Acts 16:13–34
A sermon preached at Geraldton Anglican Cathedral 7th November 2021
The closest I ever got to Marxism in the raw was 1975 when I was in West Germany. I had to learn some German for my studies and had enrolled in a Goethe Institute in Iserlohn, not far from Frankfurt. I found myself amongst an interesting group, most of them refugees learning the language of their new homeland. West Germany was still cut off from the East, the Berlin Wall was still standing, and the Cold War was at its height. We went on an excursion to the beautiful city of Kassel. The same day, twenty kilometers away a man tried to escape across the border from East Germany and was shot dead. It was a sombre reminder of that other world not far away.
One of my class friends, George, was the son of a famous German filmstar, Carola Neher. Like many at that time she and her husband were enamoured by the exciting new Communist society that was being created in Russia. They travelled to Moscow but found it was anything but the Utopia they believed in. Like a lot of social-dreamers the Communists saw them as a nuisance; they were arrested as “Trotskyist sympathizers”; Anatol was shot, and Carola sent to a prison camp. She was later handed over to the German Gestapo and died in another prison camp in 1942. Her only son George was raised in a Moscow orphanage. Only in 1975 did he learn who his mother was, escaped to West Germany, and with me was learning his mother’s mother tongue. Each member of the class was required to give a short talk in German. Most chose to speak about their country. George began by writing the number, 60 million, on the blackboard. I assumed it was the population of Russia. But no, underneath he wrote, “getötet”, which means “killed”: 60 million people had been killed to establish the Marxist paradise known as the USSR. Solzenitsyn gives a similar figure.
One of the features of Communism was its contempt for the family. All over the world at that time young people were rebelling against the idea of family and choosing to live in Marxist communes. Families were seen as preservers of traditional values, so they were regarded as enemies of the Marxist dream to establish a new world. George was brought up in the heart of the system and he loathed it. Marxism has morphed somewhat, but it still holds to the old dream that if the ruling system can be destroyed, human nature will flourish and a beautiful new world will emerge. The family is still regarded as one of the enemies that must fall.
The Bible doesn’t have much teaching on family; it is too natural a thing to need much teaching about. When Abraham set out from Iraq to travel to the land of Israel no one taught him about family. It went without saying that if God was calling him, his family was included. God promised him a son, and time and again when his wife Sarah was in danger God intervened to protect her. Even when the danger was a foolish deal with a surrogate mother, God made it clear he was not into any such compromise: if he promised Abraham a son, it would be through his wife, however impossible that seemed at the time. It seems that God believes in family, and that the basic unit of family—what we would call the nuclear family—is a man, his wife, and their children.
There is such a thing as the extended family. Abraham set out on his journey with his nephew and with servants and slaves. These are regarded as part of the family, but are not necessarily permanent. Some have noticed how common the extended family is in the Bible and conclude that it is the biblical pattern, that the nuclear family is something modern. But this is not so. When Joseph and Mary went to Jerusalem when Jesus was twelve years they travelled in a company of relations and friends; there you have the extended family—so much so that when they set out to return to Galilee they presumed that Jesus was among them. When they discovered he was not—well, he was Mum and Dad’s responsibility, and it was they who journeyed back to find him. The nuclear family was alive and well two thousand years ago.
In every culture, at every time the family is fundamental. It is only in the last century or so that this has been widely challenged though this is not entirely true. Four hundred years before Jesus, the Greek philosopher, Plato, in his book, The Republic, dreamed of an ideal society in which members of the ruling class would be bred like prize race-horses, and the state would bring them up and educate them. The Republic has inspired many attempts to create an ideal society, all of which have failed. Whatever may be the result of the current forces opposed to the family—even if they succeed for a while—the resulting society will be so dysfunctional and unhappy that sooner or later the natural family will reassert itself. I have never met anyone who enjoyed being brought up in an orphanage, and did not long for their lost family.
