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The term “family” takes on varied meanings in the New Testament depending on the context. Three general areas of discussion are the family of God (children of God), the covenant or church family, and marriage with its resultant family. Various New Testament authors address each of these families in their writings, usually focusing on one of them in a particular context. Yet none of these familial entities are completely independent of the other but are interrelated and can be oriented toward developing discipleship and covenant faithfulness to God the Father. Both the covenant/church family and marriage families are important subsets among God’s children and can serve as a model and training ground for strengthening the proper relationship to God the Father. New Testament authors encourage individuals to progress toward God, ideally with, but sometimes despite, their earthly family, by participating in the covenant church family, which provides teachings and rituals to help one become reborn into a new spiritual relationship as a daughter or son of God. Thus, when families are mentioned in either didactic or parabolic settings within the New Testament, it is often to strengthen the listener’s or reader’s relationship to the Father—that is, to develop one’s discipleship.

Even when the term “family” is not explicitly used, it is implied by a variety of other familial terms in the New Testament, including words for mother or father, children, brothers or sisters, house, household, household of faith, and so forth. Many of these family units followed the eastern Mediterranean form of patrilineal kinship groups that viewed close relationships with all living and deceased relatives through the blood line of a male ancestor.[1] This paper cannot discuss the content and context of every scripture related to family, but it will focus on those familial passages that seem to speak to a discipleship relationship. The use of these family terms develops from the time of the ministry of Jesus to the pastoral epistles. In many epistles, we see a more organized church functioning with specific offices, and we find counsel to the leaders in those offices, often teaching them the proper treatment toward their own families.[2] These later teachings, sometimes defined as “household codes,”[3] are likely influenced by the Roman conception of familia, which encompassed more than what we typically identify as family—extended family members, slaves, former slaves, and free clients—all under the leadership umbrella of the pater familias, or the male head of this expansive household.[4] While these wider familial terms are part of the New Testament, the primary focus of this paper will be on Jesus’s ministry in the Gospels (where these wider terms are mostly absent) since that is where more of the familial passages related to discipleship are found. For Latter-day Saint readers, the way family dynamics are presented in the Gospels may be surprising and sometimes even appear dysfunctional. Yet, as will be seen, Jesus is the way for others to come to the Father (see John 14:6). He works with individuals in whatever family situation they may be in to assist them along their path because the overarching goal of each family entity, whether the covenant family or a biological family, is eternal life in the presence of the eternal Father, perpetuating these family relationships beyond this life. The marriage family and the covenant family thus become instruments to bring as many of God’s children as possible to his presence.

Jesus and Family during His Mortal Ministry

As the Only Begotten Son of God, Jesus had a unique relationship with his Father during his mortal ministry. He inherited powers that mortals would not have, but which were necessary for him to accomplish his atoning mission. As part of his unique relationship to the Father, sometimes Jesus sought out opportunities to commune with his Father alone (e.g., Mark 6:45–46; parallels Matthew 14:22–23). Yet despite this unique connection, Jesus not only focused on his own relationship to the Father but encouraged his followers to foster their relationship with the Father also.[5] In the Lord’s Prayer, he taught that one should first address the Father in a personal way using the first-person possessive “our Father.”[6] This use of the possessive not only reduced the distance between Jesus and others by indicating that they shared the same Father but also emphasized his followers’ significant link to the Father even though he was in heaven (see Matthew 6:9).[7] Despite the physical and spiritual distance between us and the Father, Jesus was emphasizing that we can maintain a relationship with him. While few, if any, Jews at Jesus’s time would have understood the idea of being children of God in the same way Latter-day Saints do today, who emphasize a spirit birth and living in God’s presence in premortal life, Jesus’s repeated emphasis on this relationship to the Father is noteworthy. It seems to build upon the Old Testament teachings of God, as creator of his children: “God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them” (Genesis 1:27); “All of you are children of the most High” (Psalm 82:6); and “Have we not all one father? hath not one God created us?” (Malachi 2:10). Within the restored Church today, we continue to teach that one of the great truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ is that we are children of God and that he loves us. In a Brigham Young University devotional, Sister Bonnie H. Cordon taught,

