Jesus’ New Family

In what follows I would like to explore Jesus’ view on the subject of the family with its intimate ties and obligations, from the viewpoint of the radical newness of the kingdom of God that he is ushering in. In doing this I will have to challenge the contemporary conviction which is prevalent among Evangelical and also Catholic Christians and is even unquestionably held as “biblical”, namely that Jesus and his disciples put family life in the first place, higher than any other active social tie or engagement.

I want to approach this as a study of relevant sayings of Jesus on this matter as found in the Gospels, and then supplement it with passages from Pauline corpus and from other New Testament letters. This latter evidence is obviously secondary, but as we can safely assume, the apostolic writings maintain and echo many of the “Jesus traditions”, so their testimony can be used as an auxiliary source and a means of clarification of what Jesus taught on the subject, as well as evidence how the first generations of Christians put his teachings into practice in the early communities.

Jesus and family

A quick look at the relevant Gospel passages reveals a stunning fact: Jesus’ attitude towards the family matters was not at all what we would expect and what is commonly understood and preached today. Or, as we shall see, one must be more precise in what is meant by “family”.

Let us start with some obvious examples.

In Luke 9:58–60 someone asks Jesus to be allowed to first go and bury his father (who has just died or who is about to die) before following Jesus. Jesus’ reply: “Leave the dead to bury their own dead,”[1] must be heard in all its contextual force. In Jewish society it was a sacred duty of the son to bury his father. Not to do this would be an absolute scandal. Jesus here cuts sharply both across the cultural norms of his day and through natural emotions of the individuals involved.

In verses 61–62 of the same chapter we have a similar situation. Someone wants to follow Jesus but wishes to first “say farewell [apotaxasthai] to those at my home [oikos]”. The Greek verb used here may imply more than just saying goodbye, it can connote setting the matters with the people in his house (oikos: parents, spouse, children, possibly servants/slaves) in order. Jesus says a firm “no” to this. The kingdom of God must have precedence even before these very natural obligations – or one is simply not fit for it.

In Luke 14:16–24 we have the Parable of the Great Banquet, which contains another striking element. Different kinds of people are being invited to the banquet, which is obviously a metaphor for Jesus calling people into the kingdom of God that will end in a great wedding feast. All invitees make excuses. The first two have business reasons, but the third one just got married (v. 20). None of the excuses are accepted, including the last one; they rather invoke the wrath (orge, v. 21) of the master. The refusal of this third excuse is striking, since in Hebrew scriptures it was expressly stated that the newlyweds should be exempt from other duties for one year (Deuteronomy 24:5). A special respect for new marriage was part of Jewish culture. But the radical urgency of the kingdom cannot accommodate even such “biblical principles” as this one.

And then we have the incident recorded in Mark 3:31–35 (parallels in Matthew 12:46–50 and Luke 8:19–21). Jesus’ mother and brothers want to see him. The context in Mark (3:21) might suggest that their intentions were hostile, but parallel passages in Matthew in Luke have no such context, which means that at least for those two evangelists, this incident should be understandable also without it. Anyway, Jesus does not reply: “No, I’m not speaking with you since you are hostile to me and to what I do,” but he rejects them with something that cannot be understood otherwise than a general statement: my mother and my brothers are those who listen to me and who do the will of God – my disciples. Here is my true family! The kingdom of God obviously creates ties that are closer than the natural family. Or to put differently: a new family is being born around Jesus.

It is important to note that while the cases from Luke 9 could be argued against on the grounds that Jesus’ severity was due to the concrete immediate situation, namely the urgency of the recruitment into the kingdom work at that particular moment, there is absolutely nothing of the sort in this passage in Mark 3. It is a general statement how Jesus understood family, and he affirmed it after his resurrection, when he called the disciples “his brothers” (Matthew 28:10; John 20:17). As the readings of other passages will show, this should not be taken as a mere metaphor, but rather in a quite strict sense.

The same emphasis of Jesus is affirmed in another incident, found in Luke 11:27–28. Here a woman praises the happiness of Mary, who was chosen to be the physical mother of Jesus. But Jesus obviously feels he must correct this: “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!” Which is exactly what he said in Luke 8:21 (parallel to Mark 3:35) about his disciples. By implication we arrive at the same message: my disciples are nearer to me even than my mother who gave me birth.

