4. Commending the home to God. In writing to Timothy (2 Timothy 1:5) Paul calls to mind the unfeigned faith that is in Timothy, which dwelt first in his grandmother Lois and then in his mother Eunice. Paul himself was brought up by devout parents. The Bible has many instances of men, like that of Samuel, who have been trained for great parts in the world in a religious household. The old proverb has it, "Like father, like son." If God is honoured by the parents and the home commended to Him, the children will be quite sure to honour Him also. Bring up your children "in the nurture and admonition of the Lord" (Ephesians 6:4). Have them ready to meet Christ at any time (Mark 13:34-37).
Duties of Children.—1. Honouring parents. "Children obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right" (Ephesians 6:1,2,3; compare Exodus 20:12; Colossians 3:20). The first necessary lesson in every human life is to learn the lesson of obedience; if this is not well studied and practiced in the home, the child, when he grows up and goes out for himself, will be quite sure to have a hard time of it and receive some severe buffetings. Those who break the laws of society and the state are those who have first broken the commandment to honour father and mother.
2. Care of parents. Children, when grown up, are sometimes apt to forget the love and care bestowed upon them when they were young. Their parents become old and feeble and are often unable to look out for themselves. In Jesus' time there was a bad custom of repudiating parents who for any cause needed to be helped. The children had only to say "Corban," that is, that their goods were dedicated to a sacred purpose, to secure release from their filial obligations. Christ denounced this custom in the strongest terms and declared that the children ought to honour their parents by caring for them. Thus He became an advocate for the rights of parents as He had of the rights of children (Mark 7: 11, 7-13; Matthew 15:3-6). When in His last agony, on the cross, Jesus provided a home for His mother (John 19:26,27).
Duties of Dependents and Servants.—Jesus commended the honourableness of service. He washed the disciples' feet (John 13:4-16) and then told them that He had given them an example of the kind of service which they should render to each other. He took upon Himself the form of a servant, hiding His glory, that He might accomplish His great work (Philippians 2:6-9). Paul exhorted servants of the household to be obedient, serving, "not with eye service, as men pleasers; but as servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart" (Ephesians 6:5-8; Colossians 3:22-25; 1 Corinthians 9:19). Masters are told to be just towards their servants, remembering that they have a Master in heaven (Colossians 4:1). When the runaway slave, Onesimus, is sent back to his master, by Paul, he is commended to Philemon as a brother beloved (Philemon 16). We should hear but little of strikes and lockouts if employers and employees would only take these principles, laid down in the New Testament, for the guidance of masters and servants, for their rules of conduct towards each other and seek to carry them out.
Duties of Young and Old.—"That the aged men be sober, grave, temperate, sound in faith, in charity, in patience. The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things; that they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands that the word of God be not blasphemed. Young men likewise exhort to the sober minded" (Titus 2:2-6).
THE ATTACK UPON THE HOME
There are many influences at work which seek to minimize the importance of the home life and to undermine it.
There are four quite well defined lines of the attack upon the life of the family.
The Assault Upon the Marriage Relation.—The moral leper advocates that marriage be dissolvable at will, not by mutual consent alone, but when either party to the contract desires its conclusion. The church, in its different branches, stands as a unit against this iniquitous proposition. But how far the civil power has yielded, by the pressure which has been brought to bear, is made manifest by the fact that in the different states of the Union there are now recognized by the courts forty-six legal causes of annulling a marriage. Our courts are crowded with divorce cases and the suits which grow out of them in regard to property and the care of children. That the odour of scandal, going up from such cases is bad, is unquestioned. That the influence, of such proceedings upon the morals of the country, is evil is also sadly admitted. A blow struck at marriage is one which is felt not only by the family but by society and the state. The fall of the Roman empire was preceded by an extraordinary laxness of the marriage tie. It is time the church bestirred itself to oppose more strongly the theory and practice of the moral leper.
The Assault Upon the Quiet of the Home.—In the modern stress and strain of life there is need of a quiet place in which to rest, to get acquainted with God, to know one's family, to live to the best things and to get ready again to engage enthusiastically in the daily battle of life. The home is designed to furnish such a place of rest, when the work of the day is done; it is here, in a Christian home, that there should be an atmosphere of supreme love and care. It is, however, when night comes that all the attractions, which appeal to the love of excitement, put forth their most strenuous efforts to draw to them the inmates of the home. There are amusements and amusements; a person, however, who looks only to be amused seeks by and by those of the strongest flavour and those which border very closely on the forbidden land. The love of excitement grows upon what it feeds and soon, to the habitual pleasure-seeker, the quiet atmosphere and love of the home no longer appeal; he has begun a chase for excitement and pleasure which will never satisfy him. Multitudes of wrecked homes and burned out characters, show the disastrous work of this assault upon the quiet of the home.