designed and maintains. Every other human institution – nation, corporation, homeowners association, bowling league, book club, youth sports team, and so on – He lets us design and maintain. The nuclear family, however, is His and His alone. To say, “A family is a family is a family,” as some today do, is to take the place of God. It’s saying family can be whatever we want it to be. A society who thinks this way is inviting God’s wrath on itself.
In the beginning, as recorded in the book of Genesis, God said that a family was formed when a man left his father and his mother to be joined to his wife such that they should become one flesh. The “Sexual Revolution” is rebellion against God’s authority over the family. It’s hard enough to live a righteous life in this world when you have a father and mother who love each other and you – how much harder when you don’t! There’s a reason psychologists and psychiatrists want to know about a patient’s “family of origin.” It affects everything!
When it comes to the well-being of a family, there’s a place where the buck stops: it stops with the man. He is the family’s provider and protector. He is the one God calls to form the family and hold it together. The woman is called to help him. Because Adam did not succeed in making Eve certain about the one commandment God gave, sin and death entered the world. Men, let us not make that same mistake again. Let us make ourselves and our families as sure about Jesus Christ and the Bible as Adam should have made Eve about the single commandment God gave them.
A man’s career is secondary to his family. Whether you are a butcher, a baker, or a candlestick maker is just the means to an end. The end is loving your family. Therefore, there are always trade-offs to manage when it comes to choosing how to earn an income. Many “great men” in history have been poor husbands and fathers. Heaven’s judgment of them won’t be affected by how famous they were on earth. It’s how well we lived and taught our families that will matter. So, yes, excel in your work…but only to the benefit of your wife and children, never to their detriment.
Mister, you are a pastor and your family is your church. And the only way your church needs to grow is by you and your wife having children. Even if you don’t homeschool, you can and must homechurch. Thus has the church been subsumed into family as ancient Israel was subsumed into church. Jesus Christ restores family to the importance it held in the garden of Eden…and will continue to hold as long as there are humans on earth.
Strengthening the Family
To read the Bible with your family is to put spiritual food on the table. To pray for them is to spiritually protect them as you would physically protect them. If we men are providers and protectors only in the physical sense, we are only doing half our job.
Devote the rest of your life to Jesus Christ and the Bible (His textbook of righteousness) so that you, your wife, and children will have protection from the malignant, metastasizing, and militant secularism that is threatening all families in our nation. When I got married, my father (a Marine Corps drill sergeant at Parris Island earlier in his life) told me in the firmest of voices, “It’s you and her against the world.” The world has only become more hostile since he said it.
You’re going to need help. I have put together a website of over a million words to help you read the Bible and teach it to your family. (You can reach it at either http://www.jesuschristandthebible.info or http://www.mikegantt.com – both URLs lead to the same website.) More importantly, God Himself will be your Helper. May the Lord Jesus Christ bless you and keep you, now and forever.
(You gave me the hour I asked for – now embrace the life I’ve given you.)
www.jesuschristandthebible.info
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