Recently we have been hearing sermons on our Father's Family or something near to this theme. In our youth meeting one of the leaders, we will call him Jon, decided to substitute the word family for the word kingdom. He read us a whole bunch of fun scriptures that allowed us to see them differently. Why don't we do the same? Let us look at Matthew 18 when the disciples came to ask Jesus who was the greatest in the (now substitute kingdom with family) who is the greatest in the family of God. Jesus pulled over a little child and said unless you become as a little child you will no way see the family of God. Wow. It works fairly well there. But wait we are not trying to change scripture and make a new "Family Bible Translation" that would be the FBT bible. No we are just taking a different read on some familiar maybe too familiar verses. On many of the stories and parables it is amazing how much household language is used. A common usage of the Kingdom is found in the "Lord's Prayer". Here we have Jesus as the "Lord" which is of course kingly language. But really that name is applied to the prayer by others and not Jesus. To him he was teaching his disciples how to talk to the Father. He begins the prayer with family language. "Our Father..." Of course if He is our Father then we are his sons and daughters. We are in His family. I looked up basilei√a, kingdom, in Louw & Nida. Now not to stretch the point, but well yes I am. Anyway they do talk about kingdom being related to blood line and being inherited. A domain that is inherited. We know this to be true that families pass on the kingship or try too. The one in England is a grand example where the king and queen are seen simply as a "royal family". We do not have many real life examples around, but England does. God Bless the Queen!
Having this little back story let us substitute family for kingdom in our brother Jesus' prayer. "Our Father who art in Heaven Holy be your name, Your Family come Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one. For your is the Family and glory forever amen."
Well it works fairly well. That last family doesn't quite get it for me. Anyway it might be a fun exercise to do those substitutions and watch how many times house hold language follows "kingdom". One last scripture comes to mind. Ephesians 3:14-15; "For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named."
Today I took my grandson to the local mountains (big hills) to play in some snow. As I was ridding along I saw most of Los Angeles up on hills with their families sliding, building snowmen and generally having fun. It struck me how our Father is so good to us in providing in his wonderful creation times for our families to play and relate. It was so easy to worship Him as our heavenly Father who gives us every good gift (James 1:17).
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