A New Resource for Families

When God commands Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth in Genesis 1, God is making known that His design and purpose for the whole of His world is the family. God appoints the family, founded by a man and woman united together in the covenant of marriage, to be the fundamental building block of His world. And God appoints the family to be the instrument He uses to complete His purpose for creation—filling it with a people who love Him and love one another. In this way, God intends what is true of families to be true of His world.

In the midst of a world now plagued and ravaged by sin, God has called your family to offer a foretaste of the abundant life in the Kingdom of God to the world. We have been summoned not to retreat from the world but to live in the world as living demonstrators and verbal proclaimers of the good news of Jesus.

But the work to which God has called your family in public, He designs to fuel in private—around the table and at the bedside. The Gospel-Centered Family is offered, especially to fathers and husbands, in the prayerful expectation that these family devotion guides can be a means to fuel the work to which God has called your family. It is offered as a guide to help you pattern and rhythm your family life to the tune of the gospel’s song that your family might know it and love it well and invite others to share in its life-giving dance.

While this resource is designed with husbands and fathers in mind, it is by no offered to the exclusion of single men and women. The elevation of marriage in the life of the church has unintentionally devalued singleness—which Scripture makes clear is a gift, not a burden or ailment, for the sake of the gospel. For those to whom God called to singleness—for this season or for life—the basic structure of these devotions can serve as a guide for you as well, leading you to behold the glory of the same God—the Lord over all of life.

Fathers and husbands, you do not need to be seminary-educated or an expert in theology to lead your families well. The call to shepherd your family further up and further into the gospel of Jesus is not dependent upon any qualification other than your being a husband and/or father. It is, therefore, nothing short of disobedience to ignore or excuse your appointment by God to lead your family in this way. Be diligent, brothers, to labor in your work as fathers and husbands as faithful keepers of your family. And may the Spirit of God be faithful to fuel your family to be a blessing to those around you and to the ends of the earth.

You can download the PDF version of The Gospel-Centered Family here. For iOS users, you can download this PDF onto your iOS device and save it in iBooks for quick and repeated access.