Reestablishing the Family Economy: A Biblical Imperative Part 2

 

Before the rise of modern industry… virtually the whole of humankind lived in family-centered economies. The family was the locus of the most productive activity, whether it be on largely self-sufficient farms or in small family shops… Husbands and wives relied on each other, shared with each other, so their small family enterprises might succeed. They specialized in their daily tasks, according to their respective skills. Marriage was still true to its historic definition: a union of the sexual and the economic.

—Allan C. Carlson, Ph.D.
 From the book, Love is Not Enough

**************************

Reprinted from The Deliberate Agrarian.

We are not called to be slaves.

In My Previous Blog Post I wrote about the family economy and posted Returning To The Family Economy, a chapter from a book I wrote in 2005. My premise is, as the title of this essay states, that a family economy is the biblical imperative. An “imperative” is an essential or urgent thing.

 

I happen to think that how and where we live our lives and raise our families can make an enormous difference in how strong and vibrant our families will be. That seems like a self-evident statement. What might not be self-evident is that God’s ideal plan for families is for them to live on a section of productive land, and to establish family economies.

I’m sure that a lot of Christians will disagree with that last sentence. That’s because, for one thing, so few modern Christians live that way. Besides that, I don’t suppose anyone has ever heard a sermon preached on the biblical imperative of establishing family economies on the land. Pretty much nobody is talking about this. It’s virtually unheard of. There is a much larger focus in the modern evangelical church on “cheap grace,” not multi-generational obedience to biblical imperatives.

Well, it wouldn’t be the first time in history that a biblical imperative was lost and unknown to God’s people.

More @ The Abbeville Institute