God-Designed Families--by Linden Malki

Last week, I was reading Genesis 1 & 2, preparing the Bible readings for Mothers' Day--and immediately noticed something I had read before, but never realized how important is is.  Genesis 1:27 says that "male and female He created them." We know that this doesn't only apply to human beings--almost every life form larger than microscopic is created male and female; plants as well as animals; insects, sea creatures, fish, reptiles, birds, mammals.  In most cases, there is what is called "dimorphism", which means that the male and female versions are structually different. And notice that it is always 2 versions of the creature; there is nothing random about it. When you look at mammals, the biological variance between the male and female versions is affects most of the adults; and still they are recognizably the same species. There is no way that this is the result of random mutations! The other thing that we see in these creatures is that they were designed to be a couple--"one flesh".  They become  a family, committed to each other and their children.    When they made the choice to be their own bosses, they took on a responsibility that is not easy; of their first two sons, one was a murderer.

There are several ways we differ from all other creatures: we can talk, and we can think and design and build. We are created with the ability to do worse than we can imagine. We can also do better than we can imagine. (This happens when we allow God to give us the wisdom and strength to do our best.)  We see this happening in Scripture; most of the families have internal rivalries and resentments. (Actually, most of the issues between siblings is related to rivalries. ) There are any number of stories of family disharmony in Scripture and very few healthy ones. There are also a number of women mentioned; some are good and some aren't. My favorites are Deborah, who served as a judge in the days before the monarchy, and who led an army into battle when the men wouldn't;  Hulda, called a "prophetess" in the late days of the Judean monarchy, was the person consulted by King Josiah when early manuscripts,  which had gotten hidden or lost during a time when pagan gods were popular, reappeared in the Temple and were brought to the King; and Priscilla, who, with her husband Aquila, were very knowledgeable about the early church doctrine and on several occasions taught new converts the truth about Jesus and his church.

As parents, we have a responsibility to raise our children to understand good and evil, and in knowledge of God.  Our precious children are entrusted to us for a fairly short time, and then they are responsible for acting as they were taught--deliberately or unknowingly.