In 2023, few things are more important or more endangered than the family.

Whether we look at divorce rates, or birth rates, or stores celebrating the destruction of the family with transgender bathing suits and binders, from all sides the family is in peril. And if Mary Eberstadt is correct (in her book How the West Really Lost God), the downfall of the family also means the downfall of Christianity.

Indeed, when God made mankind in his image (Gen. 1:26), he made them male and female (Gen. 1:27), so that in marriage they could be fruitful and multiply (Gen. 1:28). Indeed, image-bearing is inseparably connected to the family. And so, if the family is destroyed, so is the image of God, as well as the God who gives shape to our image and likeness. Long story short, it is impossible to have strong families without God, and it is impossible to have God without strong families.

On Sunday, we will see this point in fuller detail. But more than simply lamenting the loss of family values, we will see what Scripture says about the family, so that we can answer the question: What is the family? And from Scripture we will see that a family is not whatever want to make it. Rather, the family, like marriage, is divinely designed by God. And Christians, in all stages of life, need to know what the family is and isn’t.

To that end, you can prepare for Sunday by praying for families in our church and by reading Psalm 127–128. The family is supposed to be a place of blessing, yet it is under great threat and often feels more like a place of cursing. That is what we need to address on Sunday with the hope of the gospel and the promise that God is making a new family of faith, even as his plans in creation continue to inform our own homes and families.

As the Lord allows, I look forward to seeing you on Sunday and worshiping our God and Father, the one who redeems us and brings us into his family by means of his Beloved Son.

As a reminder, the Montclair Community Group is in overflow this Sunday.

For His Glory and your joy,

Pastor David

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Discussion & Response Questions

What is the Family?

1. In what ways has your family shaped you? Your faith? Your approach to God?

2. In what ways have you seen the family hurt over the last few decades? What has been most harmful?

3. What do we learn about the family from a survey of the Bible? In creation, fall, redemption, new creation?

4. What happens when deny or change the nuclear family (one father, one mother, children) into some other order?

5. How does the family provide stability for individual identity? What happens when an individual defines themselves outside the family?

6. What roles do men and women play in the family? (More on this next week).

7. Why do we need to make the family the basic building block of society? What happens if individuals are the basic building block?

8. What are you doing to lead your family to follow the model given in Scripture? What are the greatest threats?

9. What is your ultimate hope for your family? How do Jesus’s words about his family (Mark 3) inform your views on the family?

10. Take time to pray for your family and others.