It’s hard to believe that there are those who hate the family.  Communist ideology hates the family,  The now financially broke organization, Black Lives Matter leadership and ideology likewise hates the family as it is solidly based on the same ideology.  In chapter seven of Rod Dreher’s popular book LIVE NOT BY LIES copyright 2020, he writes about the influence of a Christian Czech family in the 1980’s under Communism. 

He highlights one such family in the chapter and how they survived brutality under the Communist dictatorship writing, “There is a strong model of anti-totalitarian resistance based in the Christian family”.  How quickly we forget.  That was the 1980’s.  And the Devil also hates the family.

 

I missed the last edition of Focus.  We left on our annual trip to see our family and grandson, and one of the casualties was the newsletter.  I didn’t forget, rather was intending of writing something up from the upper room in my daughter’s rural countryside Dutch home, making sure that I had my SD card and pertinent files along for the trip.  Well, thanks Tracey for coming up with material.

 

The previous newsletter article (March) is a very relevant article on the “trans” movement sweeping the world that continues to be timely, so keep it handy.

We concluded with the statement, “So let us be transcendent people.    Let us remember that everyone has a hunger to change.  We have a need to change, because of transgressions, if nothing else.  And the wonderful good news of Calvary is Jesus died between two transgressors, as an innocent substitute for us.  And change is possible in this life as 2 Cor 5:17 “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.””

 

Summer is now upon us, and it is time to take the deep dive into our annual theme.  Remember what it is?  It is “The family of God”.  

What is a family?  If you look it up, what one sees over and over again, in the search results, for now anyway, is something along these lines. Family: a primary social institution; basic unit in society; one of the oldest institutions on earth.  That sounds pretty traditional—yet another descriptor often seen describing the family. We’ll see how long the Marxists will take to modify these results.   Especially since Supreme Court justices can’t even say what a woman is.  (Recall March’s article where I looked up the word ‘trans’ and all the predicted one sided populated search results.)

 

In 2012 the New York Times printed a “debate” where eight or so key thinkers of the time contributed a brief definition of the word family.  I don’t know if it was election year related, but family was a political issue as President Obama was in the middle of his re-election bid.  And we know what has happened since under his leadership, first the Supreme Court’s ruling on marriage in 2015 and the floodgates since.  

One of the contributors in that NY Times debatate was Bill Bennett former Secretary of Education under President Ronald Reagan and later George Bush.  He wrote then a very good definition, “The family is the nucleus of civilization and the basic social unit of society. Aristotle wrote that the family is nature’s established association for the supply of mankind’s everyday wants. Research clearly shows that the institution of the family is the first form of community and government and, as Michael Novak said, the first, best and original Department of Health, Education and Welfare.”

 

So as we turn to our annual theme here at CLC, we turn to the Bible.  Biblically, our word ‘family’ is not as clear cut as we may think.  It only shows up in my NKJV Bible app search results, 99 times, with only five uses in the New Testament---only five!  And most of the OT results are mere geneological or generic references.  In contrast, guess how many times ‘father’ is used in the whole Bible.  One thousand, five hundred and seven times (200 + times in Genesis alone)!  The word ‘Mother’ is used three hundred and five times.  And ‘father and mother’ together, are found eighty-five times.

No problem.  The concept of what we want to study is broader than a single word.  The word we want to add is ‘household’ or simply ‘house’.  With the addition of this word, we can then begin to capture the Biblical mindset form some theological conclusions.  

Here is an example, “Now the LORD had said to Abram: “Get out of your country, from your family and from your father’s house, to a land that I will show you.” Genesis 12:1

 

Here is another example:  “Then the LORD said to Noah, “Come into the ark, you and all your household, because I have seen that you are righteous before Me in this generation.” Genesis 7:1

 

Now we will also recall that throughout the Old Testament, there are some family arrangements, such as the status of women, polygamy, and in the Mosaic law various type of marriage, that make us uncomfortable.  We will try to sort that out.   No doubt there is controversy.  But what is our goal?

 

Our goal in this world today is to learn the Biblical message about what a family is, and what God wants for a family, and then how all this relates to God’s plan for our lives.  Why? Because if we don’t have a plan for our family and household, we can be assured that someone else does as it continues to be under attack by powerful outside forces including the Devil himself.  

 

Note well what Jesus says in John fourteen.  “In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you.  I go to prepare a place for you.”

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That’s my view from the Blackberry Patch Pulpit

Pastor Tom