Three institutions

God created three institutions: the family, the church, and government. Each one has specific jobs to do. When one tries to do the job of another, it just doesn’t work right.

God created the family; “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother and they twain shall be one flesh….’be fruitful and multiply.’ ”

The purpose of the family is to “be fruitful and multiply.” Malachi tells us that God desires godly children from marriage. The reason for the family, its purpose, is to raise up children to worship God. That is what He made family for. Doing this includes feeding, clothing, sheltering and teaching the children. This is what EVERY family is called to do. All women are called to be mothers and all men fathers. Yes, I know not all families are blessed with children. However, that doesn’t prevent them from being parents. Mother Theresa was a mother to thousands, even though she never married much less gave birth. Same for Gladys Alward and Amy Carmichael. My Great Aunt (Aunty) never had children either. But she spent her life mothering her nieces and nephews. I have heard of many a childless man or woman who were some of the best parents around! Teaching, nursing, mentoring, etc. are all ways to parent. The point is that God called men to support and protect the family, women to manage the home, and both to train children for heaven.

When the church tries to do this job (i.e. Sunday school, youth groups) the end results are 1) parents slack off on their duty (“The church is teaching the Bible so let’s just watch TV instead of having devotionals every evening.”) so the children don’t get the day to day Bible study and example of serving God, only two hours on Sunday morning. And 2) the church spends so many resources doing the parent’s job they forget their own! No, the church’s job is NOT to teach children who have parents!

When the government tries to do this job (i.e. daycare, public school, youth programs, etc.) the children end up not even knowing what a family is much less who God is. Home becomes nothing more than the place you sleep. Proof: how many of you have never heard that you have a duty to God to raise your children for Him before? When you have a problem you go to the proper government authority to solve it (school teacher at first then congressman or social worker, etc.). Take it to your parent? Why? They aren’t the “expert.” The fact is, though, that the government makes a lousy mommy or daddy. The government doesn’t really love you, nor really know you. They also can’t teach morals (it’s illegal, and when governments try, they become tyrannies). So the children end up alone, except for their peers, and are moral-less.



The church’s job is to teach the parents how to teach the children, love each other, equip the congregation to minister to the community, corporate worship of God, and to care for the widow and the fatherless children. This last category covers the families that can’t perform their duties because of life’s circumstances. It is the church’s job to make sure the children who don’t have a provider in the family have food, shelter, clothes and a godly education. Honestly, I think the most biblical way to accomplish this would be to pay the widow’s expenses (rent, food, utilities, etc.) so she can stay home and teach her own children. This allows her to fulfill her obligation as a mother. The church is the tool for God to use to be the father to the fatherless and husband to the widow. It allows the church to show the need for God to those who have physical needs. I believe one reason our churches are so ineffective today is because we spend all our resources either doing the family’s job or putting on professional productions designed to attract the lost to God. Wouldn’t it be more effective to do what God told the church to do and care for people’s physical needs thus opening the door to meet their spiritual needs? Imagine if all the churches put their resources into honestly caring for people’s needs instead of fancy-smancy productions? If the church had done this in the first place we might not have a society today where most people don’t even have a clue what a real family is. We might not have so many on public assistance; so many missing parents.

When the government tries to do the church’s job, they have to take money, by threat of force (Don’t believe they threaten force? Try not paying your taxes), from those that earn it to give it to those that didn’t. This deprives the family and the church of resources that they need to accomplish their job. It also makes them lazy in accomplishing God’s will. Why should the church care for the widow when she can get social security, free job training, and free daycare? The government already provides for all the physical needs of the fatherless child, so why should the church bother? But, of course, the government doesn’t teach people about God. When people have a problem they go to Uncle Sam instead of Father God. This is why we now live in a secular society instead of the Christian society our Founding Fathers created. We have allowed government to be the provider, “God” to the poor. Government is the answer for all problems to most people in our country. Can’t pay your medical bill? Go to the government. Can’t pay your rent? Go to the government. Can’t buy food? Go to the government. Made a bad business decision and your company is going to close? Go to the government. Feel empty inside? Go to the local bar. God? Church? Why?

Government doing the church’s and family’s jobs has also created envy. “How dare anyone make more than middle class income?! No one needs that kind of money. Take it away!” Never mind the achiever works more hours and takes more risks, such as 60 hour weeks and second and third mortgages on their homes, than the average person. We must be “fair.” We must be “equal.”

Now, the family is supposed to help the church achieve its goals. We are supposed to help those less fortunate than us individually as well as through the church body. Older women and older men are to teach the younger ones how to be husbands and wives and parents. But the family can’t provide the corporate worship that a congregation provides. Nor can it teach more than the parents know. The church needs to teach them and handle the other things.

Government’s role is to provide for national defense and police protection, coin currency, and deal with foreign governments. They are to punish those that “infringe on the rights and property of others” and “make sure you do all you agree to do.” When families and churches try to do the government’s job we call it vigilantism.

I know this sounds very different than what we are used to hearing. We are used to hearing how government can save us from poverty, save us from bankruptcy, save us from unfairness! They just barely fall short of promising to save us from our sins! Or do they? “Crime is caused by poverty and a lack of education.” “There is no right or wrong. We all must decide what is right for ourselves.” Hmmm. All we need to do to end sin is give big enough welfare checks, pour enough money into education, and quit being judgmental (except to Christians of course).

“There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” Proverbs 16:25

The socialist method of taxing (forcing) the “rich” in order to pay for goody programs for the “less fortunate” is man’s way. It is, in the end, trusting and even worshiping man instead of God. Since government grows like a cancer unless it is deliberately cut down, these programs always grow into true socialism. True socialism is communism and always ends in the death of millions of human beings. Our country is already responsible for more than a million baby deaths per year from abortion. How much farther do we go in giving man control of the areas God gave to the family and the church? How much longer do we look to man to solve our problems? How much longer do we do what’s right in our own eyes instead of following what the Bible says?