In the previous article, when discussing the question of elderly care for parents for the specific case when the parents are either covenant-breakers or their actions reveal unredeemed heart, we started a discussion over the very nature and function of the family in the plan of God for dominion. We answered the following three questions: (1) Who is the true center of all Biblical commandments, including the commandment to honor our parents? (2) How do we define the institution of the family which is central to the tasks of welfare and elderly care? (3) What are the responsibilities of parents to children and of children to parents?
We will answer here the other two questions: (4) What blessings should follow from obedience and what sanctions should follow from disobedience to the laws for the family? And (5) What should be the long-term vision and goal for a Christian family, both nuclear and extended, and who inherits?
Covenantal Blessing and Curse
A law that has no sanctions attached to it is as good as no law. Therefore the laws for covenantal responsibilities within the family have sanctions attached to them. In every covenant, blessings come in the form of fulfillment of the promises of the covenant. And curses come in the form of separation from the covenant.
Since the family is a trustee of the economic wealth of the society, its blessings and curses are primarily in the form of economic blessings and curses. The Fifth Commandment which protects the family is the first one with a promise attached to it, and the main thrust of the promise is economic: that it may go well (i.e. prosper) with you and your days will be prolonged. Material resources and time – the two factors of economic growth. The parents themselves, if they are obedient to God and train their children, expect economic return from them in the form of support in their old age. Children must obey their parents so that they inherit from them. The child that takes up the task of caring for his parents in their old age – usually, but not always, the first-born – receives an additional economic compensation in the form of double portion of the inheritance. Finding a good wife in the Biblical social order requires an economic compensation to her parents, and she comes to the family of her husband with her dowry; also, she is expected to be economically savvy and increase her family’s fortune (Prov. 31). The family is the economic agent in the society, its functions are primarily economic, and therefore the blessings are primarily economic.
But there are also curses when a person refuses to fulfill his responsibilities to the family. To start with, it is not a coincidence that the punishment the parents can use against their disobedient children is the same as the punishment used in the economic relationship between a master and his slave – corporal punishment (Ex. 21:20, 26). Indeed, as long as the child is under the protection of his parents, he is no different from a slave (Gal. 4:1). Parents who fail to educate and train their children to prosper righteously will see a decline in their economic well-being in their old age. Children who have broken the covenant must be disinherited, that is cut off from the economic blessings of the family. A widow who doesn’t do her obligations as a widow must also be cut off from economic support; and the solution to her situation is for her to get married again and thus come under economic protection (1 Tim. 5). The family is a trustee of the economic capital, and the family must and does mete out economic sanctions for obedience and disobedience to the family covenant. When obedient to his responsibilities, the family member participates in the economic blessings, when disobedient and irresponsible, he is cut off from the blessings and is cursed.
This leads us to the conclusion that there are no automatic entitlements in the family covenant. The story of Esau and Jacob must teach us that no one is entitled to a blessing by default. While Esau by rule had to receive the birthright – that is, economically, a double portion of the inheritance – God decreed even before they were born that it was the younger brother who would receive it (Rom. 9:11). And as if that was not enough, the Scripture expresses it in economic terms: “The older shall serve the younger.” (In Gen. 25:23, the Hebrew word for “serve” is exactly the same word as used for Adam’s economic task of “cultivating” the Garden in Gen. 2:15.) The heirs do not automatically inherit, they need to show character and faithfulness to the covenant to be worthy of being able to benefit from the family’s economic inheritance. People who could not take care of themselves could be adopted in a family for permanent care, but only after they have become slaves, and therefore took certain economic obligations to the family (Ex. 21:2-6). The only notable exception to that rule was the “adoption” of a Levite in the family where no specific economic obligations were listed on the part of the Levite, but only the duty of reading the Law of God for family devotions; but then again, that privilege came only with a specific commandment for the Levites to never have and pass inheritance to their children. Even the older widows, those worthy of support, were not automatically granted the status of welfare recipients by the church but only after meeting specific requirements (1 Tim. 5:4-5, 9-10).
In the lives of Naomi and Ruth, we have an even clearer confirmation that even widows didn’t automatically get entitled to support. Both of them widows – and Naomi in her old age as well – they returned to Israel in complete poverty. Even though they had the family land, they did not have the strength to cultivate it nor the funds to pay workers to do it. Ruth had to go glean from other people’s fields, which was an activity reserved to the poorest of Israel, and for the strangers (Deut. 24:21). Naomi had a close male relative who could take her to his house and take care of her; if she was automatically entitled to care at his house, she would have appealed to her position as an unprotected poor widow. But such appeal wasn’t issued, and no one objected to the apparent lack of compassion on the part of her relative. If Paul’s injunction in 1 Tim. 5:8 is applied to this situation, the closest relative must have been considered worse than an unbeliever. But we don’t see Naomi appealing for help; nor do we see anyone in Bethlehem concerned about the situation.
