What is a Family

 

Excerpts from “What is a Family?”, written by Edith Schaeffer.

 

 

In eleven chapters the author (wife of the late Francis Schaeffer) writes about the beautiful things a family can represent, encouraging those who regard as precious the values of family life. Throughout the book many examples are described of how to put her thoughts and suggestions into practice.

This excerpt consists for the great part of direct quotes.

 

Chapter One – A Changing Life Mobile – compares a family with a mobile, made up not like hand-craft mobiles but of human personalities.  It starts with just two persons: a man and a woman, a mother and a father.  They are individuals, affecting each other in many respects: intellectual, emotional, spiritual, physical and psychological.

There are no beautiful ‘mobiles’ which have never been in danger of being broken.  Forms of dissatisfaction, frustration, anger, impatience, the feeling of being misunderstood etc invade every human relationship for short or longer periods.  Yet the deep underlying sense of the importance of family continuity must be stronger than the insistence on perfection which is not there – and never will be.  The individual families making up society have to work on being beautiful ‘mobiles’.  The following chapters offer help and encouragement on a scriptural basis. 

 

Chapter Two – An Ecologically Balanced Environment – discusses the environment in which family life can thrive. Adult humans as well as children need the shelter of the arms of other human beings, also the shelter of communication and understanding. A family environment is needed by the adult as well as the child. It is meant to be a picture of what God is to the family: a shelter and a strong tower from the enemy (Ps 61:3)

 

Chapter Three – The Birthplace of Creativity – reminds us that creativity was born in a family setting with a perfect environment (Garden of Eden), vertically in the relationship between God and human beings and horizontally between man and wife. Into this setting the way was prepared for new human beings to be born. Adam and Eve had been given the ability to make creative choices in many directions. After the Fall, their choices and those of all mankind, were never again perfect (without sin).

There is the need to be aware of the fact that creativity can be either destructive or constructive. There is also the need to be aware of the right atmosphere and encouragement for creativity to sprout. Things can be done with each other as well as for each other.

 

Chapter  Four – A Formation Center for Human Relationships – deals with questions like:

Who needs to know how to get along with people, deal with or handle them?

Where should the formation center for those relationships be?

They can be answered with just two words: a family.

That’s the place where children should learn that human beings have been made in the image of God and are, therefore, very special children. They, at an early age, should be taught how human beings are to treat other human beings, and guidance by example should be in line with what the Bible teaches. And because family members are never perfect, children should know that mistakes are made and apologies should be made. Pretending perfection teaches falseness and damages human relationships. There should be an awareness of what is taking place in this formation center for relationships. And love is one of the basic commands the Bible gives us. This chapter explains and demonstrates with examples, that love can be a workable thing.

 

Chapter five – A Shelter in the Time of Storm – With reference to many Scripture parts, the author emphasises that Christians are responsible before God for the needs of people related to them (1 Timothy 5:8). However, she sees here a special task within one’s own family.

 

The opportunity to do something practical e.g. about making your child remember his/her sickness with a feeling that ‘yours was the best hospital in the world’ is very real. A Christian family has been given enough proof in God’s Word to know that when one part of the body hurts, the rest of the body is affected and does something to help. The book gives many practical tips how to achieve that goal.

 

Chapter six – A Perpetual Relay of Truth – Starting with Hebrews 12:1 and 2, the comparison that believers are in a relay race, is worked out further. It is:

 (1) A race in which others have taken part and are now finished. These are the                       ‘cloud of witnesses’ who are watching to see what will happen as new generations ‘pick up the flag’ and run on.

(2) The recognition of the fact that there is help to be had in the race in a very practical area. We are ‘to look unto Jesus’.

(3) The cloud of witnesses is concerned not just with us as individuals but with the next in line. The whole race is as one in which the truth is to be handed over like the flag in a relay race, from generation to generation. At this point a warning given is not unnecessary or needless for false flags can be – and have been – passed on throughout the ages till today. Testing our ‘flag’ on God’s Word is the only way to secure the race; a great responsibility for parents, grandparents etc. It demands knowledge, obedience and faithfulness.

