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What’s Wrong with the Family?

The family can be one of life’s greatest blessings.

One of my favorite family memories was when over 100 descendants of my Great-Grandparents Clarence and Roberta Keith gathered together for a family reunion in 2014. It was a time of love, encouragement, faith, and fun. I went away refreshed and renewed.

But we don’t always leave family gatherings that way. Family can also inflict some of the deepest wounds.

So many families seem stuck in patterns that are harmful and hurtful rather than helpful and encouraging.

Is there any way out of these family problems?

In order to understand the way out, I think we first need to understand what creates, freezes, and intensifies family problems.

My basic thesis is this. Problems always exist, but blaming others freezes or intensifies family problems. Taking responsibility for one’s own functioning promotes family healing.

Think about it. If we blame other people, there’s very little we can do about it. Our options are limited because our ability to change others is rather limited. On the other side, though it’s not easy to change ourselves, it can be done. If we are to change the way the family relates, then taking responsibility for our own functioning is our best option.

I believe that this is illustrated in the first book of the Bible, Genesis. Genesis shows us that blaming others freezes or intensifies family problems and that when one member takes responsibility for his or her own functioning, there is opportunity for family healing.

Take our first father Adam as an example. The occasion of the family problem was that he did exactly what God told him not to. At that point, he could have taken responsibility. He could have confessed his own sin and apologized to God and his family.

Instead, he blamed his wife. “The woman You gave me . . .” He introduced division into the relationship with his wife by placing the responsibility for the wrong squarely on her shoulders. Remember that Eve did have a role in this, but what Adam ignored was his own role. This brought alienation and shame into the family.

The seriousness of this pattern can be clearly seen in the next generation. God accepted the sacrifice of Abel, Adam and Eve’s son, but not the sacrifice of their other son Cain. The problem was between God and Cain, but what did Cain do? He blamed Abel. The end result was that Cain killed Abel and refused to take responsibility for the murder, even when confronted by God. In this case, blaming intensified the family problem.

One more example of blaming. God promised to Abraham and Sarah that they would have a son, but it took a long time. Women often feel and at that time certainly felt that childlessness was a threat to their identity, and so no doubt Sarah felt very anxious about it. Then, she had to wait many childless years for God’s promise of a child to be fulfilled. No doubt this increased her anxiety. In the midst of this, she came up with a solution that was common in the day but contrary to God’s design (see my article on God’s design for the family ): for Abraham to have a child with her servant Hagar.

The results were predictable. Hagar got pregnant. She begin to see herself as “above” Sarah. Sarah got upset. She blamed Abraham: “You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering” (Gen. 16:5). Let’s be clear: Abraham was responsible. He did wrong, but Sarah also did wrong. Blaming only made the situation worse, and it continued to be an issue in the family passing over into the next generation in the relationship between Isaac (Sarah’s son) and Ishmael (Hagar’s son).

When we blame others for the family problems, we freeze them in place or make them worse.

Is there any hope for better?

The answer is, “yes.” Even though the curse introduced family enmity, God had promised something better for Abraham. He would bless him and in his seed “all the families of the earth will be blessed.” God was going to change the family situation.

And how does God bless the families of the earth? Through individuals. By His grace, He enables one person or more persons to act differently and take responsibility for their own functioning. This can begin to shift the family dynamics and bring hope for healing and change. I will flesh this out in my article next week.

For now, it’s worth considering? Where is my family stuck? Where am I subtly or not so subtly blaming the family for the situation and freezing it in place or making it worse? Could I do something to change the dynamics of the family?
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7 Norms for the Family

In every time period, the subject of the family is likely to set off intense emotions. In our own day, the family has become an intense political issue. This is all aggravated by the breakdown in family structure and the terrible pain often caused by it.

How can we find our way out of it?

Finding our way out of the messes in which we find our families requires a clear sense of the goals, ideals, or norms that a family should pursue.

In the book of Genesis, we have a picture of the family prior to the rupture of family relationships. This is helpful for our families and for the proper understanding of the book of Genesis. As you read through Genesis 3–50, you find a lot of messed up families and questionable family situations (like multiple wives). How are we to evaluate them? I believe that Genesis 1–2 gives us the answer.