There was a reason for it. Naomi had to prove that she had remained faithful to the covenant. The community in Bethlehem probably had the right to be suspicious: She and her husband had left Israel in times of distress, only to emigrate to a nation that was hostile to Israel (Num. 22; Judges 3). They had allowed their sons to marry Moabite women, well known at the time for their promiscuity (Num. 25:1). As if that wasn’t enough, Naomi also brought back with her one of those Moabite women, a widow, attractive, and still young enough to marry again (Ruth 2:5-6). From the perspective of her family and of the Israelite culture in general, Naomi had to go a long way before she proved she was eligible for support by her closest relatives, irrespective of her old age and her deep poverty. No one received welfare automatically; a person had to present proofs that he was part of the covenant.
That’s what Ruth set out to do. She had to show family loyalty: Taking care of her mother-in-law even in her deepest poverty (Ruth 2:11). She had to present a clear case of superior work ethic (2:7). She had to overcome the reputation for promiscuity Moabite women had, and display humbleness and self-restraint (2:10, 13). She had to display a good knowledge of the custom and the social conventions in the Hebrew society, and her willingness to abide by them (3:6-9). Only after she did all this, she could say she had proved that, indeed, the God of Naomi was her God, and the people of Naomi were her people (1:16). Her original declaration that she belonged to the God and the people of Israel had to be supported by her showing her works of faith, for her to be able to participate in the blessings of being part of Israel. When the visible proofs were presented (3:11), she didn’t even have to defend her case that she and her mother-in-law deserved protection: Boaz, deeply impressed by the true conversion of the young woman, himself took up her case and vowed to not stop until she was economically protected and provided for (3:18). No one was automatically entitled to support; all support had to be lawfully deserved by faithfulness to the covenant.
Focus on the Future
Christianity’s uniqueness as a religion is in its view of the future. Not that it has a unique view of the future but that it does have a view of the future. No other religion has it, at least not consistent with their own presuppositions. Christianity is the only religion that is not bound to the past and actually looks to the future in history with positive expectations, and therefore has the time, the resources, and the emotional fuel to build a future. Its success in the first centuries after Christ was due to a great extent to its optimistic outlook concerning history. The pagan world had nothing to offer except a desperate obsession with the past, with the imagined Golden Age of the forgotten antiquity. Time, change, future were a threat to the pagan mind and the pagan social order. They weren’t for the Christian mind and the Christian social order. It was only the Christian who could say together with Paul, “forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead” (Phil. 3:13). No pagan could afford to forget the past; the past was his anchor, his hope, his only means of finding meaning and purpose in a dangerous world of change an uncertainty. But the Christian knew that the present and the future belonged to him (1 Cor. 3:22), and he was not bound to the past. Christianity lost its impetus only when pessimistic eschatologies – amillennialism and premillennialism – became dominant in the church, and thus its unique characteristic, its view of the future in history was lost. At the same time, pagan ideologies arose who parroted the Christian historical optimism; not for long, because optimism can not be sustained on any basis but the Trinitarian God of the Bible. But Marxism, Nazism, secular humanism, and today even Islam, flourished for a while, borrowing the Christian optimism and adjusting it to their own purposes.
The family, as the basic and central earthly institution of the Christian social order, has an important role to play in this focus on the future. As we mentioned above, its function in the plan of God as an institution is to be a guardian, a trustee of the wealth of the society, and especially of the transfer of that wealth to future generations. This inevitably defines the family in relation to time – the Bible allows for no stagnant view of the family, as an institution that is focused entirely on the past. To the contrary, in the Bible the family is always defined, described, blessed, admonished in relation to the future. Adam and Eve were created as a family not to enjoy themselves in a timeless bliss, but to “replenish the earth,” a task that obviously will take time. Even after the fall, the family still had a task to fulfill in the future, a victory to win, that of of the seed of the woman crushing the head of the serpent. Abram was chosen by God with a view of the future, way beyond his own expected lifetime. David looked forward to his descendant Who will save Israel. Families were commanded to leave inheritance to their children, and teach them to teach their children to teach their children and so on, in the way of the Lord. The most important future-oriented, optimistic event in the history of Israel – the Exodus – was to be celebrated in the family, not in the church or in the nation as a civic entity. Family in the Biblical sense means nothing if it is not related to future fulfillment of promises, and that in history and on earth.
Modern pagan cultures may have and cherish the institution of the family. Much has been written about the social position of the family in ancient Rome and China. Modern Islam reportedly has a strong focus on the institution of the family (although this is arguable). Modern Judaism (very different from the old Jewish religion of the Old Testament) also imputes very high value to the family. But in all those, the family is not a guardian of wealth that has to be transferred to the future, and therefore develop and build that future, whatever changes would be necessary to put in effect. All these cultures were and are stagnant because the family – however valued and strong – is a guardian of the past, a trustee of the old rituals and beliefs and superstitions which have to remain unchanged no matter what. In some places this is combined with very strong veneration of the ancestors – and the ancestors, being in a place where nothing changes, undoubtedly would be very unhappy if the world changes beyond recognition.
