Encouraging Family Reformation

The biblical institutions of church and family in America are in need of reformation. Some say that we are in the period of greatest apostasy in 500 years. Less than one-half of one percent of adults ages 18 to 23 years have a biblical worldview. Only one-third of Christian parents say their religious faith is one of the most important influences on their parenting and only 27% of Protestant parents are very familiar with what the Bible has to say about parenting. It is clear that many Christian parents are no longer discipling their children in the faith. The result---SBC’s Council on Family Life reported that roughly 88 percent of evangelical children are leaving the church shortly after they graduate from high school. The problem is not only with the church and its program-oriented, marketing-driven growth philosophy, but also with parents, who have abdicated their role and responsibility in teaching, discipling, and nurturing their children in multigenerational faithfulness. The result is that the secular post-Christian culture has claimed the children and youth of America. When the foundations are being destroyed, what can the righteous do? (Psalm 11:3). We are encouraged by the fact that God is sovereign, Jesus Christ is Lord and His kingdom is forever. As we believe God's covenantal promise, our opportunity is great in working toward reformation of the family, the church, and the nations.

This blog links to a wide variety of writings on biblical issues regarding the family, biblical roles and relationships in the family, the church, education, and biblical worldview including ethics, apologetics, history, politics, and culture. The blog was created to encourage biblical family reformation through development of a clear family vision of multigenerational faithfulness. Our duties as parents include sharing the gospel with our children, discipling them in the faith (Deut 6:7), raising them in the fear, nuture, and admonition of the Lord (Prov 9:10; Eph 6:4), cultivating in them a biblical worldview (2 Cor 10:5), and providing them with the necessary tools to recognize and engage an increasingly humanistic, post-Christian culture while glorifying God.

November 9, 2009

Spurgeon on: The Gospel in Our Homes

Posted by: Scott Brown on January 23, 2009

Charles Spurgeon identified the power of the gospel in a family, in a sermon on Acts 16:14 which records the conversion of Lydia – the first conversion in Europe. He relates many of the wonderful stories of women in the Bible, and then he reflects upon the power of a godly home in a community,

“If the gospel does not influence our homes, it is little likely to make headway amongst the community. God has made family piety to be, as it were, a sort of trade-mark on religion in Europe; for the very first convert brings with her all her family. Her household believed, and were baptized with her. You shall notice in Europe, though I do not mean to say that it is not the same anywhere else, that true godliness has always flourished in proportion as family religion has been observed. They hang a bell in a steeple, and they tell us that it is our duty to go every morning and every evening into the steeple-house there to join in prayer; but we reply that our own house is better for many reasons; at any rate, it will not engender superstition for us to pray there. Gather your children together, and offer prayer and supplication to God in your own room.

"But there is no priest." Then there ought to be. Every man should be a priest in his own household; and, in the absence of a godly father, the mother should lead the devotions. Every house should be the house of God, and there should be a church in every house; and when this is the case, it will be the greatest barrier against priestcraft, and the idolatry of holy places. Family prayer and the pulpit are the bulwarks of Protestantism. Depend upon it, when family piety goes down, the life of godliness will become very low. In Europe, at any rate, seeing that the Christian faith began with a converted household, we ought to seek after the conversion of all our families, and to maintain within our houses the good and holy practice of family worship.”

(No. 2222), Intended for Reading on Lord's-day, September 20th, 1891, Delivered by C. H. SPURGEON, At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington
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