Is It Right to Be Family-Centered?

Phil Lancaster 

One of the common objections raised against those of us who are into the kinds of things discussed in this magazine is that we are not balanced. Our emphasis on the family is said to be extreme. We take a valid point (the family is crucial) and carry it too far (the family is everything).

Well, let’s confess that we do make it easy for others to assume that we are out of balance. After all, we promote home education, home business, home church, home birth, family ministry, family health, family worship — not to mention courtship and betrothal, family-based welfare, and who knows what all else. Truly, we rarely meet a hyphenated "family" or "home" word that we don’t like!

Having pled guilty to being family-centered, however, let’s appeal to anyone who is skeptical to take a more careful look. Though we surely are family-centered, we deny being out of balance. First, we do not say that the family is everything. As we will show below, we recognize that the family is one among a set of crucial institutions through which God is carrying out His purpose in the world. Second, we believe that being family-centered is appropriate — when properly understood — and that such an orientation is especially necessary in our day. Recent generations have so marginalized the significance of the family that only a properly family-centered approach can bring the home back to the place God intends for it to have in our lives.

So what is the proper place of the family in our lives? What is the appropriate sphere of its operation? How does it relate to the other crucial institutions to which we referred? How can we be family-centered without being out of balance?

To begin to answer these questions we need to recognize the place of the family in God’s order. And to properly understand that place, we have to see the family in its relationship to two other institutions, the church and the state.

God has created three covenantal institutions, three groupings of people through which He works out His plans for history: the family, the church, and the state (i.e., civil government). These institutions share some common characteristics though they differ significantly from one another. Each has real authority given by God and leaders who are accountable to God. Each experiences God’s blessings or curses based on their obedience to His revealed will. Each has the God-given responsibility to carry out sanctions upon its members, represented in three tools of punishment: the rod for the family, excommunication for the church, and capital punishment for the state. Each has a crucial role in giving shape to life in this world. Christians are part of all three institutions and must understand how to relate to each, and they should learn the proper relationship of each of the institutions to the others.

The Family Is Foundational

We do believe that the family is the foundational institution, although as we said, we do not believe the family is everything. But it is a lot!

What we mean, first, is that the family has the broadest jurisdiction, by far, of the three. There is more of life that rightly falls under the authority of the family than under that of the other two institutions combined. In God’s order the family is responsible for birth, for the education and raising of children, for physical provision, for health and welfare, for business, for inheritance, for social relationships, for marriage, for death and burial. From the beginning of life to its end, and for most of what lies between, God has given the family control of most of what is vital for life in this world. Truly the family is the most significant from the standpoint of the scope of its functions and the reach of its authority.

Second, as a consequence of its extensive jurisdiction the family has the greatest influence of the three institutions. It is the home that shapes the persons who give shape to the church and the state. The family is the training ground for churchmen and statesmen. Church and state can only recruit their members and leaders from the homes that make up a society. Men, as heads of homes, represent their families in the conduct of the affairs of the church and the state (at least that’s the plan). Someone has said that "the home rules the nation," and it is true. It is not that the family has authority over church and state (we do not believe in a familism or tribalism that nullifies the authority of church and state). But the family does shape the society from the grassroots up. The sheer pervasiveness of the family and its day to day ability to mold people makes it the most important shaper of society. God designed things this way; that’s why He has always chosen to work his grace and salvation through families (Gen. 17:7; Deut. 7:9; Acts 16:31).

Third, the family is foundational because it is the source of funding for the other two institutions. God has ordained that the church receive its support from the tithes which families are commanded to bring into "the storehouse" of the church (Mal. 3:10; Matt. 23:23). Similarly, families are obligated to pay taxes to civil authorities so that the latter can carry on their necessary functions (Rom. 13:6,7). Without the work and productivity of hardworking families there would be no means of supply for the vital work of the other covenantal institutions.

So the family has a truly foundational role to play in any society. It has the greatest practical control over the shape of life in this world. For this reason it is necessary to be family-centered. If so much of life is under the dominion of the home, then that will necessarily be where we devote most of our time and energy.

A major problem of our contemporary society is that so many functions belonging to the family have been given over to other institutions: education to schools, Christian nurture and discipleship to the church, welfare and financial security to federal and state governments, health care to doctors and hospitals. Families need to get back to God’s plan for the home by reclaiming sovereignty over all these areas. If ever a generation needed to hear the admonition to be family-centered it is ours, because that is the way God meant it to be.

The Family Is Subordinate

God always arranges things so wisely! Having given so much influence to families He tempers that influence by placing families under authority. The family is subordinate to both the church and the state. The home may rule the nation and the church in terms of influence, but the home is ruled by these other authorities in terms of jurisdiction.