Let me suggest 7 norms for the well-functioning family based on Genesis 1:26–2:25.

  1. God is at the center of a well-functioning family. God made the family and blessed it (Gen. 1:26–28). Often families have trouble because they are only looking at one another and not seeing the God who is above them all. They seek from their families things only God can give. This creates frustration and struggle.
  2. Children are a blessing. Children today are often viewed negatively, but God gave the command to be fruitful and multiply. He wanted more people on earth. “Children are a heritage from the Lord, offspring a reward from him” (Psalm 127:3).

    3. Continue reading “7 Norms for the Family”

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The Old Testament: The Big Picture

A friend of mine asked me to help him understand the Old Testament. He’s reading it, but he wanted a framework for thinking about its individual parts, the 39 books that make up the Old Testament. Here are two different perspectives on the big picture of the Old Testament.

The first is a framework for thinking about its construction–how we got the books that we got. The second is a framework for thinking about its meaning or spiritual significance. In each successive age, God revealed new things about His plan for the world.

Construction of the Old Testament

  1. The first major period of construction of the Old Testament was in the lifetime of Moses. He described how Israel became a nation and gave them a constitution for the religious and political life of the divinely chosen nation. You find this material in Genesis-Joshua.
  2. The second major period was the establishment of the Monarchy under David and Solomon. David built the temple to replace the portable tent for God’s worship. He then wrote and compiled songs for temple worship. We call these “psalms,” a word that really just means “songs.” Solomon wrote a significant amount of what is called the wisdom literature, applying God’s wisdom to all of life. You can read the history of this period in the books of 1 and 2 Samuel and the first part of 1 Kings. The wisdom literature of Solomon is found in Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon.

    3. Continue reading “The Old Testament: The Big Picture”

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Denominations

The fact that the church is divided into a multitude of denominations does not bother me.

There is a core of Christian teaching that provides a basic unity across denominations.

There is unity, but there is also diversity. Denominations seek to bear witness to the fuller teaching of Scripture and think through the details of the organization and government of the church.

That diversity is not necessarily bad. What is the alternative? In my view, only two: indifference to doctrinal precision or coerced unity for doctrinal uniformity.

The first option would be to say that doctrinal and organizational precision does not matter, but that would be to give up any united witness to the whole counsel of God.

The second option is to try to enforce unity by demanding that every church or individual agree to all the particulars of doctrine. This seems to me to be a recipe for hypocrisy.

A variety of denominations is the only option left. The church can have different organizations all seeking to do their best to explain the faith in its broader implications. The advantages of this arrangement is freedom of thought and conscience, a measure of unity, and a basis for common ministry.

But what about choosing a denomination or evaluate the denomination we are in? In light of the principles stated above, I believe that there are two wrong approaches we can take to our own denomination or tradition. Continue reading “Denominations”

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Faith for All of Life

There is no question that America is religious. Even those who don’t attend church regularly often have some sort of connection to the church. Our church attendance is much higher than other parts of the Western world.

Yet when you look at large swaths of American culture, one might question whether we are religious at all. You can watch television for hours without any sense that God has anything to do with life at all.

Some of this is based on a secular view of culture. The secularist believes that religion should never touch the public square. Religion should be relegated to the private world of the individual.

We must admit that some of the reason for the rise of secularism is the sectarianism of so many religious people.

Religion can be a blessing, but religion can also be a curse. The pride of man easily turns faith in the absolute into a belief that our own finite, limited view of things is absolute. This can lead to conflict worse than any pride of power.

It is understandable that people are cautious about religion in the public sphere.

For many of us, the problem is not a lack of belief in the applicability of religion to all spheres of life. It’s a lack of effort. It’s a challenge to apply our faith to every sphere of life, and we just don’t want to take it up.

We also may simply not know how to do it. Lack of clarity on what it means to be a Christian artist or economist or husband can easily cause us to give up any attempt.

But the attempt needs to be made. It needs to be made with humility, patience, and wisdom, but it needs to be made.

Why? Because Christ is Lord of all of life. As Dutch theologian and Prime Minister Abraham Kuyper put it, “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine!” Continue reading “Faith for All of Life”

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