The Family: God's Bible School, Youth Group, Women's Group, Singles Group, Men's Group, Seniors Group, and Small Group

I just noted the following while reading Matthew Henry's Family Religion:

The texts for this sermon are 1 Cor 16:9 and those like it that refer to the members of certain households as "the church in their house."


The main point of the sermon is "'That the families of Christians should be little churches', or thus, 'That wherever we have a house, God should have a church in it.'" (p29)


Henry quickly adds, "Not that I would have these family churches set up and kept up in competition with, much less in contradiction to, public religious assemblies, which ought always to have the preference" (p29).

Much of what is described in this book is simply the family as that institution of God through which He has designed to give a great deal of blessing.  It is interesting to me that where the family as constituted in this biblical way has declined so much, rather than build back up the ancient altar that lies in ruins, we have erected our own collection of institutions--sunday schools, youth groups, small groups, womens groups, mens groups. 

And while it is good to be watchful against family religion coming into competition with the public means of grace, these other institutions that man has now erected have competed far more fiercely with those public means of grace.  They have been the cause of much diminishing of the stated services of the church and in many cases have even replaced them!

Seeing this, then, I put my knees and lips to prayer that God would so pour out His Spirit upon the Lord's Day assemblies of the congregation and the daily assemblies of the households that these other institutions might begin themselves to crumble and leave the church free to do her gospel duty in announcing to their unconverted neighbors the good news of Christ. 

Our man-made institutions are consuming so much of our time on the Lord's Day and every day that this duty is almost never now performed, and even when it is, we call the world to come participate not in those great things that God has designed but the cheap imitations that we have concocted. 

This is not to say, of course, that our cheap imitations have not been or may not continue to be used of God.  Just that I long so very much that we would instead enjoy the simplicity and richness of the genuine divine articles!

Of course, these institutions have come to be so precious that even speaking as I have in this note is now so possibly inflammatory that I declined even to put it in my notes, which are kept publicly at the church blog.  For this reason, I make this observation only as a private husband and father.  Though I make the prayers for the outpouring of the Spirit of God very much as a pastor!