“As we consistently go to Heavenly Father in prayer, we develop a relationship with Him that helps us see ourselves and Him in a clearer light. He will guide us! He wants to help us achieve the divine and eternal potential He knows is ours. Our Savior Jesus Christ taught us the pattern for prayer—a pattern with tremendous power: we call upon Heavenly Father, offer thanks to Him, ask for blessings, and then close in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ. When we approach this communication with real intent, I believe we will see how prayer can bring the will of the Father and the will of the child ‘. . . into correspondence with each other.’[8]

In other parts of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus described the Father as being “in secret” and seeing in secret (Matthew 6:4, 6, 18). This description may be another way of stating that the Father is “in heaven” or hidden from our view, but it also emphasizes the personal nature of our worship and relationship to the Father. “Rather than doing things in public only to be seen (giving alms, praying, and fasting are the examples Jesus uses here), we should do these things privately (‘in secret’), without desire for recognition. Then Jesus expressed the promise that the Father would reward such private, direct worship (see Matt 6:4, 6, 18). . . . Jesus admonishes us to commune with our Father humbly and sincerely by worshipping with proper intent, whether in a community or private setting.”[9] Twice in the Sermon, Jesus talked about how disciples can become children of our Father (see Matthew 5:9, 45).[10] In addition to our identity as spirit daughters and sons, we can become the Father’s children in an exalting sense and thereby heirs of all that the Father gives. The apostle Paul used the imagery of adoption to explain how one becomes a “child of God”: “Ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together” (Romans 8:15–17). Mark Ellison adds, “For Paul and many scriptural authors, a ‘child of God’ was what a person became by entering the gospel covenant and living ‘in Christ’ (compare John 1:12; Mosiah 5:7), not what a person is as a preexistent spirit; . . . Paul found the imagery of adoption an apt way of illustrating the idea of becoming a ‘child of God’ in Christ.”[11] One’s discipleship is thus strengthened by focusing on worship of the Father directly with the proper motivation, not to be seen of others but to express our love and devotion, and in the process we become spiritually reborn in a new sense that will have eternal effects in the Father-child relationship.

Jesus’s efforts to unite his followers with the Father is also evident in another substantial prayer at the end of his ministry—the Intercessory Prayer. Jesus first addressed the Father to begin his prayer[12] and then later pleaded, “That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us. . . . Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am” (John 17:21, 24). This plea for unity draws his followers into the same close relationship to the Father that Jesus enjoys despite their being spiritually, not physically, his children.

Even though Jesus was the only begotten son of the Father, he still subjected himself to his earthly parents, Mary and Joseph, a model of the importance of obedience to parents as an analog to obedience to our heavenly parents. We do not have details about Jesus’s childhood and youth except one episode when, as a twelve-year-old, he visited the Jerusalem Temple with his family. His family started their return journey to Nazareth without him, becoming aware that Jesus was not with their kinsfolk or other acquaintances. When Jesus was located and asked why he dealt with his parents as he had, he alluded to his relationship to his Heavenly Father: “Wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business” (Luke 2:49).[13] The next verse claims that his parents did not understand Jesus’s saying; their lack of understanding seems to have more to do with not knowing exactly how or when Jesus would perform his divine mission than not understanding that he was God’s Son, because Mary knew better than anyone else on earth about Jesus’s divine origin. The text then declares that despite being about his Father’s business and having a brief breakaway of independence, Jesus “came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them” (Luke 2:51), both Joseph and Mary. It “signals the youth’s willing obedience to return home, honoring the earthly family order as the Greek verb ����dzٲ�����ō indicates. . . . He is willingly obedient to his parents, illustrating in his actions the need to honor father and mother.”[14] It was at least partially under their tutelage that “Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man” (Luke 2:52).

While Jesus as a youth subjected himself to his parents, the family dynamics during his ministry became more perplexing. Mark 3 describes a crowd so large surrounding Jesus’s location that they were not even able to eat (see verse 20). The subject of verse 21 (Greek hoi par autou) is ambiguous, but many translate it as “his [Jesus’s] family”[15] who, when they heard of these conditions, “went out to lay hold on him: for they said, He is beside himself,” or out of his mind.[16] Later in the chapter when it specifically describes the arrival of Jesus’s mother and siblings, there was not a warm greeting nor an invitation to draw near. Instead, Jesus seemed to focus on his listeners—bringing them into a closer discipleship relationship using familial terms. “There came then his brethren and his mother, and, standing without, sent unto him, calling him. And the multitude sat about him, and they said unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren without seek for thee. And he answered them, saying, Who is my mother, or my brethren? And he looked round about on them which sat about him, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother” (Mark 3:31–35; parallels Matthew 12:46–50; Luke 8:19–21). Thus, discipleship is equated with family; individuals attain a new covenant family relationship through their obedience.

