Family Values

I once approached a house that had a welcome sign on the left side of the front door and a keep-out sign on the right side. Such is the confusion of values in the Western world that simultaneously promotes family values such as togetherness, affirmation and forgiveness and antifamily values such as personal self-realization, psychic mobility (keeping all your options open), relational rentalism (only short-term commitments to others) and the right to unlimited sexual expression. Nevertheless, even in this day of fractured families it is widely acknowledged that the family is the primary arena for forming spiritual understanding and moral values.

Largely through the work of humanistic psychologists such as Rollo May, Abraham Maslow, Fritz Perls, Erik Erikson, Carl Rogers and others, values are back in the picture, even in the school system, where it is increasingly recognized that value-free education is really impossible. Values continually brood in, over, around and within life. They are cherished behaviors, principles and attitudes. And the family is the first location, and undoubtedly the ultimate environment, for values formation. In a family context why are values important? What family values are biblically commended? How can family values be cultivated? (See Family; Family Communication; Family Goals.)

The Value of Values

Every family has a set of values, often unexpressed, that determines how decisions are made in the face of competing alternatives. Sometimes these are expressed in family mottoes, such as “Birthday parties always come before personal plans,” “Dad is the head of this house,” or “No secrets allowed in this family.” More often values are subterranean, like an unseen aquifer that nourishes generation after generation without ever surfacing. These values express fundamental beliefs about what and who is important; how relationships should be fostered; what is the place of money, sex and power; who is entitled to make decisions and where God is in it all. Values determine behavior, give expression to beliefs and give meaning to everyday life. Values shape the culture of the family, the culture of the church as a family of families, and ultimately the culture of the nation.

Research on organizational culture shows that every social organization can be pictured in three concentric circles. On the outside are the artifacts of the culture, enshrined in visible symbols (the welcome sign over the door, father sitting at the head of the table), rituals (we always start Christmas Day by singing carols) and codes (the last will and testament). These symbols and artifacts express the reality that can be represented by a second, smaller concentric circle: family values, what the family cherishes. The values, in turn, express the family’s beliefs (the smallest concentric circle—whether men and women are created equal, whether sex is a good gift of God, whether God has anything to do with everyday life). Together this family culture forms an all-embracing influence in child development. It is felt by anyone entering a family gathering, especially when one marries into a family and therefore really marries a family! One of the most significant areas of tension when two people get married is the marrying of two different sets of values (see Dating; Family Systems). Some people do not realize how deeply these values were formed within their family of origin until they are confronted in the transforming crucible of marriage.

Since values shape behavior and express beliefs, it is not surprising that Christians frequently find themselves caught between the claims of the kingdom and the sometimes idolatrous claims of their families (see Church-Family). That is what is behind the somewhat ambiguous words of Jesus about hating father and mother in order to follow him (Luke 14:26) and letting the dead bury the dead (Luke 9:60). Even when Christians live together in a family, it is likely that there will be some clash of values—a crisis that itself can become an arena for spiritual growth. Indeed, rather than seeing the family as an arena for spiritual disciplines (such as daily Bible reading), we should see the family itself as a spiritual discipline. It is what Bruce Stevens calls “a theological nursery” (p. 14).

Commendable Values

As mentioned above, values are based on beliefs. The commendable values developed below are based on the following beliefs, here stated but not expounded: (1) the divine origin of family life as a covenant community and an expression of God’s own family life in the Holy Trinity (Ephes. 3:15); (2) grace rather than perfection or excellence as the dominant motif of the Christian life; (3) the vocation of all God’s people to be God’s holy people and to do God’s work in the world (see Calling; Laity); (4) the family as a domestic church, the smallest unit of church life (see R. P. Stevens, pp. 35-42); (5) the family as the primary unit of spiritual, relational and emotional formation, so that even parents grow up by having children; (6) the depoliticizing of the family by the grace of Christ so that Christians in families become a community of companionship, unity and mutual priesthood (Ephes. 5:21; Ephes. 6:1-4); (7) the fact that Christ’s work of redemption does not make people into angels or religious people but into full human beings to fulfill God’s purposes in the world.

Based on these fundamental beliefs, almost all Christian values, from the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:1-17; Deut. 5:6-21) to the sevenfold fruits of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23), could be commended for persons living in families. Here we will examine biblically commended values in four categories that belong exclusively to family life (such as honoring parents), are especially suitable as family values (such as inheritance) or most likely to be cultivated in the warp and woof of everyday family life (such as contentment). Spiritual education does not begin with Sunday school but with birth, indeed with conception. In each of the following categories we start with values that could properly be considered as part of the human vocation—whether or not persons are Christians—and end with values that are specific to persons of faith.

