After studying “the forest” of God’s Kingdom (for what may seem like an eternity to many!) we are finally (I promise!)
going to begin our study of “the individual tree” of the first of God’s Kingdom tools through which He will rule—THE FAMILY.
In our diagram of the Ship of the Kingdom, the vertical line from Jesus, seated on His throne in Heaven, flowing down to the Family, is today’s topic of discussion. Remember, the characteristics that flow in this line, two from Jesus to the family and one from the Family to Jesus, are what constitute a Kingdom Family.
Keep in mind that God’s Kingdom has already come—past tense! That happened after Jesus’ death and resurrection at the Ascension, represented by the vertical line in the diagram from God the Father to Jesus Christ. That’s when God officially gave His Kingdom rule over the earth to Jesus, and the millennium began: “The LORD shall send the rod of Your strength out of Zion. Rule in the midst of Your enemies! “ (Psa;m 110:2). I believe, as we have discussed, at Pentecost Jesus delegated that Kingdom TO US, His people, as He remains seated in Heaven at God’s right hand: “Sit at My right hand, Till (until, while) I make Your enemies Your footstool (through us)“ (Psalm 110:1)!
So, in the Bible, when Jesus discusses what the Kingdom is l;ike, He IS NOT teaching us what it will be like when He returns at the End Times, but what He will do through us, His church, since Pentecost, RIGHT NOW! We are progressively learning to rule the earth as “little children” as we walk by faith in that Truth!
With that in mind, let’s examine the Kingdom Family, the foundational institution, through the lens of the three kingdom characteristics:
1. Authority – In each institution, it is first necessary to define “authority,” or ”Who is in charge?”—who makes final decisions? Biblically, the three tools, family church and civil government, each have distinctly different authority structures. Of the three, the family is the only one where the buck stops with a single individual, the husband (1 Timothy 3:4, 5, 12; 1 Corinthians 11:3; Ephesians 5:22-24).
However, authority does NOT mean enslavement. The wife does not lose her personal freedom, becoming her husband’s slave when she gets married. As his wife, she becomes her husband’s “helper” (Genesis 2:20-22) as she rules with him as an authoritative equal over the family. Her freedom to marry her husband or not, was her choice, and that personal freedom remains.
However, once married, he is the leader, the ultimate determiner of the direction the family goes. It is important that the wife gives him her unique insights and particular feminine gifts that the husband desperately needs and does not have. He would be a fool to resist or ignore them- A strong, secure, confident leader will say, “Great idea, Dear! We’ll do that!”
Nevertheless, the final decision in major, direction-determining decision is always his! As we will see, that concentration of authority in one, single person is unique among God’s three, Kingdom institutions .
2. Responsibility – I spent years involved in church leadership and the naturally-occurring, marital counseling that comes with that role. Looking back over those experiences, I am amazed at the difficulty both husbands and wives have in facing and then taking responsibility for their own failures. Unconsciously, they either want to evade personal responsibility for problems or, conversely, take them on when the problems are not theirs to assume!
For example, the husband’s responsibilities can be summarized with two words: ”LOVE and LEAD,” The bed-rock foundation for all marriages is “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her” (Ephesians 5:25). That word, “love,” as we have discussed many times, is the Greek word, agape, and its meaning includes “unconditional love,” defined as “not touchy or fretful or resentful; it takes no account of the evil done to it [it pays no attention to a suffered wrong]” (1 Corinthians 13:5 – AMPC)].
In other words, that is the very same love Jesus has for us, His church! We can love Him back or not—it doesn’t matter! His “love-needle” never falters. He is tracking us down, and He will ultimately pen us up in a corner and step on our necks with His agape love—”I finally gotcha!”
When a husband loves his wife like this, she can’t help but respond and give herself completely to him and his leadership, as the Scriptures command her to do: “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything” (Ephesians 5:22-24).
When a woman is being loved with AGAPE LOVE and led with STRONG, FIRM DECISION-MAKING, her complete submission, as if to Jesus Himself (“just as the church is subject to Christ”), is, literally, no longer an issue.
Paul instructs older women, who are experiencing this loving leadership themselves, what to teach in a women’s Bible study: “Admonish the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be blasphemed” (Titus 2:4, 5). I wonder how many of the teachers of today’s ever-popular “Ladies Bible Study” follow Paul’s instructions?
3. Accountability – It would seem that once responsibility for a task has been assigned, then accountability for accomplishing that task would be obvious. However, attempts to work that out biblically in The Family are not widely attempted or even understood. Next week will be interesting!