The same fear of change and future can be seen also in the modern secular humanist culture. Abortion, same-sex marriage, cohabitation, have the same ultimate religious drive in their very foundation: The fear of change that will bring the future. And since the change obviously comes through the birth of a baby – or many babies – the modern culture is frantically searching for ways to re-create the family without the danger of having children. Not that secular humanists hate children – although many of them do, with a passion. But there is something more that they hate: the change, the newness of life, the inevitable future that comes with it. The scene of a wife breaking out the news that she is pregnant is one of the simplest and yet most dramatic scenes in the world of movie-making; it spells c-h-a-n-g-e. And this change is what unbelievers hate the most: because it means that the future is going to destroy the past, the good old known world of certainty and leisure.
Needless to say, on a practical level, this focus on the future for the Christian family is expressed in its ability to procreate, and leave inheritance to the children. It is the children who must inherit, and it is the children who will be the projection of the family into the future (Ps. 127:4-5). At the end of the day, when all other responsibilities have been fulfilled, one remains that will carry on the family name and capital in the future: the upbringing of children, teaching them in the Lord and equipping them to prosper righteously and fill the earth.
Knowing this, we should expect that the attack of the pagan world against the Christian family will come mainly in the form of attacking either the children themselves, or the inheritance the parents would leave to the children. The former is attempted in the different ways modern governments use to separate the children from their parents: mainly the government school system. The latter comes as attempts to destroy the legacy or the inheritance left to the children; the spiritual, intellectual, and material capital transferred to the future generations.
But sometimes it comes in a different form: in the form of addiction to spending. In fact, in much of the Western world the loss of the vision for the future has resulted in a frantic drive on the part of the parents to spend and acquire new things. The credit card crisis and the mortgage crisis for the individual citizens, and the massive fiscal debt on a government level are all the result of that obsession with spending. Spending is looked upon as a substitute for the promises of the future that were lost with the lost optimism. The drive to spend is primarily religious; but its results are economic. And one of the most terrible economic consequences of it is the destruction of the family capital and transfer of wealth.
Knowing how important it is to leave inheritance to the children, a Christian family must be careful to identify the threats to that inheritance. Sometimes they are government taxes and regulations. Sometimes they are the lack of self-control on the part of the parents themselves. Sometimes they are excessive demands by an elderly parent for support. In all cases, while the present needs must be met in a reasonable way, the focus must remain on the future.
Conclusion
To return back to my friend’s question: Are the children of an aged parent who demands an unreasonable amounts of money, above and beyond the normal level of support, obligated to comply unconditionally with his demands? Or, to answer the broader question: Are the children who are believers, unconditionally obligated to parents who are unbelieving and rebellious, or who exhibit traits of behavior that are not in accordance with the Christian faith?
The answer is no.
First, no human relationship can be absolute, and therefore there can be no unconditional obligation or responsibility to other men, even of a child to his parents. All relationships must be redefined in terms of God and His covenant. Only God is our ultimate and absolute relationship, and human relationships that violate His covenant must be considered null and void.
Second, the Biblical pattern for the family is the nuclear family: a man and his wife. There is no absolute loyalty to the extended family, the clan, because only the nuclear family has the mandate to fill the earth and have dominion over it. All relationships with other families – or even with the parents of the husband and the wife – must be subjected to that basic human institution, even the care for the elderly parents.
Third, the Bible clearly identifies the responsibilities not only of children to their aged parents but also of the parents to their children. There is no one-way responsibility in the Christian social order. Any relationship of such one-way responsibility is illegitimate for it violates the Law of God.
Fourth, as a covenant institution, the family has its blessings for covenantal obedience and curses for covenantal disobedience. Since the family is the trustee of the economic wealth of the society, its blessings and curses are economic: inheritance, support, economic protection, etc. But it is not autonomous: the family’s sanctions must be in accordance with God’s Law. It is not allowed to reward covenant-breakers with blessings, nor administer curses on covenant-keepers. No one, not even the true widows, is automatically entitled to support and economic protection; they must prove they are in the covenant before the family decide to support them.
Fifth, in everything, the family must be focused on the future. In fact, take away the focus on the future, and the Christian family ceases to exist as a concept. Therefore, the family must guard its wealth from any relationship that attempts to destroy its inheritance, whether government taxation or individual addiction to spending. The actions or addictions of an aged parent that war against passing inheritance on to the next generation must be rejected, and his children must support him only to the reasonable level of support.
