God's Pattern for the Family and the Home

How can we know anything about anything

To try to explain truth to him who loves it not is but to give him more plentiful material for misinterpretation. George Macdonald

Do we have to make a choice between science and the Bible?

NO!

That is NOT where the problem is, but that is what everyone seems to want to talk about.

Take science as an example. How can we know anything about the created material world around us?

How can we know anything from what we can see using natural sciences?

We all see the same things in the material world, but we don't come to the same answers.

Why is that?

How can we know anything about the Bible and what it teaches? Every person believes different things about the Bible and how it should be read.

Why is that?

Same scientific facts. Different answers.

Same Bible. Different answers.

Why is that?

The true question is this: How do we come to our answers that we get from what we can see through science or what we can read in the Bible?

How do we think about what we see using science or what we read in the Bible?

How do we analyze what we have seen and read?

How do we interpret what we have seen and read?

We use logic, but logic always has a foundation. Jesus talked about building on the Rock. That Rock is Jesus Christ. He is the true foundation. There are also the false foundations of the ungodly.

An example might help.

Question: Why do you believe in evolution?

Answer: Because my science teacher told me that evolution is scientific fact.

Question: Why do you believe your science teacher?

Answer: because he agrees with the textbook he assigned us to read.

Now, we have asked, "Why?" twice.

If we continued to ask, "Why?" we would come down to the foundation of this person's thoughts.

When we get down to the foundations, there are no more questions that can be answered. So where to the foundations come from?

There are three possibilities.

things that we make up, pulled from the air
demonic lies
divine revelation

Question: Why do you believe in creation?

Answer: Because God revealed this to me. He spoke to me through the Bible and gave me His faith so that I could believe Him.

See how quickly we got to the foundation. This is a belief that has a foundation that is solid and that cannot be moved.

In reality, the things that we make up, that are pulled from the air, are actually from demons and all the lies of demons spring from the prince of demons, Satan. So these are one and the same.

Divine revelation comes from the Almighty, Creator, God, Jesus Christ. So there are only two choices, but how do we know there are only two choices? Because God has revealed this truth to us.

The question then is how do we tell the difference between the revelation that comes from God and the lies of Satan?

The answer is that everyone who sincerely wants to do the will of God will know.

Jesus said, "If you really want to obey God, you will know if what I teach comes from God or from me"

The rejection of the revelation that comes from God is not an intellectual problem. It is a moral problem.

Jesus said, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you: For everyone who asks receives; and he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks it shall be opened." *

Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to those who ask him? Matthew 7:7-11 *

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. You can set the truth before someone, but you can't make anyone believe those things that they don't want to submit to. They have to want to obey God.

How frequently it is brought to our attention that nothing good can be done if the will is wrong! Reason alone fails to justify itself. Richard M. Weaver

Jesus said, "You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John 8:32)

"If we are not prepared to buy the truth at the cost of our own humbling we shall not receive it"

Lies appear to have no price upon them. They seem cheap and they abound everywhere. But for the truth there is always an obvious price to pay.

"[God] has set a day when He will judge all the world's people with fairness. And He has chosen the man Jesus to do the judging for Him. God has given proof of this to all of us by raising Jesus from death" (Acts 17:31).

"There is a judge for the one who rejects Me [Jesus] and does not accept My words; that very word which I spoke will condemn him at the last day" (John 12:48)

That also stands for every person who speaks the utterances of Jesus. When we hear them, we hear Jesus Christ, and we either accept or reject. Every person who follows Jesus Christ is commanded to only speak His utterances and not their own.

"When we love others, we know that we belong to the truth, and we feel at ease in the presence of God" (1 John 3:19)

Ravi Zacharias did two open forums in a university. On the second night, one man told him that he had brought two Atheists in the night before who said that the arguments presented were so strong that they could not contend with them, but they were going to remain Atheists because that is what they prefer to be true.

In another case of just listening to an unbeliever and drawing out his reasoning, the unbeliever finally came to his foundations.

They turned out to be assumptions that were pulled from the air. When asked why he believed his basic assumption, the unbeliever looked startled and blurted out, "I guess I'm making the whole thing up." It was quite a revelation to him since he hadn't even known that he had any assumptions. However, he decided to remain an Atheist because he didn't want God to rule over him.

