It’s Thursday and it is lovely to have you join us for the Foundations Daily Podcast. We are continuing our reflections on the book of 1 Timothy, and today we come to Chapter 3 verses 8-13, with a focus on verse 12: “A deacon must be faithful to his wife and must manage his children and his household well.”

REFLECTION

Right at the start of this podcast, I need to make it clear that neither Alan nor I consider ourselves to be a shining example of how to manage your children and your household well!

Right now our daughter is on a school residential and she has no hairbrush – because I just cannot find it anywhere, and I ran out of time looking for it. The door at the bottom of our stairs frequently has to have the screws tightened, as the hinge cannot handle all the slamming it endures; and the outfit I am wearing at work today is a little dressier than I would normally wear – but it is the only thing that is clean. I take solace in the fact that I am not alone…..

Yesterday someone I know posted the following request on a local sales and swaps site:

“I know it’s a strange one, but I am in search of a potato that looks like a person or a head and body. Found a random potato in my front room this morning. Chopped and boiled it for kid’s tea. On all accounts that potato that I found was for a competition at school on Wednesday.”

The post elicited more responses and comments that any I have ever seen!

So, when so many people resonate with the feeling that they are failing at this, what does it look like to manage our children and our households well? Paul clearly thought this was important because he gives the instruction twice – both in verse 12 and in verse 4. In fact in verse 5 he adds, “If anyone does not manage his own family, how can he take care of God’s church?”

Before we go further, it’s important to remember that in New Testament culture and context the word ‘household’ means something very different to our modern idea of ‘nuclear family’. In fact neither the Greek nor Hebrew language has a word that means ‘family’ in the same way as we understand the word. Although we may read the word ‘family,’ what the Bible is speaking about is ‘households.’ And by households it means relatives, but also slaves living in the house, and often employees as well. A household could be quite large: family members, a cook, the gardener, someone to tend the animals, a teacher for your children, those who carried out business on behalf of the family – so possibly clerks, accountants or lawyers. You get the idea!

Therefore whether you are a single student in university halls, married and living in a terrace house with no kids, empty nesters looking to downsize, or in the throes of chaos with 3 kids under the age of 5 – you have a household and God would like you to manage it well.

Reading through all of 1 Timothy Chapters 2 and 3, I think there are 4 key things that will help us to do this:

1. Teach your household to pray and be people who focus on thanksgiving (Chapter 2 vs1-8). This can be as simple as saying grace before a meal, asking people to share 1 good thing they are thankful for today, or praying for people who are sick every time you see an ambulance go by.

2. Practice hospitality (Chapter 3 vs 2) – invite people to eat food with you regularly. Buy an extra tin of beans and make some toast, stick another frozen pizza in the oven……personally I love fish finger sandwiches! It doesn’t have to be MasterChef standard, but it is so important to teach those in your household the importance of hospitality.

3. Talk to your household about money (Chapter 3 vs 3). Developing good spiritual disciplines and Biblical approaches to money means we can focus on pursuing God’s plan for our life, rather than our decision making being driven by fear, greed or worry. Paul will unpack a lot more about the topic of money in Chapter 6,