To Multiply, Care For, Protect, and Educate

A Big-Picture View of the Covenant Household

Photo by Phil Hearing on Unsplash

Over the last couple of months, the household vision for our family has really come into focus, partly due to some conversations I had with friends and partly due to some realizations I had thanks to Dr. George Grant’s lectures on Thomas Chalmers (which you can find on WordMP3, beginning here, or on Canon+). But that’s gotten me thinking that, before I could form a specific vision for our household, I had to form a vision of what the household was for more broadly. I’ve talked a lot about the productive Christian household in the last several months, and I’d like to step back for a big-picture view of the covenant household.

The Purpose According to Scripture

Fundamentally, our households (just like everything else about our lives) are a means to love God and love our neighbor. But what does this look like? We’ve gone over some of the individual roles, but what about the big picture? What aims should every household have? From the individual roles, we can conclude a few things about the household’s general purpose. The responsibilities given to the household by God are true of every household and not the same as a vision or mission for your family. We’ll talk a little about that below but, for now, let’s focus on universal household responsibilities.

First, we can say that one of the fundamental purposes of the household is to multiply godly people on the earth. The command to be fruitful and multiply is given to both Adam and Noah (and, interestingly, to Jacob at his renaming to Israel) and commands are given later for parents to raise their children in the Lord. The household is the means by which God multiplies His people on the earth. Clearly, this is twisted by sin but even on a natural level, we see that households bring forth children. I should note that, if you’re unable to have children yourself, adopting children or ministering to children in your church community is a variation of the same biblical purpose for a household. It should be our expectation that children raised in Christian homes will grow up to be Christians. God is sovereign, and there are clear exceptions to this, but God makes it clear that that’s His expectation, so it should be ours.

Second, we can say that the household cares for and protects its members. This includes the provision of basic needs, but it also includes the provision of medical care and more general care for those who can’t care for themselves; i.e. children and the elderly. As for protection, when a strong man is acting as head of his household, he protects its members from physical, emotional, and spiritual danger. He must carefully watch over all that passes in and out of his household to accomplish that protection.

Third, we can say households are to educate their members. I touched on this in last month’s essay, but this is more than just the three R’s. This includes the teaching of God’s word to the children of the household and assumes that the parents also know the scriptures well. It stands to reason that this includes the parents’ own initiative to continue to learn throughout their lives. This means active involvement in serving your church community and attendance of Sunday morning worship (learning by experience), and Sunday schools, books, podcasts, etc. (learning by receiving teaching).

Finally, when you tie all of these together, households act as a stabilizing force in their community. When each household is raising godly children, caring for and protecting its members, and educating them, the whole community will be more godly, better cared for, safer, and better educated.

Before we leave this section, allow me to touch on the difference between a mission and vision specific to your household and universal household purposes. It is good for households to have specific vision or mission statements; something stating your specific mission as a household and your vision for the future, what you want to see your family accomplish over generations. There is a difference, though, between that kind of statement and listing the general purposes of a household.

I mention this only to say that you should have a mission and vision statement for your family. How can you expect to get somewhere as a household when you don’t know where you’re going? How can you, as the father, lead well when you don’t know what the mission is? As you craft your statement, though, remember not to be too broad. The statement should hold a delicate balance; you want to be specific enough that not every family could have it as their statement but broad enough that each member of your family, regardless of their gifts, skills, and experiences, is able to adopt the mission for themselves.

What does this look like?

At this point, you may be asking, “Okay, but what does that look like practically?”

First, preach about Christ and the Church through your marriage. Paul, in his letter to the Ephesians, tells them that the mystery of Christ and the Church has now been revealed, and that the earthly picture of this reality is marriage. You are preaching to everyone who sees your marriage. First and foremost, you’re preaching that sermon to your children. The way you treat your wife is how they will believe Christ treats His church. But you’re also preaching to the world. How can we expect to overcome the unending and perverse onslaught against God’s order for marriage if we aren’t submitting to it ourselves? It’s more than two individuals agreeing to live together and do sweet things for each other for the rest of their lives. This is a covenant, a bond where life and death are on the line, a bond uniting two individuals into one entity with the expectation that that entity will grow to bear the fruit of children. This isn’t just romance; this is a war for the universe.

Second, preach about the Father and His loving discipline and sanctification through your parenting. Something my dad often told me that he tried to keep in mind while raising me and my siblings was to parent us as God parented him. How God trains, disciplines, and loves His children is how we should train, discipline, and love our children. Constant patience and intentionality are what come immediately to mind when considering that standard, but there are numerous other applications. For example, how does God speak to us when we need correction? Sternly, but lovingly. He’s always pleased that we are His children, but because He loves us as children, He disciplines us. How does God push us to grow? By giving us opportunities and continuing to do so until we learn the lesson. He is patient and kind in the process but unyielding in His instruction. This filter has helped me many times to think through how to handle certain parenting situations.

Third, preach about God’s loving provision through your legacy. God has said that He shows love to thousands of generations of those who love Him. You should also show love to your descendants by spending yourself to plant trees the fruit of which your grandchildren can enjoy. Much of the vision I have I know will only be accomplished, if at all, through generations of work. My task is to lay a foundation, or maybe even simply clear the land so that my kids and grandkids can lay a foundation, on which later generations can build. You can’t take the nation in your lifetime. But, with hard and consistent work, you can prepare the ground and maybe see your town significantly changed by the gospel. Then, Lord willing, your kids will expand that work.

Extended Beyond Our Time

All of this work should be extended beyond our time. We should be working toward a big-picture vision that we will likely never see realized in this life. Then, that vision can be broken down into smaller visions that are feasible for you and your immediate family. But the work you do on things you start or during your tenure at an already existing institution should be done with the next 500 years in mind. As N. D. Wilson has said in many places, we are one character in one chapter of a much larger story. Your time here is meant to further the greater story, not simply be its own, stand-alone one.

So when you’re praying that God would give you your town, or county, or state, as Knox prayed for Scotland, recognize that you do what you can and what God has equipped you to do, and God will handle the other characters and their roles. Raise up the next generation to continue the work. God gives us our identity and, in an earthly sense, we give our children theirs. They’re not our clones, but they carry our last name for a reason. They’re our legacy.

Be like David who, though he was forbidden to build the temple, spent much of his life accumulating materials, making plans for the building, and organizing the structure of the Levitical temple servants, making every preparation possible for his son, who would build the temple. Lay the foundations, build the schools, strengthen the churches, and develop the community life so that your children may take that inheritance and build something a thousand times grander than you could’ve imagined. And may their children do the same, to a thousand generations.