Category Archives: Family

Family and Making Disciples 2 – The Church: God’s Family

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How I view God and His church (ekklesia) affects how I see myself, how I relate to others and how I relate to God. For all eternity, God is a Father, and Jesus is a Son. Therefore, family is an eternal concept based on the nature of God. The idea of family is not confined to man’s time on earth. As long as there has been God, there has been family and as long as there will be God, there will be family.

God the Father behaves like a father because he is a father. God’s father-heart moved Him to adopt us into His family even at the cost of the sacrifice of His own Son. Because of this adoption Jesus relates to us as our brother. The author of Hebrews tells us that: “Both the one who makes men holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers. He says, ‘I will declare your name to my brothers; in the presence of the congregation I will sing your praises.’ For this reason he (Jesus) had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people” (Hebrews 2:11-17). My relationship to God is both as a child with his father and as a brother with a brother.

The apostle Paul views ekklesia as God’s family. In 1 Timothy 3:14-15 he writes: “…so that, if I am delayed, you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God’s household, which is the church (ekklesia) of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth.” In Paul’s writings, his language of choice for what we would call “Christian(s)” is familiar language. He uses the word “brother(s)” 129 times – in contrast to his use of the word “saints” 29 times, and the word “believer(s)” 11 times. Paul never uses the term “Christian” or “disciple.”

Paul’s understanding of the Father nature of God and that the ekklesia is the family of God directed the way he ministered to others. In the city of Thessalonica Paul was like a mother and father to the disciples. He writes: “But we were gentle among you, like a mother caring for her little children. We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well, because you had become so dear to us…for you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children, encouraging, comforting and urging you to live lives worthy of God, who calls you into his kingdom and glory” (1 Thessalonians 2:7-12).

Making followers of Jesus cannot be separated from the family nature of God. As God the Father loved Jesus, and Jesus loved us, so in the same familiar manner we are to love one another. A parental sacrificial love for others is the catalytic force that will produce disciples of Jesus and advance the kingdom of God.

Family and Making Disciples

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In the movie “The Sound of Music” the widowed Captain von Trapp tries to run his family like he ran the Navy, with dire consequences. Although the Captain loved his children and the children loved their father, his organizational structures placed unnatural barriers between the Captain and his children. The nature of a family is unlike that of an organization and so the two function differently from one another.

The apostle Paul presents the church (ekklesia) as the “family” or “household” of God and yet our approach to church has been as if it is an organization (1 Timothy 3:14-15). We begin a church with a constitution, by laws, church government and then institute programs to run the church, which are both organizational in nature but foreign to any family. Ekklesia is based on the family essence of the Trinity; God the Father, His Son Jesus and the Holy Spirit. We have been adopted into the family of God as sons and daughters so it only makes sense that we should function as family on earth as we will in heaven for eternity (Romans 8:15; Galatians 4:6-7).

In Philippians 2:22 we get a glimpse into Paul’s approach to disciple making with his disciple Timothy. Here Paul writes of the father-son relationship which he had with Timothy – again a family relationship. Just as children were not meant to be raised by an organization so disciples are best made in the context of a spiritual family. One reason why Christianity has struggled to make disciples is because we have approached disciple making with programs rather than as a family. Can an organization empower and develop its people? Certainly. But, there is a marked difference between how an organization develops its people and how a parent loves his child.