The Family

“A foolish son is ruin to his father, and a wife’s quarreling is a continual dripping of rain.” Proverbs 19:13

“It is better to live in a corner of the housetop than in a house with a quarrelsome wife.” Proverbs 21:9

“It is better to live in a desert land than with a quarrelsome and fretful woman.” Proverbs 21:19

“A continual dripping on a rainy day and a quarrelsome wife are alike; to restrain her is to restrain the wind or to grasp oil in one’s right hand.” Proverbs 27:15-16

Close relationships, and especially families, due to their intimacy, have a greater potential for destructiveness. The book of Proverbs, being a book about living wisely, everywhere takes for granted that a Godly family structure is essential to a good life. Despite this clear teaching, few Christians make it their goal in life to be masters of family living.

Life in contemporary America is decidedly against the biblical family structure. For all the lip service about the importance of family, entertainment, education, media and politics all assault the foundations of family through their belief in licentiousness. In every dominant field in America it’s taught that one’s sexual urges are sacred. The idea that one’s sexuality is a gift from God, to be exercised only in loving, committed and biblically faithful ways is anathema to modern culture. Frankly, they hate it.

More still, they hate those who dare suggest that personal sexual purity (that is, sex only within biblical definitions) is true and other ways false. This is a curious thing because the Christian is accused of being hateful for making an objective truth claim when, in fact, the atheist is making a truth claim too. Even if we were to leave aside the laughable contradiction of an atheist arguing vehemently for objective morality (they contend that there are no absolutes but don’t you dare disagree with them about sexuality!) the natural evidence of the biblical position is overwhelming.

For example, if you leave out all other factors such as race, income levels, etc., the family is the chief thing in society. Broken homes and out of wedlock births contribute to poverty, lack of education, addictions, incarcerations, depression and suicides at unprecedented levels. If politicians were serious about fixing social issues (they clearly aren’t) they’d zero in on the family structure. There’s much talk about the “third rail” in politics (don’t touch social security!) but the true to life untouchable subject is this: don’t have sex before marriage, get married, stay married, and raise children. No politician would ever say this because it flies in the face of the “me-first” world we’ve created where one’s sexual appetites are considered divine.

But it’s not just getting married. The book of Proverbs teaches us what a true family looks like. It’s a family in the Lord, for the Lord, through the Lord, and to the Lord.

There is, perhaps, no greater area for Christian evangelism than Godly parents loving each other in the Lord and raising their children in the grace of Jesus Christ. The world simply doesn’t know what this looks like in reality and desperately needs to see it.

A number of years ago there was a surprise hit movie called “The Breakfast Club.” All of the teenagers in the film had serious relationship problems with – you guessed it – their parents! The only ones they could truly talk to, the movie taught (and art teaches quite well, thank you), were each other. The characters in the film were all emotionally broken. They were all lost in a world without meaning. Each of the them, young and full of life, were nevertheless despairing in their own way, needing to understand and to be understood. And each had two parents! This was 1985 and America hadn’t yet been fully impacted by the divorce culture and the sexual profligacy soon to accelerate. But these parents weren’t godly parents in the least. They weren’t bringing their children to the Lord, nor were they modeling lives of grace. So, in all, though both parents were present, they were still, in the main, broken homes because of open abuse (John Bender), neglect (Allison Reynolds), heartless domination (Andrew Clark and Brian Johnson), and neglectful indulgence (Claire Standish).

The Breakfast Club was a warning shot of what was to come. It was a shot across the bow of America’s ship. Self-indulgence was killing the family and when the family goes, so goes the town, the city, the state, and then the country.

So, these verses in Proverbs are instructive as they showcase one of the greatest dangers in the world. Truly, they do. In the home a negative and critical spirit of a parent, especially a wife and mother, will crush the soul. Though it would seem that Proverbs is picking on the woman only, that’s hardly the case. The book is based on a father talking to his son! “Give me your heart, son,” he says! Who can ask for the heart of a child who doesn’t first give his own? That’s the secret of parenting. A negative and biting mother/wife can tear down a home quite a bit easier than an emotionally distant father. A nagging wife does great harm because there’s never any peace. What a tragedy for children! The home should be where we’re loved and nurtured and instructed in the Lord, but a sinful woman can use her words to make it a veritable emotional war zone.

The biblical family is to be fully open to one another before the Lord. The family is to be a training ground of holiness where all give to one another, according to their role and authority, to the benefit of each other and the honor of God.

A family of grace and the Word of the Lord is what we’re called to live in. We aren’t called to be islands, nor wise men sitting alone in the mountains. Jesus went to the mountains to pray but He was always in the midst of people – sinners with all sorts of weaknesses and problems. To be Christlike, therefore, is to be among the people – first and foremost your family. And parents should be modeling the life of Christ for their children, bringing them up in the grace of God, teaching them the Word and showing them by example how to live for God. Repentance and servant leadership should be the mark of Christian parents, not nagging, nor a critical spirit, but one that seeks excellence in all things through the Lord.

A quarrelsome house is one devoid of the grace of Christ, which is why Proverbs declares it a disaster area. No greater training grounds of Satan exist than in homes broken by sin. And no greater testimony to Christ is there than growing up under two parents who love and submit to God in the grace of Jesus Christ.