Jesus’ radical stance in the last two passages might be a reflection or even a kind of typological fulfilment of an Old Testament image. In Deuteronomy 33:9 we find the saying about Levi “who said of his father and mother, ‘I regard them not’; he disowned his brothers and ignored his children. For they observed your word and kept your covenant.” This probably refers back to the drastic action of Levites under the Mount Sinai, who under God’s command executed their relatives and friends who worshipped the golden calf (Exodus 32:26–29). It is noteworthy that in Deuteronomy 33:9 Levi’s rejection of the family is associated with his observance of the word of God – exactly like Jesus concluded his sayings in Luke 8:21 and 12:28.

Next, we should look at Jesus’ saying in Matthew 10:34–39. First, the family members are shown to be a possible source of seduction, hostility or even persecution for Jesus’ disciples. The gospel frequently brings division to the family. Then Jesus demands absolute loyalty to himself, above and beyond any other love: “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me” (v. 37). The sword from verse 34 cuts deeper than any familial bond and tie. This is one practical way of “takings one’s cross” and thus imitating the teacher. In this context, Jesus’ command can be understood as an encouragement or even consolation for disciples who find themselves in trouble from their very family members (as it is still the case in many places today).

This brings us to the notorious saying[2] in Luke 14:26: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.” This seems like a parallel passage to what we just looked at in Matthew, which might represent the same saying or a different version of the same message spoken by Jesus in another instance, probably the latter. The context in Luke is clearly different. There is no hint of family hostility here and the addition of “even his own life [psyche]” speaks strongly against such understanding. Jesus is listing here everything that is dear or important to us; this is confirmed in verse 33 which concludes the passage as a whole. This means that Jesus here goes further and cuts much deeper than in Matthew.

Now, it is clear that Jesus is using a hyperbole: the “hatred” here has the Semitic meaning of “loving less than …” (compare Romans 9:13, quoting Malachi 1:2–3). Nevertheless, one is obliged to ask: why did Jesus (or at least Luke) choose such strong language here? The parallel passage in Matthew speaks of loving someone “more than” Jesus, but not of exactly “hating” them. Why did Luke choose the sharper version for his Gentile audience, who would be even less equipped to properly decode the Semitic phrase?[3] We must note that the full unpacking of this idiom of “hatred” would be “to love someone so much more than the others that the love for the latter would appear so secondary and insignificant, that it would feel like hatred”.

If we consider it carefully, we can realize that Jesus really practiced what he preached from the very examples analysed above. He did affirm that his mother Mary was blessed but told immediately that there is a much greater blessing (and implied: kinship) than that. And his response to his mother and brothers in Mark 3 could be very easily understood by them as “hatred”, not “love”. The same is true for the sayings in Luke 9:58–62 – to the immediate hearers they might naturally appear more like “hatred” than “love”. But the point is clear: there is now another love which takes precedence over everything else: the love for Jesus which also exists in the new family in the kingdom.

This emerges clearly in the next “hard saying” of Jesus found in Mark 10:29–30 (parallels in Matthew 19:29 and Luke 18:29–30, who includes “wife” in the first list here, too): “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life.” The context here is the encounter with the rich man who didn’t want to sell all his possessions to follow Jesus. Here we should agree that that call was unique, not general; Jesus did not call everyone to do the same. But note the twelve: they had actually done exactly that.[4] What is interesting here, is Jesus’ reply. He says clearly that the reason for leaving the family should be himself and the gospel. But in the same breath he affirms that those called will actually acquire new family. Our worldview has trained us to read the second list as a weak metaphor. But in the light of Jesus’ own example in Mark 3 we probably shouldn’t. There is a real new family emerging, not just a metaphorical one. And, we should add, the natural families of the twelve have certainly felt pain (should we say “hatred”?) when their husbands and fathers and sons suddenly forsook them. It was a costly decision.

Yet Jesus was no gnostic. All the above should not be read as though he has disqualified the natural family altogether. It does continue to play a role – albeit secondary – in the new economy (oikonomia, “household rules”) of God’s kingdom. In Mark 7:9–13 (parallel Matthew 15:9–13, no parallel in Luke) he rebukes the Pharisees for effectively annulling God’s command of honouring one’s parents. Jesus strongly affirms the validity of this commandment, although, we should note, he interprets it as a (quite narrow?) financial obligation of supporting them, supposedly in their old age. (See the same point below in 1 Timothy 5:8,16.) A play on Greek word time might be taking place here, with its double meaning of “honour” and “payment”, i.e., financial provision.

And another “softening” point to Jesus’ “hard sayings” would be to note that after the resurrection it seems that the twelve and explicitly Peter did take their wives along as their partners and helpers in the apostolic missionary work (see 1 Corinthians 9:5). So the “hatred” and “leaving” was not as absolute as it might seem from reading the Gospels; it was rather a drastic temporary measure because of the urgency of that immediate situation.

