by Dr Glenn Davies

They say that charity begins at home. Well, the same is true for mission. Our first priority in mission is our family.

When Abraham was called by God to be the father of a great nation, it was through the faithful discipling of his children that the blessings would flow (Gen 18:19). Indeed, through Abraham all the families of the earth would gain a blessing. For God is a great believer in families. After all, he is the ‘family’ God, as the name of the first two persons of the Trinity testify.

He created families for a purpose, that they might grow into a relationship with him as their God and Father, and thus have their own kinship enhanced and strengthened as members of God’s greater family.

The same is true under the new covenant as under the old. God still works in and through families. The promise of God is (still) to you and to your children (Acts 2:39) and the children of believers are (still) holy (1 Cor 7:14), fellow saints in the family of God.

Yet such a privilege is not to be taken lightly. There is a responsibility attached to being parents of covenant children. That responsibility is expounded in the wisdom literature of the Old Testament and restated in the letters of Paul (Eph 6:1-4; Col 3:20-21).

Take for example, Psalm 78. The psalmist encourages his readers to recount the sayings of old, the things that our fathers have taught us: the mighty deeds of the Lord! Tell them to the next generation, he cries.

We will not hide them from their children but tell them to the coming generation, the glorious deeds of the Lord, his power and the wonders he has done.
(Psalm 78:4)

Note how he sees the next generation as the children of ‘our fathers’. The continuity is more than one dimensional, for it is more than one generational. Indeed the command to teach our children the commandments of the Lord is the expression of covenant continuity that makes all of us children of Abraham, inasmuch as we are children of faith. For the very purpose of teaching God’s mighty acts and commandments is to evoke faith and obedience, the obedience of faith.

So that the next generation would know them, even the children yet to be born, and they in turn would tell their children. Then they would put their trust in God and would keep his commands. (Psalm 78:6-7)

How do we fulfil our responsibilities to our children? By telling them of God’s wondrous deeds. Tell them of God’s deliverance of his people through the Red Sea, as Psalm 78 does, and tell them of Christ’s death on their behalf and of his victory over sin and Satan, through Jesus’ death and resurrection.

Tell them the old, old story in as many creative and reinforcing ways as it is possible for you to do. Teach them as you sit by the wayside and walk through the park. Let them know that your God is a living God whose love is all surpassing and service is all fulfilling.

Let your first priority be the children God has given you. They are a heritage from the Lord and are precious in his sight. If we fail here, because we are too busy doing mission elsewhere, we fail more than our family.

Dr Glenn Davies is the Bishop of North Sydney