Regaining Family Value
The word “vision” has taken on a highly subjective meaning for most people. Within the context of Scripture, “vision” often refers to a profound appreciation for the law of God in the life of the believer.
When we read “where there is no vision, the people perish,” we are actually learning that without a long-term appreciation of the promises of God applied to the believer, and without the passionate application of the law-word of God to every area of life, the people will perish.
A Defining Crisis
Every age has its defining crisis. Sin is always at the heart of the crisis. But the manifestation of sin expresses itself differently from age to age.
The defining crisis of our age is the systematic annihilation of the Biblical family. The family was the first institution created by God and blessed by Christ during His earthly ministry.
It is God’s primary vehicle for communicating covenant promises to the next generation. It is the basic agency of dominion on earth. Within the context of the family, the father is the God-ordained vision communicator.
Minimize the father and the family will perish. Minimize the family and you have neutralized the church. The sad truth is that broken and weak families are the norm even within the most conservative and doctrinally orthodox church assemblies. This is in large part due to the death of Biblical emphasis on father-directed vision, leadership, and self-sacrifice.
The next time you are in a used bookstore, look through the shelves for ancient volumes on child training and family discipleship. Here is what you will find: If the book was written in the eighteenth century, it was directed to fathers. If it was written in the nineteenth century, it was directed to mothers.
What happened? The nineteenth century brought many profound social changes which rocked the family and paved the way for the absentee fathers of the twentieth century.
