Journal: Journal of Discipleship and Family Ministry
Volume: JDFM 03:1 (Fall 2012)
Article: The Home Is An Earthly Kingdom. Family Discipleship Among Reformers And Puritans
Author: C. Jeffrey Robinson, Sr.

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JDFM 3:1 (Fall 2012) p. 18

The Home Is An Earthly Kingdom. Family Discipleship Among Reformers And Puritans1

C. Jeffrey Robinson, Sr.

C. Jeffrey Robinson, Sr., (Ph.D., The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) serves as elder of preaching and pastoral vision at Philadelphia Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. A longtime newspaper journalist before surrendering to gospel ministry, Jeff has earned the bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Georgia in addition to master’s and doctoral degrees from Southern Seminary. Jeff and his wife Lisa have four children: Jeffrey, Hannah, Lydia, and Jacob. Jeff is co-author with Michael A.G. Haykin of The Great Commission Vision of John Calvin (Crossway).

The sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation profoundly altered the shape of Christianity. Martin Luther worked to restore the primacy of the doctrine of sola fide—justification by faith alone—in the proclamation of the Gospel. Luther also asserted the principle of sola Scriptura, which identified Scripture as the locus of authority for the church. In Geneva, John Calvin further expounded these principles and posited a theological perspective that emphasized the sovereignty of God and the radical corruption of humanity. These theological emphases of the Reformation have received massive scholarly attention over the centuries. Another critical consequence of the Reformation—no less important—has received far less emphasis: What have been the implications of this movement for ministry to families?

The Reformers, particularly Luther and Calvin, developed a robust vision for Christian training in the household and called parents to disciple their children. The Puritans in England and America cultivated this Reformation vision and brought it to its fullest flower in the form of consistent family worship and discipleship.

“Bring Them Up To Serve Him”: Marriage And The Training Of Children In Martin Luther’s Theology

The medieval church had drawn a sharp distinction between secular and spiritual estates. Persons who took upon themselves the counsels of perfection—poverty, chastity, and obedience—were perceived to possess higher righteousness than those immersed in the daily affairs of the world. Luther rejected this dichotomy and asserted the priesthood of all believers. Further, Luther argued that everyone is born as someone’s child and “educated as someone’s pupil, governed as someone’s subject, supplied as someone’s customer, married as someone’s spouse, nurtured as someone’s parishioner,” and at last became a parent of one’s own children.2 Thus, the home must be initial staging ground for the ...

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