Why this deflection of attention from his natal family? It may be that some of his brethren did not seem to believe in him during his lifetime, although they did become faithful early Christians later (see John 7:5; Acts 1:14). Perhaps Jesus’s lament that “no prophet is accepted in his own country” (Luke 4:24) extended beyond only Nazareth to include some of his own family members. Indeed, the Markan account locates this statement immediately after a verse about Jesus’s parents and siblings and includes explicit reference to family and household in the lament: “But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house” (Mark 6:4). Yet Jesus’s assertion that “whosoever shall do the will of God” is his brother, and his sister, and his mother also seems to underscore the principle that all can be included within the covenant family of God through faith and obedience, not just biological family members.[17] For Jesus’s listeners, many of whom probably faced family opposition to their discipleship efforts as Jesus forewarned in passages discussed below, this redefinition of family brought them into the fold at the very time they may have been experiencing exclusion. It is also a remarkably equalizing statement as Jesus not only equates his followers to his family of birth but also equates genders by placing “mother” and “sister” on the same plane as “brother;” there are no unique gender roles or requirements except to do the will of God. Jesus’s seeming snub of his family is temporary in this situation. Certainly, Jesus’s response is not permanent indifference; after all, one of his dying requests was for John to care for his mother (see John 19:26–27), and Jesus does not exclude his family members from being part of the wider covenant community. But this moment provides an emphatic object lesson, teaching that one cannot claim greater spiritual blessings simply through genealogy, as Jesus also pointed out elsewhere to some Jews who felt their lineage from Abraham automatically guaranteed them Abraham’s covenant blessings (see John 8:33–40).[18] Biological genealogy does not naturally equal discipleship; individual faithfulness is required.

Ephesians 3:14–15 acknowledges both the direct familial relationship Jesus shared with the Father, as well as the fact that we are all God’s children. “For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named.” So while mortals’ relationship with Heavenly Father differs from Jesus’s status as only begotten, some New Testament passages teach that through coming unto Christ in a covenant relationship, Christ leads us into a spiritually reborn relationship with the Father. Ultimately, those who do “the will of God” are promised a place in the family of Jesus and the hope of inheriting as coheir with him all that the Father has, even without being “begotten” as Jesus was.

Examples of Family Relationships in the Gospels

It is noteworthy that when the Gospels mention “parents” or other familial relationships, it is usually in the context of warnings of future calamitous times when parents and children will be against each other. “And the brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child: and the children shall rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death” (Matthew 10:21; see also Mark 13:12). “And ye shall be betrayed both by parents, and brethren, and kinsfolks, and friends; and some of you shall they cause to be put to death” (Luke 21:16). These examples and others are somber warnings that discipleship will sometimes come at the cost of family relationships. Jesus seems to be reinforcing the principle of keeping the first great commandment by teaching that following him took priority over duties like burying a dead father or bidding family members farewell (see Matthew 8:21–22; Luke 9:59–62). This scenario is not presenting the ideal family situation but reinforcing the fact that salvation is individual, and, as individuals come unto Christ, sometimes their families do not come with them and may even oppose them. In the patriarchal structure of Mediterranean families, including and perhaps especially Jewish families, “defying a father’s will was a serious matter. In such an authoritarian society, it could be difficult for individuals who heard the gospel message to choose to become a follower of Jesus; early Christian literature contains plentiful references to the potential discord caused when families included both believers and unbelievers.”[19] Jesus warned of this reality when he preached, “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me” (Matthew 10:34–37; compare Luke 12:51–53).[20] Yet Jesus also promised that whoever left family members for his sake would receive a “hundredfold” reward and inherit “eternal life” (see Mark 10:29–30; parallels Matthew 19:29; Luke 18:29–30). It is vital to pick Christ, because then not only can it help the individual, but the individual can become the potential instrument to help family members if they follow the convert’s example.

