Latest / The Family Teams Podcast / Ep. 84 | The Difference between a Household and a Family

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Ep. 84 | The Difference between a Household and a Family · The Family Teams Podcast

• 0:00
  And one of the next steps and one of the things you might want to be aiming towards is the building of a household, not just a simple family. Hey guys, welcome to the 5-Minute Fatherhood Podcast. I'm your co-host, Jeff Bethke, along with my friend and mentor, Jeremy Pryor. Join us Monday through Friday as we chat about quick tips, skills, and ways to help equip you on your journey as a father to build your multi-generational family team on mission. Stay tuned.
• 0:33
  What's up, guys? Jeff and Jeremy here. Another episode of Five Minute Fatherhood. Fun episode today. We call this one the how-to of the fatherhood verse of the week that Jeremy will read in a second. But the question is, why build an entire household? Now, I think this would be interesting for you to realize that we consider this different than just a direct nuclear family. So, Jeremy, I'll let you talk about that and maybe share the verse for the day.
• 0:55
  Yeah, so a lot of times people don't realize the distinction between a family and a household. And in ancient times, there was a really, really clear distinction. And so a lot of times, again, one of the ways to think about this is you think about Abraham, and you hear that he is sort of leaving his father's house and heading off on his own, and you might think to yourself—
• 1:14
  well, that's just Abraham and Sarah. They don't have any kids, so maybe just the two of them are out there just cruising along in the wilderness trying to find the promised land. And that picture is not accurate. In fact, we discover very early in the story in Genesis 14 that how large Abraham's household was. So there was him and Sarah, and they didn't have any children yet. But in Genesis 14, after his nephew Lot, if you guys know the biblical story, was actually kidnapped—
• 1:39
  Abraham decided he wanted to try to get his nephew back from these invading kings. And what we learn in Genesis 14 is it says, When Abram heard that his kinsmen Lot had been taken captive, he led forth his trained men, born in his household, 318 of them, and went in pursuit as far as Dan, which is really far to the north.
• 2:02
  Man, so yeah, he had trained an entire army. So just if you do the math, Abraham had 318 trained warriors in his household. So how large was Abraham's household? And so it was massive, right? You know that there had to be at least 1,000 people if there were 318 trained men that were of military age in the household. And so what does this mean, and what does this look like for us? And so this is also a big theme in the New Testament. There's a verse that's constantly used in the New Testament for household.
• 2:31
  It's the word oikos. That's the Greek word. It also is named after the Greek yogurt. If you guys ever had that, it's delicious. Oikos is a household. Are they all Greek? It's like oikos, chobani. They're all Greek. Yeah, yeah. There's a bunch of good ones. Those Greek yogurts taking over the world. Yes, yes.
• 2:49
  So this is, you know, we hear about things like, well, it takes a village to raise a child, but it also, maybe another way to think about this from a biblical lens is it takes a household. And so what's involved in the household? Usually in ancient times, what you had was you had your immediate family, then you had your employees. There'd be like household servants or people that were working for the family business.
• 3:11
  Then you tended to have extended family members that were attached to the households. This could be single people, this could be younger people, older people, maybe parents, aunts, uncles. And then you also had often sort of spiritual children. This happened within the New Testament church where you had others that were really adopted into the family, so to speak, as disciples that were being trained. And so this whole group would be sort of a household household.
• 3:37
  And so one of the things that we just want to ask you guys is when you think about the future, and don't be overwhelmed by this, don't think that if you've got two little kids and you're barely keeping your head above water, you need to go out and build this giant household. But one thing to consider is as you get more traction, as your kids get older, as you get to a place of more strength, your culture really is getting more solidified, is bearing more fruit—
• 3:59
  What's the next step as your family is really thriving? And one of the next steps and one of the things you might want to be aiming towards is the building of a household, not just a simple family. So, Jeff, how have you guys thought about this?
• 4:12
  Yeah, and I feel like another way that's really helpful to think about it just with our language, it's not the identical way, it's not the identical thing, but another way that's helpful to think about it is almost like building kind of like a board of directors, which I would say is the family versus building an organization or a company underneath that. So there is like a level at which there's like the nucleus and the family. But then once we do that, I think then it's – you then are encompassing all those talents to then build a company or an organization that will have –
• 4:37
  a lot of different ranges of people in the closeness or transition or, you know, coming in and out, but yet that are still helping and supporting kind of the bigger last name per se up on the building. And I think that really fires me up and excites me. I'm like, oh, what would it look like to build a, for lack of a better term, organization out of the family? And I mean that more as even a metaphor. I don't mean like go build a company, even though you might want to.
• 4:59
  Um, and to me, I think that's really cool. And I think it logically goes there. Like we're already three kids in now with some certain, with our dreams and our hopes and our visions we have are starting to feel that sag of like, okay, we need more help and not just more help to like immediate help in the sense of like meet the immediate needs. But actually then you start seeing the blessing then of how then discipleship plays out in the home.
• 5:19
  Then you start seeing how the organic nature of just like passing on things goes in the home. You kind of see how like stuff locks into place of like, oh, this is how it should be. A more multi-layered, multi-generational connectivity that kind of is pushing outwards from a strong family. And so there is kind of like layers and steps there. I feel like a father's first have to realize, man, am I, have I built, have I leaned into, you know,
• 5:42
  taking care of myself, right. And getting myself to where I need to be, then loving a wife. Well, then having kids, well, training them well. And of course, none of this is perfect, but then, you know, you do kind of know of like, Oh yeah, this is absolutely just, you know, going off the rails or it's like going where it should be. And then the next step I think then is that household relationship.
• 5:58
  kind of idea of then like kind of building even another layer outside of that extended family. Maybe it is employees. Maybe it is helping the home. Maybe it's a younger married couple. Maybe it's younger singled that you bring it home, whatever it is. I think that's the next layer. And so I think that's really powerful. So most people, if you're listening, most people don't think beyond just having the kids and being done. And so that was the challenge we'd give you today is what could, what could God dream up and what can be the vision for your guys' life? If you actually understand that it's not just about having a family, but also having a household.
• 6:27
  Hey guys, if you like this short content on 5-Minute Fatherhood, then you're going to love long-form interviews that Jeremy and I do with other dads just like you over at Dads Building Teams. We go much more in-depth hearing the stories, challenges, and journeys of different dads who are trying to build multi-generational teams on mission. Just go to whatever podcast platform you use and search for Dads Building Teams.