Relational values include (1) honoring parents, that is, respecting parents for one’s whole life, though not subordinating oneself to them after leaving home and cleaving to husband or wife (Genesis 2:24; Exodus 20:12; Exodus 21:15; Leviticus 19:3; Deut. 5:16; Deut. 21:18-21; Proverbs 19:26; Proverbs 20:20; Proverbs 28:24; Matthew 10:36; Matthew 15:1-9; Ephes. 6:1-4; Col. 3:20; see Grandparenting; Marriage; Parenting); (2) blessing or affirmation of one another (see Blessing), showing affectionate loyalty and building each other up with words and deeds (Genesis 27; Genesis 48-49; Proverbs 31:28-31; Ephes. 4:29; Phil. 4:8); and (3) forgiveness, letting the past be in the past and creating the possibility of a new future for another and even oneself (Psalm 32:5; Proverbs 10:12; Proverbs 19:11; Mark 11:25; John 8:11; Ephes. 4:32; Col. 3:13; 1 John 1:9; 1 John 4:20; see Forgiveness; Hate; Love). In exalting these relational values, a family is showing that people are more important than things; a child’s hurt feelings when a dish is dropped on the floor is more significant than some now-shattered pottery.

Social values include (1) procreation, bearing seed to create another generation in one’s own image (Genesis 5:3), for we are to experience salvation in the context of doing what we have been created for (Genesis 1:28; Genesis 19:30-38; Exodus 6:13-25; Deut. 25:5-10; Judges 21; Ruth 4:18-22; Psalm 127; 1 Tim. 2:15; see Birth; Conception; Parenting); (2) togetherness without enmeshment, involving building a common life through interdependence, rather than independence or codependence, crafting a unity that is deeper and stronger because of the diversity of personalities and their gifts (Romans 12:15; Phil. 2:4; see Family Systems), including prizing and respecting the other sex as complementary and necessary to fully image God (Genesis 1:27); and (3) play, since the family that plays together is likely to stay together (Proverbs 8:30, see Leisure; Play; Sabbath; Vacations). In exalting these values, members of a family are called to live beyond themselves and to show love to their nearest and dearest neighbors. Family is a place to belong. In Robert Frost’s poem “Death of a Hired Hand,” the old farmer muses to his wife about the inconvenience of having the hired hand come back to the farm to die: “Home is the place where, when you have to go there, / They have to take you in.” The farmer’s wife has a better grasp of the matter when she replies, “I should have called it / Something you somehow haven’t to deserve.”

Vocational values include (1) service in the world through all the ways that humankind makes God’s world work (Genesis 2:15), ranging from public service through politics to giving food to the hungry (Micah 6:8; Mark 10:43; see Ministry; Service, Workplace; Work); (2) hospitality through which strangers and visitors are given a space where they are free to be themselves (Genesis 18:1-15; Leviticus 19:33; 1 Tim. 3:2; 1 Tim. 5:10; Titus 1:8; Hebrews 13:2; 1 Peter 4:9; 3 John 8; see Hospitality) and through which those closest to us are allowed to develop in their own way in an environment of acceptance; and (3) mutual priesthood through which children bring God’s message, presence and grace to parents (just as parents do to children; Ephes. 6:1-4) and through which husband and wives function not in a pre-Christian hierarchical way but in genuine partnership involving mutual submission and ministry (Ephes. 5:21-33; 1 Peter 2:5, 9). It is often noted that children growing up learn about God from their parents, even when their parents claim to have no faith or do not practice it. Just as infants see themselves mirrored in the eyes and facial expressions of their parents, they gain images of God, some of which require abandoning or transforming later in life. Children also learn whether becoming a pastor or a missionary is the ultimate vocation or whether all of God’s people are called to the ministry (Ephes. 4:1; see Calling). In short, they can learn the truth of William Tyndale’s statement: “There is no work better than another to please God; to pour water, to wash dishes, to be a souter [cobbler], or an apostle, all are one, as touching the deed, to please God” (p. 98).

