Redefining Family
And He looked around in a circle at those who sat about Him, and said, "Here are My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of God is My brother and My sister and mother." Mark 3:34, 35, NKJV.
It was His family's attempt to control Him that led Him to redefine the meaning of family. An underlying thought behind His reinterpretation of family is that certain relationships are actually closer than those of blood. It took such ties to bind together such men as Matthew the tax collector and Simon the Zealot. In their previous experience they would have welcomed each other's death. But now they belonged to the brotherhood of Jesus' inner circle. Their shared faith, dedication, goals, and experiences had welded them together with the other disciples as a family in Jesus that was infinitely more intimate for Him than His birth family.
Two basic ideas flow out of Jesus' interactions on the issue of family in Mark 3. The first is that those who follow God will eventually find themselves in conflict with those who live by the principles of the prince of this world.
That had certainly been the case with Jesus. In His desire to fulfill God's principles wholeheartedly, He had not only run into conflict with the religious and secular authorities but also with His flesh-and-blood family.
Jesus' teaching must have meant a great deal to Mark's first readers. Because of their Christianity, they also had faced rejection by their families, persecution, and even brutal deaths. But now they had a new family, brothers and sisters in the faith who shared their values.
The dynamic of both family rejection and inclusion in the family of God is still with the church in the twenty-first century. And it is still just as precious.
A second fundamental idea that emerges from Mark 3:34, 35 is that the basis for building God's new family in Jesus is following God's will: "Whoever does the will of God is My brother and My sister and mother."
In such dedication Jesus recognized genuine kinship; He identified a bond of union that transcends earthly relationships and would last throughout all eternity.
Praise God that I can belong to the family of God!
And He looked around in a circle at those who sat about Him, and said, "Here are My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of God is My brother and My sister and mother." Mark 3:34, 35, NKJV.
It was His family's attempt to control Him that led Him to redefine the meaning of family. An underlying thought behind His reinterpretation of family is that certain relationships are actually closer than those of blood. It took such ties to bind together such men as Matthew the tax collector and Simon the Zealot. In their previous experience they would have welcomed each other's death. But now they belonged to the brotherhood of Jesus' inner circle. Their shared faith, dedication, goals, and experiences had welded them together with the other disciples as a family in Jesus that was infinitely more intimate for Him than His birth family.
Two basic ideas flow out of Jesus' interactions on the issue of family in Mark 3. The first is that those who follow God will eventually find themselves in conflict with those who live by the principles of the prince of this world.
That had certainly been the case with Jesus. In His desire to fulfill God's principles wholeheartedly, He had not only run into conflict with the religious and secular authorities but also with His flesh-and-blood family.
Jesus' teaching must have meant a great deal to Mark's first readers. Because of their Christianity, they also had faced rejection by their families, persecution, and even brutal deaths. But now they had a new family, brothers and sisters in the faith who shared their values.
The dynamic of both family rejection and inclusion in the family of God is still with the church in the twenty-first century. And it is still just as precious.
A second fundamental idea that emerges from Mark 3:34, 35 is that the basis for building God's new family in Jesus is following God's will: "Whoever does the will of God is My brother and My sister and mother."
In such dedication Jesus recognized genuine kinship; He identified a bond of union that transcends earthly relationships and would last throughout all eternity.
Praise God that I can belong to the family of God!
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