Everyone at church agreed that Brother Biodun’s family was a model Christian home. They arrived early every Sunday and sat in the third row. On thanksgiving Sundays they wore matching ankara, the father, the mother and the three children, and the congregation smiled as they danced to the front. Biodun led the men’s fellowship. His wife taught in the children’s church. There was a sticker on their gate in Ogba that read, This house is covered by the blood of Jesus.
At home, family devotion began at half past five every morning, without exception. The children knelt on the parlour rug while their father read a chapter and preached for twenty minutes. Anyone who yawned was rebuked. Anyone who dozed was made to stand. Efosa, the only son, fourteen that year, had learnt to keep his eyes open by pressing his thumbnail into his palm.
One Saturday in July, the gateman was away and Biodun asked Efosa to move the car out of the compound so a delivery van could come in. The boy had driven only a few times. He misjudged the turn and scraped the side of the car along the gate pillar. The side mirror snapped off and hung by its wire.
Biodun came out of the house and saw it. In front of the van driver and two neighbours, he shouted at his son for a long time. He called him useless. He said that no son of his would ever be so careless. He said that the boy’s foolishness was the reason God had not yet answered the family’s prayers for a bigger house. Efosa stood beside the car with his head down and said nothing at all.
That night the light went off at about ten. There was no fuel in the generator. Biodun sat alone in the dark parlour, still angry, until he heard a sound through the wall. His son was crying in his room, quietly, the way a boy cries when he does not want anyone to hear.
His wife came and sat beside him in the dark. After a long silence she said, very gently, “You pray for everybody’s children at church, Biodun. When last did you ask our son how he is?”
Formed in an imperfect place
We often speak about the Christian home as though it were a finished product: a husband and wife who never quarrel, children who never rebel, prayers that are always fervent and meals that are always peaceful. Then we look at our own homes and feel that we have failed.
Scripture gives a more honest picture. The families of the Bible are strikingly imperfect. Abraham lied about his wife to protect himself. Isaac and Rebekah each had a favourite son, and their favouritism tore the family apart. Jacob’s household was full of rivalry, deceit and grief. David was a man after God’s own heart, and his family included rape, murder and rebellion, while he himself, when he heard of his son’s terrible crime, “was very wroth” (2 Samuel 13:21) and then did nothing. These were the households through whom God carried His promises.
That does not excuse sin in the home. But it does show us something important. A Christian home is not formed by escaping imperfection. It is formed in the middle of it. It is a place where imperfect people live together under the grace of God, learning to love, failing, repenting, forgiving and growing. Its witness is not that nothing ever goes wrong. Its witness is in what happens when things do.
The same God who worked through those families is at work in yours. And His care extends to every kind of household:
A father of the fatherless, and a judge of the widows, is God in his holy habitation. God setteth the solitary in families: he bringeth out those which are bound with chains: but the rebellious dwell in a dry land .
“God setteth the solitary in families.” Some readers are raising children alone. Some are married to a spouse who does not yet believe. Some are in blended families, with children from earlier marriages. Some are childless, or widowed, or caring for elderly parents, or living with relatives. Some come from homes that were deeply broken. The Christian home is not limited to one shape. God is “a father of the fatherless, and a judge of the widows.” He forms households of faith wherever His people are, and the church itself becomes family to those who have none.
PunchlineA Christian home is not formed by escaping imperfection. It is formed in the middle of it, by people learning to receive and give grace when things go wrong.
The clothes of a Christ-centred home
Paul gives a detailed picture of life in a Christian household in Colossians 3. It is worth reading as a whole:
Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering; Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness. And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him. Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them. Children, obey your parents in all things: for this is well pleasing unto the Lord. Fathers, provoke not your children to anger , lest they be discouraged.
Notice where Paul begins. Before he says a word about wives, husbands, children or fathers, he describes the character of people who have been raised with Christ. The roles come after the virtues, and they only make sense in the light of them.
“Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved.” The order matters. You are already chosen, holy and loved. That is your identity in Christ. Now dress accordingly. The clothes Paul lists are the clothes of family life: “bowels of mercies,” a deep, heartfelt compassion; “kindness”; “humbleness of mind”; “meekness,” strength under control; “longsuffering,” patience that does not run out quickly.
