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The Challenge to Preserve the Christian Family Part 2:
What the Christian Family Is
by Norman and Ann Bales
All About Families


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When we talk about preserving the Christian family, we are not necessarily talking about the traditional family. When people talk about the traditional family, they often define it by the television sitcoms of the fifties like "Ozzie and Harriet" and "Leave it to Beaver." Those were good shows, but they were not presented as a model of the Christian family. They reflected the values of the times. They weren't even "traditional families" in one sense of the term. Ward Cleaver went off to work everyday. We never knew exactly what he did in the work place. Judging from the fact that he always wore a coat and tie, one would assume that he worked in an office somewhere. That family model is only about a hundred years old. During most of the history of the world, people made their living in some kind of agricultural pursuit and the entire family was involved in working together. That's the traditional family. But the Biblical family is defined even more sharply in the scriptures.

• In the first place, Christ is the head of the Christian home. Norman doesn't remember his home as an art center. His family didn't display the works of Claude Monet or Picasso, but an important slogan was framed and prominently displayed. It read, "Christ is the head of this home." This plaque is now prominent in our own home. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 11:3 "Now I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God." It's not popular to say it, but there's an authority chain in the home. In Ephesians 5:23 "For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior." Those verses don't give men a license to walk over women, but they do establish the need for authority in the home. A home cannot operate successfully without it. The passage goes on to say, " . . . in this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church. " (5:28-29). They didn't talk about any of that in "Ozzie and Harriet" and "Leave It To Beaver." But we're defining the Christian home, not the traditional home.

• In the second place, the Christian home has married people in it. Such a statement is not intended to imply the thesis that unmarried people are second-class citizens. The man who wrote about husbands and wives in Ephesians 5 was unmarried. In 1 Corinthians 7:8 he said, "Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I am." It's all right to be unmarried, but when God designed the family, he initiated the marriage contract as the binding agreement that forms a family. Genesis 2:24 "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh."

• In Christian families, children honor their parents, parents love and instruct their children. In Ephesians 6:1-4, Paul wrote, "Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. "Honor your father and mother" -- which is the first commandment with a promise -- 'that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.' Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord."

That's the basic structure of the Christian family. Next, we'll discuss what that means to society.

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