Stewardship values include (1) treasuring a multigenerational inheritance involving the conservation of the land and the planet (see Ecology; Stewardship); (2) treasuring family assets for future generations—a matter that undergirded much of the Old Testament legislation, especially the returning of the land to families in the year of Jubilee (see Wright, pp. 119-28)—and saving up to provide for others, especially one’s children (Exodus 22:10-11; Leviticus 25:13, 23; Deut. 20:19; Deut. 21:15-17; 1 Kings 21:3; Job 42:15; Proverbs 17:6; Proverbs 19:4; Proverbs 22:28; 2 Cor. 12:14) and parents (Mark 7:11); (3) sharing, which involves lending, borrowing and almost unlimited liability within a family (Exodus 22:25; Deut. 15:1-11; Deut. 23:19; see Credit; Debt; Money), as well as generous more-than-a-tithe hilarious giving (2 Cor. 9:7) to believers in need and to the Lord’s work (Genesis 14:20; Exodus 34:26; Deut. 14:22-24; Deut. 26:1-15; 1 Chron. 29:2, 9; Proverbs 3:9; Proverbs 11:24-25), willingness to work toward equality (2 Cor. 8:13-15) between rich and poor Christians through gifts that empower rather than create dependence (Acts 2:44-47; Acts 4:32-37; Romans 15:25-27; 1 John 3:17) and compassionate gifts and empowering help to the truly needy whether they have faith or not (Leviticus 19:9-10; Deut. 23:24-25; Deut. 24:19-22; Proverbs 19:17; Proverbs 22:9, 16, 22; Proverbs 28:27; Proverbs 31:8-9; Luke 4:18; James 1:27); and (4) contentment, which is living in continuous thanksgiving for what God has provided, whether much or little (Phil. 4:12), and deciding not to yield to the siren advertisements that say happiness is achieved by having yet another possession or experience (Deut. 5:21; Joshua 8:22-27; Proverbs 1:19; Proverbs 15:16, 27; Proverbs 16:8; Eccles. 5:12; Matthew 11:19-21; Luke 12:15; Romans 13:5; Ephes. 5:20; Phil. 4:6). In most families the pocketbook (or bank book) is the last thing to get converted!

Conspicuously missing from the above list are the traditional Christian values of church attendance, family devotions and religious activities. The reason is significant: these are not values but rites and roles that support values (or discourage their formation). This raises the vital question of just how values are formed. Psychology has reminded us of the scriptural insight (Deut. 5:9) that values—good and bad—get passed down generation to generation, even in dysfunctional families. (This is dramatically illustrated by the case of Jacob, who learned from his mother that the strategy needed to get your own way when you cannot trust those close to you or God is to use deceit. In Jacob’s case deceit was passed along to his wives and children, showing up again even in the life of the much-loved Joseph.) But how can we foster the values mentioned above, and do so in such a way that does not relegate God to the religious periphery of family life fifteen minutes after the supper meal and a brief prayer before sleep?

Reinforcing Values

Thus far I have refrained from defining family, partly because the nuclear family, strained as it is to the breaking point, cannot bear the full load. Divorce and single parenting have taken their toll. They have also forced us to rethink family in the light of Scripture. Family in the Bible includes the idea of household, those joined by covenant, blood or adoption in a mutuality that includes not only the primal unit of mother, father and child but uncles and aunts, grandparents and cousins, friends and business partners and even “the alien within your gates” (Exodus 20:10)—there not by right but by grace. Many a young person, struggling with her parents through adolescence (see Adolescence), has found profound acceptance and healing through a grandparent who really believed in her and prayed for her. So values are formed not merely by parental transmission but through family life in toto: who gets invited to dinner, how the stranger at the door is treated, when we speak of Uncle Frank the black sheep of the family, what we do when we have overspent our income, who makes the decisions about where a family vacation will be spent, whether Mom and Dad “still have sex” and view it prudishly or sacramentally (see Sexuality), how the church service is discussed over Sunday dinner, what is done when the daughter comes home with a boyfriend twenty years her senior.

Values clarification. Life is full of learning, most of it unconscious. So our first task in reinforcing values is to clarify the values we already hold. This can be done effectively through values-clarifying exercises outlined for families and church groups (Larson and Larson) or relating to work and vacation (Jones and Jones). Values can also be clarified through journaling, through family discussions and through taking each and every family crisis as a God-given opportunity to ask, “What are we presently cherishing that lead to this conflict or challenge?” It took Jacob twenty years to get hold of this truth and to admit to himself and God (Genesis 32:27) that his name was Cheat/Jacob, though God had thrown up mirror after mirror in his life to bring him to himself—a prerequisite to his being blessed by God (see R. P. Stevens, pp. 43-53).

Values teaching. Parents do not often think of themselves as teachers; still less do children. But family life is a life-on-life environment for learning: the first school and the first theological college. The Bible advocates conversational teaching (see Conversation): “Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up” (Deut. 6:7). We teach all the time—over the supper table, when we walk or drive together, when we are making purchases in a store, as we say goodnight and pray by the bedside. Much of family life is sheer imitation of the same pattern as discipleship. The disciple (and the child) when he “is fully trained will be like his teacher” (or his parents; Luke 6:40). We are teaching even when we are not speaking. (One powerful memory during my teens is sneaking past my parents’ open bedroom door late at night after a school dance or a date and seeing my father or mother kneeling beside their bed, often together, undoubtedly including me in their intercession.)