Then comes the realism: “Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any.” Paul assumes there will be quarrels. People in the same house will irritate, disappoint and hurt one another. The Christian home is not defined by the absence of those things. It is defined by forbearance and forgiveness, modelled on Christ: “even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.”
“And let the peace of God rule in your hearts.” The word translated rule was used of an umpire in the games, the one who makes the call. When tensions rise in a home, Christ’s peace is meant to be the umpire, settling the matter, rather than whoever shouts loudest.
“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.” Not merely visit on Sunday mornings or at half past five. Dwell, as a resident lives in a house. The word of Christ is meant to shape the atmosphere of the home all day long, in teaching, in singing, in gratitude.
“And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus.” That includes the way you speak to your son when he has scraped the car.
Wives, husbands, children and fathers
Only after all of this does Paul address particular members of the household.
“Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord.” “Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them.” Christians read these instructions in different ways. Many believers, often called complementarian, understand them to describe a pattern in which the husband carries a particular responsibility of servant leadership and the wife responds with willing support. Others, often called egalitarian, read them in the light of their first-century setting and the wider New Testament emphasis on mutual submission, and see marriage as a full partnership without a fixed hierarchy. Both views are held by sincere and careful believers.
On either reading, several things are clear. The wife’s submission is “as it is fit in the Lord,” which means it is shaped and limited by her loyalty to Christ. It is never a requirement to endure abuse or to join in sin. And the husband’s love is the kind that refuses bitterness. The word Paul uses suggests harshness, a sour and cutting way of treating someone. A husband who rules his home with harsh words has failed at the very thing Paul asks of him.
“Children, obey your parents in all things: for this is well pleasing unto the Lord.” Children are called to honour and obey their parents. That obedience is learnt in a home where instruction is given lovingly and clearly. It does not mean a child must keep silent about abuse or obey a parent who demands what is wrong. Any child who is being harmed should be helped to tell a safe adult, and any adult who learns of such harm has a duty to act.
“Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged.” This is the only instruction to fathers in the passage, and it is striking. Paul does not tell fathers to be stricter. He warns them against a particular kind of failure: constant criticism, harshness and humiliation that exasperate children until they lose heart. Discouraged means to lose spirit, to give up trying. A child who is shouted at every time he fails may stop trying altogether. Many grown men and women in our churches are still carrying the discouragement of a father who could never be pleased.
Biodun had heard this verse many times. He had probably preached on it. But that Saturday, standing in the compound in front of the neighbours, he had done exactly what it forbids.
Words in the heart before words on the gate
Long before Paul wrote to the Colossians, Moses gave Israel instructions about faith in the home:
Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD : And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.
This passage, called the Shema after its first Hebrew word, “Hear,” was recited by faithful Jews every day. It begins with God: “The LORD our God is one LORD.” It continues with love: “thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.” Everything else follows from this.
Notice the order again. “These words... shall be in thine heart.” Before they are taught to the children, they must be in the parents. A home where the father’s heart is cold toward God will not be warmed by a strict devotional timetable. Children are remarkably good at telling the difference between parents who love God and parents who use God to control them.
Then: “thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.” The teaching Moses describes is woven into ordinary life. It happens at the dining table, in the car on the way to school, at bedtime, over breakfast. It is conversation more than sermon. A father talks about God while they wait in traffic. A mother prays with a child who is anxious about an exam. Faith becomes part of the texture of everyday life.
Formal family devotions are a good thing, and many homes are blessed by them. But they are not a substitute for this everyday conversation. Twenty minutes of preaching at half past five cannot make up for a day in which the children never see their parents speak kindly to each other or to them.
And finally: “thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.” Israel took this literally, and many Jewish homes still fix a small case with Scripture to the doorpost. There is nothing wrong with Scripture on the gate or a plaque that says Christ is the head of this house. But the order in Deuteronomy is clear. The words belong first in the heart, then in the conversation, and only then on the gate. A sticker that says the house is covered by the blood of Jesus means very little to a child who is afraid of his father.
