(15.) Women and Children First: Home Sweet Home
(15.) Women and Children First: Home Sweet Home.
“How fortunate, how happy are you who fear the Lord, you who are filled with reverence for Him. All of us who follow His ways are to be envied, because God Himself will bless us! You will enjoy the fruit of your labor and be fulfilled in your work. How joyful and prosperous you will be! Your wife will be like a fruitful grapevine, flourishing within your home. Your children will be like vigorous newly planted olive trees as they sit all around you at the family table. This is all the Lord’s blessing for those who fear Him, for those who are filled with awe and reverence for Him.” (Psalm 128:1-3).
There is no greater joy than when home life is treasured and given the highest calling in an adult’s life. A stable nuclear family, with mother and father and children, is the building block of society. The world is designed to be family centered. Psalm 128 describes the happy home, in which a supreme blessing of God is to enjoy the fulfillment of being surrounded with family, with a husband, a wife and children around the table. Unhealthy societies, on the other hand, view the family as unimportant and the children as a curse. The anti-family culture in which we live now in America is bound to fall flat on its face. Marriage has become an afterthought, and children are seen more as a curse, not a blessing. Happy homes are centered on the family table. Sharing a meal together is a sacred time of family fellowship. The family table is like an altar in the domestic church, a place where God’s love is the centerpiece of the home. Psalm 128 totally ignores ambition of any kind. Instead, we are called to “enjoy the fruit of our labors,” and not seek our primary fulfillment in getting ahead, acquiring wealth, collecting possessions, becoming powerful, or any other earthly measures of success. Instead, we are presented with a heavenly view of what constitutes success. The ideal of enjoying the modest blessings of a productive job and happy home are held high. There is no room in Scripture for human sacrifice in the form of sacrificing the life of spouse and children for fulfillment outside the home. The Judeo-Christian tradition is that home life comes first in cooperation with the Lord. God has designed each of us to find our greatest achievement in establishing a happy home. If God blesses a married couple with children, whether by fostering, adopting or naturally, there is no greater responsibility and sacred trust.
“We will not hide these truths from our children. We will tell the next generation about the glorious deeds of the Lord, about His power and His mighty wonders. He commanded our ancestors to teach them to their children, so the next generation might know them – even the children not yet born – and they in turn will teach their own children. So each generation should set its hope anew in God, not forgetting His glorious miracles and obeying His commands.” (Psalm 78:4-8).
The Parent as a Child’s First Pastor. The Christian home is rooted in the Jewish home. And the Mosaic Law was very clear: Each Jewish home was in fact a domestic church, and the parents were the child’s first and primary teachers and pastors. And so, for God’s chosen people, faith was largely a home-schooling affair. God’s discipling program began and continued in the home with the parents. God’s law from Sinai was straightforward as explained in Deuteronomy 6. Parents were to broadcast the seeds of truth into the lives of their children by fleshing out love for God, teaching them God’s Word in Scripture, and proclaiming the benchmark events of God in history. The parents were to constantly, intentionally, practically remind their kids of God’s presence and power, of His mercy and grace and righteousness. The parents were instructed by the Lord to officially begin their passing the Faith on by reading aloud and praying the Shema of Dt. 6:4-5: “Hear (‘sh’ma’), O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.” This was recited in the home every morning and every night, and it still is to this day. The Shema continues to be recited in every Sabbath service. So this was Lesson One for the Jewish parent, the word that Jesus later called the “first and greatest commandment.”
It Takes More Than a Hammer and Nails to Make a House a Home – YouTube
Homespun Youth Group. Moses then followed the Shema by revealing to the parents how this home discipleship program was to be done: “Hear, O Israel! Yahweh is our God, Yahweh alone! And you shall love Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words which I am commanding you today shall be on your heart; you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way, when you lie down and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and shall be immovable before your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” (Dt. 6:4-9). God’s lessons to the children in the home were to be auditory, visual, and kinesthetic; the Lord’s heavenly methodology prodded the parents to be intentionally multi-sensory and experiential, using every learning style imaginable. To show how important home-pastoring was, literally the last words of Moses on the day before he died were these: “Take to heart all the words I have solemnly declared to you this day, so that you may command your children to obey carefully all the words of the law. They are not just idle words for you – they are your life.” (Dt. 32:45-47).
