PART TWO: FAMILY SHARING IN THE FIRST CENTURY

Perspective on life can always be improved by comparing our priorities with the
priorities of Jesus and the priorities of those Christians who made up the early church.
In many ways our world is different from theirs. We don’t wear togas and we don’t move
from city to city on foot or through animal powered transportation. Jesus and his
disciples never used a computer. The original New Testament manuscripts were not read
under electric lights. The apostles never saw an elevator, heard the roar of a jet engine
nor felt the earth tremble when a high speed locomotive came through town. Their children
didn’t visit Disneyland. They never play Nintendo and they didn’t watch Saturday morning
cartoons, but children were important to them and they should be important to us. Then, as
now, serious minded people were concerned about family life. Then, as now, sharing the
Lord needed to be a family priority.

In his personal ministry, Jesus made children a priority. Mark 9:36-37 indicates his
level of concern. "He took a child and had him stand among them. Taking him in his
arms, he said, ‘Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and
whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me.’" To reject a child
is the same thing as rejecting Jesus. We ought to think twice before we just run roughshod
over children without any consideration for their feelings. In Matthew’s account of the
same incident, the following comment is added: "But if anyone causes one of these
little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone
hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea" (Matthew 18:6). That
puts it on a very serious level.

When the gospel was first offered on the day of Pentecost and men were told to repent
and be baptized, it was understood that the message they heard that day would ultimately
be shared with their children. After telling the multitude to "Repent and be
baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.
And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit," Peter added an exhortation that
involved children. "The promise is for you and your CHILDREN and for all who are far
off — for all whom the Lord our God will call"(Acts 2:39).

Later on, when Paul was returning from the third missionary journey, he stopped in the
city of Tyre. When he left to go on his way to Jerusalem, Luke tells us this about the
group that went to see Paul off. In Acts 21:5 he says, "But when our time was up, we
left and continued on our way. All the disciples and their WIVES and CHILDREN accompanied
us out of the city, and there on the beach we knelt to pray." Notice that wives and
children participated in that moment of intense emotional farewell. When Paul wrote to
Timothy, he realized that Timothy was where he was in the faith because somebody else in
his family had shared the Lord with him. He said in 2 Timothy 1:5 "I have been
reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your
mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also."

When Paul went to Philippi, he found some Jewish people meeting by the riverside to
worship God. He apparently was asked to speak and among those who listened was a woman
named Lydia, a seller of purple, probably a wealthy woman for that day and time. But the
gospel didn’t just reach Lydia; it extended to her household. According to Acts 16:15
"When she and the members of her household were baptized, she invited us to her
home." What was a "household" in Biblical terms? The Greek word is
"oikos." We think of the household as a person’s immediate family, but in Bible
times, the "oikos" included any servants that might work in the house and the
servant’s families. It even included people they did business with.

The household included " . . . one’s sphere of influence, his/her social system
composed of those related to each other through common kinship, ties, tasks and
territory." (Charles and Win Arn. The Master’s Plan for Making Disciples). So how
large was Lydia’s household? I don’t really know. It could have been as high as a hundred
people. And you not only have Lydia’s household. You’ve got the household of Cornelius,
the Philippian jailer’s household and so on. In the first century, the sharing of the
gospel often took place when one member of the household heard the gospel and then shared
it with their entire friendship circle.

One principle clearly emerges as we study relationships in the first century. Friends
and family were important to the people and they provided the most natural environment for
sharing the gospel.  Sharing the Lord among friends and family should be of no less
importance to us today.

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All About Families Newsletter

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