Social Relationships
It has never been God’s plan that men should live hermit lives or seek to perfect character away from the regular round of daily activity. While Enoch was walking with God for three hundred years, he continued to carry on normal family relationships. Genesis 5:21-24. Social contact is one means for the development of character and for bringing blessing to others. Men cannot fully accomplish God’s purposes by living to themselves.APAY 88.9
The Family. Of all social groups the family ties are the strongest and most intimate. Two of the Ten Commandments are aimed at preserving the integrity of the home (“Honor thy father and thy mother,” and “Thou shalt not commit adultery”). Another command recognizes the potent influence of parents on children (“Visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me; and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love Me, and keep My commandments”). The Lord’s interest in the family and the basic principles for its conduct are made plain in passages like the following:APAY 89.1
Separate Unit: Genesis 2:24. “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.”APAY 89.2
Like Christ and the Church: Ephesians 5:22-26. “Wives, submit.... For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church.... Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave Himself for it.” See also Colossians 3:18.APAY 89.3
High Regard: Ephesians 5:28-33. “So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies.... Even as the Lord the church.... And the wife see that she reverence her husband.”APAY 89.4
Purity: Matthew 5:27, 28. “Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: but I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.”APAY 89.5
Regard for Parents: Exodus 20:12. “Honor thy father and thy mother.” See also Colossians 3:20.APAY 89.6
Consideration for Children: Colossians 3:21. “Fathers, provoke not your children to anger.”APAY 89.7
Being a Responsible Person: 1 Timothy 5:8. “But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.”APAY 90.1
The family relationship has been used by the Father to illustrate our relationship to Him, His relationship to Christ, and Christ’s to us. Under inspiration, Paul pictures the inhabitants of heaven and the children of God on earth as all one family. “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.” Ephesians 3:14, 15. Much instruction has been given through the prophets to help God’s family on earth represent aright the heavenly portion of the family and prepare to be part of a united family.APAY 90.2