When I look at the biblical model of a family I see a type of monarchy. The word monarchy means that there is a king who sovereignly rules over a territory. The word sovereign means final authority or the right to rule. So those of us who follow Christ have a different view of what a family ought to look like because our model is not that of a democracy. A democracy is a territory ruled by the people where the ruler is voted in or out.
The problem with a democratic family is that there is no set leader because that leader is only a leader while the people are happy. The moment that the people aren’t happy the leader is voted out and a different direction is taken. This becomes confusing at best and the direction and vision for this type of family is never clearly defined as the boundaries change with the will of the people. God never designed a family to be a democracy. It’s a dangerous and often destructive concept.
I blog about this today because I see very weary parents who don’t want to be parents and I see many children with no direction other than to head opposite of where their parents are going or directing. Mostly parents are just lost on what to do and the world is telling them that they don’t have to do anything. Parents throw their hands up in desperation because they don’t know what to do and everyone in the family loses out on what can and should be a beautiful life. This all happens when we don’t follow a biblical model of what it means to parent.
It’s a pretty easy system, the biblical example of parenting, and it’s practical and wise. God is pretty clear on how we are supposed to raise our children and he even gives us good parenting examples and bad parenting examples to learn from. It is pretty clear though that God isn’t about democratic parenting. See in a monarchy there is a king. The children of the king will never be kings or queens in their father’s house until one of two things happen. Either the king dies or he retires. The children of the king are prince and princesses in their father’s home. I can see a model of this in the royal family of England where Queen Elizabeth is the head of the family and her son Charles is first in line to the throne. He is not king but rather prince. Prince William is also in line to the throne and as such we’ve watched him as he is groomed in every protocol to do with inheriting the throne some day. The only way for Prince Charles to become king is to conquer a territory and put him in place. Prince Charles however is never going to be king in his mother’s home. A monarchy is not designed that way. He can never vote her out and she has the final say so. He can have an opinion but it’s ultimately her decision on what is done.
This is how we need to train our children. We need to train them up to one day inherit their own kingdom. A prince who is not taught the principles of being a king will never be effective or self sufficient (sovereign). If a king is given a throne but can’t sustain it he will be overthrown. He will have two options at that point. He will have to return to his father’s kingdom and stay a prince or his father will have to overthrow a kingdom and support his son’s false sense of sovereignty.
Pastor Susan 