This might be related to another strong affirmation of a key family tie by Jesus: “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” (Matthew 19:4–6, parallel in Mark 10:6–9, only partly in Luke 16:18) The union between husband and wife is absolutely inseparable. It is grounded in the creation itself, in the creative word of God before the fall of mankind – it is part of the original design for humanity. We might speculate further: the radical faithfulness of God realized in Jesus now demands a higher level of faithfulness among humans, too – first in this fundamental relationship between husband and wife. According to Genesis 1:27 both of them together are the image of God (later revealed as relational within Himself, too, the Trinity); now, in the restoration of all things by Jesus, this primary imaging of God must be restored, too. The eternal covenant between one God and his creatures must be reflected in the eternal covenant between one man and one woman. And, as made explicit in the New Testament (Ephesians 5:22–33), their mutual love is to be a genuine reflection of God’s love in Christ, a visible testimony and enactment of the mystery of the Gospel.

Now, one could ask: if this is so, why did Jesus call people to leave their wives? Didn’t he thus contradict his own teaching? To this, we should reply in three ways. First, as we have seen, it seems that at least some of the apostles later re-joined their wives and took them along to the mission work (and to martyrdom?). In calling the husbands, it seems, Jesus called the wives, too. Second, even more importantly, the immediate context in Matthew 19 is clear: the passage deals with leaving one’s wife in favour of another woman or even for some minor issue, whereas Jesus’ calling to leave one’s wife has a completely different reason: it is demanded by the love/obedience to God. The call to the kingdom work is obviously a case where the priority of God asserts itself even above our closest (and holiest!) bonds. Third, we should note how the passage in Matthew 19 ends: verses 10–12 present a striking new possibility, which was not there in Judaism: not getting married at all. The in-breaking of the kingdom and the outpouring of the radical love of God now call some to a radically new intimacy with God, where even the holy design and provision of the first creation is laid to the side. Obviously, a new creation is in operation which brings new levels of love, intimacy and commitment.

We must conclude the study of Jesus’ sayings on the matter with a quote that might at first appear as irrelevant. In John 3:6 he says: “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” In the immediate context there is no mention of the family, but there is a reference to the natural birth just before it, in verse 4: “Can [a man] enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” Those words of Jesus are part of his reply to Nicodemus, a part which seems rather superfluous in the context. It seems like Jesus is making a general statement. Those born of the Holy Spirit do possess an entirely different nature than those born in the natural way. In the light of what we have studied so far, it appears that it could be applied to the new relations in the kingdom of God as well. And it is in Paul that we will find some practical application of this.[5]

Paul on family relations

We should start the survey of Pauline material on the family with a stunning little statement in the beginning of chapter 9 of Romans. There Paul speaks of the Israelites as his “kinsmen according to the flesh” (v. 3). Why does he need to add “according to the flesh” (kata sarka, meaning “humanly speaking” or “according to the human nature”)? They certainly are his relatives, aren’t they? The answer becomes clear when we observe Paul’s use of this phrase elsewhere. It is usually employed to contrast the old way of life to the new life in Christ (like in Romans 8:4–5,12–13 and 2 Corinthians 10:2–3). But the most poignant examples are in 1 Corinthians 10:18 and Galatians 4:23–29, where he openly speaks of “Israel according to the flesh” which corresponds to the “present Jerusalem” as opposed to the “Jerusalem above”. In his mind, there are obviously two peoples of God, the old one, which is now but a shadow, and the new one, which is a reality in Christ (and which incorporates the believers from the old one as well, making the former one obsolete). That’s why he must refer to his relatives as the ones “according to the flesh”. Paul has new relatives now, and according to his clear usage, the new ones are those that matter.

Thus, in his own way, Paul puts the somewhat enigmatic concept we encountered in John 3:6 into practical use. As there are two kinds of births, there are two kinds of people of God, two kinds of kinship, and therefore also two kinds of family relations. The ones according to the Spirit take precedence and priority over the ones according to the flesh.

This is why Paul can explicitly speak of the new community in terms of a family. “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God [oikeioi tou theou]” (Ephesians 2:19). Those who are saved by grace through faith in the Messiah are members of God’s own oikos – they really are his family. In Galatians 6:10 a similar phrase denotes the primacy of doing good to the new “family of faith”. In 1 Timothy 3:15 God’s oikos is explicitly equated with the Church. And we have the same usage in 1 Peter 4:17 as well.

To this we must add several other instances where Paul speaks about the relations within the new community of the Holy Spirit in familial terms. The list is longer than one might expect and deserves to be looked at in detail.

