Christians have two families

Over the past 12 months, our little regional church has started growing—one person, one family at a time. One Sunday last year, a woman about my age came along by herself—she and her family had recently arrived in Australia from the Middle East, and she was curious about Christianity. Eventually her husband and children started coming to church too; then her husband’s parents began tagging along, even though they don’t speak any English.

By the time Christmas came around, my new friend wanted to be baptised. By Easter, it was her husband’s turn. And I know that for both of them, the thing that drew them towards Christianity—and ultimately to Christ—was experiencing our Christian community.

Now I have to admit: our church is very ordinary. We’re a motley group of all ages and stages; we’re not particularly good-looking or outwardly successful; we’re not all in ‘happy families’; we’re just plodding through the ups and downs of life together, with our eyes fixed on Jesus. So I asked our new friends why our ordinary little church community had made such an impact on them.

The first word they used was ‘open’: our church welcomed them in, without putting any hurdles in their way. There was no dress code, no shushing of noisy children, no judgement for those who are still working out their faith. My friend’s husband called it ‘love without conditions’. The next thing that stood out was the personal interest and care. When the recent Middle East conflict began to touch their home country, our church drew around them to listen and to pray.

A number of families, including ours, have invited these newcomers over for a meal (and they have more than returned the favour!). As they left our place, the wife was beaming from ear to ear. ‘Thank you. Really, thank you. We had such a feeling of family tonight’, she said.

Another person who joined our church for a time was a young single man whose work had brought him to our area—on the other side of the country from his family. I got to hear this young man’s story of faith one night as we were doing the washing up after a church dinner. He had become a Christian a few years earlier through a Christian housemate. Sadly, the young man’s work contract recently came to an end, and we had to farewell him. On his final Sunday, he thanked us for welcoming him into our community and being ‘a home away from home’.

All of these new people claim to have experienced God’s love through our church community and have used the language of ‘family’ to describe it. Indeed, we speak about the church being a family, because that’s how the New Testament describes it—as ‘the household of God’ (1 Timothy 3:15).

But what does that mean exactly? And how do our natural families fit into this picture? Is our church family a replacement for our natural family? Or is a church simply a gathering of natural families? Or is the church something different altogether?

Someone that I have learnt a lot from on these questions is British theologian Alastair Roberts. Coming up on Wednesday, June 17, Alastair will be in Sydney speaking about how the cross reshapes all of our relationships. This event run is being run by Cross Related (formerly Single Minded).

Our two families

The other day, our family was reading the only account we have of Jesus’ childhood—the incident when Jesus’ parents unknowingly left him behind in Jerusalem after Passover (Luke 2:41–52). When Mary and Joseph found Jesus in the temple, he said to them:

‘Why were you searching for me?’ he asked. ‘Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?’ But they did not understand what he was saying to them.

Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. But his mother treasured all these things in her heart. And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man. (Luke 2:49–52)

This sets up the paradigm for Jesus’ whole ministry: he has two families—one spiritual and one natural. Sometimes the two will overlap, but often there will be tension between them. As we see in the boy Jesus’ answer to Mary and Joseph, he clearly prioritised his spiritual family; and yet, Jesus continued to honour his natural family. And basically, the same balance should be evident in the life of every Christian.

Jesus would later say these shocking words:

‘If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple. And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.’ (Luke 14:26–27)

When we join God’s family, we hand everything, including our earthly families, over to Jesus. Jesus isn’t talking about having feelings of intense dislike for our family or neglecting our responsibilities, but about putting Jesus first, even if that sometimes displeases or disadvantages our family. We cannot let loyalty to our family come between us and our Saviour. That’s because, as Jesus explained:

‘Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division.  From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.’ (Luke 12:51–53)

I have seen this play out in my own life. When Jesus called me into his family, I came alone, leaving behind my parents, my sister and much of my wider family. Although we still have a good relationship, there is division—I have very different values and priorities from the family I grew up in. But in the church I found a spiritual home—brothers and sisters, mother- and father-figures, with whom I could share a love for God and a commitment to his mission in the world.

