Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 126:501 (Jan 1969)
Article: The Christian Home Part I
Author: Gene A. Getz

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BSac 126:501 (Jan 69) p. 16

The Christian Home
Part I

Gene A. Getz

[Gene A. Getz, Associate Professor of Christian Education,Dallas Theological Seminary.]

Dr. K. E. Appel and Dr. Martin Goldberg, both from the Department of Psychiatry in the School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, contend that the American family is “in crisis.”1 They give several reasons.

First, they believe the family is fragmented—that its members do not “hold together as a unit any longer than circumstances compel them to do so.” Second, they believe that today’s family is rootless, with no “long sustained ties and traditions that stabilize as well as bind.” They say also that every member of the family is to a certain extent “uncertain and/or unhappy with his role.” Wives are not certain they really want to be wives and mothers, husbands are not sure they want to be husbands and fathers, and children are not given opportunity to experience true child life. Then, “communication between family members tends to be sparse, strained, and static ridden,” and with a breakdown in communications, comes a “deficiency in closeness or intimacy.” Many of the responsibilities that used to belong to the home have been “usurped by other institutions in our culture—the school, the Boy Scout troop, the club, and one might add, the church.”

The Christian home is not exempt from these problems. The larger society brings to bear upon the Christian community the effects of its own crisis. Never before has there been a greater need for an authoritative base and an absolute frame of reference than in the relativistic society in which we live today.

For the Christian, the Bible is that base, that authoritative volume through which God speaks. It does not just contain His Word, it is His Word. Not that it is the only source of truth, for all truth is God’s truth. But it is the only source that

BSac 126:501 (Jan 69) p. 17

speaks with finality, for it is His written revelation to men.

This article and the one to follow in the next issue of this journal contain some of the basic teachings of the Word of God regarding the Christian home. Though naturalistic man has discovered what is wrong with the family, he is hard put to find adequate solutions to the problems. The Bible speaks clearly to these issues and offers God’s answer.

I. God’s Pattern for Marriage

The scriptural record of the first marriage in Genesis 2:18–25 includes at least six principles which establish a divine pattern.

The choice of a life ma...

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