Over the Christmas break, I was completely consumed by family. A pause from work and other ministries and responsibilities meant that I had the ability to give my full attention to my three kids, who entirely delighted in long hours spent at the swimming pool, watching movies on the couch and re-organising their bedrooms.
It was lovely, and several times over the month of rest sat back and thought to myself “this is what life is about.”
And then I attended the Priscilla and Aquilla Conference on Monday and was gently rebuked in the plenary sessions to consider if this “overly romanticised, aspirational vision of family life, which is beautiful, spiritual and all-encompassing” is even true.
Simon Flinders wasn’t instructing the room full of men and women to abandon our families for the gospel. His constant refrain was that our love for Christ is a love that both transcends and transforms all other loves.
Our love for Christ doesn’t diminish or deny the very real responsibilities He’s given us. Rather, it grows and enriches our capacity to love and serve others, in subservience to our love for Him. Jesus redefines family, so that our community of faith becomes our primary family.
It was a gentle rebuke and helpful reframe for me. In his talk, Flinders encouraged us to consider the implications of this radical rethink of “family”. Jesus redefines family so that our community of faith is our primary family. And the implications of this are huge – and wonderful for the Church.
If we take seriously what Jesus says about family, the way we operate as men and women in the Church radically changes. These implications include (but weren’t limited to):
- genuine love from the heart (1 Thessalonians 4:9-12; 1 Peter 1:22; 1 John 5:1-2);
- The sharing of joy and grief (Romans 12:15)
- Carrying each other’s burdens (Galatians 6:1-6, 1 Thessalonians 5:14, James 5:13-20)
- Care of those who are single and elderly (1 Timothy 5:3-16)
- Eradication of poverty (Acts 4:32-35, 1 John 3:16-18)
It’s a glorious vision – not Simon Flinders, but Christ’s. A vision of brothers and sisters, so enamoured by Christ that the way we interact, and use our time and resources, allows for each member to flourish, grow in service of Christ and grow the Kingdom.
Of course, when the Church gets it wrong, we get it very wrong. But the very reason we have so many exhortations to care for one another throughout the New Testament is because the Church didn’t always get it right.
And yet, even in our failures, the vision of Christ for His family remains. The repeated exhortations in Scripture are a call to radically rethink what it is to be a follower of Jesus. It is not something we do on our own, but it is becoming part of something larger than ourselves. The Church is a family marked by love, care, and the flourishing for every member.
In the context of gospel ministry, this means that men and women working together under Christ’s lordship are not just co-heirs and co-workers. We are family, strengthened and sustained by His love.
The vision is radical and the cost is great, but as Jesus reminds us in Mark 10:28-30, those who leave home, family, or fields for His sake are promised blessings far greater than what they have given up—receiving “hundred times as much now in this time, houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life.”