Family is the unit which descends from a common ancestor. It is a group of related people who share much more than just DNA. United they stand, divided they fall. The family unit is the most important unit one can have, except for one, the bond between man and God. No matter how strong the family unit is, the bond between man is God is even stronger, for even family has its limits. Families are made up of fallible people who share blood ties or solemn oaths. But the family of God is an even stronger family, for Christ is the head of the Church. The family of God is the most stable family unit there is for God is our Heavenly Father. "For", Jesus said, "whoever does the will of my Father in Heaven is my brother and sister and mother." (Matthew 12:50)
His word has many things to say about family and how families are to conduct themselves. There are so many things that people are doing out there that they would not do to their own children or would want their children participating in. Yet, too, there are people who are subjecting their families, especially their wives and children to innumerable horrors. Did you know that there were laws that are specific in God's Word against such deeds? In Leviticus, what is written are a few laws concerning sexual activity amongst family members. The punishment for those deeds are as follows, "Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways...Even the land was defiled; so I punished it for its sin, and the land vomited out its and my laws. The native-born and the aliens living among you must keep my decrees and my laws....And if you defile the land, it will vomit you out as it vomited out the nations that were before you." (Leviticus 18:24-28) We are to love our husbands, our wives, our children, and our elders.
Concerning elderly family members,"Rise in the presence of the aged, show respect for the elderly and revere your God. I am the Lord."(Leviticus 19:32) God intended for these laws to be obeyed. In the end, the families and communities will be stable when we followed these laws. Concerning how children are to view their parents, "Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God has comanded you, so that you may live long and that it my go well with you in the land the Lord your God is giving you." (Deuteronomy 5:16) Concerning children, "Sons are an heritage from the Lord, children a reward from him. Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are sons born of one's youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. They will not be put to shame, when they contend with their enemies in the gate." (Psalm 127:3-5) "Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord."(Ephesians 6:4) Concerning husbands and wives, "Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is hte head of the Church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy cleansing her by the washing with water through the word and to present her to himself as a radiant church without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish but holy and blameless. In the same way husband ought to love their wives as their own bodies He who loves his wife loves himself."(Ephesians 5:22-28) If every family obeys what is written in the Bible, then families will be much more stable and much more cohesive.
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