Family Sanctuary: Restoring the Biblically Hebraic Home
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Everyone needs sanctuary, a place of peace and safety, a place of blessing and affirmation, a place of sanctity and security. These are the functions for which God designed the home from time immemorial. Through the centuries, however, persistent and unrelenting attacks have been made upon the most fundamental unit of both society and the church. Hellenization, Latinization, and secularization have rendered the modern Christian home a mere shadow of its biblical ideal. God’s design for the home, however, has always been and will always be the same. It is perfectly clear when we return the family and home to the matrix from which it emerged in a truly biblical restoration. It is not enough, however, to call simply for “biblical” restoration. The term biblical has become so diluted that it has been virtually eviscerated of meaning. In order for true biblical order to be restored, a return to the “biblically Hebraic” must take place. The unfortunate truth about most faiths in today’s world is that they claim to be biblical but they fall far short of being biblical. The problem is that practically all societies and people groups have read their own concepts and cultures into the Bible rather than drawing out from the Holy Scriptures the truths that have always been there. The church’s approach to the Holy Writ has been ignorant at best and disingenuous at worst. When interpreting the Bible, Christians have engaged in eisegesis rather than exegesis, by injecting their preconceived notions into Scripture rather than extracting from the text what it clearly says. Texts without contexts have become pretexts. The grammar of the Scriptures (Hebrew language in the first testament and Hebrew thought underlying Greek language in the second testament) has been largely minimized. Likewise, the history and culture of the people through whom and to whom the sacred texts were committed have been ignored. Entire theologies have been based upon a “criterion of dissimilarity” in which texts in the Apostolic Scriptures that have clear connections with the Hebrew Scriptures have been dismissed as not being the authentic words of Jesus and the apostles but the work of subsequent redactors. The very idea has given rise to a Christianity that has been wrenched from its moorings and set adrift in a maelstrom of non-biblical–even anti-biblical–traditions, secular humanism, and demonic perversion. In order to restore society to a “biblical” basis, the church must first restore the Hebraic roots of the Christian faith. This is especially true in the important arena of human relationships. God’s perspectives on family and the home can never be understood without a renewal of the Hebraic foundations which God himself established for this core element of human existence. A complete rethinking of the issues of family and home is necessary. Ideas founded in Greek philosophy and in various polytheistic and monistic religions must be abandoned. If today’s society is to be saved from implosion because of the destruction of its nuclear unit (the family) a return to biblically Hebraic understanding must occur. Nothing short of a Hebraic restoration will suffice. God’s Word works! What God has said will outlast everything that exists. “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away,” Jesus declared. What God said about family and home is ultimate truth, and God’s Word is the only thing that will endure. Since God dynamically modeled among the Jewish people his instructions regarding society’s fundamental unit, it is to the Jewish people and the Hebrew Scriptures that the church and society must look for understanding that will renew the biblical home and bring health and vitality to society at large. Trying to fabricate a program that will somehow accommodate the modern notion of family by obliquely incorporating biblical terminology into sociological or psychological categories will only result in furthering the disaster. A thin veneer of religiosity over societal definitions of family will not suffice. Syncretism is not the answer. It is for this reason that I have undertaken the research and writing of this volume. It is my understanding that recovering the Hebraic foundations of the Christian faith is a golden key that unlocks the treasures of Holy Scripture and enriches the lives of believers. In no area of life could this be more true than in the family and the home. I believe that as you read this volume, you will be challenged intellectually and spiritually to consider new perspectives that I believe are nothing more than restored biblical and historical positions on some of the most important issues in life, those that impact the family and the home. I pray that they will assist you in establishing the sanctity of your home and building and maintaining your family sanctuary. Excerpt from a Book called Family Sanctuary by John D. Garr © Copyright by HeartofWisdom.com | |