The clearest example is found in 1 Corinthians 4:14–17: “I do not write these things to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as my beloved children. For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father [hymas egennesa, literally, ‘I gave birth to you’] in Christ Jesus through the gospel. I urge you, then, be imitators of me. That is why I sent you Timothy, my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, to remind you of my ways in Christ, as I teach them everywhere in every church.” This passage helps us understand several key aspects. The new familial relations came about because of the new birth through the gospel that Paul proclaimed, and the Corinthian disciples believed. This begetting power of the gospel is evidenced elsewhere in the New Testament with the understanding that it is the life bearing “seed of God” (spora in 1 Peter 1:23, sperma in 1 John 3:9; see similar notion in James 1:18). The new situation in Corinth brought about through the gospel makes Paul their father “in the Lord” and them his “beloved children”. Furthermore, in verse 16 we see what this new relationship means in practice: the Corinthian believers should imitate Paul just like a child imitates his parent. In God’s economy this mimesis is therefore not reserved only to believers’ relationship with God (as noted above), but also to the individual’s (or rather, the community’s!) imitation of the more mature disciple who brought them the gospel. This is the essence of Christian “upbringing”: this practical observation and imitation of what it means to live as a child of God and a follower of Christ is the only way that genuine growth can occur. There are no shortcuts to it; every other way would be a delusion. And finally in verse 17 we see Timothy called Paul’s “beloved and faithful child in the Lord”. This possibly implies that Timothy was converted during Paul’s first missionary journey in Derbe (Acts 14:20–21), was later recruited into Paul’s apostolic team (Acts 16:1) and has by the time of writing of 1 Corinthians proven himself to be a reliable helper to the apostle. See the even stronger affirmation later in Philippians 2:19–23, with the father-son language occurring in v. 22; and finally the affectionate address of “my (beloved) child” in Paul’s last letter, 2 Timothy 1:2 and 2:1. All this shows that the familial language (and understanding) is not appropriate only for relating to the community as a whole, but for individual relationships within the body of Christ as well.

Further examples of Paul’s “father” language applied to his communities can be found in 1 Thessalonians 2:11 and in 2 Corinthians 6,13; 12:14, and a further example of its use with individuals in Philemon 1:10.[6]

But Paul’s use of the parental language does not stop here; it can be actually even more striking. Not only can he be a father, but a birth-giving mother as well. Already in 1 Corinthians 4:15 we have seen that he can speak of himself “giving birth” to believers. But he can go even further: “My little children, for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth [odino] until Christ is formed in you!” (Galatians 4:19) Here he is literally in labour pains! And then: “We were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children.” (1 Thessalonians 2:7) Here a mother-like tenderness is emphasized.

As the final example of familial language employed in the church, we can look at Paul’s instruction to the young leader how he should relate to other members of the community: “Do not rebuke an older man but encourage him as you would a father, younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, younger women as sisters, in all purity.” (1 Timothy 5:1–2) Here we now have the full picture: the relations in the community are a replica of all possible relations in a “natural” family. We are here in a very close proximity to the saying of Jesus in Mark 10:30 about acquiring new “brothers and sisters and mothers and children” because of the gospel.

At this point we should ask ourselves: are all these just metaphors or are these actual descriptions of a new reality? As it turns out, the problem might be in the word “just” in this question. Grammatically, some of these texts are comparisons and others are direct equations, so we cannot resolve the matter in this way. It is a simple fact that our worldview and entrenched church practices have taught us to read these texts as no more than shallow metaphors or similes. But if we recognize the frequency and consistency of their use in various contexts, as well as their perfect fitting to the broader language and conceptual world of Pauline epistles and Gospels, we should not treat them so lightly. If they are metaphors, they are not shallow and generic, but strong and meaning-bearing, typical expressions of the new worldview which is emerging in the perspective of the new creation in Christ. In light of texts like John 3:6 and other Jesus’ sayings it is much more appropriate to see in these metaphors the language of a real new family life that is emerging through the resurrection of Jesus. This should probably be applied even to the all too familiar title of “brothers” as a name for the fellow Christians. To put it in other words: if these are metaphors, we should understand them in the following sense: the realities of the known natural family life are taken to depict the new realities within the kingdom of God which are more important, more profound, more real and definitely more lasting than those natural realities of the “old creation”. This is exactly how the biblical writers in general tend to use the created order to depict the invisible “Spiritual” realities of the new creation, from calling God “our Father” onwards. The realities of a good natural family are therefore a threshold, a step, a window into the new and truer realities of the kingdom of God.

