Monday, August 27, 2012

Fortune Cookies for Families?

I love some Chinese food. Occasionally, the fortune cookies I get at the end of the meal have insightful things to say. This was one of those days:


"Even as the cell is the unit of the organic body, so the family is the unit of society."

How true. As an organism breaks down when a cell isn't healthy, so a society begins to break down when family is no longer healthy.

What's that? You doubt? Think about the portrayal of families in the media over the last half-century. We've gone from Mayberry, The Cleavers, and Father Knows Best to fathers being portrayed as bungling idiots, if they are present at all.

In a Bible study based in the movie Courageous we read the following passage:

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her...In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church– for we are members of his body. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” (Ephesians 5:25, 28-31 NIV84)

We asked the question..."How would family life change for you if you truly lived this out?"

I believe that we could spend our time pointing blame at the media for the breakdown of the family, but is it possible that maybe we need to shoulder some of the blame? Are we, as Christians, leading the way? Are we loving our wives as Christ loved the Church? Are we investing these truths in our children, setting the example both in public, as well as the privacy of our homes? Is it possible that media is just reflecting culture?

What do you think?

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