A Reformed missionary to his native Bulgaria for over 10 years, Bojidar preaches and teaches doctrines of the Reformation and a comprehensive Biblical worldview. Having founded Bulgarian Reformation Ministries in 2001, he and his team have translated over 30,000 pages of Christian literature about the application of the Law of God in every area of man’s life and society, and published those translations online for free. He has been active in the formation of the Libertarian movement in Bulgaria, a co-founder of the Bulgarian Society for Individual Liberty and its first chairman. If you would like Bojidar to speak to your church, homeschool group or other organization, contact him through his website: http://www.bulgarianreformation.org/
Wow!
This is biblical meat!
I urge all readers do what I’m going to do: Get your friends, pastors, family-members to read these two excellent articles by this obscure Bulgarian theologian (with apologies to Bojidar)…
Just imagine what an amazing testimony to the world we would be if we — in our personal lives, in our believing families, and in our churches — consistently applied these biblical principles.
It would be dynamite.
Alex A
UK
Dishonesty again. Not a single one of these quotes says that “family” is defined as the clan. It only sets the responsibilities of the son to his father but doesn’t define family as more than the nuclear family. You are trying to find in Calvin the pagan cultural practice of clan society. It is not there. The honor the son owes his parents does not nullify Gen. 2:25, and Calvin does not deny his own interpretation that the son must prefer his wife over his father. The family is a husband and his wife. Your attempt to baptize pagan cultural practices by twisting quotes from Calvin failed.
Further replies can be found on the FB page:
http://www.facebook.com/americanvision/posts/209642275779579?notif_t=share_reply
Which, lest I be accused of misquoting, comes from the entire comment here:
Exo 20:12-Calvin
…
Exo_20:12.Honor thy father Although charity (as being “the bond of perfectness,” Col_3:14) contains the sum of the Second Table, still, mutual obligation does not prevent either parents or others, who are in authority, from retaining their proper position. Nay, human society cannot be maintained in its integrity, unless children modestly submit themselves to their parents, and unless those, who are set over others by God’s ordinance, are even reverently honored. But inasmuch as the reverence which children pay to their parents is accounted a sort of piety, some have therefore foolishly placed this precept in the First Table. Nor are they supported in this by Paul, though he does not enumerate this Commandment, where he collects the sum of the Second Table, (Rom_13:9;) for he does this designedly, because he is there expressly teaching that obedience is to be paid to the authority of kings and magistrates. Christ, however, puts an end to the whole controversy, where, among the precepts of the Second Table, He enumerates this, that children should honor their parents. (Mat_19:19.)
The name of the mothers is expressly introduced, lest their sex should render them contemptible to their male children.
It will be now well to ascertain what is the force of the word “honor,” not as to its grammatical meaning, (for כבד, cabad, is nothing else but to pay due honor to God, and to men who are in authority,) but as to its essential signification. Surely, since God would not have His servants comply with external ceremonies only, it cannot be doubted but that all the duties of piety towards parents are here comprised, to which children are laid under obligation by natural reason itself; and these may be reduced to three heads, i e. , that they should regard them with reverence; that they should obediently comply with their commands, and allow themselves to be governed by them; and that they should endeavor to repay what they owe to them, and thus heartily devote to them themselves and their services. Since, therefore, the name of Father is a sacred one, and is transferred to men by the peculiar goodness of God, the dishonoring of parents redounds to the dishonor of God Himself, nor can any one despise his father without being guilty of an offense against God, ( sacrilegium.) If any should object that there are many ungodly and wicked fathers whom their children cannot regard with honor without destroying the distinction between good and evil, the reply is easy, that the perpetual law of nature is not subverted by the sins of men; and therefore, however unworthy of honor a father may be, that he still retains, inasmuch as he is a father, his right over his children, provided it does not in anywise derogate from the judgment of God; for it is too absurd to think of absolving under any pretext the sins which are condemned by His Law; nay, it would be a base profanation to misuse the name of father for the covering of sins. In condemning, therefore, the vices of a father, a truly pious son will subscribe to God’s Law; and still, whatsoever he may be, will acknowledge that he is to be honored, as being the father given him by God.
Obedience comes next, which is also circumscribed by certain limits. Paul is a faithful interpreter of this Commandment, where he bids “children obey their parents.” (Eph_6:1; Col_3:20.) Honor, therefore, comprises subjection; so that he who shakes off the yoke of his father, and does not allow himself to be governed by his authority, is justly said to despise his father; and it will more clearly appear from other passages, that those who are not obedient to their parents are deemed to despise them. Still, the power of a father is so limited as that God, on whom all relationships depend, should have the rule over fathers as well as children; for parents govern their children only under the supreme authority of God. Paul, therefore, does not simply exhort children to obey their parents, but adds the restriction, “in the Lord;” whereby he indicates that, if a father enjoins anything unrighteous, obedience is freely to be denied him. Immoderate strictness, moroseness, and even cruelty must be born, so long as a mortal man, by wickedly demanding what is not lawful, does not endeavor to rob God of His right. In a word, the Law so subjects children to their parents, as that God’s right may remain uninfringed. An objection here arises in the shape of this question: It may sometimes happen that a son may hold the office of a magistrate, but that the father may be a private person, and that thus the son cannot discharge his private duty without violating public order. The point is easily solved: that all things may be so tempered by their mutual moderation as that, whilst the father submits himself to the government of his son, (4) yet he may not be at all defrauded of his honor, and that the son, although his superior in power, may still modestly reverence his father.
