The Household of Faith

One of the apostle Paul’s spiritual prescriptions for enduring hostility was persevering in community. Wisdom’s house is, after all, a household with attendants who are living, working, eating, resting, and learning, and doing it together.

Wisdom’s home is the word-picture re-creation of the first garden home, where Adam and Eve represent not only the first marriage, and not just the first family, but also the first worshiping community. Until the serpent arrives, they are a vibrant-colored pastoral painting of contentment and provision, a world of “very good” in perfect and undisturbed communion with their Creator. All they need is there, and their Creator is all they need until Folly shatters their shalom with their own discontent.

Adam and Eve did not prefer God, and therefore they did not prefer or protect each other. Yet in the house that Christ has built called the church, consideration of the other is woven into every tapestry, every rug, sheet, and curtain. It’s supposed to be the fabric of our lives.

Let the one who is taught the word share all his good things with the teacher. Don’t be deceived: God is not mocked. For whatever a person sows he will also reap, because the one who sows to his flesh will reap destruction from the flesh, but the one who sows to the Spirit will reap eternal life from the Spirit. Let us not get tired of doing good, for we will reap at the proper time if we don’t give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us work for the good of all, especially for those who belong to the household of faith.
(Gal. 6:6–10)

Paul reminds us that the seed-bed of well-doing, the place where our thoughts are refined and tested and tried, is in the community of Christ as members of His body. We shouldn’t let the focus inward fool us, bearing one another’s burdens and preferring the household of faith doesn’t turn us into a holy huddle, where everyone in the church is facing inward and avoiding the world outside. It is, rather, a turning inward to the source of all Wisdom, Christ Himself, in our union with Him, to minister to each other, tend to each other’s wounds made inside and outside of the church, and to be strengthened to once again face out-ward to find other wisdom seekers among the foolish. As long as we stand together and face both inward and outward, we are being salt and light to each other, and to the culture around us.

Especially to “those who belong to the household of faith.” Why the priority? In the Galatians’ context of hardship and persecution, they weren’t getting much love from the outside world. Families sometimes cast out believers. They really only had each other.

Sometimes in our zeal for finding others, we give our best to the people outside of the household of faith. Why does our good brother Paul prioritize us? Because we are one, we should grieve the very idea of functioning one without the other, because the household of faith needs one another’s strength the most.