Even when New Testament texts present families interacting with each other in Gospel episodes, they are often cast in a somewhat negative light as parents either do not come to the defense of their children or are overzealous for them. Exceptions would be those parents who pled for Jesus to heal their child, such as Jairus for his daughter (see Mark 5:22; parallels Matthew 9:18; Luke 8:41–42) or the father for his son at the foot of the Mount of Transfiguration (see Mark 9:17–18; parallels Matthew 17:14–16; Luke 9:38–40). One example of belief in Jesus bringing tension within a family is related in John 9, where Jesus healed a man blind from birth by sending him to the Pool of Siloam. When Jewish leaders sought more information about this miracle, they talked with the healed man’s parents. Instead of defending their son, the parents, to avoid repercussions from the Jewish authorities, pushed it back to their son for him to answer (see John 9:20–21). In an episode that cautions against overzealousness for one’s family, James and John’s mother asked Jesus if her sons could be raised above the other apostles to sit at Jesus’s right and left. Jesus said it was up to the Father to decide those things; meanwhile, the other ten apostles were indignant against the two for this seeming favoritism for family members over the wider gospel family (see Matthew 20:20–24).

Beyond these challenging family relationship episodes in the Gospels, Jesus consistently focused on children and the necessity of not only protecting them but becoming like them (see Mark 9:33–37; parallels Matthew 18:1–6; Luke 9:46–48). Jesus’s concern seems to go beyond simply helping the vulnerable young but draws upon the family model of children obeying parents. Jesus emphasized the humility of children, likely alluding to their willing obedience to parents as a standard for the same type of submission to the Father. This is most clearly articulated in Jesus’s blessing of children when he stated, “Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3–4; parallels Mark 10:15; Luke 18:17). Jesus seems to be asking his disciples to accept the new situation and status of the growing kingdom of God on earth like children who are raised in their family, submissive to their parents.[21]

Jesus also elaborated on the commandment to honor one’s parents when he condemned the attitude some Jews had towards following the traditions of the elders above this commandment. In the discussion on ��ǰ������ (KJV “corban” and referring to a gift dedicated to God), Jesus proclaimed, “Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition. For Moses said, Honour thy father and thy mother; and, Whoso curseth father or mother, let him die the death: But ye say, If a man shall say to his father or mother, It is Corban, that is to say, a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me; he shall be free. And ye suffer him no more to do ought for his father or his mother; making the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many such like things do ye” (Mark 7:9–13; parallels Matthew 15:3–6). By following this tradition, some children could avoid helping parents who are in need by claiming that their property or goods have been dedicated to the temple and its service. The earthly family requires many modes of obedience and ideally should be the training ground and potential model for being obedient to the Father. Obedience and respect to earthly parents can lend itself to honoring our heavenly parents, especially when families are striving for discipleship together.

Similarly, Jesus discouraged divorce, focusing instead on God’s intention that these relationships should not be ended, using the model of Adam and Eve. “The Pharisees also came unto him, tempting him, and saying unto him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause? And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder” (Matthew 19:3–6).[22] These examples of Jesus building upon commandments of God in his teachings indicate his efforts to strengthen family relationships and assist them in their efforts to grow in their relationship together and with God. Faithful earthly relationships can parallel faithful relationships to God. One should not “divorce” oneself from God nor put him away.

Parables Related to Families

Besides actual family situations related in the Gospels, some parables are framed in the context of family situations. The lessons communicated in these parables are significant in that all three family units discussed in this paper—family of God, church or covenant family, and the earthly family—train individuals and assist them to better know God, which leads to eternal life (see John 17:3). Jesus shared parables that modeled family dynamics, encouraging individual family members not only to develop their earthly relationships but to become more like God in his love, his concern, and his compassion for his children. One of the best-known parables to exhibit these godly characteristics is the parable of the prodigal son. Parents can ache when a child goes astray and squanders opportunities, and, like the father in the parable, they yearn and watch carefully for their child to return. In the parable, when the returning son was “yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him” (Luke 15:20). Instead of reacting with anger or questioning his son’s motives for leaving or returning, the father simply demonstrated compassion and welcomed his son back. He also prepared a feast to celebrate one who was “dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found” (Luke 15:24).