And the same picture emerges from the next group of Paul’s texts. In 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1:5–9 he gives instructions about what kind of person qualifies to be an overseer/elder or a deacon in the local church. In all three lists there are specific requirements about the candidate’s family. “He must manage his own household [oikos] well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household [oikos], how will he care for God’s church?” (1 Timothy 3:4–5) “Let deacons each be the husband of one wife, managing their children and their own households [oikos] well.” (1 Timothy 3:12) “… if anyone is above reproach, the husband of one wife, and his children are believers and not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination.” (Titus 1:6)

The most revealing here is the sentence “if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church”. This is a clear case of the qal wachomer argument which is typical in the Bible. It is an argument “from light to heavy” or “from easy to difficult” and is frequently employed both in the Old and New Testaments.[7] A straightforward example of this is found on the lips of Jesus: “One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much.” (Luke 16:10, see also ff) So the meaning of Paul’s saying is clear: “If a man is incapable of managing his own natural household, how much more is he incapable of managing God’s spiritual household?”[8] The light/easy: the natural family. The heavy/difficult: the spiritual family. And as elsewhere in Paul, the easy and the natural comes first, then the heavy and spiritual (see for example 1 Corinthians 15:46) – not in order of importance, but in order of occurrence or creation. So, a man must first prove himself in this natural arena before he is fit to take on the responsibilities for others in the arena of the new “family in the Lord”. This does not mean that the former is more important than the latter – quite the reverse! But the order of training or showing oneself approved demands that one is first faithful in the lesser things, just like Jesus says.

And in case we missed what Paul is talking about here, he adds this conclusion in 1 Timothy 3:14–15: “I am writing these things to you so that, if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God [oikos theou], which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of truth.” His subject is the family of God – to which the natural family is a mandatory training ground.

The order of priority from the viewpoint of the values of the new creation in Christ is also evident in texts we must look at next. Both the letter to Colossians and to Ephesians consist of two clearly distinguishable parts: the first part is the presentation of the gospel and the second is the instruction on its application in daily life. In Colossians the first part extends from 1:1 to 2:6 and the second from 2:7 to the end of the letter. The letter to the Ephesians is even more clear-cut: the first part are chapters 1–3 and the second chapters 4–6. Since the texts are to a great extent parallel, it will be enough for our purposes here to look at Ephesians only.

Ephesians 4 starts with an extremely high vision of Christian community, with radical love, commitment and oneness among its members and with God himself. This is then followed up by a series of concrete exhortations, especially from 4:17 onwards, which continue on to 5:20 (or 5:21, depending on the interpretation) where the “house table” starts. The material of the latter is then presented in three pairs: wives and husbands (5:22–33), children and parents (6:1–4), slaves and masters (6:5–9) – a typical oikos! The basic content for these exhortations was already given before to the whole body of Christ (compare 5:25 to 5:2 or 6:6 to 5:10,17 etc.); here it is simply more narrowly applied to the relations in the oikos. Christ is here inscribed into these natural relations as well; in their proper place, they are important, too, and drawn into the new reality in Christ. Yet the order, manner and intensity of argument indicates what comes first and what second for Paul.[9] The reality of new relations in Christ extends to the natural family as well.

We should observe that this only confirms that what was true for Jesus was true for Paul as well: he was no gnostic either. Paul knew that the provisional, fragile, time limited bodily realities of the present age are to be respected and properly looked after as well. They are not to be neglected, since they are part of the good creation of God, even if they are only a shadow or metaphor or prototype of the new creation which is breaking into the world through Christ and his Holy Spirit. And one of these bodily realities is also the natural family. This is the reason why we find in Paul’s writings the clearly affirmative passages which speak of importance of good family relations, such as these.

It is in this perspective that we should also look at the well-known command from 1 Timothy 5:8: “If anyone does not provide [pronoei] for his relatives, and especially for members of his household [oikeioi], he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.” In the context, this verse is clearly linked to verses 4 and 16, so it is obvious that it is addressed to the younger relatives of the widows, which the passage as a whole speaks about. It is a command of the duty of materially supporting the elderly relatives, which is essentially the same as the saying of Jesus in Mark 7 which we looked at above. But this then also means we cannot expand its meaning and application much beyond this context and use it as a general exhortation to “focus on the family,” as it is common in some contemporary circles. And especially there is nothing in the context to suggest that the natural family must have a priority over the new family “in the Lord” which has emerged through God’s new creation. Paul’s concerns here are practical. The natural family must not be neglected. Even Roman laws had stipulations that younger relatives should provide for the elderly widows. If Christians would fail to do the same, they would literally be worse than pagans! Hence the strict tone.

