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The family in the New Testament is seen not just in terms of kinship and marriage, but also as the community of believers. CHILDREN AT RISK GUIDELINES As mentioned earlier, the Old Testament gives us the model of the extended family. This was not just a social but also an economic and political unit. Marriages were arranged and a bride price was paid to seal the covenant (Genesis 34:1, I Samuel 18:25, Leviticus 27). In the New Testament we see marriage as a covenantal relationship, characterised by mutual submission, respect and service. Thomas Aquinas 3 described how children are made in part in the image of their parents and therefore naturally belong to and are valued by them. But they are also made in the image of God and belong to and are valued by Him. Taking the passage in Ephesians 5, he uses the analogy between Christ’s sacrificial love for his church which is steadfast and unbreakable, and a father’s love to reinforce the long-term commitment of fathers and husbands to their children and wives. Yet the family in the New Testament is seen not just in terms of kinship and marriage, but also as the community of believers. Paul describes the church as a family. The New Testament church met in households, where fellow believers were to be welcomed like relatives. Those baptised, according to Paul, have been adopted by God (Romans 8:15-17, Galatians 3:26-4:6). Their siblings are other Christians. Their inheritance is the community of believers (Mark 10:28-31). In a culture where the family was more important than all other relationships, the New Testament church was to reach out to the Gentiles, to the unlovely and even to enemies. Clapp suggests ‘Paradoxically, a family is enriched when it is decentered, relativised, recognised as less than an absolute’. 4 3 Pope (1994). 4 Clapp (1993). VOLUME 1: CHILDREN AND FAMILY BREAKDOWN 10
The Christian family is not a safe haven apart from the world, but a powerful witness into the world. CHILDREN AT RISK GUIDELINES The Christian family is therefore not a safe haven apart from the world, but a powerful witness into the world. Even vulnerable families need to learn the responsibility but also the joy of reaching out in hospitality, rather than the fears associated with a selfpreservation mentality. The importance of the community of believers was reinforced on various occasions by Jesus himself. He emphasised his relationship with his heavenly Father (Luke 2:41-52) over his parents, and he described the disciples as his ‘mother and brothers’ over his own family (Mark 3:34-35). Later he says that those who love their father or mother more than Jesus are not worthy of him (Matthew 10:37). When one potential disciple was ready to follow Jesus, but first asked to bury his father, Jesus’ response was blunt and harsh (Luke 9:57-60). Even at the foot of the cross (John 19:25-27) Jesus says to Mary, ‘Woman, here is your son’ and to the disciple he loved, ‘Here is your mother’. These passages could point to the new family of God taking precedence over the biological family. 4 This is not to denigrate the family. In a world where the father for many children is absent because of divorce, war or simply excessive work demands, we need to encourage men to take their responsibility for their children seriously. It has been suggested that God sent angels to ensure that Joseph took his responsibility in fathering Jesus seriously and did not abandon Mary as he might have done. Tom Beardshaw of Care for the Family has suggested that God himself ‘went to some trouble to make sure there was no risk of the breakdown of the marriage of Joseph and Mary, thus ensuring that there were two parents’. The discovery of the father heart of God, perfect and reliable unlike any human parent, can be healing and liberating. 5 We will look more at what this means in practice in the next section. 5 McClung (1985). VOLUME 1: CHILDREN AND FAMILY BREAKDOWN 11
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