Family Relations - Function or Dysfunction.

Colossians 3:18-4:6 (NASB) from the daily reading in the One Year Bible

Family Relations

¹⁸ Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. ¹⁹ Husbands, love your wives and do not be embittered against them. ²⁰ Children, be obedient to your parents in all things, for this is well-pleasing to the Lord. ²¹ Fathers, do not exasperate your children, so that they will not lose heart.

²² Slaves, in all things obey those who are your masters on earth, not with external service, as those who merely please men, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. ²³ Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men, ²⁴ knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance. It is the Lord Christ whom you serve. ²⁵ For he who does wrong will receive the consequences of the wrong which he has done, and that without partiality.

Fellow Workers

4 Masters, grant to your slaves justice and fairness, knowing that you too have a Master in heaven.

² Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving; ³ praying at the same time for us as well, that God will open up to us a door for the word, so that we may speak forth the mystery of Christ, for which I have also been imprisoned; ⁴ that I may make it clear in the way I ought to speak.

⁵ Conduct yourselves with wisdom toward outsiders, making the most of the opportunity. ⁶ Let your speech always be with grace, as though seasoned with salt, so that you will know how you should respond to each person.

Yesterday’s text ended with the verse:  Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father. “Whatever you do”, in today’s text Paul begins to expound on how doing all in the name of the Lord Jesus affects our relationships. Verses 18-21 deal with family relationships, simple matter of fact instruction about the proper order, authority and conduct within the family. The breakdown of families and family structure is one of the greatest challenges and problems in our present day culture and society. The Bible and Godly family order and authority is not anti-woman. Women are not expected to be subservient to their husband, relegated to household chores.  Read Proverbs 31:10-31 and see all the things a woman can do, how her position both within the home and the community is honored and honorable. A woman being subject to her husband is not to demean her. In marriage is intended that two individual, a man and a woman, come together to be one.        The man said, "This is now bone of my bones, And flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, Because she was taken out of Man." 24For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. (Genesis 2:23-24) We see throughout nature that there are definite roles played by the male and female in every kind of animal. The roles may change from one species to another, but there is a normal and natural order throughout creation. That is all that Godly Biblical family structure is really about, reinforcing what is best, bringing together the complimentary roles of husband and wife, mother and father. Though the two become one, there needs to be an established and accepted order.   Once that is established the order then flows through the structure to the children. Again throughout nature we see that in any creature where the young are dependent on parents for nurture and protection, there is an order of authority and obedience. It is not a question of individual value. It is simply an obvious normal and natural authority structure that exists.

In Ephesians 5:25, it says:  Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her. It is that type of sacrificial love that is to be the foundation of family structure. In our self centered, self seeking, self pleasing society we have certainly lost the concept of sacrificial love. Husbands and fathers are often absent or negligent, sometimes violent and abusive. Women may look to other relationships to satisfy their desires. Often mothers put their own interests and desires ahead of their children. Probably nothing screams of the dysfunction of the normal, natural order and intent of sacrificial love, than our societies argument for a woman’s right to choose her convenience above the life of her child.

In our great enlightenment, our society and culture has come to accept and tolerate many different structures in families and relationships. Nothing that man creates or ordains can equal what God intended from creation and has ordained.  No other man made or man ordained relationship can create and nurture life the way God intended it. There is a natural order, a natural authority that exists throughout all creation. It begins with the authority of God and flows through His love throughout all creation. Anything that is based on any other order and authority cannot function naturally. Unnatural function is dysfunction. Rather than trying to create a new structure and order to suit our own needs, wants, desires and preferences, we need to seek the restoration of the order and structure God intends.

Heavenly Father, Lord Jesus Christ, Holy Spirit surely our society and culture is steeped in dysfunction. May we come to recognize and accept, as You say in Isaiah 55:8-9:  “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord. ⁹ “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways And My thoughts than your thoughts.”   May we as a culture, a society, a nation and in particular as Your people, Your church, return to Your ways.  May our families be established according to Your ways, rooted and grounded in Your love, a sacrificial love;  That all that we do in word or deed, we  do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.  Bless our families as they bless You. Restore our families as they are restored to You. Nothing we can do or create compares to Your ways. Thank You for Your love and for the cross, through which we are redeemed and restored to You and Your ways.       Amen.