Though the church and state have smaller legitimate spheres of authority than the family they do have real authority, and that includes authority over individuals and families. God has given the church jurisdiction over the proclamation of His Word and over the administration of Christ’s ordinances (baptism and the Lord’s Supper). The church also has jurisdiction over the lives of its members in matters of doctrine and morals. A man who is the unquestioned authority in his own home is subject to the oversight of the church through its elders and can be disciplined by means of admonition, private or public rebuke, and even excommunication (being cast out of the church and turned over to Satan; Matt. 18:17,18; 1 Cor. 5:5,13). A woman can bring her husband before the church elders if he refuses to perform his duty to provide for the family or if he misuses his authority by physically abusing his wife and children. The church has real authority over its members.

Likewise God has given the state the task of administering justice and punishing evildoers, and with that job He has given rulers the authority to force people to stop doing wrong (Rom. 13:3,4). Dad may rule his home, but if he’s caught doing 70 in a 55 mph zone he’ll pay the fine or go to jail. And if a man takes another man’s life, in a godly nation he will be executed. We find a picture of God’s intended plan for the state in 1 Timothy 2:1,2 where Paul calls upon Christians to pray for those in authority over them so that they can live quiet, godly lives. The job of civil government is to deal with the bad people so the rest can live life to the full for the glory of God. The state must have authority over families so that families can live in peace and fulfill the myriad tasks God has given them.

Families and their members are subject to the respective authorities of church and state, but families have no authority over the latter. Jurisdiction is a one way street. (We should also note that God has not given the church or the state any authority over each other. They are parallel institutions, each answerable to God. Rom. 13:4; Heb. 13:17) When we follow God’s order we have vigorous and influential families operating under the real but limited jurisdictions of the church and the state.

The Church Is the Defining Institution in This Age

Some of you may be wondering by now if we are giving short shrift to the church. After all, the church is the Body of Christ, the agency for the advancement of the gospel in this age. Yes, actually we have not as yet given full due to the church, but that does not change the truth of what we have said so far. Up to this point we have been speaking of the relative weight of the covenantal institutions in terms of practical and jurisdictional control. And we stand by the conclusions we have reached thus far.

But we need to say more. To fully understand God’s work in His world we have to look beyond the sociology of primary institutions. Things are not always what they seem in this age. For example, to look at the church today one might conclude that it is a pretty ineffective power when viewed alongside the awesome and growing power of the state. And that conclusion would be right… and wrong.

The church in its institutional manifestation certainly is weak when compared to the expanding and increasingly tyrannical state in many parts of the world, including our own. But such a view is an exercise in comparing apples and oranges. The church never should wield the kind of power that civil government wields because the nature of their respective power differs. God has given the state the use of force, raw physical force. The police can lock you up and judges can sentence you to death.

However, the church has no such power. It has a greater power! It has the power to bind and to loose, to welcome into the community of the redeemed or to cast out into Satan’s domain. It has power projected into eternity! (Matt. 16:19; 18:18). The church exercises its awesome power through the proclamation of God’s Word in the energy of the Spirit of God. It is a power that reaches and changes the heart, and by changing the heart can change the world… and eternity. The worst the state can do is kill you (Matt. 10:28). In the church God is exercising a force that exceeds any other power on earth.

So while the church as an institution in this world has a comparatively small jurisdiction in terms of day to day life, it is actually the defining institution of history! Plus the church is the only one of the three covenantal institutions that will outlast this world. Both family and state are merely temporal institutions; they will end with the passing of this present world (cf. Lk. 20:35; Rom. 7:2; Job 12:23). Further, a man’s response to the message of the gospel determines his relationship henceforth to his family and to civil rulers. Jesus said, "He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worth of Me" (Matt. 10:37) and "from now on five members in one household will be divided, three against two, and two against three" (Lk. 12:52). The loyalties that the church and its message create are superior to any other loyalties, including those of family If forced to choose, you had better choose Christ and His church over your family!

Striking the Balance

So do we have to modify our family-centered vision in light of these truths? Does the defining role of the church in our lives mean that we should be church-centered rather than family-centered? That would seem logical in light of what we have just seen.

To correctly answer our question we need to pause and ask another question. What is the church exactly? Is it a building? Of course not. Is it a professional staff of people operating religious activities? We know it’s not. The church is the people who make it up, the baptized in Christ who gather around the Lord’s Table, who submit to one another and to godly leadership under the authority of Christ, who conform their lives to God’s Word. The church is God’s people, and the local church is made up of… families! (Or partial families if the gospel has brought division in a home.)

You see, apart from the initial matter of choosing for or against Christ, we ought not set church and family over against one another, as if we must center our lives on one or the other. The fact is that the best way to be church-centered is to be family-centered — because the Christian family is the first form of the church in the world. Pastor B. M. Palmer stated it this way over 120 years ago (The Family in its Civil and Churchly Aspects):

Each pious household is a separate fiber of those roots by which the Church of the living God takes hold upon the earth, and preserves its existence in a sinful world.

The church has no manifestation on the earth except through the people who make it up, and those people are grouped into families. The church is not the family, and the family is not the church, but there is such a symbiotic relationship between the two that we can scarcely speak of one without the other. Without strong families, the church cannot be strong. So by being properly family-centered we are making our most effective effort to strengthen the church of Christ. Our choice is not either the church or the family; we must choose both the church and the family.