Yet the father’s careful attention to his family did not end with this son’s return. He counted and realized he was still missing a son at the celebration—the dutiful elder son who had remained with him throughout. The father found this son, who was angry and jealous, outside and entreated him to join them. After listening to his son express his frustration at continually slaving away (the literal sense of the Greek in Luke 15:29), the father reassured him that his status had not changed with his brother’s return. It was necessary to enter and “make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found” (Luke 15:32). Jesus does not relate the elder brother’s response to his father’s invitation, but the father’s actions demonstrate important principles of parenting: first, the unfailing concern and care for the lost one; second, the loving welcome for one who has made a difficult but courageous decision to return; third, not being satisfied with those in attendance at the feast but searching out the child who is not and encouraging him to reunite with the family. These actions mirror the love and attention God and Jesus Christ manifest for all God’s children, both those who are lost and those who are faithful children. The most important thing is to rejoice and welcome back any who have strayed from the path, to avoid the belief that one is somehow better if one has not strayed. The earthly father in the parable is trying to lead both sons, whether far or near, back to healthy relationships within the family, which ultimately puts them back in the right standing with God as well.

Weddings and entering marriage relationships are often symbolic of the covenant relationship between God and mortals. Several parables take up this setting to encourage listeners to be responsive, prepared, and obedient to God’s invitations. The parable of the marriage of the king’s son (Matthew 22:2–14; see similarly in Luke 14:15–24) emphasizes that one must avoid the distractions of the world to respond to God’s invitation to participate fully in his blessings. If the initial invitees are unresponsive, God will continue to call others to participate. The parable of the ten virgins (see Matthew 25:1–13) uses a specific aspect of the wedding custom, the procession of the bridegroom, to teach that one must be prepared and ready to participate in the wedding feast. Since one does not know precisely when the bridegroom will arrive, one must remain willing and able to join at the appropriate time; otherwise, the doors are shut and those on the outside are excluded from the celebration. The Doctrine and Covenants teaches that the wise virgins are those who “have received the truth, and have taken the Holy Spirit for their guide, and have not been deceived” (Doctrine and Covenants 45:57). Parents and the church should help individuals live in readiness for the time when they need to join the wedding party.[23]

Other New Testament Teachings about Family

In a much-debated passage, Paul discusses the relationship between deity and man and woman when he taught “neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord. For as the woman is of the man, even so is the man also by the woman; but all things of God” (1 Corinthians 11:11–12). While the original context may have been to promote unity within the church, “his statement about the mutual interdependence and reciprocity of woman and man ‘in the Lord’ certainly has application in marriage. Both in marriage and in the Church family, men and women are ‘intended to learn from, strengthen, bless, and complete each other.’”[24] Even though the actual ceremony of matrimony within the church is not portrayed in the New Testament, gospel principles seem to emphasize that the only way the marriage union will fully thrive is in the Lord. The marriage relationship should bring the couple to the Lord.

In the pastoral epistles, one can see a development of the principles connecting family relationships to church relationships, from household codes to what might be called “congregational codes” written for the house church setting. “The codes redescribed familial relationships by emphasizing mutual deference to counterparts and reorienting individuals to each other in view of each person’s relationship to Deity: wives were to be subject to their husbands as unto the Lord (Eph 5:22–24, 33; Col 3:18; 1 Pet 3:1, 5–6); children were to obey their parents in the Lord (Eph 6:1–3; Col 3:20); . . . husbands were not to treat a wife harshly but to be considerate of her, honor her, and love her as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it (Eph 5:25–33; Col 3:19; 1 Pet 3:7); fathers were not to provoke their children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord (Eph 6:4; Col 3:21).”[25] One scholar of Christianity in Roman society points out that the later pastoral epistles “reflect the broader political view that orderly households create good societies. The writer depicts the church as ‘the household of God’ (1 Tim 3:15); its correct functioning depends on the proper behavior of the families comprising it.”[26] This is another example of the interrelationship between biological families and the church family. As salvation is meant to be the result of each family entity, Christ, as the means of salvation, must naturally be at the center of those entities for this to be achieved; and the proper, righteous efforts of families strengthen the church. Church leaders demonstrate their ability to lead by how well they manage their own household (see 1 Timothy 3:4–6, 12; Titus 1:6–9). The treatment of family demonstrates discipleship and reverence to the Lord. The close connection of the Lord to the church and household family also reminds the reader that ultimately the source of all blessings and strength is God whose teachings encourage family members to greater discipleship individually and within the family.