Prayer that enters ordinary need
One of the most beautiful pictures of a household coming to faith appears in Acts 16. Paul and Silas had been beaten and thrown into prison in Philippi. At midnight they were praying and singing, and an earthquake shook the prison open. The jailer, believing his prisoners had escaped, was about to kill himself when Paul stopped him:
And brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house. And they spake unto him the word of the Lord, and to all that were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes; and was baptized, he and all his, straightway. And when he had brought them into his house, he set meat before them, and rejoiced, believing in God with all his house.
Look at what the jailer did once he believed. “He took them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes.” The first fruit of his new faith was care: he washed the wounds of the men he had earlier locked in the stocks. Then “he set meat before them.” He fed them. And he “rejoiced, believing in God with all his house.”
NuggetFaith entered this household and immediately expressed itself in practical tenderness. Wounds were washed. Food was served. Joy filled the home. That is what Christ-centred faith does in a family.
A Christian home is marked by prayer that enters ordinary need. Not only the prayers at the scheduled devotion, but the prayer offered when the rent is due and the money is short, when a child has a fever, when a grandmother is in hospital in Ibadan, when the exam results are coming out. “Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God” (Philippians 4:6). In every thing. Children who see their parents bring real needs to God learn that faith is not a performance for Sundays. It is a way of living.
Jesus taught us to pray with the confidence of children: “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). Notice that He assumes earthly fathers will give good gifts, bread and fish, not stones and serpents. A father who models God’s care makes it easier for his children to trust their heavenly Father. A father who is harsh and unpredictable makes it harder.
How wrongs are repaired
The witness of a Christian home appears most clearly when something goes wrong. Everyone fails in the home. Parents lose their tempers. Spouses say hurtful things. Children lie and disobey. What makes a home Christian is the presence of repair.
James writes, “Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed” (James 5:16). That instruction is not only for church gatherings. It belongs in the home. When a husband has spoken harshly, he confesses it to his wife. When a wife has been unfair, she says so. And when a parent has wronged a child, the parent apologises.
That last point is difficult for many of us. In much of Nigerian culture, a parent apologising to a child seems almost unthinkable. Parents are to be respected, and an apology can feel like a loss of authority. But consider what an unrepentant parent teaches. He teaches that the powerful never need to admit wrong. He teaches that apology is for the weak. He teaches that God’s standards apply to children but not to adults. None of these is the gospel.
A parent who says, “I was wrong to shout at you like that. I am sorry. Will you forgive me?” teaches his children something far more powerful. He shows them that everyone in the house stands under the same grace. He shows them how to repent. And he shows them that authority and humility can live together, as they did perfectly in Jesus.
Jesus said that reconciliation should even take priority over worship: “Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift” (Matthew 5:24). A father who leads morning devotion while his son is still wounded from the day before might do well to leave the Bible on the table, go to the boy’s room first, and make things right.
“Let not the sun go down upon your wrath” (Ephesians 4:26). Repair should happen quickly. Wrongs left unaddressed overnight harden into resentment. Homes where wrongs are repaired daily become homes where people feel safe.
Appearance cannot replace care
Jesus reserved some of His sharpest words for religious people who kept up appearances while neglecting real care:
And he said unto them, 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.
The practice Jesus describes was called Corban, a word meaning a gift dedicated to God. A man could declare his money or property Corban, devoted to the temple, and then claim that he was no longer able to use it to support his ageing parents. It looked deeply religious. In practice it was a way of escaping the duty of care that God’s own law required. Jesus said it made “the word of God of none effect.”
The same danger exists in Christian homes today. A family can be very religious and very uncaring at the same time. A father can lead every devotion and never once ask his children how they are. A mother can be in church every time the doors open while her own children feel neglected at home. A couple can wear matching outfits on thanksgiving Sunday and barely speak to each other during the week. Religious activity becomes a substitute for the love it is supposed to express.
Sometimes the gap between appearance and reality is far more serious. Some homes that look godly from the outside conceal violence, abuse or deep fear. Religious language is used to silence those who are suffering: “Don’t disgrace the family,” “What will the church say?”, “A good Christian does not expose these things.” Let it be said clearly: no appearance of godliness is worth protecting at the cost of a person’s safety. Where there is abuse in a home, those affected should seek safety and help from trusted people, from qualified counsellors and, where necessary, from the authorities. Church leaders who learn of abuse must act to protect the vulnerable, not to protect reputations.