The third head of honor is, that children should take care of their parents, and be ready and diligent in all their duties towards them. This kind of piety the Greeks call ἀντιπελαργία, (5) because storks supply food to their parents when they are feeble and worn out with old age, and are thus our instructors in gratitude. Hence the barbarity of those is all the more base and detestable, who either grudge or neglect to relieve the poverty of their parents, and to aid their necessities.
Now, although the parental name ought, by its own sweetness, sufficiently to attract children to ready submission, still a promise is added as a stimulus, in order that they may more cheerfully bestir themselves to pay the honor which is enjoined upon them. Paul, therefore, that children may be more willing to obey their parents, reminds us that this “is the first commandment with promise,” (Eph_6:2;) for although a promise is annexed to the Second Commandment, yet it is not a special one, as we perceive this to be. The reward, that the days of children who have behaved themselves piously to their parents shall be prolonged, aptly corresponds with the observance of the commandment, since in this manner God gives us a proof of His favor in this life, when we have been grateful to those to whom we are indebted for it; whilst it is by no means just that they should greatly prolong their life who despise those progenitors by whom they have been brought into it. Here the question arises, since this earthly life is exposed to so many cares, and pains, and troubles, how can God account its prolongation to be a blessing? But whereas all cares spring from the curse of God, it is manifest that they are accidental; and thus, if life be regarded in itself, it does not cease to be a proof of God’s favor. Besides, all this multitude of miseries does not destroy the chief blessing of life, viz., that men are created and preserved unto the hope of a happy immortality; for God now manifests Himself to them as a Father, that hereafter they may enjoy His eternal inheritance. The knowledge of this, like a lighted lamp, causes God’s grace to shine forth in the midst of darkness. Whence it follows, that those had not tasted the main thing in life, (6) who have said that the best thing was not to be born, and the next best thing to be cut off as soon as possible; whereas God rather so exercises men by various afflictions, as that it should be good for them nevertheless to be created in His image, and to be accounted His children. A clearer explanation also is added in Deuteronomy, not only that they should live, but that it may go well with them; so that not only is length of life promised them, but other accessories also. And in fact, many who have been ungrateful and unkind to their parents only prolong their life as a punishment, whilst the reward of their inhuman conduct is repaid them by their children and descendants. But inasmuch as long life is not vouchsafed to all who have discharged the duties of piety towards their parents, it must be remembered that, with respect to temporal rewards, an infallible law is by no means laid down; and still, where God works variously and unequally, His promises are not made void, because a better compensation is secured in heaven for believers, who have been deprived on earth of transitory blessings. Truly experience in all ages has shown that God has not in vain promised long life to all who have faithfully discharged the duties of true piety towards their parents. Still, from the principle already stated, it is to be understood that this Commandment extends further than the words imply; and this we infer from the following sound argument, viz., that otherwise God’s Law would be imperfect, and would not instruct us in the perfect rule of a just and holy life.
The natural sense itself dictates to us that we should obey rulers. If servants obey not their masters, the society of the human race is subverted altogether. It is not, therefore, the least essential part of righteousness (7) that the people should willingly submit themselves to the command of magistrates, and that servants should obey their masters; and, consequently, it would be very absurd if it were omitted in the Law of God. In this commandment, then, as in the others, God by synecdoche embraces, under a specific rule, a general principle, viz., that lawful commands should obtain due reverence from us. But that all things should not be distinctly expressed, first of all brevity itself readily accounts for; and, besides, another reason is to be noticed, i. e. that God designedly used a homely style in addressing a rude people, because He saw its expediency. If He had said generally, that all superiors were to be obeyed, since, pride is natural to all, it would not have been easy to incline the greater part of men to pay submission to a few. Nay, since subjection is naturally disagreeable, many would have kicked against it. God, therefore, propounds a specific kind of subjection, which it would have been gross barbarism to refuse, that thus, their ferocity being gradually subdued, He might accustom men to bear the yoke. Hence the exhortations are derived, that people should “honor the king;” that “every soul should be subject unto the higher powers;” that “servants should obey their masters, even the froward and morose.” (Pro_24:21; 1Pe_2:13; Rom_13:1; Eph_6:5; 1Pe_2:14.)