Conclusion

An interesting dynamic exists when looking at the three types of families discussed throughout the New Testament: the family of God, the covenant church family, and the nuclear or conjugal family. It starts large—all are children of God, or as Paul states “the offspring of God” (Acts 17:29)—then narrows to those who enter in the covenant family, and finally the nuclear and extended family is the smallest unit. Yet those from the individual family can receive grace and assistance through the blessings of Christ, who formed the covenant church family, to become born again and achieve a new status as daughters and sons of God. The boundaries, blessings, and potential of the small family unit expand so that even when only a solitary individual from a family decides to accept Jesus Christ and his gospel, they can pull along others or unite with others within the Church to enlarge their family. Consistently, all are taught to teach, love, and care for those in their family, whichever of these three families one is interacting with, and they are all oriented toward developing discipleship and covenant faithfulness to God the Father. Our interactions within these families on earth can be a model and training ground for strengthening the proper relationship to God the Father.

While the family situations illustrated in the New Testament are not always ideal, nor are family situations today. The efforts Jesus made to extend the notion of family and its attendant blessings to all who were willing to follow him helped individuals overcome the trials they faced. Jesus worked and continues to work with individuals in whatever family situation they may be in to assist them along the way to the Father, because (in modern vernacular) the overarching goal of each family entity in the plan of salvation—whether the family of God, the covenant church family, or the nuclear family—is to perpetuate these family relationships beyond this life. There exists a hierarchy among these families because of who leads them: first, God—family of God; second, Jesus Christ—the covenant church family that assists individuals along the covenant path because of its binding relationship to the Father; and finally, third, mortals—the nuclear and extended family. This hierarchy basically follows the first and second great commandments: to put God and Jesus Christ first and then our family members and others second. Yet none of these families can truly fulfill their purpose without the others, and their responsibilities and strengths overlap each other at various moments of their lives. The covenant church family and marriage family thus become instruments to aid an individual’s spiritual rebirth and bring as many of the family of God to his presence in a higher, eternal family as exalted daughters and sons. The New Testament passages discussed herein, whether in didactic or parabolic settings, aim to deepen the understanding of one’s family relationships and ultimately strengthen the listener’s or reader’s discipleship to the Father.

Notes

[1] For more on patrilineal kinship groups, see Joseph Hellerman, The Ancient Church as Family. Early Christian Communities and Surrogate Kinship (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001), 27–58.

[2] While the compilation of the Gospel texts may date to a later period than the Pauline epistles, they describe events and likely preserve oral traditions of earlier settings that lacked the larger household and church organization found in some of the pastoral epistles. While some parables in the Gospels describe situations of masters with households and servants, generally the social units of the actual people living during the time of Jesus’s ministry are of a simpler, smaller scale, sometimes living with extended family (like parents), but rarely having servants.

[3] David L. Balch, “Household Codes,” in Anchor Bible Dictionary, 6 vols., ed. David Noel Freedman (New York: Doubleday, 992), 3:318.

[4] For a good overview of the cultural context of ancient Greco-Roman families in relation to the New Testament, see Mark D. Ellison, “Family, Marriage, and Celibacy in the New Testament,” in New Testament: History, Culture, and Society. A Background to the Texts of the New Testament, ed. Lincoln H. Blumell (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2019), 532–54.

[5] There are potentially two senses to mortals’ relationship to the Father (both discussed below). One, is the more general sense of being children of God through his creation, and the second becoming “spiritual” children of the Father through our spiritual rebirth indicated through conversion, adoption, and by the Spirit (see John 1:12–13; Ephesians 1:5; and Romans 8:15). Adoption into the family becomes just as significant as birth into it in multiple scriptural examples most notably demonstrated by Jesus himself who was accepted and cared for by Joseph as if he were his own child. In other words, there was a stronger emphasis in the scriptures on how actions made a family, not just genetics. Throughout the Old Testament, for example, children who were wayward or routinely dishonored their parents forfeited their birthright blessings. Similarly, children could be adopted into a household and still receive an inheritance as though they had been physically born to their adoptive parents (e.g., Ephraim and Manasseh to Jacob).

[6] Abba is a familiar, intimate title that a child or youth would use to address their father, but “daddy” is misleading. Jesus’s use of Father “suggests an intimate relationship between the disciples and God that is akin to that of Jesus himself; God is not merely the transcendent lord of the heavens, but is near as a father to his children.” From Anna Wierzbicka, What Did Jesus Mean? Explaining the Sermon on the Mount and the Parables in Simple and Universal Human Concepts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 230. Luke’s version of the Lord’s Prayer also begins with “Father” (11:2) but lacks the possessive “our” or location of God in heaven. Jesus refers to God as Father 170 times in the New Testament compared to only a dozen usages of this term for God in the Old Testament.

