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What the Bible says about Family as Building Block of Society
(From Forerunner Commentary)

Genesis 2:21-24

It is a damning testimonial of our society's state of morality that changing the definition of marriage is being seriously discussed. If the discussion results in marriage being opened up to combinations of people other than one man and one woman, we can mark it as the death-knell of the nation. No society has ever endured far beyond the demeaning of the marriage institution.

From a biblical perspective, marriage is humanity's founding institution. After He created Adam and Eve, God immediately united them as husband and wife. Their union became the bedrock upon which human civilization was built. As much as evolutionists have tried to dispel the notion, humanity is one large family, and family begins with marriage.

Various kinds of families have been tried throughout history—polygamous, incestuous, communal, etc.—but none of them have really worked. All stable, enduring societies cherish the one-man-one-woman lifelong bond of marriage. Rome, for instance, flourished during its centuries as a republic due to its tenacious grip on what has become known as the "traditional family." It is renowned for its total lack of divorce throughout this period. Rome's slow decline can be traced to the time when easy divorce and open promiscuity began to cheapen the marriage covenant's worth.

This should give us an indication of where America—and to a similar extent, the rest of the Western world—is on the timeline of societal decline. Divorce and promiscuity became commonplace not long after World War II. In the nearly sixty years since that time, divorce rates have hovered around 50%, and out-of-wedlock sex is nearly universal. Roughly a third of America's births are illegitimate. And since the late 1970s, homosexuality has increasingly become accepted as just another lifestyle choice, despite the ravages of AIDS.

The legal recognition of traditional marriage acknowledges its benefits to society as a whole. Traditional marriages produce children, who extend the nation's existence, ideals, goals, and wealth for another generation. Traditional families are healthier, more stable, and more productive than other kinds of families, resulting in a net gain for society. Homosexual unions can never even hope to provide society any of these benefits.

The apostle Paul writes in Hebrews 13:4, "Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge." The use of both "fornicators" and "adulterers" is significant here because the former covers all sexual immorality, while the latter describes marital infidelity. Homosexuality, then, included under the general term "fornication," has no place in godly marriage. Using Paul's language, it is defiling, thus perverse, base, and unwholesome. There should be no debate within the church of God that such an abomination has any place among God-fearing Christians.

Looking beyond this ungodly attempt to pervert the noble institution of marriage, Christian husbands and wives need to take stock of their own relationships, asking such questions as: Are we making the most of our marriages? Are we good examples of what Christian marriages should be? Are we honoring God in these God-plane relationships? Do our children see how much we love each other? Are we truly united in belief and practice? How can we improve our marriages?

Then, even if society crumbles around us, we will have created an environment of strength and unity in which to rebuild an even better world for our children and grandchildren.

Richard T. Ritenbaugh
In Defense of Marriage

Exodus 20:12

Why does God want us to honor our parents? The family is the basic building block or unit of society, thus the stability of the community depends on the stability of the families that comprise it. A person's response to government derives from the parent-child relationship. The lessons and principles learned from honoring, respecting, and obeying parents will result in a society stable enough to promote development of the whole person.

John W. Ritenbaugh
The Fifth Commandment (1997)

Exodus 20:12

Life begins at home and wisdom should begin there too. The home is the primary and most vital factor in a child's development into a mature and stable member of society. Church and school play secondary roles, if only because of the amount of time spent at home and all the personal interaction that takes place there.

In keeping this commandment, the Bible divides responsibility between parents and child, even though the child eventually bears the greater responsibility. It is his responsibility to learn from his parents, not just because they are his human lifegivers, but because the parents have been what the child has not—both young and old.

Therefore, parents should have accrued wisdom from situations the child has not yet experienced. It is the parents' responsibility to create an environment in which they can pass wisdom on so that the child can learn the lessons of life more easily. And so society benefits from the resulting stability of that family unit.

If the child learns these lessons, the wisdom will be an enriching ornament, a sign of honor, and a guide to long life and prosperity. These are the fulfillment of the fifth commandment's promise. The process begun in the home then prepares the way into the Kingdom of God.

John W. Ritenbaugh
The Fifth Commandment (1997)

Exodus 20:12

The fifth commandment begins the second section of the ten. It is placed, as the first commandment is toward God, first among those commands that govern our relationships with other men. The effect that keeping or failing to keep the fifth commandment has on those relationships is huge. Not only is it chief in importance in this regard, but it also acts as a bridge between the Commandments' two sections. This is vital because, when the fifth commandment is properly kept, it leads to reverence for and obedience to God Himself, the ultimate Parent.

We need to define three important words. The commandment as written in Exodus 20:12 states, "Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you." The Hebrew word underlying "honor" suggests heaviness, weightiness, severity, and richness, all in a long-lasting, continuing sense. It implies an important or significant, lifelong responsibility, thus it is used in the sense of honoring, glorifying, imposing, or being weighty. As an adjective, it magnifies the implications of a noun. In English, honor means "to give high regard, respect, and esteem to; give special recognition to; to bring or give respect or credit to; an outward token, sign or act that manifests high regard for."

Two English synonyms help to focus the implications of this commandment. Respect means "to have deferential regard for; to treat with propriety and consideration; to regard as inviolable." Reverence indicates "to show deferential respect." It is respect turned a notch higher because it is combined with adoration or awe, in a good sense, or great shame, in a bad one.

