Skip to main content

Some Thoughts on Famity by Pastor Kevin

By


You would have thought that the title of this blog contains a typo. Not so, not so. Yes, in fact, I intended to spell family as "family." If you have ever heard of the word "brunch" you know it is a mash-up of the words breakfast and lunch. Thus, brunch. Can you guess which two words gets the mash-up here? If you guessed Trinity and Family, you are correct.


I am reading a book by Herman Bavinck called The Christian Family. So far so good. As Herman B explores some of the biblical foundations of family he says something intriguing about the origins of the family and it’s connection to society:


“The two-in-oneness of husband and wife expands with a child into a three-in-oneness. Father, mother, and child are one soul and one flesh, expanding and unfolding the one image of God, united within threefold diversity and diverse within harmonic unity.”


Bavinck continues...


“This three-in-oneness of relationships and functions, of qualities and gifts, constitutes the foundation of all civilized society. The authority of the father, the love of the mother, and the obedience of the child form in their unity the threefold cord that binds together and sustains all relationships within human society, including the church and state. Authority (Hebrews 12:6), love (Isaiah 66:13), and obedience (Matthew 18:1-4) are the pillars of all human society.”


You have probably heard that the family is the building block of society. Perhaps Bavinck is fleshing out this idea and giving us some practical details of how. I think Bavinck is suggesting is that a society can only be healthy when male, female, and child function as they should by God’s design. 


So while it is important for males to primarily present authority and for females to present tender love it is crucial for healthy society that males are not exclusively authority but also tender, as it is important that females are not exclusively tender love but also authority...and a child is held up as an example of both. 

 Consider 1 Thes. 2:7 


But we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children.


Paul is claiming that he and his male team were gentle, like a mother with her children. In other words, Bavinck is saying “no man is complete without some feminine qualities, no woman is complete without some masculine qualities, and to both man and woman, the child is held up as an example (Matthew 18:3). Society is shaped by family, and family is shaped by God. This is the only hope for a healthy civilization and family as God designed is the very best and most effective way of it’s cultivation. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Reflective Glory: How the Moon Displays the Mercy of God

By
Our sun is a fitting metaphor for the glory of God. In the context of our solar system, it is massive, bright, beautiful, powerful, self-sufficient, heat-producing, life-giving, and dangerous. It is, by far, the dominant feature of our solar system and without it the system would fling apart and all living things therein would die.  On the other hand, our moon is a fitting metaphor for human beings, especially for those who believe in Jesus Christ. First, compared to the sun, the moon is tiny and dim. The sun is 400 times larger than the moon, its mass is 27 million times greater than the mass of the moon, and from our perspective its light shines 450,000 times brighter than that of the moon. The sun is so much greater than the moon that it’s difficult to quantify and express the difference. Likewise, the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, is so much great than each and all of us that it’s impossible to quantify or express the difference. Indeed, the Lord is very great and greatly...
Post a Comment
Read more

To Have My Soul Happy in the Lord, by George Muller

By Anonymous
To Have My Soul Happy in the Lord By George Muller “It has pleased the Lord to teach me a truth, the benefit of which I have not lost for more than fourteen years. The point is this: I saw more clearly than ever that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was to have my soul happy in the Lord. The first thing to be concerned about was not how much I might serve the Lord, or how I might glorify the Lord, but how I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my inner man might be nourished. “I saw that the most important thing I had to do was to give myself to the reading of the Word of God—not prayer, but the Word of God. And here again, not the simple reading of the Word of God so that it only passes through my mind just as water runs through a pipe, but considering what I read, pondering over it, and applying it to my heart. To meditate on it, that thus my heart might be comforted, encouraged, warned, reproved, instructed. And that thus,...
Post a Comment
Read more

Rejoicing in the Wrath of God: Part 1 by Pastor Charlie Handren

By Anonymous
This Sunday we resume our study of the book of Revelation and within the first eight verses of chapter 6 we will encounter the wrath of God being poured out upon the world. In one sense, being confronted with the reality of God’s wrath is uncomfortable at best, but in another sense, it fills the believing heart with joy.  One of the first essays I wrote in college was on the wrath and love of God, and probably the main effect it has had on my life is to cause joy to rise up in my heart whenever I contemplate God’s wrath. Sometime ago I shared this with a pastor friend of mine and though he said nothing in response, he looked at me as if to say, “If you knew anything about the wrath of God, you would not rejoice in it.” At the time, I wasn't sure how to respond, but I knew that the joy in my heart was not stemming from a belittling of the horror of the wrath of God. Then several years ago, as I was reading through Revelation, I came across a couple of passages in chapters 15 and 16 ...
Post a Comment
Read more