To those who lose family relationships for the sake of the gospel, Jesus promises:

‘Truly I tell you’, Jesus said to them, ‘no-one who has left home or wife or brothers or sisters or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God will fail to receive many times as much in this age, and in the age to come eternal life.’ (Luke 18:29–30)

Now that I have a Christian husband and four children, I no longer go to church alone. And by God’s grace, all of our children are following Jesus with us.

‘Open’ families

Jesus continued to honour his natural family. He obeyed his parents as a child and found a way to provide for his mother (who was probably a widow) even after his death (see John 19:25–27). Initially, Jesus’ parents and brothers did not seem to understand or support his ministry (see Mark 3:20–21; John 7:1–5). But in the end, they became key figures in the early church (see Acts 1:14). Serving the household of God eventually became a family affair.

The gospel often travels along family lines. The first thing that Andrew did after meeting Jesus was to go and tell his brother Simon (John 1:41). In Acts, we see whole families coming to faith together (for example, the family of Cornelius in Acts 10). Similarly, in the case of our new friends, the gospel is gradually spreading through the family—from wife to husband, to children and grandparents. And of course, the most natural way that the gospel is passed down through the generations is from parents to children.

The gospel often spreads through natural families, but it doesn’t leave them the same. When natural families come into the family of God, they are opened up to gospel priorities. Natural families still bear the primary responsibility for their members, but Christian families are not ‘closed’ to outsiders. It’s right to work hard at having a strong marriage and a strong family; we will need regular ‘family time’ by ourselves. But having a strong family should then equip us to reach out in hospitality to those around us, whether in our churches or in our neighbourhood.

Our family sometimes likes to have a campfire in the cooler months. At first, we would have the fire in our backyard—just for our family. But over time, I convinced the family to try having it out the front, so that our neighbours and friends could come and join in. And what a joy that has proven to be! Some of our kids would still rather have ‘our’ campfire back, but I hope that they will come to appreciate the blessings of gospel hospitality.

In our churches, whether people come alone or with family, I pray that no-one will miss out on the blessings of being part of a family of believers. Sometimes we bring the ‘family feeling’ to church—we have dinners and events, we talk, pray and support one other in practical ways. We might offer to look after one another’s children or ageing parents. At other times, we will share the ‘family feeling’ by inviting others—both individuals and family groups—into our home. Both our spiritual families and our natural families are ‘open’ communities for the sake of the gospel.

Messy families

All of that sounds very nice and idealistic. But real families—both natural and spiritual—are messy. In a recent interview, Alastair Roberts explored the way that living out the gospel within our church communities can restore our relationships, even the messy ones:

‘In all of these situations, it's very easy to have some ideal that we suspect that we've fallen short of. And that's not helpful as a starting point. We need to work with the actual situation that we have and think about what it looks like to experience God's grace within that. What does it look like when those relationships are … expressed in a way that's leavened by the gospel? And I think as we see exemplars of Christ and his grace working in such relationships and all their multiplicity and complexity, it will be a great witness to the wider society, which so often sees brokenness in relationships with despair and with no sense of how grace and redemption could work through that. And yet the church should be a place where you don't necessarily have to have the ideal family situation. Christ's grace can be known in all sorts of situations, even yours.

‘The church should be a living sign of what it means to be renewed as a community—a new family, a new household, a new place where male and female are restored in healthful relationship with each other, a new place where different demographics are brought together, a place where relationships across national boundaries are enjoyed … where older people teach younger people and younger people are brought up with exemplars and mentors. All of these are ways in which we're living out the reality of Christ's grace—that he's made us one body and so we can live as a reality-filled sign of that.’

As we seek to live out the grace of Christ in both our families, let’s pray that we will see more and more people wanting to come in and join us!

Hear more on this topic from British theologian Alastair Roberts about how the cross reshapes all of our relationships on Wednesday, June 17 in Sydney. This event run is being run by Cross Related (formerly Single Minded).

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