A World with the Family at the Center
THE CENTRAL THING
We will break the Bible into manageable chunks so that we can get the BIG PICTURE of what God is doing. These chunks are part of the Bible's own structure and if we miss them, then we will miss out on what God is doing and why He is doing it. The Bible is built upon the ancient practice of covenant. We don't really share their notion of a covenant today, so we need to understand this concept really well. Let's compare covenants with contracts. The following comes from the biblical insights of Dr. Scott Hahn, which you can find more information at stpaulcenter.com.
Contracts are the exchange of goods and services, saying "This is yours" and "That is mine." Covenants are an exchange of persons, saying "I am yours" and "You are mine."
Contracts are based on human promises. Covenants are based on swearing sacred oaths or vows, which transcends a mere promise and involves divine grace.
Contracts are legal agreements. Covenants are sacred. This means they are public but also deeply religious, given before God as a witness.
Contracts can be broken, which may violate the law. Covenants are far more serious, for the swearing of a sacred oath at the heart of a covenant means when you break it, it breaks you. Every covenant oath is done by invoking blessings or curses upon the fulfillment or failure of the covenant.
Covenants make family bonds between parties who swear a sacred oath.
These oaths were religious and legal, usually performed in front of many witnesses. After the sacred oath was sworn, each party was bound to the other. A strong king called a weaker king "Son" and vice versa, "Father." Two equals referred to one another after the oath as "brother" or "sister." To break your oaths was to be cursed and possibly to forfeit your life. This was because you betrayed your new family.
SWEAR WORDS
Have you ever heard someone say: "As God as my witness!" or "I swear to God!" We may be exaggerating, but these are actually oaths, invoking God's presence to witness what we declare. Swear and curse words are entirely different from vulgar words. We use swear words because they sound more serious and official. They are serious precisely because they invoke curses if you break them. For instance, "I cross my heart, hope to die" is not about putting the Sign of the Cross on your heart but is a curse of having your heart chopped up in four pieces if you're telling a lie. YIKES!
Oaths are used when humans have to be entrusted with incredibly difficult, but necessary burdens. We make doctors and nurses, lawyers and politicians, police and soldiers all swear oaths of fidelity. We make citizens giving testimony in court swear an oath for truth-telling "so help me God" and the judge reminds a witness they are "under oath." The stakes are too high for merely human promises, so we make it sacred and bring God into the middle of the situation and we say "Swear you'll do this faithfully or God Himself will cut you down!"
Covenants are made by swearing an oath. The terms of the covenant are real, binding, and for life. The experience of swearing oaths and making covenants and operating under its laws were part of everyday life in the ancient Middle Eastern lands because everything revolved around the family, and covenants make families.
ALL ABOUT THE FAMILY
The only covenant we have in our society today that compares is marriage. Marriage is an exchange of persons, not things, and establishes family bonds. It is done before God and the State as witnesses and is thus sacred, public, and legal. Marriages are made when both parties exchange vows to one another and pledge to one another faithfulness "until death do us part."
This marital covenant is similar to how ancient kings, nations, tribes, and families made alliances and built countries. It an intense and expanded view of the family. The family was everything. Literally, the family was the State, whereas today the State is expanding into the duties of the family. This is crucial to remember. This model is called the Trustee Family, or Familism, and every single human civilization, East and West, were born from this Trustee model of the family.
Living members owed everything to their ancestors who first established their bloodline, name, and property. Every living family member was to increase the family's honor for their descendants. Thus, the living were entrusted (Trustees, not Owners) with the family honor, bloodline, and property. This is why Trustee families tended to ancestor worship, viewed adultery as a heinous crime, and practiced arranged marriage. The family was everything.
For instance, it was the elders who sat at the city gates and judged disputes. Firstborn sons inherited 3/4th of family wealth to preserve it. Each family had a "kinsman-redeemer" who would buy back property and family members from slavery due to debt. Marriages increased a family's status. Roles were known and everyone had their place. This sounds incredibly restrictive to us modern individualists, but it really wasn't that way to them. And these types of families still exist today in many traditional countries.
To be disinherited was the worst evil. It is referred to as being "cut off" from one's family. It was a life without identity, which is why people preferred death to exile because when exiled, they were stripped of their family identity. It was a form of living death. A traveler was in a precarious state being far from land and family, so hospitality was the highest priority to preserve such people from death. To be a homeless beggar was to almost be a non-person because you had no property or wealth. Slaves and prisoners were non-persons, stripped of everything, and used as property instead of persons.
SEVEN BIG CHUNKS OF SCRIPTURE
When we study the Bible we organize it around the six major covenants that God has made with humanity, with the final seventh covenant belonging to the far future. As sin and violence divides up humanity, God's covenants keep including more and more people as each later covenant builds upon the previous.
Adam and Eve in Marriage (Genesis 1-5)
Noah and his Household (Genesis 6-11)
Abraham and his Tribe (Genesis 12-50)
Moses and the Nation of Israel (Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges)
David and the Kingdom of Israel (1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, Psalms, Proverbs, etc.)
Jesus and the Worldwide (Catholic) Church (Matthew, Mark, Luke, Joh, Acts, etc.)
The seventh covenant will be at the end of time when God will be all in all (Revelation)
These covenants make up what we call Salvation History the great story of God dealing with His children down through the centuries all the way to you. The reason why we talked about covenants, oaths, and the Trustee model of the family is that God used this ancient culture to teach us, form us, and to ultimately to save us.
Every lesson forward is built upon the covenant. We will walk through each covenant together so that you can have the BIG PICTURE of God's saving love for you.