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The home is society's incubator where children are to be nourished both materially and
spiritually. The father is to provide for his family (1 Tim. 5:8), nourish his children
up in spiritual things (Eph. 6:4) and the mother is to be a keeper at home (Titus
2:3-5). When parents fail in these things — as surely they have in this present time —
children are left to their own devices. Morals, duty, love for God, parents, and their fellow
man have no meaning to them. This near-universal neglect of children today has not only created
multitudinous problems in civil society, but has also affected local churches.
Divorce is a pandemic that is destroying souls and homes and will continue to do so until and unless local congregations take a firm stand in clearly teaching the Lord's will concerning marriage. Citing federal figures in 1999, the Associated Press reported that "there were about 4.2 divorces for every thousand people in 1998. That rate was 8.5 per thousand in Nevada, 6.4 in Tennessee, 6.1 in Arkansas, and 6.0 in Alabama and Oklahoma." The home as God instituted it in the beginning is for the material good of the race and its perpetuation. It is also where children should first learn spiritual truths at the feet of their parents. As instituted in the beginning, the home is for the comfort of man. "God said, it is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a help meet for him" (Gen. 2:18 ASV). Thus, God made woman from man's rib and by virtue of that she is bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh. Hence, Adam declared that, "she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of man." Growing out of that is another purpose of the home — the production of children for the perpetuation of the human race (Gen 1:28). It was God's intent from the beginning that children were to be produced in homes where men and women are married. That law was unchanged in Jesus' day and remains unchanged in our day. God never intended that mankind should roam and breed freely as do the animals of the earth, but that one man and one woman would form a union for life. But those children produced in God-ordained homes must be developed into God fearing individuals, and that responsibility falls squarely upon the shoulders of parents. God's pattern for developing children into decent, God-fearing, adults was given by inspiration centuries before modern child-sociologists and psychologists created their industries. There are four ways in which a child must develop to be a decent citizen of any society, and those are expressed by the inspired Luke regarding the human maturing of Jesus. "And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man" (Luke 2:52). The development of the child Jesus began with Himself. He "increased in wisdom and stature." The order of these two things indicates the importance of them. Of first importance are the mental and physical development of the child. The next order is also revealing. He increased "in favor with God and man." Thus, Jesus matured mentally, physically, spiritually and socially. Providing for his family, both physically and spiritually, has always been the primary responsibility of the father. Paul reminds us that, "...if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel" (1 Tim. 5:8). It also was, and remains, the God-given responsibility of the mother to be a keeper at home and guide the children. This was divinely commanded through Paul in his letter to Titus when he said the older women should teach the younger women, "to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed." (Titus 2:4-5) This is the only pattern for the home that will produce morally upright citizens and faithful Christians. |