When God created the heavens and the earth he saw “it was good”. So, looking at Adam he saw that Adam was good, but that Adam remained incomplete; God’s verdict was, “It is not good for man to be alone. I will make him a helpmeet”. Accordingly he made Eve out of Adam’s rib. What was missing from him, became embodied in her. Later Eve bore a son, an embodiment of both herself and Adam. Here, then, was the origin of the family.
The family is, therefore, a “creational ordinance". It is the first “institution” that humanity experienced. It was the institution that every other institution was eventually built upon.It was “good”, extraordinarily good. It was of God’s devising. It is the God-given core of society.
It was extraordinarily good because we can see that family was built with bonds that are much deeper than human “contracts”, or human convenience. With Adam and Eve there was a profound sense of “belonging” to each other, which was carried into the relationship with their children. She was his helpmeet, that necessary addition to make him complete, and he rejoiced in her. Here was the birth of real committment, of respect and of love. Here, later, in a fallen world is a school for restraint and discipline, for thinking of others.
It was good because it provided for the deepest need in humanity, full orbed companionship; “it is not good for man to be alone”. Human beings need others. Man is not born to blatant selfish “individualism”, he is born to society and to relationship. “Individualism” was a phrase first coined by the astute Alexis de Tocqueville when he observed in the young America of the late 18C a new independent social attitude developing amidst the challenges of a rugged new world. The term has since come to describe the attitude whereby we think first of ourselves as individuals, and others as individuals, and act primarily on that basis. It is an attitude which has weakened social links and responsibilities. It breeds self-centredness. It is particularly evident in the Western world.
Much more, very much more, could be said about the shape God had for family, but the lesson for us today is plain; when this essential institution (as devised and shaped by God) is damaged or rejected by society, society itself in its intended and best form begins to fail. Of course, the family as we know it can be dysfunctional, extremely so at times. Nothing, however, shows more clearly the importance of true family than the effects of a dysfunctional family – and there are plenty of examples of the dysfunctional in the Old Testament. Sadly there are far more examples of the dysfunctional family today, frequently the breeding ground of pain, anger, hatred, rejection, violence and crime.
It is a primary call on the institution of government to think of and preserve the primary institution of family. For that it has to think seriously about the major factor destroying family, unbridled sexual freedom. It has to think seriously about marriage and its distinctive vows of life long caring commitment and trust. They are exactly the nettles that it is most difficult to think of government grasping. The storm against the family has reached unprecedented force.
Thus it becomes all the more paramount for the church to take a clear and firm stand. It’s a day of great challenge!
Bob
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