God created marriage and the family. Only He has the authority to tell us what it is. The home, the family, is built on the foundation of a husband and a wife. The home is the basic building block of the church. For this reason, it is impossible to write of the home and family outside of the context of the personal walk with Christ, the local Church, and what Martin Luther called the universal invisible Church. It is invisible to those who don't have eyes to see, but it is no more or less visible than the true family. It should be noted that there is a reason that Satan is attacking the family and trying to re-define the home. Satan is trying to keep you, and everyone else, from the glory that God has planned for them. If Satan can destroy the homes in a country, that country will fall as a nation. All the attempts of Satan to use his followers to redefine marriage have this goal: to kill, steal, and destroy. The pattern for marriage is simple, one man and one woman. Those who want to make marriage into something else other than God's pattern cannot do it; they can only create an abomination. Sex is blessed in marriage. In fact, withholding sex from ones spouse is referred to as fraud. However, outside of marriage, sex is cursed. It is an abomination. For Christians, it amounts to forcing the Holy Spirit into an unholy union. The Bible says that our bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost and that God will destroy those who defile the temple of the Holy Ghost. Much of the push to question the Word of God in these matters is for the very purpose of promoting abomination. As Satan said to Eve, "Hath God said...?" God has really said that marriage is between one husband and one wife and marriage is for life. "So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own fl esh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church" Ephesians 5:28-29.

Why is this so important? We all need to discern and see the Body of Christ. We see all the gifts, ministries, offices, and orders of the Church. We also can discern and recognize the false. When we see Him as He is, we become like Him. He is a many-membered Body on Earth walking in submission the the Head in Heaven. The family is the basic unit of the Church.

"Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man. And Adam said: This is now bone of my bones And flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, Because she was taken out of Man. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh" Gen 2:22-24.

When Moses was called to build the Tabernacle, God said, ""See to it that you make everything according to the pattern shown you on the mountain." Heb 8:5 The same thing happened when Solomon built the temple. Both of these were types and shadows pointing to the Church. The home, being the basic building block of the Church, must be built according to the pattern. Of course, the Church itself, at the local and at the universal level, must also be built according to the pattern. Anything else is an abomination to God. The structure of God's Church is such that only God gets the glory. I am not referring to the make-believe churches and denominations that are so prevalent, but rather the true Church wherever it appears.

The Order Of The Home Is Very Important To God. It's part of His glorious plan of salvation. "Colossians 3:18 Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them. Children, obey your parents in all things: for this is well pleasing unto the Lord. Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged. Colossians 3:18-21

There is only one pattern defined in Scripture for the Church and only one pattern defined in Scripture for the Home. The home is governed by the Father and the Mother (the elder and deacon of the home). The local church is governed by the local Elders (plural with no chief) and Deacons (plural with no chief). The universal church is governed by the traveling Elders (plural with no chief) and traveling Deacons (plural with no chief)--These are apostles.

Both husband and wife ought to commit to God to center their marriage relationship on Jesus Christ. The children also need to make that commitment. Bible reading and prayer needs to happen in every Christian home every day. Weekly attendance at a Spirit-led Church that follows the pattern of the Bible is very important. Gathering with Christians from many Churches and with the teaching of the traveling ministries at least once a year is very helpful to the whole family. The entire family needs to make a commitment to walking in righteousness, being led by the Spirit of God in all decisions and walking in obedience to that leading. Don't quench the Spirit. Let the Holy Spirit rule in the home. Let Love rule in the Home. And it is important that every member of the family guards his or her heart from many of the pitfalls and that which is not of God.

Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for her. Wives submit to your own husbands. Children obey your parents. We teach by example in the family and in the Church. And we also teach by word. Both are important, but they are ineffective if the life is not in harmony with what is being taught by word. Everyone submits in the Church and in the home. The husband may have the responsibility to rule, but not to lord it over the wife and children. The husband is the example of love and self-sacrifice and the wife is the example of submission. Christ loved and gave Himself, and He is always in complete submission to the Father. There must be unity in the home just as in the Church.

Please check the links on the right for more information on all of these topics.

God's Pattern for the Family and the Home

How can we know anything about anything

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