Get Your Pretense On!

Chapter 6: The Oikos Factor • 137

Christ Jesus. [29] And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise. ~ Galatians 3.25-29 When we do, in fact, repent and believe, we become the very children of the Father, sharing in God’s own DNA through the Holy Spirit, entering into the family of God through faith in Christ (John 1.12-13). The living instrumentality of the Word of God is that by which we are born from above (1 Pet. 1.22-25), and repentance and faith is the means by which we were born (Acts 2.38-39). The Holy Spirit regenerates us, linking us forever to Christ and his life (1 Cor. 12.13; Titus 3.4-7), and we become God’s very own children, members of his family, and heirs with Christ in God (Rom. 8.14-17). The implication of this is clear for all of us: the picture of the family is one of the central figures of the Spirit to describe the process of repentance, faith, and new birth in Christ . Oikos : The Most Common Term for “Family” The roots of the New Testament concept of family network ( oikos ) is given clearly in the Old Testament. According to Hans Walter Wolff in Anthology of the Old Testament , “A household usually contained four generations, including men, married women, unmarried daughters, slaves of both sexes, persons without citizenship, and ‘sojourners,’ or resident foreign workers.” This shows that family included the place of generational unity (four generations), the place of kinship (immediate and extended family), the place of commerce and livelihood : (including servants, workers, and slaves), as well as the place of association (sojourners, associates). This extended understanding of the social network of the Old Testament continued into the intertestamental period, during the life of Jesus, as well as the time of the apostles. The Gospel in our NT narratives is described as coming through and to the various