It is helpful further to understand that, though this commandment is primarily aimed at the function of parenting, it is certainly not limited to it. The keeping of this law also includes within its spirit the honor and respect that should be given to civil and teaching figures.

Why does God want a person to honor his parents and other authority figures? First, the family is the basic building block of society. The stability of the family is essential to the stability of the community. The more respectful each family member is of other family members, especially of parents, the greater the degree of respect that will carry beyond the immediate family and into strengthening the community.

The family is also the basic building block of government. The lessons and principles learned from honoring, respecting, and submitting to one's parents result in a society stable enough to promote the development of the whole person.

John W. Ritenbaugh
The Fifth Commandment

Leviticus 19:2-4

These introductory verses provide the starting point for more specific commands. It is as though God is saying, "This is the foundation of good family and community relationships. Aim to be holy, to be different from other nations, to be clean in My eyes through your conduct of obeying My laws. This will separate you."

Note an interesting feature. God draws attention to the fifth, the fourth, and to the first and second commandments as His keys to accomplishing the activation and growth of holiness, first in a family setting and then its spread into the community. This indicates that in God's eyes—in terms of holiness and good family and community relationships—keeping these commands are the major guides and regulators, actually necessities, toward producing family and community success. They provide a foundation for regulating social relationships within both family and community.

Of special interest is the order God sets them in. Both honoring parents—and most specifically the mother, as she is mentioned first—and Sabbath-keeping are mentioned before idolatry. In terms of good family relationships, this is the order the child is introduced to them. In an infant or young child's life, mother is primary. Do not forget, God gives all of this instruction with one common goal in mind: to produce holiness and good family relationships.

Why does God say, "You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy"? It is His way of pointing out to us, His converted children, that He Himself is the Model, the Standard, we are to follow in our child-training practices. As His children, He is the One we are to imitate.

John W. Ritenbaugh
The Fifth Commandment

Malachi 2:10-16

God wants us to learn to honor our parents because the family is not only the basic building block of society, but also of the Kingdom of God. The godly principles learned and the character built within the human family unit is transferable into the spiritual family relationship of the Kingdom of God. God expects a transference from parents to Him of the character and manner of living derived from keeping this commandment.

Parents are His representatives, His agents, to begin preparations for the Kingdom of God. Thus the creative majesty and power of God is honored and revered in the parents when children obey them.

This passage is directed toward Judah generally and toward the priests specifically at a time when the institution of marriage was under attack. Idolatrous marriages with foreign women were common, as was divorce. Today, marriage is under attack generally, but specifically from perverse same-sex unions. The Jews of Malachi's day wondered why, despite giving their offerings to God, they were receiving no blessings from Him. His answer: their idolatrous marriages and covenant-breaking divorces. He specifically states that a purpose of marriage is that He wants godly children to be produced. These marriages were not producing godly children.

The Hebrew word that is translated as "godly" is elohim, used here as an adjective. It means "filled with reverence and love for God; devout, pious; belonging to or emanating from God." Godliness and holiness are not specifically the same: Godliness is a respectful, reverential attitude, while holiness indicates living as God does. As attributes, as qualities of character, they are absolutely inseparable.

The conclusion is inescapable. After creating Adam and Eve and announcing that He had created them in His image, God immediately establishes the family through marriage. Marriage, therefore, plays an important role in God's overall purpose of creating man in His image. This fact provides the fifth commandment with its greatest degree of significance.

John W. Ritenbaugh
The Fifth Commandment

Ephesians 5:30-32

Just as Jesus reached back to God's instruction to Adam and Eve in His teaching about marriage in Matthew 19, the apostle similarly refers to Genesis 2:24, when Eve is first presented to Adam. This verse, often called the "leave and cleave" verse, reveals that there should be a definite break between one's life as a child and life as an adult spouse. To put it another way, a man's life under his father and mother should be completely separate from his new life in which he is over his own household.

According to this verse, the newly married couple should set up a house on their own because to do otherwise confuses the roles and responsibilities that God desires to work on through this relationship. If a man remains under his father and mother, he cannot be the lord of his own manor, as it were; he cannot really be a head to his wife. In the same way, if the couple lives in her parent's home, the wife has divided loyalties. Who is really her head: her husband or her father?

For the marriage to work best, the couple should not remain in the home of either set of parents because it does not allow for the intended relationship between husband and wife. It is one thing if there is some sort of hardship that forces the couple to live with the parents for a short time, but to fulfill God's command and purpose in Genesis 2:24, a newly married couple should set up their own household as soon as practicable.

A man should be king of his own castle and his wife, his queen without interference from parents or in-laws. The parents can be there to give needed advice, to lend a hand, and to watch the children from time to time, but for the couple to grow and develop the character that they need both now and for God's Kingdom, they should be on their own.

This means that, barring other complications, a couple should not marry if they are unable or not mature enough to set up a separate household. They should put off marriage until the husband can support his wife financially and emotionally. Paul does say in I Corinthians 7:9, that if a man and woman cannot control themselves, "it is better to marry than to burn with passion." However, that piece of advice has frequently been abused by people who are unwilling to practice self-control—a sign that one or both of them is indeed immature.

Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Marriage—A God-Plane Relationship (Part Five)


 




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