We are anxious to be understood clearly. Those of us who are family-centered know that the gospel and the church define everything else in this age. We know that we must choose Christ over family. We know that we must not neglect the local church while making excuse that our family is more important. We know that we owe the church our loyalty, our time, and our tithes. Anything less is sub-Christian.

Happily, though, we don’t need to neglect our families or our church. They fit hand in glove; they are perfectly harmonious. The church shapes families through the gospel, the teaching of the Word, and discipleship. These families in turn give shape to the church. (The church of the New Testament is harmonious with family-centered living, though the church in the form it has taken today is not necessarily so. But then that’s why we promote church renewal as well as family renewal!)

So, getting back to the point at which we began, we deny the suggestion that we are guilty of making the family everything to the neglect of other Christian duties. Our intention is to strike the proper biblical balance, though we are still learning to live up to our own ideals and undoubtedly fail in many details.

We realize, however, that since we emphasize such a seemingly radical agenda of home-this and family-that, we may seem to be imbalanced. Our appeal would be simply that any who look skeptically on our family-centered agenda do what we are trying to do: test everything by the Bible.

Our actions are rooted in our belief in the sufficiency of Scripture. We believe that the Bible adequately addresses all areas of life and that it contains the direction we need to shape our families. We practice (or aim to) home education, betrothal, home business, family worship, etc. because we see in the Bible precepts, principles, and patterns that lead us in those directions, and we believe the Bible is the only safe guide in these matters. We are actively suspicious of any family patterns that have arisen as the Christian family has been influenced by the surrounding culture. We believe that our agenda seems radical only because our society has deviated so far from a biblical way of life. Our trying to live family-centered lives (as we have defined and limited that concept) is an expression of our attempt to live Bible-based lives.

The purpose of living out the Bible’s prescription for living is that we might "do all to the glory of God" (1 Cor. 10:31). Our ultimate aim is not to create a cult of the family but "to know nothing … except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified" (1 Cor. 2:2). Fulfilling the job description Jesus left us means obeying all that He commanded us, included the Bible’s teaching on the family (Matt. 28:20). Properly defined, family-centered living is Christ-centered living.

Concluding Admonitions

Now, how about those of us who are already sold on family-centered living? As we draw to a close on this subject let’s make several important applications as a summary of what we have seen.

1. Your family must be your primary focus in life. You are not being imbalanced to be preoccupied with ordering your household. So much of life falls under the jurisdiction of the family that you must spend huge amounts of time and energy on family affairs. Add to this the fact that most of us are trying to "bring home" so many responsibilities that have been abandoned by the home, and we can see that we have a tremendous job ahead of us. (For a discussion of how a father can "come home" and still fulfill his God-given duty to be outward-oriented and take dominion for Christ, see "Father Come Home … and Change the World" in issue #20.)

2. You must be a committed member of a local church. (Comments:RKM: The people are the “church” not a building. A group of people that meets in a home would be better than a building. See article about Home-Churches. If there is not one why not start one) Church is not optional for the Christian. It is as important a commitment as the family, though it takes far less time. You need to be under the authority of biblically qualified elders. You need to be supporting the church with your tithes. You need to be modeling for your children the importance of fellowship and accountability in the Christian life. If you neglect the church, you confirm the suspicions of those who say we are imbalanced. (Finding a biblical church is not easy, and it is the reason we spend so much time addressing church issues in these pages.)

3. You must submit to civil authority. The state, too, does God create a covenantal institution for our good, and our submission to those in authority is part of our submission to Christ. Now the form our submission takes in the context of evil laws, lawless judges, and even lawless laws (in this constitutional republic) is another matter. But let us always be committed to submitting to civil authority as an essential part of our worship of God.

4. We must strengthen the family and the church as alternative institutions to the state. The state in our day is consuming all jurisdictions and taking over the work of family and church. The only way to combat that perilous trend is to rebuild the family and the church. We do this by bringing back to the family those responsibilities, which have been abandoned and yielded to the state: education, health care, welfare, etc. But we also must support the church with our tithes so that it has the means to carry out its God-given tasks and act as a buffer between family and state. A church that has use of all the tithes of its families for gospel workers, shepherds, and for ministry to the truly needy will be a strong church. The church can then be the backup institution to the family God means it to be. (For example, the church can help the widows in need rather than sending them to the Social Security office.)

Do you get the impression that we have a major piece of work ahead of us?! Do we ever! But what a privilege to be instructed by the Spirit in these things so that we can lead our families, churches, and yes, our nation back to the Lord and His ways. Let’s keep studying the Word, discussing these things together, praying for wisdom as to which step to take next — and then let’s take that step, confident that the path we are on is the path of God’s choosing. May the Lord keep us on the right path when it comes to family, church, and state so that we can be Christ-centered in all that we do.

 

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