SHEMA (sh’ma): The first Hebrew word in the essential prayer of the Jews in the Hebrew Bible, found in Deuteronomy 6:4; is usually translated “hear,” but actually means hear and do, listen and obey, hear and respond, listen and take action, take heed; there is a traditional Jewish saying that “to hear God is to obey God, and to obey God is to hear God.” Hearing and doing are two sides of the same coin of faith, a vital aspect of biblical spirituality, and this was to be explicitly taught to all the children in their homes.
God, the Centerpiece. So, when Luke reports that Mary and Joseph were doing “everything required by the Law of the Lord” (Luke 2:39) when raising Jesus in their home, that is really quite a mouthful. That means they re-enacted faith events in the home through scripted ceremonies, including the weekly Sabbath and seasonal celebrations like Passover, Tashlich and Sukkoth; they made visual items around the house for reminders; they had roundtable discussions and regular readings of the Word; they celebrated feasts and endured fasts together; they played and sang and learned and worshipped in and around the home. The Faith was not just an intellectual exercise or an abstract accumulation of facts, it was life. The mind, soul, heart and body of each individual family member were considered one cohesive whole and approached that way in their faith development. The parents and children were all growing in their faith together, they were all engaged in their God-centered life. God intended the Faith to be the centerpiece of each home and the organizing principle of daily life.
Lord Protect My Child – Susan Tedeschi
A Holy Calling. Becoming a God-fearing family was the driving force in each Jewish home. Education according to the teaching methods of Moses was constant, holistic, and involved eating and cooking, talking and listening, asking and telling, reading and writing, looking and touching, smelling and tasting, memorizing and discussing, experiencing and imagining. Jesus knew these teaching tactics intimately since He was raised in an obedient, practicing Jewish home. God wanted parents to be the first teachers, to teach the whole child in and around the home, all the time. The conscience was just as important as the intellect and the imagination. And every year the children would be taught through a cycle of biblical feasts and festivals and activities. These reenactments would bring their history and faith alive since they centered on biblical events and principles. The more family time spent in the home as a mini-community of faith, the better. The parents who did not succeed in putting forth the effort at being a good parent were despised and singled out and reproved by God. In the Biblical culture, raising a faithful family was considered a holy task, perhaps even the most holy.
God, the Reference Point. Yahweh loved the Feasts and Sacred Assemblies seen in the Hebrew Bible… the fasting and feasting, the family celebrations, the remembrance of God’s saving deeds, the acknowledgment of God’s character, the focus on God’s truth. Of course God loved the Feasts! They were His ideas in the first place! “These are My appointed feasts, the appointed feasts of the LORD, which you are to proclaim as sacred assemblies.” (Lev. 23:2). The Jewish Feasts and Assemblies were opportunities to remember, to worship, to teach, to listen to the Word of the Lord, and speak of His care and presence. They were intended to cause believers to reenact sacred events, to confirm the Faith of the people of God. Celebrations like Sabbath, Passover, Tashlich and Succoth filled a deep need to offer the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving and to be reminded of God’s actions on behalf of the believers. The people are spiritually fulfilled when they gain the habit of pointing to God as the supreme reference point in all of history.
Instilling the Faith at Home through Biblical Celebrations. Like millions of others, it is important to be intentional if parents want to nurture a home culture that strives to be Christ-centered, that seeks to nurture the truth of the Christian faith in our children. Many homes, therefore, celebrate biblical Jewish traditions in order to nurture that Christian faith. So, many Christian homes celebrate Jewish traditions and activities, as well as a number of Christian liturgies.