Subscribe to our Mailing List
The mission of Church & Family Life is to proclaim the sufficiency of Scripture for both church and family life.
Differences and Similarities of the Family and the Church
Dec. 1, 2020
00:00
-01:26
Transcription

Well, in some ways the church and the family are alike. Some ways they're different. They're alike in that They're both ordered and structured by God in His Word, and they're alike in the fact that they're both to subject themselves to the Word of God. Word of God is Supreme authority over the church and over the family They are different when you look at their pre-fall and their post-fall relationships Pre-fall you had marriage and family, but no church yet So in a sense there you might say the family is the priority relationship the fundamental structure of societal organization on earth. Post-fall the church is instituted already in principle in Genesis 4, then began men to call upon the name of the Lord.

And so we can say post-fall that the church, in a sense, ultimately takes the upper hand to the family.

Dr. Joel Beeke explains in this video that in some ways, the church and the family are alike and in other ways, they are different. They are both ordered and structured by God in His Word and they are both to subject themselves to the Word of God.

Colossians 1:18 (NKJV) - "And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence."

Speaker

Dr. Joel R. Beeke serves as Chancellor and Professor of Systematic Theology and Homiletics, as well as Academic Dean for students from the Heritage Reformed Congregations. He is currently a pastor of the Heritage Reformed Congregation in Grand Rapids, Michigan, a position he has held for thirty years. He is also editor of the Banner of Sovereign Grace Truth, board chairman of Reformation Heritage Books, president of Inheritance Publishers, and vice-president of the Dutch Reformed Translation Society. He has written, co-authored, or edited 125 books and contributed over two thousand articles to Reformed books, journals, periodicals, and encyclopedias. His PhD (1988) from Westminster Theological Seminary is in Reformation and Post-Reformation Theology. He and his wife, Mary, have three children: Calvin, Esther, and Lydia, and eleven grandchildren.

Enjoy this resource? Help grow the ministry, Donate Here
Transaction Policy
© 2025
Donate