(1) See Becon’s Catechism, part 3, (Parker Society’s edition,) p. 60, et seq. See also Bullinger’s Decades, (Parker Society,) vol. 1, p. 212; and Hooper’s Early Writings, (Parker Society,) pages 349-351; and Calvin’s Institutes, lib. 2. cap. 8, Section 12. It appears that this error may be traced to Augustine, (Quaest. in Exo_71:0, and Ep. ad. Jan. 119,) who, without omitting the Second Commandment, divided the precepts of the First Table into three, on the supposition that their number was allusive to the Trinity. He, however, contradicts himself elsewhere, (Quaest. Vet. et Novi Test., lib. 1:7;) but Peter Lomb. adopts his erroneous division, and separates the Tenth Commandment into two parts. (Lib. 3, Distinct. 37 and 40.)
(2) See Jewish Antiq., book 3. chap. 5. Section 5. In sect. 8 it is added: “When he had said this he showed them two tables, with the ten commandments engraven upon them, five upon each table; and the writing was by the hand of God.”
(3) “La piete que nous devons a Dieu, et l’equite que nous devons a nos prochains;” the piety which we owe to God, and the equity which we owe to our neighbors. — Fr.
(4) There is a delightful illustration of this point, which will occur to many, related in More ’s Life of Sir Thomas More, ch. 6. Section 5, — “Now it was a comfortable thing for ante man to behold how two great rooms of Westminster-hall were taken up, one with the son, the other with the father, which hath as yet never been heard of before or since, the son to be Lord Chancellor, and the father, Sir John More, to be one of the ancientest Judges of the King’s Bench, if not the eldest of all; for now he was near 90 year old. Yea, what a grateful spectacle was it, to see the son ask the father’s blessing every day upon his knees, before he sat in his own seat, a thing expressing rare humility, exemplar obedience, and submissive piety.”
(5) “Let us consider what is meant by the Gentiles’ ἀντιπελαργεῖν, which is to requite one good turn with another; and especially to nourish and cherish them, by whom thou thyself in thy youth was brought up and tendered. There is among the Gentiles a law extant, worthy to be called the mistress of piety, whereby it is enacted that the children should either nourish their parents or else lie fast lettered in prison. This law many men do carelessly neglect, which the stork alone, among all living creatures, doth keep most precisely. For other creatures do hard, and scarcely know or look upon their parents, if peradventure they need their aid to nourish them; whereas the stork doth mutually nourish them, being stricken in age, and bear them on her shoulders, when for feebleness they cannot fly.” — Bullinger’s Second Decade, Serm. 5, Parker Society’s edit., vol. 1, p. 272. See also Hooper’s Early Writings, Parker Society’s edit., p. 359. “Follow the nature of the cicone, that in her youth nourisheth the old days of her parents.” — Plin., lib. 10 cap. 23, Nat. Hist.
The Fr. concludes the sentence thus: “et ainsi nous sont comme maistresses pour nous apprendre a recognoistre le bien que nous avons receu de ceux qui nous ont mis au monde et elevez;” and so are, as it were, our mistresses to teach us to repay the benefits of those who have brought us into the world and reared us.
(6) …
It is also reported by Plutarch, in his Παραμυθητικὸς προς Απολλώνιον, by whom, as well as by Cicero, it is called the reply of Silenus to Midas, — “Affertur etiam de Sileno fabella quaedam: qui cum a Mida captus esset, hoc ei muneris pro sua missione dedisse scribitur: docuisse regem, non nasci homini longe optimum esse; proximum autem, quamprimum mori.” — Tusc Quaest. 1:48. “Ex quo intelligi licet, non nasci longe optimum esse, nec in hos scopulos incidere vitae; proximum autem, si natus sis, quamprimum mori, et tanquam ex incendio effugere fortunae. Sileni quae fertur fabula, etc.” — Consolatio. Lactantius refers to the latter passage, De falsa sapientia, Section 19. “Hinc nata est inepta illa sententia, etc.”
(7) “Pars justiciae non postrema.” — Lat. “Une partie de la justice, qui nous devons tous garder;” a part of righteousness which we ought all to observe. — Fr.
As to your main points, Calvin writes:
Obedience comes next, which is also circumscribed by certain limits. Paul is a faithful interpreter of this Commandment, where he bids “children obey their parents.” (Eph_6:1; Col_3:20.) Honor, therefore, comprises subjection; so that he who shakes off the yoke of his father, and does not allow himself to be governed by his authority, is justly said to despise his father; and it will more clearly appear from other passages, that those who are not obedient to their parents are deemed to despise them. Still, the power of a father is so limited as that God, on whom all relationships depend, should have the rule over fathers as well as children; for parents govern their children only under the supreme authority of God. Paul, therefore, does not simply exhort children to obey their parents, but adds the restriction, “in the Lord;” whereby he indicates that, if a father enjoins anything unrighteous, obedience is freely to be denied him. Immoderate strictness, moroseness, and even cruelty must be born, so long as a mortal man, by wickedly demanding what is not lawful, does not endeavor to rob God of His right. In a word, the Law so subjects children to their parents, as that God’s right may remain uninfringed. An objection here arises in the shape of this question: It may sometimes happen that a son may hold the office of a magistrate, but that the father may be a private person, and that thus the son cannot discharge his private duty without violating public order. The point is easily solved: that all things may be so tempered by their mutual moderation as that, whilst the father submits himself to the government of his son, (4) yet he may not be at all defrauded of his honor, and that the son, although his superior in power, may still modestly reverence his father.
