A New Family

Strange Religion by Nijay K. Gupta, is an excellent book, well documented and insightful. It gives you a glimpse of how unique and strange our Christian faith was (and is), as it influenced Roman and Jewish culture. Although not specifically about house church, I would highly recommend this work. This is the second excerpt concerning family.

We noted already that Caecilius, the critic of Christianity, mentioned how weird it was that Christians called each other “brother” and “sister” and shared ritual kisses at night in the privacy of houses. You can see how rumors might spread, and people would naturally ask questions. But this tells us a lot about how Christians thought of each other-namely, as family. In the Roman world, family was the most important building block for society. As the family thrived, so did the whole empire. And the opposite was true: if the family was disorderly and chaotic, this would shake the very foundation of society. Many viewed the household as a microcosm of the empire and the empire as a macro-version of the household. This is well stated by ancient Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria: “A household is a city on a small and contracted scale, and the management of a household is a contracted kind of polity; so that a city may be called a large house, and the government of a city a widely spread [household] economy…The manager of a household and the governor of a state are identical, though the multitude and magnitude of the things committed to their charge are different” (On the Life of Joseph 1.38, 39).

The earliest Christians were intentionally deconstructing a Romanized approach to family and constructing a new family and household. This was dangerous business, fiddling with the building blocks of civilization, but this became the primary way Christians saw their relationship to one another. Now, that didn’t mean they broke away from blood ties and abandoned their spouses. But their family in Christ was meant to take priority in shaping their identity, and this way of thinking started with Jesus.

We can begin with Jesus’s own question about family in the Gospel of Matthew. Someone tells Jesus while he is teaching that his mother and brothers are trying to get closer to him. Jesus takes this simple remark and opens up a big can of worms about who counts as family: “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?…Here are my mother and my brothers!” (12:48-49). Jesus is pointing to his disciples and explaining that “whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother” (12:50). In the Gospel of John, a similar kind of family-shifting statement is made by Jesus after he has been resurrected. When Mary Magdalene realizes she is talking to Jesus, she wants to cling to him, but he tells her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God”” (John 20:17). Jesus the Son has a natural connection to the heavenly Father that he wants to share with all who follow him, who abide in the Son.

Since Jesus talked about forming a new family, it was natural for the early churches to gather in homes and treat each other as family. This family-type behavior is reinforced in many early Christian texts in several ways. One of the titles most used of God is “Father,” signaling the protective and caregiving nature of God and also the idea that all these people are equal children of one Father. Jesus is God’s one true Son, and all believers find their place in this new family through the sonship of Christ. Paul uses this imagery when writing to the Roman churches: “For those whom [God] foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family” (Rom. 8:29).

Jesus the Son is the living spiritual DNA link between believers and God the Father. He graciously opens up his sonship to include a massive new family. In Roman families, while there was a natural sense of care and concern for one another, there was also a tiered structure that involved different levels of importance for different members. Generally speaking, men were more important than women, older more important than younger, pure blood more privileged than half siblings, let alone slaves. Slaves were counted within households, but they did not “count” as people. They had no family name, no honor, no inheritance, no future; basically, they were living forms of property, much like cattle. But Christian writers like Paul ascribed dignity and honor to all within the household of faith, including slaves. The redemption made possible by Jesus the Son enables everyone to be included in God’s family, with the same welcome status as Jesus himself, no more, no less; just as Jesus the true Son cried, “Abba! Father!” so any child of God can say the same through Jesus’s privilege and the Spirit’s power (Gal. 4:1-7). This is the context for Paul’s famous equality statement: “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heir according to the promise” (3:28-29).

The social effect that this would have had on the Christian communities is massive. Joseph Hellerman explains that in the ancient world households held to certain standards and embodied a special ethos. First, there was a strong sense of commitment. Families were there for each other through thick and thin. Second, they worked together as a team. Often, families were like small businesses, everyone having to play their part for the benefit of the whole. This would complement Paul’s member/body language and imagery. Family members exercised their gifts and skills to support the whole household. Third, families shared resources and possessions. Real brothers and sisters would often share clothes, tools, furniture, and money, among other things. This is precisely the vision that is cast in the book of Acts about the way of the church, a sharing community where everyone pooled material resources for the common good (Acts 4:32-35). Finally, families loved each other. Sharing and working together was hard work, but it was not just business. It began, ended, and was carried out because of mutual affection and real concern for one another. Precisely when Paul detects that the Philippian church is showing fractures in their community, he prays for love (Phil. 1:9-11), which is what family is meant to reflect.

It may not have happened right away, but pretty quickly in the development of early Christianity, believers saw each other as family, and they met in homes to worship together and model generous community, worshiping the true God of home and world.

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