In the incarnation, the Son of God took on flesh to dwell among man, die for us, be raised for us, and will come again for us one day. In all these things, He is glorious, and as we love Him, we will one day see His incarnate glory forevermore!2

John 1:14 captures the incarnation of the Son of God and the glory thereof in these memorable words: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
The Incarnation of the Word
By this point in John 1:14, John has already identified the Word. Summarizing John 1:1–9, the Word was in the beginning with God, created all things, has life in Himself, and is the light of the world. The Word is clearly the eternal Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ.
By calling Jesus the Word, John repurposed a philosophical term from his day and, more importantly, pointed to Jesus as the One who personifies the acts of God in the Old Testament. Consider these passages: “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made”; (Ps 33:6); “Now the word of the Lord came to me” (Jer 1:4); “He sent out his word and healed them, and delivered them from their destruction” (Ps 107:20). As the Word, Jesus is Creator, Revealer, and Deliverer. He created all things, reveals the truth of God, and delivers man from sin and its punishment.
“And the Word became flesh”—the Son of God became human. He was “born of woman” (Gal 4:4), “being born in the likeness of men” (Phil 2:7).
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If we do not begin with ourselves, and with our families, nothing else we seek to do in the world will matter. The battle for the soul of our culture and nation will be lost before it can even begin.

The family as a resistance cell.
Rod Dreher’s book The Benedict Option, as well as his follow up Live Not By Lies, focuses on the necessary steps Christian believers must take to prepare for the trials that are quickly coming their way. There appear to be dark days ahead in our nation. The number of Christian believers in America declines with every passing year, even if some of the numbers are due to nominal Christians ceasing to identify as Christian in any sense. The impact of all of this has become particularly obvious in the realm of human sexuality where (even in ostensibly evangelical churches) biblical teaching is widely disregarded. Last year Norway passed a law making speech against homosexuality or transsexuality illegal, whether in public or in private, with one- to three- year prison sentences for transgressions. A Finnish Member of Parliament is currently on trial for simply stated the Bible’s teaching on homosexuality. This month Canada has made it illegal to urge someone to repent of homosexual desires. There are many in America advocating for similar laws (whether they will be successful remains to be seen).
The family, Dreher insists, is one of the primary bulwarks against the coming troubles. He calls families “resistance cells” against the attacks of a hostile world.
This call to battle has a long history in the Christian church, stretching back to the early church. As the tradition developed, many theologians appropriated and transformed the classical political tradition of Greece and Rome. Central to their thinking was the idea that the formation of a virtuous state must begin with the individual and the family.
Peter Martyr Vermigli, an Italian Protestant Reformer, provides a good example of this tradition in his posthumously published commentary (1563) on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics:
Among these moral subjects, the first place is surely held by ethics, then economics, and finally politics. I see this order as circular. Through ethics, those who are its students will, one by one, become good men. If they prove upright, they will raise good families; if the families are properly established, they will in turn create good republics. And in good republics, both law and administration will aim at nothing less than each man becoming a good citizen, for they have eyes not only for the body but also for the spirit, and they will take care that citizens live according to virtue.
In this article I will look, not at the idea of the family as a little commonwealth in general (as important as that is), but at the necessity of such commonwealths being properly formed and regulated through the practice of catechizing, which has a long and venerable tradition in Christian churches.
This tradition is of vital importance today. Without a vigorous program of Christian nurture and instruction in our families it will not matter what success is achieved in the broader commonwealth. Many Christians, rightly concerned about the state of society, fail to begin in the very place where they can actually have a significant impact: their own homes. If we cannot get our homes in order what makes us think we will ever be able to get our communities, states, and nations in order? Even more importantly, of course, the eternal well-being of our children is at stake.
The Danish Lutheran theologian Niels Hemmingsen put this “focus on the family” well in his 1562 work On the Law of Nature:
But since man is, as it were, a commonwealth in miniature, the result is that the virtues of the soul by which the soundness of the state of man is preserved should be transferred to the society and dominions of men. For by these four virtues—prudence, temperance, courage, and justice—men’s societies are preserved, that is, their households and polities.
Man is a commonwealth in miniature, as is the family. The reformation of our society must begin at home.
Why we must catechize the resistance.
When we consider the intense spiritual and moral challenges our children will face in the coming years, we must turn to the Scriptures as our guide. The Bible calls Christian parents to raise their children “in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4 ESV; the King James Version of the Bible more famously says “in the nurture and admonition of the Lord”). What does this mean?
First, it means teaching our families the whole counsel of God’s word. That is what is indicated in the word “discipline” or “nurture.” The King James Version’s “nurture” captures the holistic sense of the word, which is not simply about correcting bad behavior. Second, it means to “admonish” our children. This includes instruction, but also includes correction when one goes astray. Taken together, Ephesians 6:4 gives parents a great responsibility: God has entrusted us with the spiritual and intellectual development of our children. We must teach them the Gospel, we must teach them “the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27), and we must teach them how to think about culture and about all of the influences that will bear down on them in this world. We must be vigilant: our children will be bombarded with ideas that are contrary to God’s word. This will come at them in schools, in the TV shows they watch, in the music they listen to, and in the conversations they have with their friends. They will face a multitude of moral and theological untruths at every turn. It will not be easy to counteract this, but we must. God requires this of parents.
We see this imperative in the Old Testament as well. Deuteronomy 6:7, speaking of the commandments of God, tells parents: “You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.” Speaking of the things of the Lord must be a constant in our family conversations, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day. They must know what is true about God and themselves and they must learn how to evaluate the world accordingly.
Proverbs 22:6 shows us the way: “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.” God has ordained both the means (training) and the end (not departing) of the salvation, and spiritual protection, of our children.
If we do not teach our children what God requires and forbids, and how to discern which is which, they will be utterly defenseless in a dark world. Our children must be inoculated against all strains of unbelief through a steady exposure to the truths of Scripture. They must see and savor the goodness of Jesus Christ in his word so that, as the hymn says, the “the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.” God gives parents this awesome responsibility.
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When you feel overwhelmed by your sin and failures, remember the finished work of Christ on your behalf and ascribe blessing and glory to God for the love and forgiveness we enjoy at the hand of our loving, kind, compassionate, and merciful Father.

Although we may not be acutely aware of every sin, our conscience testifies to our sense of weakness and failure. In particular, our memories remind us of times in our lives when we may have sinned miserably—angry tempers, selfishness, divorce, harshness, neglect of children or parents, and pride are just a few transgressions we may have committed.
We recognize how the trials we have brought upon ourselves have originated in our own sin. Yet the Lord uses them to train us, to discipline us. The author of Hebrews declares:

And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.” It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? (Heb. 12:5-7)

1. The Discipline of a Loving Father
It is good to self-examine and learn from our failures. Yet, perhaps more important than lessons learned is the question: how is God glorified in this? Is it possible that even in our self-inflicted trials—when we are acutely aware of our fallen, sinful nature—the glory of God is manifested by his work in and for us? Absolutely.
2. We Are Weak and Dusty Creatures
Consider our weakness as dusty creatures made from earthy clay.
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