[7] “The Father’s status in heaven is an indication of his righteousness as pointed out in the contrast between earthly fathers and our Heavenly Father: ‘If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?’ (Matthew 7:11; emphasis added). When describing the Father, Jesus did not say ‘being righteous’ in contrast to the previous phrase ‘being evil’ but instead highlighted the Father’s location in heaven as indicative of his righteous state. The Father has already gone into his glory in heaven above, and now, with his help, we need to meet him there.” Jared W. Ludlow, “The Father in the Sermon on the Mount,” in The Sermon on the Mount in Latter-day Scripture, ed. Gaye Strathearn, Thomas A. Wayment, and Daniel L. Belnap (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2010), 141–42. The Gospel of Luke seems to have a similar concept by identifying the Father as “heavenly Father” (Luke 11:13).

[8] Bonnie H. Cordon, “Ask of God, Our Solace, Guide, and Stay” (BYU devotional, February 4, 2020), 2, speeches.byu.edu. At the end of this quotation, she is quoting from the Latter-day Saint Bible Dictionary, “prayer,” 752–53.

[9] Ludlow, “The Father in the Sermon on the Mount,” 143–44.

[10] The Gospel of Luke refers to it as becoming “children of the Highest” (6:35).

[11] Ellison, “Family, Marriage, and Celibacy in the New Testament,” 537.

[12] Jesus addresses the Father six times in the prayer as well as refers to himself as “thy Son” twice.

[13] The Greek for “Father’s business” is ambiguous and could mean “things” or even “in my Father’s house.”

[14] S. Kent Brown, The Testimony of Luke, Brigham Young University New Testament Commentary (Provo, UT: BYU Studies, 2015), 166.

[15] The KJV reads “his friends.” For a discussion of why this likely refers to “family” see Julie M. Smith, The Gospel According to Mark, Brigham Young University New Testament Commentary (Provo, UT: BYU Studies, 2018), 234. The strongest point is that this section probably forms the first half of a Markan “sandwich” that concludes with Jesus’s family being specifically mentioned at the end of the chapter.

[16] Several prophets in the Old Testament were thought to be insane (see 2 Kings 9:11; Jeremiah 29:26; Hosea 9:7; Zechariah 13:3–6). The literal meaning of the Greek here is “he has stood outside [himself].” He is treated as an outsider, “but when the story is completed in the other half of the sandwich at the end of the chapter, they [Jesus’s family] will be the ones who are outsiders.” See Smith, Gospel according to Mark, 235. Jesus’s family is later described as “standing without” (see 3:31).

[17] Smith, Gospel according to Mark, 250, 252, said it well: “The family that Jesus constructs here is based on belief instead of biology. . . . Unstated here is the cost of discipleship—all of these people have left their families, including Jesus. The rupture of family relationships is the cost of doing the will of God by being with Jesus.”

[18] See also John the Baptist’s similar teaching about the need for repentance because God could raise up children of Abraham from stones in Matthew 3:8–9. Yet note that being children of Abraham has a positive sense elsewhere in scripture, but again with the emphasis on fidelity to the covenant of Abraham.

[19] Ellison, “Family, Marriage, and Celibacy in the New Testament,” 535.

[20] Luke’s version of this saying is even more forceful: “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26; emphasis added).

[21] Yet note the other perspective of “child” in the New Testament when Paul drew a distinction between being unlearned as a child versus learned as an adult. “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things” (1 Corinthians 13:11).

[22] Matthew 19:9 goes on to say that there is allowance for divorce in the case of “fornication” or unchastity. This seems to somewhat soften Mark’s version, which does not include this disclaimer (see Mark 10:2–12).

[23] The parable of the faithful servant teaches similar principles of obedience and readiness while the owner of the house is away so that when he returns, he finds the servant faithfully doing what should be done without knowing the exact time of his return (see Matthew 24:42–51).

[24] Ellison, “Family, Marriage, and Celibacy in the New Testament,” 544. The quoted phrase at the end is from David A. Bednar, “We Believe in Being Chaste,” Ensign, May 2013, 41–42.

[25] Ellison, “Family, Marriage, and Celibacy in the New Testament,” 545.

[26] Harry O. Maier, “The Household and Its Members,” in New Testament Christianity in the Roman World (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019), 151.