Patriarchy

Patriarchy is a family structure originated by God for the purposes of building a well-founded, happy, productive and safe family environment, as well as a means of portraying God’s intended relationship with mankind. Everything that may be known of our relationship with God is to be demonstrated in the patriarchal family structure.

Please forget every image you may have of a patriarch for a few moments and envision instead, God. See Him as the righteous, gracious, loving, patient, creative and powerful person that He is. Now place that image over the name husband/father. Our Lord has done this Himself, He has identified Himself at various times as both husband and father to Israel and to all believers in the N.T. His standards for paternal behavior and responsibilities are patterned after His own character and behavior. The images we have of patriarchs as austere, unforgiving, demanding, cold and uncaring are not from the Bible, but from bad works of art and from several tyrannical cults. It is God's purpose that the family relationship points people to our loving, gracious Lord.

I believe this is a topic of enormous importance, yet I cannot deal with it in its entirity in one or two posts. For now let me give you an overview of marriage, family, God , people relationship.

In Ephesians 5, Paul, the servant of God writes what the Lord has given him. Here he describes the roles of men and women in the marriage relationship and in verses 32-33, he makes the parallel relationship to Christ and the church, Eph 5:32-33 This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband.

Simply put, what Christ is to the church, the husband is to be to his wife and family. How did Jesus treat His people while He was on earth and since He has ascended back to heaven? How, righteously, graciously, lovingly, patiently and mercifully.

What the church to Christ relationship is what the relationship of the wife and children to the husband should be. Hence, husbands should love with a Godly, giving, self-sacrificing, unselfish love and wives should reverence their husbands in the same way they reverence God. In this relationship, children will learn how to serve God rightly. In the family relationship, the husband wields the authority which God gave him, he must be very careful how he uses it. He will answer to God for how he treats his responsibility to his family. The wife has the responsibility to revere her husband and willingly yield to his authority and leadership. Her job is to serve him, be his cheerleader and give him the same praise, trust, respect and support that she would give to God. No man or woman is perfect and without faults, but still this principle works. I can hear it now, "you don't know my husband/wife". Right, you are! God gives us remedys for such extreme problems such as some people have. Many of us have been taught that divorce is Biblically wrong in any situation, that is not true. Separation and divorce are two remedys to extreme and unbearable marriages. These are for extremes only, the problem is that most people quit too easily. It takes work for a marriage to be a success.

When we supplant the husbands authority and leadership with the wife's authority and leadership we thwart the plan of God to display His relationship to people. I am not anti-women, I greatly enjoy the company of women, who enjoy being women and manifest a Godly spirit. Being around them and hearing their insights from their unique (to guys) vantage point is a blessing from God. It is getting late and I do not see a good stopping point, so I will create one right here (.). More later.