Teaching is continuous, but there are teachable moments, such as when you are leaving for an important meeting and your daughter says, “Dad, what’s so wrong about premarital sex?” These moments are to be prized, waited for, prayed over and seized as treasures hidden in the field. One of the most precious gifts children can give parents is their questions. Some questions arise spontaneously; others are evoked by patterns and habits (see Habits) of family life that at some point or other invite the question by a son or daughter (compare Joshua 4:6: “What do these stones mean?”).

Values embedded in traditions and rituals. It is important for families to celebrate Christmas, Easter and Thanksgiving (see Festivals—Christmas; Festivals—Easter; Festivals—Thanksgiving); to read Scripture and good books as a daily ritual (see Reading); to tell stories, especially the stories of one’s own family (see Storytelling); to keep the family genealogy, a family scrapbook or photo album as a treasury of values incarnated in experiences, relationships and events; to pray for one another and with one another; to worship regularly with the people of God (see Church; Church in the Home; Fellowship; Membership, Church; Small Groups). Other rituals—not often considered—that communicate important values are unplugging the telephone during the family supper, watching television together (and so discussing the values implicit in mass media; see Mass Media; Television), taking an annual vacation, keeping sabbath and other customs unique to the family (such as going swimming in the ocean on New Year’s Eve or taking a walk every Sunday afternoon).

One fundamental value to be treasured is the family itself, especially in this day when the family is out of favor. In a stunning article Michael Novak suggests there are two kinds of people in the world today: “individual people” and “family people.” He reflects on how education and the media help children to become sophisticated in everything but the things most needful: “love, fidelity, childbearing, mutual help, care for parents and the elderly” (Novak, p. 44). Insightfully Novak notes that having children is no longer a welcome responsibility because “to have children is plainly, to cease being a child oneself” (p. 39). Children help parents to grow up, a maturation many resist in favor of perpetual adolescence without the burden of having a family. With equal insight Neil Postman in The Disappearance of Childhood laments the loss of childhood. He does not think we will forget that we need children. What he fears is that we are forgetting that children need childhood. Childhood is crucial to learning the discipline of delayed gratification, modesty in sexuality and self-restraint in manners and speech.

Not only are most of the values mentioned above countercultural, but valuing the carrier of these values, the family, is itself an act of resistance against the prevailing culture. To treasure family, to decide to live near one’s extended family, to invest in family life as a holy ministry, to treat each family meal as the table of the Lord, is exactly the revolution so desperately needed today. Within the Jewish tradition mealtimes were especially viewed as holy occasions. This led to the practice in medieval Spain of burying the benevolent rich in coffins prepared from their table. Tables thus become rabbinic altars: “When two sit together and the words between them are of Torah, the divine presence is in their midst” (’Abot 3:3). God at home—this is the belief that undergirds biblical values formation in both content and method. In this way the ordinary becomes “crammed with heaven,” as Elizabeth Barrett said.

» See also: Church-Family

» See also: Family Goals

» See also: Family Systems

» See also: Parenting

» See also: Values

References and Resources

R. Frost, Robert Frost, a Tribute to the Source, with photographs by D. Jones and text by D. Bradley (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1979); G. Jones and R. Jones, Naturally Gifted: A Self-Discovery Workbook (Downers Grove, Ill. : InterVarsity Press, 1993); R. S. Larson and D. E. Larson, Values and Faith: Value-Clarifying Exercises for Family and Church Groups (Minneapolis: Winston, 1976); M. Novak, “Family out of Favor,” Harper’s, 252 (April 1976) 37-46; N. Postman, The Disappearance of Childhood (New York: Vintage Books, 1994); E. H. Schein, Organizational Culture and Leadership: A Dynamic View (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1991); B. Stevens, “Patterns of Eternity: Toward a Spirituality of Family,” Saint Mark’s Review 143 (Winter 1990) 13-17; R. P. Stevens, Disciplines of the Hungry Heart: Christian Living Seven Days a Week (Wheaton, Ill.: Harold Shaw, 1993); W. Tyndale, “A Parable of the Wicked Mammon” (1527), in Doctrinal Treatises and Introductions to Different Portions of the Holy Scriptures by W. Tyndale, ed. H. Walker (Cambridge: Parker Society/Cambridge University Press, 1848); C. Wright, God’s People in God’s Land: Family, Land and Property in the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990).

—R. Paul Stevens