To conclude the overview of Paul’s treatment of the family, we should look at the passage in 1 Corinthians 7. It discusses the question of singleness and marriage and in the middle of it Paul says something perplexing: “This is what I mean, brothers: the appointed time has grown very short. From now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none” (v. 29). The eschatological situation we find ourselves in obviously cuts through even such an intimate tie as the union between husband and wife. What a strange thought! They are married, yet they should in some way behave and live as though they aren’t! The now-and-not-yet of the kingdom which is present but not yet fully inaugurated in some way weakens or somehow relativizes even the strongest ties. “For the present form of this world is passing away” (v. 31).

It seems that we have here a concretization of Paul’s general statement from 2 Corinthians 5:16: “From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh [kata sarka].” The reality of the new creation is changing everything, even the nature of the most intimate relationships. The “kata sarka” is clearly relegated to the secondary, subordinate role.

Thus, the urgency that we encountered in the Gospels behind some of the “hard sayings” of Jesus is here replicated in a different context of the post-resurrection Church. Indeed, the tension is somewhat lessened in Paul: he does not challenge the believers to leave their family, as Jesus did, but he does remind them that the state they are in is provisional and so he suggests a paradoxical way of life where one is married as he wouldn’t be married. The ultimate reality is clearly elsewhere.

And this is why in the same passage Paul puts it quite strongly that it is better not to get married at all: “Now, to the unmarried and to the widows I say that it would be better for you to continue to live alone as I do” (v. 8, GNT). This is obviously an advice, not a command, and it is clear that everyone will not carry it out. Nevertheless, the kingdom value system is straightforward: to remain unmarried and to devote oneself fully to the Lord is better than having a family. But this is not for everyone. And since we observed something very similar in the saying of Jesus from Matthew 19:10–12 it is likely that Paul is here drawing from a circulating Jesus tradition.

We should look at this from yet another angle. In the inaugurated kingdom there will be no marriage; marriage and family relations belong only to this passing age (see Luke 20:34–35!), but there will be “communion of saints,” as it already now exists in heaven (Hebrews 12:22–23). Therefore, the saints should also now, as much as possible, proleptically, as a foretaste and prophetic announcement, reflect that future reality: the ones who get married with their paradoxical married-as-not-married lifestyle and the others who don’t get married at all with that very renouncement.[10]

We can conclude that in Paul’s letters we encounter basically the same overall view on the natural family as in the Gospels. It is true that the tension between the kingdom and the natural family is somehow lessened. This can be explained by the fact that in the time when Paul’s letters were written there were already two generations of Christians (or in case of the Pastoral letters even three generations, see 1 Timothy 5:4; 2 Timothy 1:5). This means that the members of the same natural family could now also be members of the new family of God – a situation that could not yet have occurred in the Gospels. But nevertheless, these texts clearly affirm the emergence of a new family “in the Lord” and speak of it as the heavy, more important, ultimate reality, as opposed to the lighter, less important, penultimate, temporal reality of the natural family. This is clearly evidenced in Paul’s (humanly speaking) strange exhortations in 1 Corinthians 7: either don’t get married or live out your marriage as if you were not married.

Priorities in contemporary practice

Based on all of this, what should we make of the commonly accepted contemporary “wisdom” that one should put God first, family second, church third, job fourth and so on? Leaving aside the question of what it really means to put God first in separation from the church or kingdom of God, we must say that the order of the second and the third should be exchanged: in the economy of God revealed through Jesus and in the rest of the New Testament, the “communion of saints” comes before one’s natural family.[11] A very tough and shocking statement indeed – to our received opinions and praxis it sounds almost sacrilegious and iconoclastic.

So, first, we should clarify what is being asserted here and what is not. In practice this new order of priorities may not mean spending more time for the “church” than for the family. Most of us work eight hours a day, which is much more than what we spend in prayer to God, meeting other disciples of Christ or being with our family. But this doesn’t mean that we put our work above all these, quite far from that. In the same way, caring for the family, especially with young children, naturally and properly demands more time than other priorities. The point is this: we should not confuse the priorities of God’s kingdom, which are clearly revealed by Christ, with the actual practical demands of our daily life. It is especially when these demands are heavy on us that we should remember where our primary calling as disciples of Jesus is, even if we can’t devote ourselves to it full time at the moment. We should never lose that big picture into which we have been called and placed by God.