I don’t want to idealize the family. Families are not always happy places. Things go wrong. Bad things happen. The State must sometimes intervene to protect the children. For one reason or another many families no longer have a mother and father. All over the world mothers, foster-parents, grand mothers are the heroes who hold things together in the absence of a father. And yet we shouldn’t abandon the idea of normality. Some will say there is no one pattern of family this is right; we should just let it float and whatever comes to the surface will be good. What comes to the surface may not be good, and often is not good. It is vital that we hold a picture of what is normal and good so we can know what to strive for, individually and as a society. What can we expect from our children if our schools become so inclusive that there is no such thing as normal. So, although it may be hurtful to some, we must go on talking as though the family of Mum, Dad, and the kids is normal, even if it is becoming rare.
It seems that Christians will always be seen as traditionalists in a society that is restless and wants to try out new ways. We have a revelation from God which establishes what is normal. A society that rejects God has no way of knowing what is normal. The loudest voices will make the laws, and force the rest to do it their way. Might will be right.
Let’s think about courtship. We can’t say this is the only or right way to go about finding a partner; in some parts of the world marriages are arranged by parents. Still, our culture practices courtship, and it is the way most will go. A man and a woman meet and are attracted; they size one another up as possible partners. How easy it is now to try one another out sexually, to move in together and see if it works. Contraception means you don’t need to fear children, though the tens of thousands of abortions every year should tell us that this is not working. What is the Christian way? The Word of God reserves sexual intercourse for man-woman married partners. To make a marriage that will last must be the goal. The best kind of marriage will be between two people who share common interests and goals and who start with a genuine friendship. How do you find that? I would suggest by a reasonable courtship, by doing as the Bible says and honouring marriage, by holding out for someone who shares your faith in God and in Christ, and by holding off on sex until after you have tied the knot. Many men are carried along by passion, and then wake up to the fact that they have nothing in common with the girl they told they would love forever. Many girls are pressured into sex as the price of love, to find that the man having had his pleasure is now interested in someone else.
A Christian wedding is a beautiful thing. A turning point on the journey of life: a man leaves his birth-family and before God covenants with his wife to travel together until the end. A honeymoon is no biblical prescription, but it is good: a time for them both to have time with each other, to begin to discover each other physically, to play. I say “begin.” The idea promoted by Hollywood that a couple can fall into paradise on the night of their first or second date is a lie. Sex can be scary. It is not as easy as it seems in our dreams. It requires trust, gentleness, patience, understanding, unselfishness. If you set out to satisfy your sexual appetite, your success will be limited and your sex will be a disappointment for you. On the other hand, if you set out to give pleasure to your partner, sex will be fulfilling as God made it to be. This is the paradox of sex. It involves strong desires, but is given to us to serve the other, not to indulge ourselves.
And along comes the first child. What a joy that can be! What a means of welding two people together! But what a lot of sleepless nights, hard work, tears, and the need of a husband to be a husband: to support, help, encourage, and provide. Here is where stress and strain can cause fault lines to develop; with unselfish team work it is also where a family can be welded together.
I want to speak about baptism. At the age of eight days an Israelite mother and father would bring their son to a priest-doctor to be circumcised. There is an account of Jesus’ circumcision in Luke 2. Circumcision was the sign that this child was a part of God’s covenant with Abraham. God promised that he would be Abraham’s God—and his descendants—that he would give them a land, that he would care for them and bless them, that the world would find blessing through them. It was like God marrying his people and giving them circumcision as a token of their relationship. That was Israel. Jesus has now made a new covenant with people of every nation. It is not restricted to Jews anymore. He died in our place to remove our guilt. We can now be his people. And he gives us a token. What is that? It is not baptism, as you might think; it is the gift of the Holy Spirit. Israel’s token was just a symbol. But the Holy Spirit is the real thing, that circumcision symbolized: a changed heart. When we believe in Jesus he gives us the promised Holy Spirit. It is important we understand this. If we think that baptism will somehow make us a Christian, we will go wrong.
But … but … Peter in his first ever Christian sermon says, “Repent, and be baptized for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” Baptism is not the way God signs us for membership of his kingdom, but it is given to us all the same as an outward mark of Christian profession, and membership of his Church. Jesus commanded his apostles to baptize believers in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. But Peter adds something to his call for repentance and baptism. He adds, “The promise is to you and your children, and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.” (Acts 2) What this could mean becomes clear in Acts 16.
