A Sunday School Lesson On Family

Here is a Sunday school lesson or Bible study you can use on family from the Bible.

The Family of Abraham

Acts 13:26 “Brothers, sons of the family of Abraham, and those among you who fear God, to us has been sent the message of this salvation.”

Just because someone is related to Abraham and can claim his lineage doesn’t mean that they are the children of God. The Apostle John wrote that “it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil [by] whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother” (1st John 3:10) so if someone claims to be an Israelite and someone claims to be a Gentile (non-Jew), the real determining factor of whether someone’s in the family of God or not is whether they are practicing righteousness. If they’re not, “they are not a child of God” but they’re “the children of the devil.’ So says God in His Word.

Do you believe that the unsaved are children of the devil?

What is the true mark of a child of God (1st John 3:10)?

Is it by race or by grace we are saved (Eph 2:8-9)?

The Family of God

Ephesians 3:14-15 “For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named.”

The Apostle Paul writes to the church in Ephesus that every family in heaven and earth is named after God in the sense that He is their Creator. That doesn’t mean every family on the earth belongs to God but is only referring to their origin. Paul adds that “the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to people in other generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God’s holy apostles and prophets. This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus. (Eph 3:4b-6) so the family of God has nothing to do with birthright but by being born again (John 3:3-7).

How does being born again allow us into the family of God?

Are Jews still considered family to God?

What was this “mystery” that was hidden before?

Disaster for Families

Micah 2:3 “Therefore thus says the Lord: behold, against this family I am devising disaster, from which you cannot remove your necks, and you shall not walk haughtily, for it will be a time of disaster.”

Families have never been under such severe attack before from both the enemy and from society. It seems that they want to destroy the family and render it inoperative. The fact is, families are the foundation of any society and when the family starts to break down, as has been happening lately, so too does the society around it. There is no more biblical foundation for most of the families of the world because they have tried to redefine family and say it can be any two people they like, however the indispensability of fathers and mothers will never go away for they give children a proper balance of the masculine (dads) and feminine (moms).

How does the destruction of the institution of family hurt society?

Why does the world want to redefine what family is?

How have families changed in the last decade that you have noticed?

Alienated Family

Mark 3:20-21 “Then he went home, and the crowd gathered again, so that they could not even eat. And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for they were saying, “He is out of his mind.”

Jesus’ family rejected Him during His earthy ministry and it was only after Jesus’ resurrection that some of His own family finally believed. We know that Jesus’ mother Mary was a believer but only later was James and Jude. For most of Jesus’ time on earth, they all thought Him “out of His mind” but it was because they didn’t realize that Jesus was the fulfillment of the promised Messiah and after His resurrection, they finally understood such prophecies like Isaiah 53, which for ages, the Jews had thought it was about them!

Why did they think Jesus was out of Him mind?

Why couldn’t they believe in Him (Eph 3:4-6)?

Was the gospel a mystery to you too at one time?

Extending the Family

Deuteronomy 25:5 “If brothers dwell together, and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the dead man shall not be married outside the family to a stranger. Her husband’s brother shall go in to her and take her as his wife and perform the duty of a husband’s brother to her.”

Family was crucial to God but also to ancient Israel because of the laws ensuring the lines of families are continued. God didn’t desire any family to disappear from the earth so there were many Old Testament laws that focused on preserving the family in case the father died.

Why was family crucial to Israel?

Why did God place such importance on the family lineage being preserved?

How would that affect the nation?

Conclusion

I urge you in your study to look at all of the Bible verses and read them aloud in the class so that you can get the most out of these lessons and especially since family is so important. God sees the family as the structure that holds society together and why honoring parents was the first commandment dealing with human relationships and placed first among them as the fifth commandment. If you’ve never been saved, your real father is the devil but if “you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him” (Rom 8:15-17).

How can you know for sure you’re a child of God and not of the devil?

What does it mean we’re adopted as the children of God?

What does being an heir of Christ mean to you?

Article by Jack Wellman

Jack Wellman is Pastor of the Mulvane Brethren Church in Mulvane Kansas. Jack is also the Senior Writer at What Christians Want To Know whose mission is to equip, encourage, and energize Christians and to address questions about the believer’s daily walk with God and the Bible. You can follow Jack on Google Plus or check out his book Teaching Children the Gospel available on Amazon.