The concept of Home

My husband and I were talking about this and it made me think through what a Home is in the Bible. Why are we so obsessed with creating a home for ourselves? Is it right to do that?

The overall conclusion I came to is that the reason we are home-makers is that

we seek to recreate Eden, our Paradise that was lost.

In Eden, as described in Genesis 1-2, we lived in a perfect world, in a perfect relationship with God. There was no danger, there was no bloodshed. But man's sin in Genesis 3 broke that perfect safety. Adam and Eve were cast out into a lonely and scary world with predators. Their son Cain became a murderer, and he himself needed God to give him a mark of protection as he feared for his own safety. The world had become brutal.

And so, ever since then, human beings have sought to create a home for themselves, as a haven of safety and domestic security. Our home is where we retreat at the end of the day, where we feel safe from the insults and attacks of others, where we can really be ourselves. It doesn't matter if it's a tent or a red-brick building, its function is the same.

In the little vignettes and stories we have in the Bible, we catch glimpses of people's homes. Isaac is deceived by Jacob in the security of his home, Joseph is welcomed into the home of Potiphar but his master's wife tries to seduce him then falsely accuses him, King David calls for Bathsheba to be brought into his home so that he can sleep with her. In a fallen world, the home has become a place of corruption and sin, just as much as the outside world. And the devil loves to attack the homes of believers, because a home where God is at the centre is a piece of Paradise which magnetically attracts those seeking love and friendship.

But we mustn't forget that home can become a fatal trap of comfort, too. Abraham and Sarah were brave enough to leave their home to follow God's calling on their lives. Ruth left her home in Moab to make her home with her mother-in-law Naomi. Israel had to leave their homes in Egypt in order to escape slavery, and it took 40 years of wandering in the wilderness before they reached the Promised Land.

We, like them, need to hold onto the promises of God. Our homes on earth are temporary; our real home is in heaven and it is eternal (John 14:2, Heb 11:15-16). Let us uphold marriage and the family as the foundation units for a solid society, and our homes as places where we welcome the stranger, the needy, the vulnerable (Lk 14:13-14). Our homes can be for them a taste of the new heavens and the new earth that will one day come, where there is no pain, suffering or danger anymore (Rev 21). Let us not seek to create a nice home as an end in itself, but in a blazing signpost that we were made for greater things.

Seeking Spiritual Experiences

In our Church Bible study last night, we looked at Revelation 1 where John is 'in the Spirit' and sees the Lord Jesus Christ in glory. He receives a message for the church, given by an angel, from Jesus and ultimately from God the Father. Someone pointed out that John was probably doing hard labour each day as part of the penal colony on Patmos. It wasn't perhaps the place where you would expect such a revelation to occur. We thought then about Paul and Silas in prison, and the whole place shaking with the power of God (Acts 16). The point was, that you can experience God anywhere and in any circumstances.

It made me think about the tendency towards pilgrimage in Christianity as well as other religions. Last week we were on holiday and went to St David's in West Wales, where there is a cathedral and many stories of Saint David (apparently when he was baptised there was a great light). People go to these places because they want a spiritual experience.

We could also think about Elijah- after the great victory over Baal at Mt Carmel (1 Kings 18), Jezebel sought his life and he fled to Horeb, that great mountain where Moses had experienced God. God appeared and asked 'Why are you here, Elijah?' In His grace, God revealed Himself again (and not in the great wind, but in the still, small voice), but the point remained that Elijah shouldn't have been afraid and run there seeking a spiritual experience. He should have trusted in God.

Jesus appears to John in Revelation to give seven letters, one for each of the seven churches referred to in Chapter 1. And the letters seem to warn the churches not to get caught up in 'being spiritual', but to seek more of Jesus. The church at Ephesus is told not to lose their 'first love' (Rev 2:4). It doesn't matter how many good deeds we do, or how hard we work- if we do not do them out of love for Christ, they are worthless (see also 1 Cor 13, where Paul suggests that even martyrdom itself is worthless if I have not love).

It can be tempting, then, to seek after a spiritual experience of God- perhaps at a certain church, or a certain type of meeting, or on a mountain top, or amongst certain people. But the Bible tells us that God is with us wherever we go, and we just need to seek Him. If Jesus' walk on earth took Him from the affirmation of God at His baptism to the loneliness of the wilderness and temptation, and from the shining beauty of His transfiguration to the rejection of the cross, we cannot expect every day to be a Mount Carmel. But if we learn obedience in the tough places, our joy will abound even more. (Rom 5:1-11)