When Lydia, the Jewish cloth merchant, believed in Jesus, Paul baptized her with all her family. The word there is “household” (oikeia), which means the extended family. There doesn’t seem to have been a husband; Lydia was the head of the household. There were probably children, and other family members and friends, and the servants who lived with her and were dependent on her. The point is that this household or extended family acted together. If the head believed in Christ and was baptized, the family was included. God regards the family as a unit, a solidarity; he deals not just with individuals, but with families.
Christian Family (Whitefield Publications, 2020) started its life when I was asked to write a booklet explaining why our Anglican churches baptize infants. A lot of churches don’t. The more I studied it, the more I thought I should write about the solidarity of the Christian family. You may think I am reading too much into the story of Lydia. But in the same chapter of Acts Luke tells us about the jailer who came to believe as a result of an earthquake.
“Sirs,” he said to Paul and Silas, “what must I do to be saved?” “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved,” says Paul, and adds, “you and your family.” Luke tells us that Paul spoke the word of God to them, and the whole family was baptized. He emphasizes this, adding a little later: “… he was filled with joy because he had come to believe in God—he and his whole family.”
There is no doubt in my mind that Luke is making a point. The decision of faith on the part of the head of the household affected his whole family. The family is a unit. All were baptized. The family was now a Christian family. How many of them were believers we are not told. If there were little children, and there probably were, they would be too young to understand, but until they opted out they were included. They were part of a family that was marked with the Christian mark; they were a Christian family.
The New Testament doesn’t command us to baptize our children. Nor does it promise salvation to all who are baptized. Salvation is by faith. Other churches will have other ways of dealing with their children. But to me it seems we have a good way—a way that affirms the solidarity of the family—and we should treasure it.
When I was invited to come to South Africa and help them with their training college, it would have been odd if they had said, “We are inviting you, not your wife!” It goes without saying that a husband and wife belong together. But what about the children? We discussed it at dinner time with our four kids. I told them Mum and me had been invited to go to Africa. We needed to decide what they would do. There were three possibilities. We could say no, and none of us could go. Or we could say yes and all of us go. Or “Mum and I could go and you children can go to boarding school.” I was being naughty; I wanted to see their reaction. I told them they didn’t need to answer now; they could think about it and we could decide later. Our son shot back immediately: “Dad, whatever we do we are staying together.” A lot of people thought we were mad going into a dangerous situation like that. Maybe they were right. The point is, we were a family; a decision on the parents’ part carries their children along too.
Think about Christians down the ages. If parents made a decision to follow Christ and were persecuted for it, their children suffered too. If they were blessed, so were their children. God treats the family as a unit and honours it. We do not tell our children, “God is our Father, and when you are old enough to make a decision, he can be your Father too.” No, we teach them God is their Father from the beginning and teach them to talk to him.
So next come the years of growing up and education. I spoke about this in a previous sermon. Enough to say here that education is first and foremost the responsibility of parents. Schools can help, but on the day of judgement God will ask us what we did to develop our children. Ideally, education should be a team effort of mother and father, relations, school, and church.
Children grow up and start moving away to create their own independent lives. And yet—let me speak from my own experience—having a home to return to, which my parents gave me and my brother and sisters to think was our home, even when we had moved away, was a huge part of my own security as a person, my sense of belonging somewhere, my identity.
I don’t think family history had much interest for me as a young person, but as I get older the links with previous generations become more important: the realization that ancestors, good and bad, have contributed to one’s identity, that the family has a history. My mother in her later years wrote her story—warts and all—not for publication, but so her family would not forget where they had come from. I am glad she did.
As the years roll on children and grandchildren grow in importance. As once we gave ourselves to our children, now we come full circle and they care for us. It is foolish to think too much of how we would like things to be in the future, but a dare to hope I will not die in a hospital, but at home with family around me.
If I may be indulged a short epilogue—the importance of the family flows from it being an image of the family of God. God has taught us to think of him as Father, of Jesus as our elder brother, of ourselves in the church as the bride of Christ. The family is a shadow of the family of God. This is not just true of Christian families. Families grows out of how things are in nature. That is one reason why all efforts to undermine them must ultimately fail. They are not just rebellion against God, but against nature itself.