The community of Israel, and by extension that of the Christian Church, is family-based. God's ideal is for a stable framework of roles and responsibilities between husband and wife, so that children might grow in a safe and sure environment. Several children in one family must each feel personally loved by their parents and in return share together their loyalty and trust in their father and mother.

So the nuclear family is special in God's eyes. It is where children's education begins and, as Deuteronomy 6:1-9 makes clear, the priority of education is to learn about the God of Israel.

Paul also puts this teaching into perspective in Ephesians 5:22-6:4. The love of wives for their husbands and husbands for their wives is a consequence and a model of God's love for us and our love for him. Children are to learn from this, and the command that they obey their parents is in order that they will eventually grow in love and trust of their Heavenly Father.

Growing Up

Children, up to a certain age, will talk of "our father" in terms of their earthly father. If their experience of their earthly father is good, then they will have a good preparation for transferring their love and trust to their Father in Heaven at the right time.

It is a wonderful thing that beyond the visible confines of this world there is a heavenly dwelling place of the One who created both the earth and the heavens. Beyond the confines of this imperfect world there is holiness and perfection. Not only that, but through Jesus, those who believe in him have access to the Father in Heaven. At a certain time for each of us, decided by God Himself, it is right to graduate from our focus on our father on earth to relationship with our Father in Heaven.

The tradition of Jews is to set aside a moment in time called Bar Mitzvah (for boys) and, in more recent tradition, Bat Mitzvah (for girls). At this time, a son or daughter of the commandments (as these Hebrew terms translate) takes a step of personal responsibility before the God of Israel. Christians have not adopted this tradition. Nevertheless, also taken from Jewish tradition, our best is possibly even better – namely, full immersion baptism at a mature age (a good discussion point in itself, but not the main point here).

Children grow up best within a loving family that teaches them through word and deed about relationship with the God of Israel. Through new birth by the power of the Holy Spirit, God offers to adopt us and become our Father in Heaven, offering all that a perfect father can through a new personal relationship bridging Heaven and earth.

Jesus Our Example

Even Jesus submitted to the order of the Torah-based family and community of Nazareth for this early teaching. God had chosen earthly parents for him and one can only imagine how well they and others prepared him, in the human sense, for his transition to manhood.

We pick up the story in Luke 2:41-50 where, on a visit to Jerusalem for a Feast of Passover Jesus had reached the traditional age of Bar Mitzvah. His parents seemed a little surprised at his comment, "did you not know that I should be about my father's business", but they should not have been. He made the perfect transfer from Godly obedience through the authority of his human parents to a new phase of his life under the direct authority of his Father...in Heaven.

Most of us, to one degree or another, do not experience the perfect preparation in our families to learn what a perfect relationship with our Father in Heaven might be. Let us this week, therefore, commit this to prayerful consideration. How wonderful that "in Heaven" the God of Israel is still willing to give us spiritual re-birth so that, in the most secure and wonderful family relationship, beyond the bounds of this fallen world, we are invited with open hands to come to him as our Father in Heaven.

Author: Clifford Denton