WISDOM FOR FULFILLED FAMILY

“Wives, submit to your own husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and do not be bitter toward them” – Colossians 3: 18-19

Allied to the Harmonious Home, we need WISDOM for FULFILLED FAMILY: “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and do not be bitter toward them. Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing to the Lord. Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged” (Col.3 18-21). The family is an institution ordained by God and designed for the care and nurture of His children. God is the Father of Families (1Cor.8:6a). He is the Father: “from whom the WHOLE FAMILY in heaven and earth is named” (Eph.3:14b; 4:6).

God created humans to live as families. However, in modern society, the family is confronted with many pressures both from without and within. These include: confusion in defining identities, roles, and responsibilities of family members; parenting problems, sibling dynamics, extended relations, and the meeting of physical and other needs. In order to face the ups and downs in family relationships, God provides encouragement, guidance, strength, and wisdom for all family-related situations.

God has a design for Family Life. The Fulfilled Christian Family is one that aligns with biblical principles; one in which each member understands and fulfils his or her God-given role. Family was not designed by man; it was created by God for the benefit of humanity and our stewardship over it. The basic biblical family unit comprises a man, a woman and their offspring or adopted children. Extended families can include relatives by blood or marriage such as grandparents, nieces, nephews, cousins, aunts, and uncles. A primary principle of the family is the lifetime commitment ordained by God for the members. The husband and wife are responsible for holding the family together, bearing in mind that “God hates divorce” (Mal.2:16).

Apart from being born-again, Ephesians 5: 22-26 and Colossians 3: 18-21 provide key principles for the Christian family. The husband is required to love his wife as Christ loved the church, and the wife to respect her husband, be his helper, and willingly submit to his leadership in the family, which should start with his own spiritual relationship with God and then flow to building his wife and children in scriptural values. Fathers must bring up their children in “the training and admonition of the Lord” (Eph.6:4). A father, assumedly helped by the wife, is also to provide for his family if he is not to be reckoned as “worse than an unbeliever” (1Tim.5:8). The godly wife helps, supports, and cares for her family (Gen.2: 18-20; Proverbs 31).  

In addition to the nuclear family unit that comprises the husband, wife, and children, “God sets the solitary in families...” (Psa.68:6a). In other words, He places the lonely in families; He causes the solitary ones to dwell in homes. There are folks, especially children, who by circumstances of birth or background were not privileged naturally to enjoy the blessing of family. God specially cares for these sets of people: “A father of the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in His holy habitation” (Psa.68:5). The family of God includes diverse sets of people: those who need to belong; those who need to experience the “first family” of the church. That’s why the Church should be more inclusive, open, and supportive of orphans, parentless children and single adults – including the unmarried and widows or widowers. These need the Church to be their family!

Created in God’s Image, men and women are equally valuable in His eyes; but to guarantee fulfilment, they must abide in their God-appointed roles: husband provides for and protects the family; the wife nurtures and cares for him and the children. In a day in which increasingly people feel alienated, Christians have a marvellous opportunity to be channels of God’s love – the church family – in which He places the lonely. Our success as families at the home front will have eternally significant effects; hence the urgent need to establish in our homes an atmosphere that encourages learning and living God’s Word.