Thursday, June 11, 2015

Family

 
  
FAMILY
 
    

    It has been almost a month since my last blog and I am trying really hard to do a blog once a month about a subject that is important.  Family for Jeannine and I is, next to our relationship with God; the ultimate most important factor in our lives. When we lived in the Middle East we learned another definition of family.  In the Middle East, family is everything.  There are traditions that say when a family member comes to you for help, you are to help them.  If a family member shows up at your door you are to house them, feed them and take care of them for 6 months and no questions asked. 
    Last month, our son got married to a wonderful person.  Two years ago our daughter married a wonderful person.  And our family grew.  But is this all my family, the answer is a simple no.  So it again feigns the question, what is family. 
    The Bible says the following about family:
          1.  Family is a key concept both in a physical sense and in a theological sense. The concept of family was introduced in the very beginning, as we see in Genesis 1:28, "God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth..."
          2.  Family members look after each other in every situation.
          3.  The Bible has a more communal sense of people and family than is generally held in Western cultures today, where citizens are more individualized than people in the Middle East and definitely more so than the people of the ancient near East.
          4.  Through Jesus' ministry we see another and eternal definition of family.  Jesus' ministry, "He is making the clear theological point that in the Kingdom of Heaven, the most important family connection is spiritual, not physical.  This is a truth made explicitly clear in John's Gospel, when the evangelist says, Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God" (John 1:12-13)."
    "So what does the Bible say about family? The physical family is the most important building block to human society, and as such, it should be nurtured and protected. But more important than that is the new creation that God is making in Christ, which is comprised of a spiritual family, the Church, made up of all people who call upon the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior. This is a family drawn "from every nation, tribe, people and language" (Revelation 7:9), and the defining characteristic of this spiritual family is love for one another: "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another" (John 13:34-35)."
    Again what is family.  I think the Bible is very clear we are all one family.  And if we are to really go back to the creation story then we all are related (although distant) through Adam and Eve.  I think we, as a world; have forgotten we are one family.  I feel it is time that we remember this and follow what God says and that is "to love one another."  Loving one another is not just words, to love we MUST have actions.  So the question I have for us all is do our actions meet our words?  I sure pray that my actions meet my words but I am sure that I fall short a whole lot of the time. 
     Thank you for reading my blog and being part of my family....
   
   












1 comment:

  1. Wonderful post Ron! Family in Spirit is a major theme of scripture and I so look forward to meeting and rejoicing with all my family members at the anointed time! Until then - I am trying, as you also stated, to live and love all as family, though I fall short too... God bless! DB

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