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God has three institutions which are all designed for the good of man. The first of these is
the home which He instituted in the beginning when He formed man from the dust of the ground
and woman from the rib of man. The second is the state which provides for orderly civil conduct
and enforcement of laws, as Paul noted in Romans 13. The third institution of God is His
church which Jesus established on Pentecost day in Acts 2. The home and the state are for
man's earthly welfare while the church is for his eternal well being. Our present focus is upon
the home as God would have it, for all of human society rests upon that foundation.
As the first of God's institutions, the home's creation and purpose is given in the book of Genesis. God knew it wasn't good for man to be alone, so He made woman for him and established the first home upon the foundation of one man and one woman (Genesis 2:21-25). That order has never been changed, and Jesus restated it in Matthew 19:4-5: "Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?" God's marriage law is absolute and unchanged. Today's sodomite agenda may agitate for illicit relations, or so-called "marriage" between members of the same sex and civil law may permit it, but that is sin and a violation of God's marriage law from the beginning. "Same-sex marriage" also negates one of the prime purposes of the home — the production of children. That was also God's intent and purpose from the beginning, when He told Adam and Eve to, "Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth" (Genesis 1:28). This indicates that God intended for married couples to populate the earth, but our society today is filled with children who are the products of parents who have never married. In recent years, the rate of illegitimacy in Oklahoma has risen from 25 to 28 percent. That means that more than one fourth of all babies born in Oklahoma are born to fornicators. Also, growing out of the responsibility to perpetuate the race, is the responsibility of parents — one woman and one man — to provide both material and spiritual necessities for their offspring. This was, and remains, the primary responsibility of the father, as Paul reminds us. "But 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 Timothy 5:8; c.f. Ephesians 6:4). It also was — and remains — the God-given responsibility of the mother to be a keeper at home and guide the children (Titus 2:4-5). This is absolutely the only pattern for the home that can and will produce morally upright citizens. In more than a half-century since World War Two ended, women of all ages have filled the work place, and the Feminist Movement has influenced our society so much that the God-ordained role of mother and homemaker is now held in low repute by many females. Ask a young girl today what she wants to be when she becomes an adult and, chances are, she won't say, "A homemaker" or "A Mother." A secular humanistic society has so tainted even the thinking of Christians that it is now expected that females will all grow up to pursue careers outside the home. These things ought not so to be. Nothing is clearer in the New Testament than that women should be keepers at home and that men should provide for and lead their families. When mothers and fathers fulfill their God-given roles, the family remains intact, God is loved and respected, and society's ills are greatly reduced. |