 

Chapter seven – An Economic Unit – This chapter starts with a lot of questions which – in every period of history – have to do with balance in economic life, especially ‘family economics’.  It is very important and special to see in which way a father is providing for his family, e.g. by making a chook pen, or what mother can do with her expert cooking.  These parents are all in the process of looking after the economic needs of the family.  There is however the danger that economic matters are pushing parents apart rather then drawing them together.  In that case, time should be taken for thinking and praying about it, realizing that ‘the love of money is the root of all evil’ (1 Timothy 6:10).  The danger is not the money itself but the lack of balance in what is put first.  A family needs to consider together that God has said ‘But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and all these things will be added unto you (Matthew 6:33).

The many questions that fill the first paragraph of chapter seven are all dealt with in a practical manner.  A number of the responses are accompanied by short examples taken from every-day life for the sake of clarity.

 

Chapter eight – An Educational Control – The meaning of the word ‘control’ implies a careful supervision of some important factor; in this case ‘education’. A family has a strong responsibility for the education of its children who are the next generation and who are going to influence not only their own but also the one after.

The interesting subject of how much school hinders the real education of children and where it is a help, is discussed.

To assume that we send our children off to school (yes, to a Christian one) and that is IT, is shirking the responsibility of being a control. No father or mother can shrug off the responsibility to have HOME be a part of education of children where some sort of sensitive control is going on. Yet the point is that you make your home control not a thing of anti-education in any sense of the word but a richer education at every point. By the grace of our God, homes and families may be places where some attempt is being made to keep things in perspective, and to let children grow up knowing that belief in God’s Word is so sure that education cannot shake it (James 1:5-7).

 

Chapter nine – A Museum of Memories – Memory is a gift of God and can be at times a tragedy (reliving horrible things one wants to forget) or a pleasure (reliving wonderful things.)

What, in this respect, is a family meant to be? At least one member of a family needs to be conscious that what is done today will be tomorrow’s memory. A family life in retrospect should be a museum of diverse and greatly varied memories, good ones but also disturbing ones. Both will help the children to have a realistic understanding of human beings, of life in a fallen world where sin continues to spoil things. But also an understanding of the fact that there can be a rebuilding after ‘an earthquake’ and that it is worth it all to go back and make a new start.

 

Chapter ten -  A Door that has Hinges and a Lock – Edith Schaeffer compares a family with a door which has not only well-oiled hinges which make it swing open during certain times, but also a lock that should be firm enough to let people know that the family needs to be alone part of the time just to be a family.

To become a sharing family (a door) needs time for preparation. In Titus 1:8 we are told to be ‘lovers of hospitality’ and to present an open door ‘without grudging or murmuring’. There should be a prayed-for-balance of willingness to ‘entertain strangers’ and the awareness that privacy must be given to each other, to our children, or to God Himself.

The book gives practical hints, but each family must work out the details of its own life to become an open door with hinges and a lock.

 

Chapter eleven – Blended Balance – takes up the theme already mentioned before: balance, which is of great importance in the Christian life, in relationships and family life. It does not leave one thing ‘up in the air’ and the other ‘flat on the ground’ like a see-saw with two unmatched people as far as weight goes.

It goes without saying that everyone of us – and every family – is not perfectly balanced, but we are called upon to help each other ‘get off the ground’ or ‘come down out of the air’. This needs humbleness in all directions, each esteeming the other better than themselves (Philippians 2:3).

Before sin entered the world there was a perfect balance of two being one, spiritually, intellectually and physically. All the imbalances have come as a result of sin.

One of the most satanic blows to the existence of the family is the attempt to destroy the difference between male and female. In a flood of books, papers, magazines, movies, etc. the loud cry is heard that there are no differences between the sexes and –even worse- there must not be.

As Christian family members we have a responsibility to help in keeping very clear the beauty of balance of difference. There should be a blended balance of difference also upon each other, like thin, invisible threads turning into thin, invisible metal which holds great weights but gives freedom of movement – a family! Knowing always that if a thread wears thin and sags, there is help to be had from the Expert – the Father – ‘of Whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named’.