And John Gill:
Gen 2:24 Therefore shall a man leave his father, and his mother,…. These are thought by some to be the words of Moses, inferring from the above fact, what ought to be among men; and by others, the words of Adam under divine inspiration, as the father of mankind instructing his sons what to do, and foretelling what would be done in all succeeding ages: though they rather seem to be the words of God himself, by whom marriage was now instituted; and who here gives direction about it, and declares the case and circumstance of man upon it, and how he would and should behave: and thus our Lord Jesus Christ, quoting these words, makes them to be the words of him that made man, male and female, and supplies and prefaces them thus, and said, “for this cause”, &c. Mat_19:5 so Jarchi paraphrases them,”the Holy Ghost said so:”not that a man upon his marriage is to drop his affections to his parents, or be remiss in his obedience to them, honour of them, and esteem for then, or to neglect the care of them, if they stand in need of his assistance; but that he should depart from his father’s house, and no more dwell with him, or bed and board in his house; but having taken a wife to himself, should provide an habitation for him and her to dwell together: so all the three Targums interpret it, of quitting “the house of his father, and his mother’s bed”:
and shall cleave unto his wife; with a cordial affection, taking care of her, nourishing and cherishing her, providing all things comfortable for her, continuing to live with her, and not depart from her as long as they live: the phrase is expressive of the near union by marriage between man and wife; they are, as it were, glued together, and make but one; which is more fully and strongly expressed in the next clause:
and they shall be one flesh; that is, “they two”, the man and his wife, as it is supplied and interpreted by Christ, Mat_19:5 and so here in the Targum of Jonathan, and in the Septuagint and Samaritan versions: the union between them is so close, as if they were but one person, one soul, one body; and which is to be observed against polygamy, unlawful divorces, and all uncleanness, fornication, and adultery: only one man and one woman, being joined in lawful wedlock, have a right of copulation with each other, in order to produce a legitimate offspring, partaking of the same one flesh, as children do of their parents, without being able to distinguish the flesh of the one from the other, they partake of: and from hence it appears to be a fabulous notion, that Cecrops, the first king of Athens, was the first institutor of matrimony and joiner of one man to one woman; whence he was said to be “biformis” (p), and was called διφυης; unless, as some (q) have thought, that he and Moses were one and the same who delivered out the first institution of marriage, which is this.
(p) Justin. e Trogo, l. 2. c. 6. (q) Vid. Saldeni Otia Theolog. Exercitat. 1. sect. 14. p. 13, 14.
(cross posted from the FB discussion)
To show I am not afraid of the entire quote:
Gen 2:24
24.Therefore shall a man leave It is doubted whether Moses here introduces God as speaking, or continues the discourse of Adam, or, indeed, has added this, in virtue of his office as teacher, in his own person. (151) The last of these is that which I most approve. Therefore, after he has related historically what God had done, he also demonstrates the end of the divine institution. The sum of the whole is, that among the offices pertaining to human society, this is the principal, and as it were the most sacred, that a man should cleave unto his wife. And he amplifies this by a superadded comparison, that the husband ought to prefer his wife to his father. But the father is said to be left not because marriage severs sons from their fathers, or dispenses with other ties of nature, for in this way God would be acting contrary to himself. While, however, the piety of the son towards his father is to be most assiduously cultivated and ought in itself to be deemed inviolable and sacred, yet Moses so speaks of marriage as to show that it is less lawful to desert a wife than parents. Therefore, they who, for slight causes, rashly allow of divorces, violate, in one single particular, all the laws of nature, and reduce them to nothing. If we should make it a point of conscience not to separate a father from his son, it is a still greater wickedness to dissolve the bond which God has preferred to all others.
They shall be one flesh (152) Although the ancient Latin interpreter has translated the passage ‘in one flesh,’ yet the Greek interpreters have expressed it more forcibly: ‘They two shall be into one flesh,’ and thus Christ cites the place in Mat_19:5. But though here no mention is made of two, yet there is no ambiguity in the sense; for Moses had not said that God has assigned many wives, but only one to one man; and in the general direction given, he had put the wife in the singular number. It remains, therefore, that the conjugal bond subsists between two persons only, whence it easily appears, that nothing is less accordant with the divine institution than polygamy. Now, when Christ, in censuring the voluntary divorces of the Jews, adduces as his reason for doing it, that ‘it was not so in the beginning,’ (Mat_19:5,) he certainly commands this institution to be observed as a perpetual rule of conduct. To the same point also Malachi recalls the Jews of his own time:
‘Did he not make them one from the beginning? and yet the Spirit was abounding in him.’ (153) (Mal_2:15.)
