Our readings this week should help us build a positive picture of what it means to act justly and fairly in our own situations.
It is no good simply lamenting the apparent injustices we see around us and moaning about what other people do.
Our aim is to be positive, setting examples of right living in spite of what we see and persevering with a lifestyle that speaks of practical holiness, generosity and consideration for others. Our readings this week pick up on these positive themes of living rightly in our day and age.
v 15 Has not the one God made you? You belong to him in body and spirit. And what does the one God seek? Godly offspring. So be on your guard, and do not be unfaithful to the wife of your youth.
Stability and faithfulness in family life is one of the building blocks of a healthy and just society. Good values and right living in society usually spring from family life that is enjoyable, just and honest. People learn about faithfulness and integrity when they see it demonstrated and lived out in close family relationships. Such values of care, love and mutual consideration are in sad decline in an age where the individual has become all-important and self-centredness has become the order of the day. Each individual has a phone, access to the internet, a source of television entertainment and freedom to eat, work and sleep on a personal schedule. Where cooperation, consideration for others and willing submission to the demands of family life are in decline then families disintegrate, and unfaithfulness raises its ugly head.
As part of our Christian value-building we perhaps need to emphasise again the place of the family and what togetherness means for our generation. Long working hours, the demands of commuting, the high cost of housing leading to both parents needing to work, to say nothing of the social expectations of acquiring ‘stuff’. All these factors can reduce the opportunities for developing a family style of life that makes for integrity and joy in living together and staying together.
It has often been observed that unfaithfulness in family life is catching – it is passed on down the generations. So, pray today for families, that they will be characterised by mutual love and faithfulness.