Tim Suffield writes that we should “stop calling the church a family.” There seem to be three aspects to his argument. First, he argues that the Bible doesn’t really talk about the church as a family. Secondly, even where it does use familial language, it isn’t the kind of family that we would think of today, as in the nuclear family. Thirdly he suggests that “family language excludes a lot of people or lets them down because of the unhelpful expectations it sets.
Let’s work through those claims in order. First, of all, it is worth noting that Tim’s first claim is dependent on his first. WE will return to that shortly. However, note first that Tim points to two examples that I don’t think anyone is particularly using when they use “family language” to describe the church. On a side note here, it is important when we make arguments that we describe an opponent’s argument as they would recognise it and at its strongest. Of course, we do not want to leap to use references to “genos” in the New Testament as the basis for “family.” Of course, also in Acts 17, Paul speaks to unbelievers and so God is “father” in the sense of creator/originator. This is true also of Ephesians 3:15 where we are told that every family is named from God.
Rather, when we describe church as family, we are recognising the familial language used consistently to describe God’s people, both in terms of the whole church and the local church. God is described as “Father”, not just in terms of generally of the human race, in fact, we are alienated from God in that sense as sinners. Rather, it is first that Christ is the only begotten son and that we are then sons and daughters by adoption.[1] The result of this is that Jesus is “not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters”[2]
This of course points to the whole church as a family. Really being about nation but even here we need to look carefully. In fact, Tim suggests we might think of Britian as such. In fact, I’m not sure we would to be honest. However, Israel had a strong sense that Abraham was their father, as were the other patriarchs (fathers). It’s not that Israel was a bit like a family in a general, lose sense. It’s that it was a family, that had grown out from a small family to multiple clans and tribes making up the nation.
However, what is true of the wider church, often forms the pattern for the local church. Body language can both point us to the church everywhere and to our specifical interconnectedness as local church. Therefore, an elder is required to demonstrate the ability to steward his own family or household before being intrusted with the care of God’s household.[3] Philemon Is of course instructed to welcome back Onesimus as a brother, not a slave.
This takes us to Tim’s second argument, that even if the Bible uses familial language, it is not that of the modern nuclear family but of the extended household. Yet, there are of course, frequent occasions where Scripture uses language and imagery where modern minds might risk misunderstanding it if we try to fit it into exactly what we know today. Scripture will talk in terms of royalty with Christ as king, of warfare, there’s even some farming imagery. If I think of any of those things in modern terms, Charles III as a celebrity sent in to shake hands and wave, missiles and drones being fired at a distance, combine harvesters and sheep dogs, then I’ll come unstuck but it doesn’t make the images/language wrong. I just have to be careful about it.
Yes, the household of Paul’s day was different. Language about obedience and discipline of course reflected the need to get work done or survive outside threats, households included slaves, though Paul, I believe in effect pushes for slavery’s abolition. It’s probably less a case there of us misunderstanding Biblical family as miunderstanding the nature of work in the Bible. You didn’t “go to work” to the factory or office, away from the family home. Work was an extension of the home. This of course means that Jesus as the Son, argues that his sonship is seen in the Father’s love meaning that he shows the Son his work and the Son does the same work.
Now, here’s the thing, the Biblical family is not the same as a 20th century nuclear family and if we attempt to recreate that in church, we will come unstuck. But there again, the nuclear family is perhaps not just a western but a middle-class concept. Families come in all shapes and sizes, we will of course see the single parent families and the adoptive families in our churches but also working class and non-western families that think much more in the sense of extended family.
This leads me to the final point. He argues that the term might exclude some because they find it too intense whilst others will feel let down because we cannot sustain all that’s involved in being a family. I don’t disagree that some will run a mile from the image. That’s true of so much about what churches seek to be like and what they are meant to be like. That’s of course the problem. There are many healthy and good things that the devil has managed to put believers off by making sure they have been burnt, sometimes more than once by unhealthy version of it.
And yes, we will struggle to meet expectations but again isn’t that true of anything due to our finite fragility. If we are an army then I’m reminded of the quote that “I’m not sure if they will scare the enemy but they sure scare me.” If we are meant to be the bride of Christ then I’m not sure how we live up to that. Yet, that’s how God sees us. Every time we say “God is father” we have to explain that he isn’t a little like human fathers and that he is nothing like the failed dads that some have experienced, rather, dads are, at their best, a little like him.
Tim’s argument is that we need to focus on being a “household” before we can be a church. However, I’m not convinced that this is how language works. The reason we talk about “households “ is because Scripture literally uses the word “house” when talking about these familial units. Yet, if “house” is meant to reference all who live under the same roof together, then I would suggest that “family” is as good a translation as “household.”
In fact, therein is the direction in which the New Testament is pushing us. The culture of the day might have suggested that you could have people living under your roof and serving you who weren’t family but Paul insists that you can’t really. You need to make sure that you are adopted in together. There aren’t any slaves in the family, we are all sons and daughters so we are all brothers and sisters.
So, what is the answer to Tim’s concern that we might over promise and underdeliver? I don’t think it is to offer something else instead. Instead, I think it is simply about being honest. We are frail and finite, we won’t always be what we should be, no matter what you call the thing that we should be. However, we are seeking and we are praying to be that, imperfectly now in sure and certain hope that a day is coming when we will be it perfectly. Often when we do that, it is those who most need it and who have been most let down in the past who benefit the most.
[1] Romans 8:15, Romans 8:23.
[2] See Hebrews 2:10-12.
[3] 1 Timothy 3:4
Faithroots 