Wherefore, there is no doubt that polygamy is a corruption of legitimate marriage.
(151) See Le Clerc on this verse, who takes the same view as Calvin.
(152) “Erunt in carnem unam.” — “In carne una.” — Vulgate. Εἰς σάρκα μίαν. — Sept.
(153) “Spiritus abundans in eo erat ” The word abundans has in English the force of superabounding. — Ed
(cross posted from the FB discussion)
Dear Sir,
If you are familiar with Calvin then you will know that, when he comments on Jer 35, the fifth commandement, and Eph 6:1 Calvin (and Gill) make it clear that, while the wife (as his quote above illustrates) is a man’s chief human relationship (and I don’t deny that, as anyone who reads my writing would know) your basic point: that the family is the ‘nuculear family’, is false. That a man does not cease to owe obedience to his father: obedience, honor, and provision, on his marriage.
For example:
Jer 35:18
Here the Prophet, that he might affect the Jews more deeply, promises a reward to the sons of Jonadab, because they obeyed their father; and he promises them a blessing from God. Nor is it to be wondered at, for this commandment, as Paul says, is the first to which a promise is annexed. (Eph_6:2) God promises generally a reward to all who keep the Law, for every command has in general connected with it the hope of reward; but this is in a special manner added to the Fifth Commandment: “Honor thy father and thy mother, that thou mayest prolong thy life,” etc. It is, then, nothing strange that God promised a reward to the Rechabites, because they followed the command of their father, for he had promised that in the Law.
Here we are speaking, as I presume you know, of a generations dead great, great grandfather.
(cross posted from the FB discussion)
Second, the Biblical pattern for the family is the nuclear family: a man and his wife.
This is false… dramatically false. A search of Scripture will show that it is the ‘extended family’… a man, his virgin daughters, and all of his sons, and their families, which is the ‘family’ that God speaks to in Scripture, time and time again. We see God blessing obedient (older, married) children, even down through generations (Jer 35). We see disobedient (older, married) sons curse for disobeying their father, and their father cursed for this disobedience (Eli).
While the underlying point may be true… given that no human relationship is absolute… this particular point is false. The reformers (see Calvin and Gill, for example) were all quite clear that the obedience of a son to his father is not interuppted by the son’s marriage.
the father is said to be left not because marriage severs sons from their fathers, or dispenses with other ties of nature, for in this way God would be acting contrary to himself. While, however, the piety of the son towards his father is to be most assiduously cultivated and ought in itself to be deemed inviolable and sacred, yet Moses so speaks of marriage as to show that it is less lawful to desert a wife than parents. Therefore, they who, for slight causes, rashly allow of divorces, violate, in one single particular, all the laws of nature, and reduce them to nothing. If we should make it a point of conscience not to separate a father from his son, it is a still greater wickedness to dissolve the bond which God has preferred to all others.
You are a very dishonest person, I should say. Dishonest, because in your frantic attempt to prove from Calvin your preference to the clan as the definition of the family, you deliberately quote Calvin out of context. Specifically, do you notice that your own quote from Calvin starts with a small letter? Why is it? The reason is, because this is not how the sentence starts. It starts with the word “But.” That is, the true sentence is: “But, the father is said to be left not because…”
So, why is that “But” there? Because right before your carefully selected passage, Calvin says exactly what I said in the article:
I am the wrong audience for your lies. You have to find an audience that is not as familiar with Calvin as I am.
“the Biblical pattern for the family is the nuclear family: a man and his wife. There is no absolute loyalty to the extended family, the clan, because only the nuclear family has the mandate to fill the earth and have dominion over it. All relationships with other families – or even with the parents of the husband and the wife – must be subjected to that basic human institution, even the care for the elderly parents.”
I often wonder why American Vision allows such tripe to be published on their website. This assertion is manifestly false. Paul explicitly states that loyalty to extended family is a given in 1 Tim. 5:8 (a verse which Bojidar dances around) in which one’s household (the nuclear family) is a subsidiary of one’s own that we are supposed to provide for. One’s own is clearly a reference to extended kinship. It is readily apparent that Bojidar simply labels as “pagan” anything that he disagrees with without providing any refutation. In addition to teaching loyalty to one’s extended relations Paul also teaches that this is valid even for unbelieving relatives since he identifies his own as his unsaved ethnic kin in Rom. 9:3.
Other passages that establish the importance of extended kinship relations are Num. 27 and Num. 36 in which we are told that property inheritance isn’t simply a matter nuclear families but a concern of clan and tribe as well. This is confirmed in 1 Kings 21, especially verse 3 in which Naboth defends the inheritance that he has received from his fathers which is an obvious reference to extended kinship which isn’t confined to nuclear families. Indeed the entire culture of ancient Israel taught the importance of extended kinship relations. The idea that the Biblical pattern for family must stop at the nuclear family is simply a post-modern idea that Bojidar is erroneously trying to baptize.