Second, we must also view our contemporary persuasions in a proper historical perspective. It is a well-documented fact that the church was quite early transformed from home-based family-like small and tightly knit communities (sometimes even “communes”) into an ever colder and more formal hierarchical organization, which was soon (early 4^th century) also married to the structures and strictures of the empire. This model was never substantially challenged, even by all the reformations and revivals of the church history.[12] In these new, transmuted and perverted circumstances it would certainly be cruel and absolutely senseless to assert that the formal event which one participates in once or several times a week should take precedence over the daily duties, intimacies and challenges of one’s now one and only real family. But let us for a moment envision the “church” differently: as a true, living and loving, sacrificial community, centred on Christ and ordered around him, who is covenantaly present in his sanctuary where “two or three are gathered in his name” (Matthew 18:20). Could we envision this as a place where one gets strengthened, inspired, positively challenged and filled with divine power and love? Wouldn’t that be precisely the source, the abundant well-spring from where one could also get the strength and patience to “manage his household” well, with love and upbringing “in the Lord”? Wouldn’t then this corrected set of priorities make much more sense?

The bottom line is this: the Word of God cuts two ways. To the arrogant fanatic who would like to do “great things for the Lord” to the financial, emotional and spiritual neglect of his wife and his children, not providing for their physical and emotional needs, not engaging in the long and troublesome process of raising the children to become wise, respectful and loving persons, not practicing the cross and resurrection of Jesus in the relation to the spouse – to such a one the Word shouts a loud: “No! – You have no business building God’s kingdom while you neglect the first lesson. Don’t you dare bypass it!” But to the fine Christian who is doing all this and enjoying his nice suburban family life, the same Word says: “Sorry, you have not arrived. Not at all. In fact, you have only just begun. This was only the primary school. Now go ahead to the high school, roll up your sleeves (and knees) and start building the true, eternal oikos, the family of God and his Anointed One, with the participation in suffering with Christ, with the power of his resurrection, with the Holy Spirit and the divine love as the key tools, methods and ingredients. And don’t forget the lessons and skills you have learned in the primary school, they will be useful in your new training, like the Old Testament is useful for understanding the New.”

So, is this all in all a monstrous teaching, unfit for real life? It may certainly appear as such to those who don’t know the new birth and the new creation. But to those who do, it is simply an affirmation of the place where the greater love abides: in the new family gathered around Christ, without diminishing or even (God forbid!) neglecting the lower love of the natural family. Some respected writers, like C. S. Lewis, have distinguished these two loves with two different labels, using storge for the natural family and agape for the love of God.[13] Maybe we would do well to think this through and consistently apply it across the spectrum of our values, ideas, symbols and practices.

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[1] Scripture quotations are taken from the English Standard Version (ESV), unless noted otherwise.

[2] Which follows closely after the Parable of the Great Banquet, studied above – hardly a coincidence!

[3] It might be of interest to observe that Luke is consistently sharper than Matthew in these matters, especially regarding marriage. Not only does he use the language of hatred, but he also includes the wife here as someone to be loved less/hated, whereas Matthew does not. We find the same in the saying about leaving one’s relatives: Mark (10:29) and Matthew (19:29) do not mention the wife among those one could leave, whereas Luke (18:29) does. In Matthew’s version of the Parable of the Feast (22:1–14 in Matthew and 14:25–24 in Luke) there is no mention of someone who rejects the invitation because of marriage. In 8:22 Matthew does include the “hard saying” which we find in Luke 9:60 about the dead burying their dead, but he does not include the next one, about not being allowed to say farewell to one’s family (Luke 9:61–62). It is very hard to say what could be the reason for this tendency in Luke. We can only speculate that Matthew’s Jewish audience might find such seemingly “ascetic” tones more unacceptable or even repulsive than Luke’s predominantly Gentile audience, which could possibly be acquainted with some radical forms of ascetic teaching from certain philosophical schools.

[4] Should we say that the apostolic call somehow demands it? According to Matthew 19:21 Jesus said to the rich young man: “If you would be perfect …” which could mean that the call is indeed not for everybody, but it is up to the individual’s choice whether to make that costly decision or not. See further Paul’s descriptions of apostolic vocation in 1 Corinthians 4:9–13 and 2 Corinthians 6:3–10, from which it is clear that they had to renounce many “normal comforts” indeed.

