As a preacher I am often asked what a true family is. As a speaking minister, I am not one to keep my fundamentalist opinions to myself. My daughter, Sarahfay, a seven-year-old in the first grade at a local public school is taught almost daily about the “standard American family”. The idea of what a basic nuclear family should equate to; that a father should be working a full-time job each day, the mother should be at home, taking care of the house and raising the children and the kids should be dutifully going to school and being raised to follow their parents will. Yet, is this truly the Biblical home and family or are there possible variants to this family unit vision? I believe that as the spiritual head of the household, the father must hold dominion over the home , “Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord”, (KJV Eph 5:22), yet that does not mean he must hold the financial strength as well. I propose that there can be a great strength within the women of the family unit with the mothers becoming the “breadwinners” where the men reverse their roles to become the child raisers and spiritual teachers.
There is no question as to which ministry God intended to be the most important, for the Apostle Paul clearly wrote that it is the family, “But if any provide not for his own, and especially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel” (KJV 1 Timothy 5:8). Thus the question within the family is who is it, the mother or the father, who should be providing the spiritual and Biblical instruction for the children? The Book of Proverbs reads, “My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother: For they shall be an ornament of grace unto thy head, and chains about thy neck” (KJV Proverbs 1:8-9). Thus Solomon wrote that wisdom would be achieved from obeying both ones father and mother. Yet, as we study Scripture with a literal look at the Word of God we can see that it is the duty of the father to teach the children the spiritual lessons of the Bible and God. In Proverbs we read, “Hear, ye children, the instruction of a father, and attend to know understanding” (KJV Proverbs 4:1), and also, “He taught me also, and said unto me, Let thine heart retain my words: keep my commandments, and live” (KJV Proverbs 4:4). This is not to say a mother cannot aid in the spiritual teaching of her children, in fact I believe she should, but it is the responsibility of the father to be the spiritual teacher of all those who live in his house and this includes his wife. It is in the end the responsibility of the father that the spiritual material that is being taught is scripturally sound.
As stated earlier the spiritual teaching does not necessarily always mean that the father will become the financial head of any given household. For example, in my household, my wife is the “breadwinner” whereas I am the “homemaker”, preacher, and student, pastor-in-training and without any doubt the spiritual head of this household all due to my poor health. Though we do not have the ideal “American” nuclear family that my daughter is taught in the public school system she has a family she is proud of. Each day our family reads Scripture together, we pray together and we discuss Jesus and the Father through Scripture and because of this the verses from Luke have new meaning for us all, “And he went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them: but his mother kept all these sayings in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man, (KJV Luke 2:51-52).
It is the father who is the spiritual head of the family unit. He is the one member of the family that is not only in charge of teaching Scripture, but holds the responsibility of making sure that all family members hold to proper doctrine. Though the fathers are in charge of all things spiritually, they are not necessarily in charge of all areas of the home. A marriage must equate to a balance and thus by equate duties, which may include financial responsibilities; the marriage may ease many burdens. The greatest lessons may come when the father teaches his family to look at the Bible from a literal perspective, and never from a metaphorical sense. When done so, any family will see each and every command in the true and factual sense that God originally intended for us all.
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