Thursday Read: The Idolatry of Family

Abraham's greatest test wasn't Pharaoh's deception, Lot's poor decisions, or Sodom's destruction. It was God's command to sacrifice Isaac—the son of promise, the child of his old age, the fulfillment of decades of waiting. "Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering" (Genesis 22:2). This wasn't arbitrary cruelty; it was surgical precision, targeting the one thing Abraham loved more than God himself.

Family idolatry is perhaps the most socially acceptable form of modern paganism. We worship our children through endless activities, sacrificing financial wisdom on the altar of their happiness. We enable adult children's poor decisions because "family comes first." We excuse relatives' sin because "blood is thicker than water." We make family peace more important than biblical truth, choosing harmony over holiness when conflicts arise. What we call love often becomes idolatry—making our family members' happiness our ultimate concern rather than their spiritual welfare.

Jesus understood this temptation and addressed it directly. When someone told him that his mother and brothers were waiting outside, he asked, "Who are my mother and my brothers?" Then, pointing to his disciples, he declared, "Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother" (Mark 3:33-35). This wasn't callousness toward family—Jesus cared for his mother even from the cross (John 19:26-27). It was clarity about priorities.

The first commandment with a promise is "Honor your father and mother" (Ephesians 6:2), but even this has limits. When family loyalty conflicts with kingdom loyalty, kingdom wins. Jesus warned, "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14:26). The word "hate" here means "love less"—Jesus demands supreme allegiance, even above family bonds.

Christian parents often struggle with this balance, wanting their children to succeed more than they want them to be faithful, praying more for their safety than their sanctification, measuring family success by worldly standards rather than spiritual ones. But our primary calling isn't to raise happy children—it's to raise godly ones. Sometimes these goals align; sometimes they conflict dramatically. When they do, which priority wins in your heart?