Our thinking affects our behavior towards each other. It is therefore, important, that we understand how God would want us to think concerning the family, if we are to play our part within our family as well as help other family members to play their part.

It is only as we understand God’s view of the family that we would be able to pray effectively for our families. It is only then we would be able to nurture our children as God expects us to.

The Bible, in the book of Genesis, shows God dealing not just with Adam but with a family. In other words, God gave a mandate to the Adam family and both Adam and Eve had roles to play in that mandate. The point is that while we have placed much emphasis on how God deals with individuals, the reality is that God deals with individuals in the context of a family or as a member of a family. In other words, God calls entire families and individual members have their roles to play.

The traditional thinking sees the family as the outcome of two persons, male and female, falling in love and entering into marriage. Children then follow, but are seen more as individuals than as units within a greater whole.

The first point is therefore, that God from the very beginning has dealt with the family as a distinct unit. Individuals within the family have distinct roles.

Proof of the above point is that God has established the church and has called it a family. He has called himself our Father, Christ is His Son, we are children of God, and our relationships are referred to as brothers and sisters, all family terms. The church is called the household (family) of faith.

Many have wondered as to the purpose of the genealogies in the Bible. Those are the scriptures like that found in Matthew Chapter 1, that show who was the father of whom. But at the end it shows the family line through which Christ came into the world. The significance of those scriptures is in the fact that God brings children into the world through families. And in bringing his own Son into the world he came through a family line, so that Christ is also referred to as a Son of David.

Again, when God chose to destroy the first world because the families of that first world had become corrupt, God chose to continue the human race by dealing with a family. The only humans saved from the flood were Noah’s family. Again, it shows that God deals with families. Noah and his family found grace in the sight of God. What it meant is that righteousness was preserved in the Noah’s family even though the world around them was corrupt. It does mean that a family has much more in common than just the natural genes. Families can have common blessings as well as curses. We have been hearing much about family curses, but there are also family blessings. Noah’s sons and daughters had the options like the rest of the world, to reject the message preached by their father. Clearly, the entire family accepted the message. Clearly, Noah was a good father whose blessings were inherited by his family members.

You can note as well that when God chose to bring destruction to Sodom and Gomorrah the righteous whom he ordered out from Sodom was the Lot family, so again God dealt with a family and righteousness was preserved with a family though the rest of the world, meaning all other families, became corrupt.

Just as we ask ourselves what are our purposes as individuals, we need to know what purpose God has for our families. As a matter of fact, if we understand the purpose for our families, we will better understand our individual roles.