As a birthday present, the children in a prominent family wanted to give their father a book of the family’s history. When they commissioned a professional biographer, they were concerned how the writer would handle Uncle George. Uncle George had been executed in the electric chair for murder. The biographer assured the children that Uncle George would be no problem. The writer said, “I’ll merely say that Uncle George occupied a chair of applied electronics at an important government institution. He was attached to his position by the strongest of ties and his death came as a real shock.”¹

Like this prominent family, it seems that some are trying to rewrite the history of the family in general. In 1974, Random House published a book entitled Contract Cohabitation: An Alternative to Marriage. Furthermore, in 1985, Roundtable Publishing produced Living Together and Loving Every Minute of It: A Successful Guide to Cohabitation. Then in 1990, Sasha Alyson established Alyson Wonderland to produce two books. One was called Heather Has Two Mommies, and the other, Daddy’s Roommate. In essence, these and other books are trying to re-write the history of the family—a history that dates back to Adam and Eve.

The first family was created by God and is recorded in Genesis 1:27-28.

27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

God was and continues to be the original architect of the family. And as the architect of the family, God holds to the principle that “form follows function.” It was God’s desired function for the family that led Him to determine its form. Today through various writings and now litigation, people are trying to change the historic form of the family without respect for its divine function. And as any architect will tell you, when you place form over function, in time, your creation will fall. That will be the fate of the family unless we remember and respect the functions God had in mind when He formed the family. According to scripture, there are at least four divine functions that shape the family.

Completion
“The Two Become One”

The first function God intended for the family was that it would provide completion for the man and woman. This is explained in Genesis 2:18-24.

18 The LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”

19 Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. 20 So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field. But for Adam no suitable helper was found. 21 So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

23 The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.”

24 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.

After creating Adam, God knew man was not complete. In verse 18 God says, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” The Hebrew word for “suitable” refers to a specific counterpart that provides completion. God saw this need for Adam’s completion, but wanted to be sure that Adam saw it as well. Therefore in verses 19-20, God commissioned Adam to name all the animals. As a result, verse 20 states, “But for Adam no suitable helper was found.” Adam now realized he was not complete. In verse 23, God creates Eve and stands her in front of Adam. Now after each phase of the creation account, God steps back, evaluates His work and says, “And it was good.” Verse 23 is Adam’s assessment of Eve, and he essentially tells God, “You did REALLY good!” Because only the woman was created to complete the man and only a man was created to complete the woman, God established this as the standard in verse 24. He said, “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.” They will become one identity. They will become complete.

What is happening is that many want God’s function without God’s form. They want to feel complete, but not by using God’s form for the family. People living together will never fully complete each other until they fully commit to each other as husband and wife. That is also why gay relations lead only to frustration, not to the desired sense of completion. Summarizing the work of clinical psychologist Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, James Dobson writes,

The bottom line is that homosexuality is not primarily about sex. It is about everything else, including loneliness, rejection, affirmation, intimacy, identity, relationships, parenting, self-hatred, gender confusion, and a search for belonging.²

I am aware that 1 Corinthians 7 encourages some to stay single and serve God. In that case, God acts as your completer. But according to God’s desire and design for the family, you will not experience the function of completion unless you accept God’s form for the family—a man and a woman as husband and wife for life.

For some the thought of being with one man or woman for life is boring. A little girl was trying to explain matrimony to her friend and said, “A Christian can have only one wife. That’s called monotony.” The word she meant to say was matrimony, and matrimony was designed by God and is holy before God. Furthermore, it provides God’s completion, which makes it far from boring.

Procreation
“The One Becomes Many”

The marriage of a man and woman is the form God chose to provide completion for both. It is also the form God chose for the procreation of the world. Through the marriage of a husband and wife the two become one, and from that marriage the one becomes many. God explains this in Genesis 1:28,

28 God blessed them (Adam and Eve) and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

God created Adam and Eve in order to love them and be loved by them. God is a big God with a lot of love to give. That is why He created and commanded Adam and Eve to produce more Adams and Eves. He wanted to love more and to be loved by more.

God’s dream for more to love was shared to Abraham in Genesis 26:4-5. God said,

4 “I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and will give them all these lands, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, 5 because Abraham obeyed me and kept my requirements, my commands, my decrees and my laws.”

