Affection! How hurriedly has this love fled our homes in the hustle and bustle of these last days?
Hardly a child will remember affectionate extended time with both father and mother at home. It is a great failure of our broken, worldly ‘christian’ families. How by our selfish quests for ‘happiness’ in the world ‘christians’ have forgotten not only the importance of our marriage vows, but also the affection and stability needed by our children for this essential love.
The word for this love in Greek is storgē. This love is our natural affection of a parent toward our off-spring and the dependent children toward parents without whom they would not have been born and could not survive as God has intended.
The relationship carries on into the extent of the lives of parent and child even well into adulthood and times when circumstance may dictate a child caring for their aging parent prior to death.
Briefly consider the affection and nearness of the families of Noah, Abraham and Jacob (even when his son, Prince Joseph of Egypt, cared for all of the sons of Israel and their families).
Read how near David remained in his affection, honor and relationship to his father Jesse. See how the families of the Priests and Prophets all lived together in one home or places near to one another as the faithful of God maintained the love and affection of community.
Another antiquated use of this storge love is expressed by a people for their King (even if he ‘did evil in the eyes of the Lord.’) We do not get to choose this relationship of inequitable dependence.
Our children must depend on and require the love and affection of their father and of their mother (and to a lesser extent, the people of their King, Queen, Governor, President or leader). A parent (or King) has duties of affection and responsibility toward each child (or subject).
Look also to the application for widows in this. Look to the needs of their children. See the God-given affection of dependence on family, rather than independence of self-will.
When Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, Lazarus was not only a beloved friend but also responsible for his unmarried sisters, Mary and Martha.
What wonderful long-term affection of one in need dependent on a family member to provide or care for them. It is the familial plight of children, widows and widowers, aging parents, handicapped children or siblings. Love provides the compassion they need.
Is it not our God-given duty to love our children with the greatest affection?
- Is your instant message, your text, your clever ‘fb share’ enough affection?
- Is it enough for only a ‘single’ parent to manage this important love God expects from all of us?
Storge (per se) is not specifically used in the Greek New Testament; however this love and affection of family is well documented in many books of the Bible.
The Apostle Paul uses a similar word as direction to those with charge of our church family for some who must submit as children of God as a dependent one of Christ’s body, His church. Please hear the appeal and responsibility for this love (storge) as instructed in Paul’s Letter to Titus, a leader in establishing the foundation of the church and family.
Titus 2
Teach Sound Doctrine
But as for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine. 2 Older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness. 3 Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good,
4 and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, 5 to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.
6 Likewise, urge the younger men to be self-controlled. 7 Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, dignity, 8 and sound speech that cannot be condemned, so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us.
We ought to see a hierarchical dichotomy in this instruction between the expected mature behavior of the older men and older women of the church, in contrast to their loving responsibility to train the younger women and younger men in the will and ways of Christ Jesus our Lord.
The instruction in the King James Version describes these differences with serious gravity.
That the aged men be sober, grave, temperate, sound in faith, in charity, in patience. The aged women likewise…
Would this not also imply a similar duty and affection for the husband and wife of our Christian homes?
And to these instructions Paul adds (as just reason for the older women): … that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things;
How are we doing with that, men and woman of Christ’s church, in our Christian homes? Are we, as mature Christians, ‘teachers of good things?’
We can be certain that our affection, teaching and guidance in the love of the Lord in our homes is much needed in this 21st century. (If you don’t believe it, just ask nearly any of our ‘christian’ youth.)
These young men and young women so depend on us and look to us; yet so often as parents and as their mentors of the church we ignore our teens and fail our youth.
Hear once more (in the KJV) what Paul instructs the older women and note once more that it is OUR responsibility to teach them (again, a familial dependent love):
That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children,
To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.
(I have added links to definitions in the Greek, in some instances root words, and always other uses of the same Greek word in New Testament scripture for your own study.)
Again, I ask us: has this love, this affection been diluted and nearly lost in our Christian homes?
On a personal note, I must confess to our son and our daughters how miserably I have failed in this love and affection so needed in our own now-broken christian home; as I confess to my wife by our vows before the Lord my great failure to show the love of the Blood of Jesus to her and His compassion for the struggles of my own wife in the Lord. For this (like so many broken christian marriages and families) I am truly sorry that WE are no witness of example to the church and to the world.
I pray that the Lord and your personal prayer and study of scripture will convict you in those areas of love where Christ Jesus would have you grow, love even more and be blessed.
Pray also for me, my wife and our broken family – our grown children, yet in need of compassion.
To be continued
Corporately, that is in praying as part of our church or a prayer group, I find that prayers like my deepest prayers to God are sorely neglected by most of those asking ONLY for prayers for others, not confessing our own deepest hurts, needs, and desires for God’s love and the love of our Christian community.
Is it right that one who claims Jesus as “Lord,” should pray for help in winning in the world so that they might live comfortable in Christ?
Do you pray that you or someone in your family will ‘hit the Lottery’ and help answer your unanswered prayers? Do you pray for a blessing from God, nearer than the blessing God already sent for you to have and to hold?
God is NOT finite. God is NOT in everything.
