Jan

Are We Guilty of a Messianic View of the Christian Family? by Sam Waldron

Posted by: ROE in Sam Waldron

Are We Guilty of a Messianic View of the Christian Family? Let me answer this question by answering several related questions.

Who am I talking to? I am not talking just to the family-integrated folks [NCFIC]. I am talking to all of us who are trying to build a family on biblical principles and making tons of sacrifices to do so. I was one of the pastors of a church for 24 years whose families were basically homeschoolers. I was proud of them. I was proud of the sacrifices they made to have a biblical family. I was proud of how hard the moms worked for their principles. I was proud of the leadership our fathers provided to their families. I was proud of how relatively well our kids behaved and did compared to most others I knew. I was proud of our families. I was proud of what we believed about the family and related biblical and social issues. Many hard and sad experiences since then have taught me that I was perhaps too proud. I was placing hope in the wrong thing. I fear I had to some degree a messianic view of the family.

What do I not mean? When I say all of this, let me make clear that I still believe in biblical principles of family living. I believe in the headship of the husband and father and the submission of the wife and mother. I still believe in and practice family worship. I still believe that God will honor diligent parenting to the salvation of many (though not necessarily all) the children of diligent parents. I think the passages in the Old Testament about this apply to salvation and to New Testament believers. For instance, I believe Psalm 112:1-2 is for Christian parents today when it asserts: “Praise the LORD! How blessed is the man who fears the LORD, Who greatly delights in His commandments. His descendants will be mighty on earth; The generation of the upright will be blessed.” Furthermore, I would not go back and change the standards on which I attempted to raise my children and lead my family. My wife and I would just try to live up to those standards more consistently than we did. I have not adopted some super-new covenant view which relegates all the promises of the wisdom literature of the Old Testament to the pile of abolished ceremonial precepts.

What do I mean? I mean that the Bible is first of all about the gospel of Christ. There is one Messiah, and he alone is the hope of the world. He alone is the hope of our children. Our Christian families are not the hope of the world. The hope of the world in any sense that we may speak of an earthly institution is the body of Christ, the church, and not the Christian family. It was to the church and not the family that Christ said in Matthew 5:14-16, “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden; nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” Our light should shine partly in our Christian families, but the light is mainly Christ in the church seen in its good works.

Let me say it clearly. The message of the Bible is Christ, and it is really, really easy to gradually in our minds and hearts to make our focus something else—like the Christian family. The hope of the world is the gospel of Christ, and it is really, really easy to put our hope in something else. It is especially easy to put our hope in something good like the Bible’s general promises of temporal welfare for moral living, like the Bible’s general promises to nations which have moral civil laws, and like the Bible’s real commands and promises about Christian living in the home.

Why am I concerned? Here is why. I believe that my views on this subject were skewed and distorted for some years. And I believe that all of us must be careful not to distort the message of the Bible into something that focuses on the Christian family rather than on Christ Himself. We are not the hope of the world. We are earthen vessels. The treasure is Christ Himself.

———

Source: Midwest Center for Theological Studies

Tags: Sam Waldron

This entry was posted on Friday, January 27th, 2012 at 5:00 am and is filed under Sam Waldron. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

One comment

Elizabeth

Thank you! Very well said. As a mother who home-schooled four children, I saw, somewhere in the middle of it all, how easy it was to be prideful of family accomplishment and place our hopes THERE. So easy to do. You are quite right. Our hope is in Jesus alone, not in living up to some standard of super-parenting. That’s not to say parenting is not tremendously important, but we mustn’t replace the Creator with the creature, in our hearts. A fine line to walk! Thanks for pointing this out. It needed to be said.

January 27th, 2012 at 6:57 am