Paul warned Timothy about people “Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof” (2 Timothy 3:5). The form is easy. Anyone can buy matching ankara and put a sticker on the gate. The power of godliness shows itself in the care people actually receive at home.
As for me and my house
At the end of his life, Joshua gathered the tribes of Israel and called them to decide whom they would serve:
Now therefore fear the LORD , and serve him in sincerity and in truth: and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood, and in Egypt; and serve ye the LORD . And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD , choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD .
“Serve him in sincerity and in truth.” Joshua asks for sincerity, an undivided heart, and truth, a faithful life. He also asks the people to “put away the gods which your fathers served.” Every generation has its gods. For many families today they are not carved images. They are status, money, the children’s academic performance, the opinion of the extended family, and the endless question, “What will people say?” These gods can quietly rule a Christian home while the Bible sits on the centre table.
Then comes the famous declaration: “but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.” Joshua speaks as the head of his household, taking responsibility for its direction. That is a good and godly thing for a husband and father to do, and for a mother, especially a mother raising children alone. But notice how Joshua makes his choice. He does not force the people of Israel to serve the Lord. He sets the choice before them and leads by example. In the same way, parents cannot compel their children to believe. Faith cannot be beaten into anyone. Parents can teach, pray, model and invite. They can make their home a place where Christ is visibly loved and His grace is visibly received. The rest belongs to God.
That is what it means to build a Christ-centred home in an imperfect world. It is a home that keeps turning back to Christ, however often it stumbles. A home where prayer enters the real needs of the day. A home where wrongs are named and repaired. A home where the care people receive matches the faith they profess.
Biodun sat in the dark parlour for a while after his wife spoke. Then he got up, felt his way down the corridor, and knocked on his son’s door.
Efosa was sitting on the edge of his bed. His father sat down next to him. For a long moment neither of them said anything. Then Biodun said, “I was wrong today. The mirror is nothing. I shouted at you in front of people, and I said things that are not true. You are not useless. I am sorry. Please forgive me.”
PunchlineEfosa did not answer at first. Then he said, in a very small voice, “I didn’t know daddies say sorry.”
Biodun told the men’s fellowship about that night some years later. He said it was the night he realised he had built a religious house but not yet a Christian home. Family devotions changed after that. They became shorter. The children were allowed to sit on the chairs. Everyone was invited to share something they needed prayer for, and the prayers began to be about real things: a difficult teacher, a friend whose parents were divorcing, the mother’s job when her company was restructuring, the father’s blood pressure.
The side mirror was replaced the following week. But Biodun never repaired the scrape on the gate pillar. It is still there, a long pale line in the paint. When visitors ask about it, he tells them it is the most important thing on his gate, more important than the sticker.
Efosa is at university now. On Sunday evenings the family prays together on a video call. Last month, it was Efosa who led the prayer.
Teaching Companion
For Reflection
- In what ways have you been tempted to measure your home by its appearance rather than by the care its members actually receive?
- Which of the “clothes” in Colossians 3:12-15 is most needed in your home right now?
- How could the words of God be woven more naturally into ordinary moments in your household, beyond formal devotions?
- Is there a wrong in your home, between spouses or between parent and child, that has not yet been repaired? What would repair look like?
- What “gods” might be quietly ruling your household, and what would it mean to put them away?
This Week
This week, at one family meal or gathering, invite each member of the household to share one real need for prayer, however small. Pray for those needs together briefly and simply. Then, before the week ends, identify one wrong you have done to a member of your household, whether your spouse, a child, a parent or a relative, and go to them privately to name it, apologise and ask their forgiveness.
A Prayer
Lord Jesus, You are the true head of every Christian home. Forgive me for the times I have cared more about how my household looks than about how its members are actually loved. Clothe me with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience. Let Your peace rule in our hearts and Your word dwell in us richly. Teach me to bring our real needs to You in prayer, and to repair quickly what I have broken. Where there is fear or harm in our home, bring truth, safety and healing. As for me and my house, we will serve You, in sincerity and in truth. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Truth received brings freedom. Truth believed establishes the heart.
Scripture quotations are from the King James Version. · Illustrations using first names only are composites unless stated otherwise.