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The family in the Bible
Biblical Theology Bulletin, Fall, 2002 by James A. Sanders
The New Family in Christ
Viewed from the standpoint of the development of biblical thought from emphasis on the worth and responsibilities of the corporate family, tribe and clan, to embracing the idea that anyone anywhere from any ethnic family or tribe could become a member of a new family in Christ, the phenomenon of the advent of Christ into the world was revolutionary. But it was truly revolutionary only as long as the balance was kept between the corporate and individual views. In Christ a new family was formed in which, it was claimed, anyone could join the mighty flowing stream that had begun when God made those promises to Abraham and Sarah in Genesis 12. And that new family, at least in its first two and a half centuries, welcomed especially the poor, the dispossessed, and the marginalized of every society, as well as a few families of means.
Jesus, who was himself considerably influenced by Hellenism, is reported as saying that unless one hates his mother and father, wife and children, sisters and brothers, even his own life, he could not join the new family in Christ being formed of folk from many families, clans and tribes (Lk 14:26=Mt 10:37; cf. Lk 8:21; 9:59-60). That was a gauntlet thrown at the feet of those who claimed that one could not leave the family or clan into which one was born from his mother's womb, which is still the case in the non-Western world today. This is the same Jesus Luke reports saying, "My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it" (8:21). And it is Luke also who advises one, who excused himself from following Jesus because his father had died, that he should leave the dead to bury their own dead, and that he should instead go and proclaim that a new family, a new kingdom indeed was being formed (9:60). These are radical challenges to all earlier genetic views of the family. The new day of focus on individual worth and responsibility throughout the Mediterranean world and Middle Eastern societies was dawning in which the Jesus movement would rapidly spread out in the Greco--Roman world.
Some Christians embraced the idea from Greco--Roman mystery cults that entering the new family in Christ was like being "born again", or experiencing a new birth (an individual renaissance), which gave a totally new identity to anyone who embraced it. Being born again at that time meant joining Christ's new family of inclusiveness, grace and universal access to personal salvation by adoption into Christ's new family. As may be seen from the Book of Acts and the Letters of Paul such conversions were both of individuals and of whole families. But once members of Christ's family the children born into it were also considered members and children of the Church. Here the corporate understanding of Christ's family, or the Church, was reaffirmed, and was not questioned until the Renaissance emphasis on individual worth and responsibility (in the left-wing Reformation churches) weakened the corporate concept of The Church for many in the West. For the left-wing Reformation churches the child can not be "saved" or become a member of the church, until the age of reason when each individual can make the decision for her or himself, whereas the Catholic and Orthodox churches teach that salvation is corporately "in the Church." So-called born-again Christians today often disdain denominations and flock to totally free-standing "community churches" where a single charismatic pastor is their sole guide to knowledge of Scripture or church.
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