He was a man with several leadership positions in a local assembly. He was confessing to the other elders that he had been looking at porn, verbally abusive to his wife, and physically abusive to a daughter. At the end of the confession he said, “But I am not that man. I am the man you see on Sunday morning.”
I had ben invited by his wife to be moral support for her as she went through this meeting. She did not want to be the only woman in the room.
In that same assembly of believers there had been a guest missionary who some months before had said, “If your faith isn’t working at home, don’t export it.”
More recently, I was in a discussion with someone who did not count how she treats her family as important as other people to be impressed in the church and the workplace.
What does the Bible say about this? How are we to think about our families? Some verses that apply:
- Deuteronomy 6:6-7 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.
- Ephesian 6:1- 4 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), “that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.” Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
- 1 Timothy 5:4 But if a widow has children or grandchildren, let them first learn to show godliness to their own household and to make some return to their parents, for this is pleasing in the sight of God.
- 1Timothy 5:8 But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.
- 1 Timothy 5:16 If any believing woman has relatives who are widows, let her care for them. Let the church not be burdened, so that it may care for those who are truly widows.
These verses show us the importance and responsibilities we have of caring for members of our families before we prioritize people outside our homes. This can be shunned in a number of ways:
- We can prioritize other things above family in the way we spend our “free time” (recognizing that most men have a job that requires a lot of time). This may be a ministry that demands a lot of time away from the family when children are young or time for video games or sports before family.
- We can prioritize others in sharing the wealth we have (at whatever level we have it). See 1 Timothy 5:8, above.
- We can fail to obey the command to teach our children as laid out in Deuteronomy 6, because we think the government will do it for us. They do diligently teach our children but it’s not the commands of God or anything close to them.
The man I heard confess may have been deceived to believe that he was “the man you see on Sunday mornings” but clearly, treating his family well was not on his list of priorities. For a husband and father this is a terrible witness before God and clearly sinful. God tells husbands to love their wives (Colossians 3:19; 1 Peter 3:7) and to raise their children in the fear and instruction of the Lord.
How do we treat our husbands? Our wives? How do we treat our parents? How do we treat our siblings? How do we treat our in-laws?
We are wrong if we think it doesn’t matter.