God initially shared His dream to Abraham in Genesis 12:2. He told Abraham that if he followed Him, He would build a great nation through him. In Genesis 46:3, God reminded Abraham’s grandson Jacob of this promise. Yet the reason behind God’s promise was not to merely create a great nation, it was so God could have a great relation with all His creation. In Deuteronomy 4:5-8, God established the standards for a relationship that would capture the attention of all nations.

From the beginning, God created man and woman for love. He wanted to love them and be loved by them. Furthermore, He wanted more to love. For that reason, God created us with the capacity to procreate and established the marriage of a man and a woman as the form by which to do it.

Again, however, the wrong form cannot produce the right function. That is why the gay lifestyle is not of God and gay marriage was never established by God. Its form of life cannot produce the functions of life that God has planned for the family. It cannot provide completion for the couple. God created the man to complete the woman and the woman to complete the man. Furthermore, it cannot produce the procreation of children. It takes a man and a woman to create a child. Every child created is born with the capacity to have a loving relationship with God. The likelihood of that happening is diminished greatly if it happens outside God’s form for the family.

Education
“Every Home a School”

The third function God intended for the family is education. Every home is to be a school. But if the family does not teach, the children will get their education some-where else. Author and speaker Josh McDowell surveyed teenagers from evangelical churches. He discovered that they were learning more about sex from friends and films than they were their families.³ Even Star Wars’ film maker George Lucas felt the pressure of his influence on moviegoers. Upon accepting an Academy Award for lifetime achievement in film-making, he said,

I've always tried to be aware of what I say in my films
because all of us who make motion pictures are teachers,
teachers with very loud voices.⁴

Yet God intended the family to have the loudest voice and to be the best teacher. This is expressed in Psalm 78:4-7. It not only challenges the family to teach but stresses what is to be taught.

4 We will not hide them from their children;
we will tell the next generation
the praiseworthydeedsof the LORD,
his power, and the wonders he has done.

5 He decreed statutes for Jacob
and established the law in Israel,
which he commanded our forefathers
to teach their children,

6 so the next generation would know them,
even the children yet to be born,
and they in turn would tell their children.

7 Then they would put their trust in God
and would not forget his deeds
but would keep his commands.

It is believed that God inspired this Psalm not long after Solomon became king. The people had seen David’s bad influence on one son, Absalom, and yet the good influence he had on another son, Solomon. With that in mind, the Psalm reminds the people of their responsibility to teach the next generation. In fact, it identifies what to teach and what affect it will have on the next generation.

The Lessons to Teach
Verses 4-5 identify four lessons parents are to teach their children. They are to teach “the deeds of the Lord.” In the Hebrew, it refers to the acts of God that cause Him to shine. Brag on God and His goodness. Then you are to tell of “His power.” Talk about God’s strength. God’s strength is not only seen in what He can do, but it is also seen in what He refuses to do. It takes great strength from God not to punish us each time we disobey Him. Furthermore, talk about “His wonders.” Point to the acts and attributes of God that set Him apart. The greatest of God’s wonders is when He put His Son on a cross He did not deserve, and in three days raised Him from the dead. Like prerequisites at school, these first three lessons must be taught if the children are to appreciate the fourth. The fourth lesson is teaching “the statutes of God.” Statutes refer to every instruction and law God gave. If you teach that God is good, strong, and wonderful, your children will want to learn about Him and live like Him.

The Lasting Affects
According to verse 7, when you teach these four lessons it will have the following lasting affects. First, your children will learn to “put their trust in God.” If they have learned that God is good, strong and wonderful, why wouldn’t they trust Him? Furthermore, your children will learn to “keep his commands.” This word “keep” literally means “to guard” God’s commands. Isaiah 26:3 teaches that when you trust God and guard His commands, His commands will guard you.

Michelle had been teaching her four-year-old son John to memorize scripture. At the same time, she was teaching him to say “please” and “thank you.” During a good-natured wrestling match, Michelle pinned John who wanted to get up. Seeing this as a teachable moment for John to say “please,” Michelle said, “What’s the magic word?” to which John screamed, “Let my people go… Exodus 8:1.”⁵ John was learning early in life that if you guard God’s commands they will guard you.

Today it is sad to see the directions taken outside the home because education was not given inside the home. God formed the family to teach that He is great and to guard His commands. If our families fail to teach, in time, history will tell of our fall.