[5] At this point it is useful to address the question of relevance of all these examples from the Gospels for the followers of Jesus after the cross and resurrection. In some contemporary circles these sayings and actions are simply written off as something than belonged properly only to the ministry of Jesus and its immediate realities. In other words, according to this view, they should not be emulated by Christians today, at least not directly. To this I would like to object in two ways. First, in this way we should basically write off most if not all of the Gospel material as irrelevant, since it all occurred in a very specific situation of Jesus’ physical presence among people – a reality which is not anymore ours. Let us look at an obvious example. If we accept this line of reasoning, then the famous first words of Jesus in the Mark 1:15: “Repent and believe in the gospel!” should not at all be relevant or in any way imitated by us today, because it is clear from the same verse (“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand”) that they are bound to a very specific moment when God’s kingdom was coming near in the person of Jesus, in his physical presence among the people. The urgency to repent was clearly demanded by the immediate context and the specific historic situation. – But this, I maintain, would be a theological catastrophe! This would cut us off from the main source of God’s revelation, namely the ministry of Jesus, and also from the essential source to carry out our “imitation of Christ”, to which we are frequently summoned (1 Corinthians 11:1; Ephesians 5:1–2; 1 Thessalonians 1:6 etc.). And secondly, we should note that all the Gospels were written much after Jesus’ death and resurrection. They were written to the existing Christian communities and were addressing issues that were relevant to their new reality. It is very clear that the evangelists did not include all the material regarding Jesus, but only what they found most relevant. And from the very earliest Christian witness onward, we find the understanding that the written Gospels are something that should be directly put in practice (see for example Didache 8:2; 11:3; 15:3,4). Declaring the Gospel materials as irrelevant for the contemporary Christian practice would be reading them against the clear intentions of their writers, and, may I say, against the intention of the One who inspired them.

[6] There seems to be some tension between Paul’s use of “fatherhood” language documented here and the clear command of Jesus that we should not call anyone on earth “our father” (Matthew 23:9). But from the context in Matthew, it is clear that that passage is about the titles of honour that individuals gain as status symbols within the community, irrespectively of their concrete relationship to the individuals or the group as a whole, whereas in Paul the use is very specific, reflective of the new reality and new concrete relationship brought about with the gospel preached and believed. Furthermore, there is no hint in Paul’s writings that this should or could be used as an honorary title or label at all, nor do we find any actual instance of anyone addressing Paul or any other apostle or church leader in these terms. With Paul, these are not formal titles, but rather affectionate, endearing familial expressions which perfectly fit the reality of the new family born of the Spirit. Nevertheless, it could be that Paul was not acquainted with that particular Jesus tradition, which was preserved for us only in the Gospel of Matthew; we might suspect that had he known it, he would be somewhat more reserved in the “fatherhood” language.

[7] See http://blog.dianoigo.com/2016/10/a-table-of-biblical-occurrences-of-qal.html for a brief explanation and an attempt of listing all its occurrences in the Bible, including this one.

[8] Ibid., at 1 Tim. 3:5.

[9] See also 3:18–4:1 in Colossians. The third case of such “household rules” in New Testament is found in 1 Peter, but there the order seems quite random, since the specific instructions to slaves (2:18–21) and to wives and husbands (3:1–7) are interwoven within further proclamations and expositions of the gospel (2:22–25; 3:18–22) and exhortations to the whole community of believers (1:13–2:12; 3:8–17; 4:1ff). The same could be said about bits of similar material in 1 Timothy and Titus – one cannot discern from the structure of these texts that the authors there wished to highlight a higher priority of certain subjects. What is more noteworthy is the lack of treatment of family matters in other letters of Paul (with the exception of 1 Corinthians 7 which we will explore below). The omission is most glaring in Romans, which has (perhaps besides Ephesians) the clearest structure of all: chapters 1–8 present the gospel, chapters 9–11 deal with the special subject of its rejection by the majority of the Jewish nation, while chapters 12–15 focus quite extensively on the practical implementation of the gospel by the believing community, covering even topics like the duties toward the civil authorities (as in 1 Peter 2:13–17). But there is no word about family matters, which one would expect in such a programmatic and comprehensive letter as Romans.

[10] Needless to say, this way of looking at marriage and family is almost absolutely absent from contemporary teaching and practice, which is really a sad anomaly, given the fact that it is so clearly established in the Scripture.

[11] A general objection could be made here, that especially in the examples quoted from the Gospels, the first priority should be given to the love for God or Jesus, not to the community of disciples. According to this objection, the love for the natural family should then keep the priority over the new family of children of God. This may formally appear to be true. But we have at least one case, namely that of Jesus himself, where he in no unclear terms preferred his new family to his old one – so much so that he even didn’t call the old one “family” (see Mark 3:31–35 above)! If we say we imitate Jesus in everything he said and did, shouldn’t we imitate him here as well?

[12] For a provocative critique of this history, see Frank Viola & George Barna: Pagan Christianity?: Exploring the Roots of Our Church Practices, Tyndale Momentum, 2012.

[13] C. S. Lewis: The Four Loves, free edition: www.fadedpage.com/showbook.php?pid=20140721