Family Vision

Written in December of 2008

Think about it honestly: what has shaped your thinking, and therefore your actions, about what a family is, how a family should operate, what the roles of the husband and wife are to be, and how the parents are to relate to their children? Is it the culture we live in? Is it the way that you yourself were brought up? Is it the teaching of someone you know or a book you have read? Or is it simply the Word of God?

The Lord constantly challenges me in this area: is my thinking lined up to the Word of God? Am I allowing HIM to impart His vision to me so that I can live out His heart in every area of my life, or am I just doing what comes to me naturally, living in my “default” mode?

One of those areas is family life and family vision. What does the Word of God say about the family? If the only thing we had to base our opinions of family relationships on was the Bible, is there anything that might be different in our thinking, and therefore, our lifestyles?

Romans 12:2 “Do not be conformed to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

Whether we realize it or not, the current view of family in the world is very different from what the Bible expresses of the heart of God. In the society we live in, marriage is an optional formality between two people in an intimate relationship. Children are optional liabilities, can be planned when they are “convenient”, and are not desirable in excess, because they are too much of a bother and too expensive to raise. Mothers and fathers have basically the same roles in the marital relationship and in the raising of the children. They should split responsibilities 50/50 in order to insure that everything is fair in all areas: household chores, bringing in family income, teaching of the children, etc.

Is this congruent with what the Bible teaches? I believe an honest, open-hearted look at God’s Word will show us that it is not.

The issues mentioned are far too numerous for the scope of one article, so I would like to focus my attention to the matter of teaching our children. Let us consider what the Lord God says to us in Deuteronomy chapter six.

“These are the commands, decrees and laws the LORD your God directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, so that you, your children and their children after them may fear the LORD your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you, and so that you may enjoy long life. Hear, O Israel, and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the LORD, the God of your fathers, promised you.” (vs 1-3, emphasis added)

What is Moses saying here? He is clearly stating that a transfer of truth was to take place, from generation to generation. What was to be passed on? First, a personal knowledge of God, and second, a wholehearted love of Him! This is the mark of the Christian: knowing and loving God. We can not pass on to our children and grandchildren what is not real to us. That is why in the next section, the Lord starts with the parents. They must know and love the Lord with all of their hearts first, in order to be able to pass anything genuine along to future generations. We can therefore state it this way: The number one priority of parenting is to KNOW and LOVE the Lord our God:

“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts.” (Vs. 4-6, emphasis added)

Next, inspired by the Living God, Moses addresses the transfer of truth that must take place between father and son:

“Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.” (Vs 7-9, emphasis added)

Obviously, the Lord was very serious about this transfer of truth! Fathers were to communicate diligently, conscientiously and constantly with their children about their personal knowledge of and walk with the Living God. Many parents that love the Lord just assume that their children will also learn to love the Lord and will choose to follow Him just because they took them to church every Sunday and tried to be good parents. However, the reality in our current society is shocking and disheartening. Statistics show that over 80% of children raised in Christian homes choose to walk away from the Lord by the time they reach college age. What is going wrong?

God has given parents a very specific blueprint for passing the faith on to the next generation. Unfortunately, most parents do not see it as their responsibility.

Recently, my family and I visited a church where our five-year-old son attended Sunday school. After church was over, several of the adults that had been working with the children in Sunday school approached me to tell me how impressed they were that my son had been able to answer all of the questions to a Bible quiz, while the other children had no clue. “Do you teach him the Bible at home?” they asked incredulously.

Their question saddened me. Is it such a foreign idea that Christian parents would teach their children the Bible at home? It seems that too many parents assume that it is the job of Sunday school to impress spiritual truths upon their children, and therefore leave the job up to these teachers to do, in a one-hour time slot per week. How sad!

Now I am not saying that Sunday school is a bad thing, by any means! I am merely stating that the primary responsibility for teaching children the ways of the Lord was delegated to the parents, and should not be left up to others, nor dismissed as unimportant.