Illustration
“Worth a Thousand Words”

Though first published in 1851, John Ruskin wrote in The Stones of Venice “that architecture had two missions: to provide shelter on the one hand, to glorify on the other.” ⁶ The three functions of completion, procreation and education all provide shelter for the family. However, the purpose of the last function of the family is to glorify God. The family gives an illustration of the glory of God as our Father and the glory of being His child.

You as a Child
Within the King James Version of the Bible the phrase “children of Israel” appears 644 times. It is a word picture all can understand and appreciate. It conveys the feeling of a relationship with God, not a dictatorship under God. Furthermore, being a child of God also portrays how special you are to God. Jesus said in Matthew 12:50 that those who do the will of God are His brothers and sisters. Romans 8:17 says that as children of God we are joint-heirs with Christ. As a child of God, you are part of the royal family. Furthermore, Jesus held up a child in Mark 10:15 and said, “I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.”

When I was six years old, God used the picture of a family to draw me to Him. My mom was teaching a Backyard Bible Club. She held up a picture of Jesus and said, “Boys and girls, Jesus wants you to be a part of His family.” Immediately, I thought, “My family is great, but it would be even better to be in Jesus’ family.” From that moment, I wanted to know what to do to be a part of Jesus’ family. God used the picture of my family to show me how wonderful it would be to be in His family.

God as a Father
God also established the family to illustrate His love for us as our Father. In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus opens with, “Our Father in heaven.” God is the Father who is always listening. Then in Matthew 7:11 Jesus taught, “If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!” If you love your children and want to provide for them, think how much more God loves you and wants to provide for you. God revealed that love through the ultimate gift. In John 3:16, Jesus reminds all that God loves you so much that He allowed His only Son to die for your sin. I have two sons and would never think of sacrificing either of them for someone else. Yet God did it for me, and that will always communicate to me the amount of His love for me.

Learning from History
“The Right Form is Important”

In his book, Our Dance Has Turned to Death, Carl Miller identifies what happened to ancient Greece and the Roman Empire when they slowly changed the form of the family. The change occurred in seven stages:

Stage #1: Men stopped being the spiritual leaders of their families.
Stage #2: Men cared more about wealth and power than their wives and children.
Stage #3: Men turned from their wives to become sexually involved with other women or other men.
Stage #4: Women pursued material wealth and sex outside marriage. Laws were changed to make divorce easy.
Stage#5: Husbands and wives competed against each other for money, leadership in the home and the love of their children, producing frustration and possible homosexuality in children.
Stage #6: Selfish individualism grew, fragmenting society into smaller group loyalties.
Stage #7: Disbelief in God increased, parental authority decreased, and moral principles disappeared, affecting the economy and government.⁷

It was not a military power that caused Greece and Rome to fall. I believe these civilizations fell from within. When they changed God’s form for the family, they lost God’s function for the family. When the family ceased to function according to God’s plan, that nation had planned their own fall.

What is frightening is that the seven stages for ancient Greece and Rome can be read as a check-list for America. In some ways, a check-mark can be placed by each stage. We are there. If we remain there, we will experience the same fall as the great empires before us. But if we reclaim God’s form for the family and if families function as God planned, America will once again stand strong. History has proved a nation is only as strong as its families, and families will only be strong if they follow God’s form and fulfill His functions.

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[1] James S. Hewett, Illustrations Unlimited (Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, 1988) p. 197
[2] James Dobson, Bringing Up Boys, (Wheaton, Illinois: Tyndale Publishers, Inc., 2001), 122-23.
[3] From Group, cited in Teens & Trends, 12/88-1/89. “To Verify,” Leadership.
[4] Edwin A. Roberts, Jr., (Tampa Tribune, April 5, 1992). Christianity Today, Vol. 36, no. 8. Quoting George Lucas as he accepted the lifetime achievement award at the Academy Award, March 1992.
[5] Thelma Baddorf, Dillsburg, Penn. “Lite Fare,” Christian Reader.
[6] Alain de Botton, “Form Follows Inspiration,” (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/11).
[7] Kerby Anderson, “The Decline of a Nation,” (Probe Ministries; www.probe.org), references Carl Miller, Our Dance Has Turned to Death, (Wheaton, Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers, 1981).