“Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it.”
Genesis 1:26-28a

“Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit forhim.”
Genesis 2:18

“Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.”
Genesis 2:24

In a world marked by increasingly humanistic cultural norms and societal pressures, the concept of the family is often distorted, diminished, and relegated to mere personal arrangements. However, for Christian parents, the call to familial life is rooted in a true understanding of God’s design and purpose for it. It transcends individual desires and societal expectations. It is to be structured by God’s design and committed to Kingdom service. It is to be the biblical trustee family.

Too often, families are viewed through a narrow humanistic lens, reduced to mere household units or means of personal fulfillment. Yet, the biblical narrative offers a compelling vision of family as a vital component of God’s redemptive plan, a sacred covenant ordained by Him from the beginning. As we delve into this exploration of the biblical trustee family, we are confronted with the stark contrast between God’s design and the world’s distortion. We are called to reject the notion of the family as a disposable entity, subject to the whims of societal trends or governmental control. Instead, we are to reclaim the sacred trust bestowed upon us as stewards of God’s creation.

What is the biblical trustee family? As recorded in Genesis 2, marriage is a covenantal union between a man and a woman, presided over by God. We must take note that marriage is thus not a creation of civil government. Not only does civil government not create or grant permission to marry, when marriage was first instituted in the garden of Eden, there was no civil government.

“So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”

Genesis 2:21-24

So, marriage is a covenantal union which does not depend on civil government for its legitimacy. But what is the function of marriage? From Genesis 2 we see marriage as a vehicle of dominion. Adam was aided in his task of dominion by receiving help from his wife, Eve. Marriages are “dominion teams” both as they work to subdue the earth and as they multiply in offspring. But it’s not just that marriages are dominion teams, but they are (typically) inter-generational dominion teams. Each time a grown son finds a wife, this pattern continues. A new inter-generational dominion team is formed.

“Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
Genesis 1:26-28

Further, it’s important to recognize that in Genesis 2, prior to the fall, we already see that children and pro-creation were essential to the plan of dominion given to Adam by God. The command to “go forth and multiply” includes childbearing and child rearing, generation after generation from the very beginning. All these children were supposed to have been on the same meta-mission that Adam had. Maybe Adam oversaw naming the animals, and his descendent families would be plowing the fields, or mining the river for jewels, or making fine cloths, or playing musical instruments, but they would all have the same overall mission – The same overall dominion mandate. Adam would not have been doing his job if he wasn’t teaching his children to do the work to which he had been commissioned and if wasn’t teaching them to teach their children after them the same thing.

This is the “trusteeship” of marriage. The parents do not own children as property, the children are entrusted to the parents until they mature and begin new families. Each has a responsibility to each other. The parents have a responsibility to prepare the children for dominion, the grown sons and daughters have a responsibility not to squander the legacy. It’s not enough to teach your children to be faithful. We must also teach our children to teach their children.

You see, the marriage covenant is more than just a list of insular rules, or a series of commitments that a man and a woman make to each other. Statements like “I will love you, I will take care of you, I will be faithful to you.” are appropriate and good. But marriage has a purpose that transcends the man and the woman in the marriage. Now don’t get me wrong, there is much joy to be had in cherishing your spouse, but the primary purpose of marriage is not to help you find personal fulfillment by having all your emotional, physical, and spiritual needs met by your spouse. A loving spouse is a precious gift from God, but marriage isn’t ultimately about you, and it’s not ultimately about your spouse either.

Fundamentally marriage is about God’s purpose, and God instituted marriage for the purpose of helping the first Adam achieve inter-generational dominion. So, God instituted the family for the purpose of inter-generational dominion. Now in the New Covenant, with Christ’s atoning work and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, we are even more empowered to fulfill this purpose as redeemed servants of God in the kingdom of God.

Christian parents, it’s time to pursue a biblical trustee family. And husbands, listen up. Your wife is not merely a roommate with perks. Your marriage is not just a cohabitation agreement. And your children are not mere interloping boarding students of your household. Don’t reduce your family to what will just become another gear in the statist wheel. The statists want the family to be a little weak, atomistic entity that can be used and abused to serve their own whims. The children your wife births are meant to fashioned into drones who’s purpose it is to serve the aims of the state. They want you to see the public education system as your children’s educator to make your offspring into extensions of the state, not the family. They want your children to see the family like the prodigal son saw his family; as a prison to escape from once they’ve used it to serve their own devices. This becomes a perpetual cycle, and it leads to the destruction of the family and the elevation of the state to the position of god in society.

The worst nightmare of the statists is that Christian marriage would self-consciously and explicitly be understood as covenantal vehicles for inter-generational dominion. Where each individual within the family is able to find his or her own purpose in the kingdom of God. Where God entrusts children to the family not to become mindless state automatons but to carry out a shared purpose and responsibility to hand over to the next generation. There is an inheritance both material and immaterial to be preserved, stewarded, cultivated, grown, and then passed down to the next generation.

The state doesn’t want a husband and wife to have an explicit and clear mission for the family. Particularly one that doesn’t depend on the state at every point. They don’t want communities made up of strong families such as these doing anything that they have claimed as their divine right—including giving loans, creating welfare programs or educational programs, building cultural centers, participating in economic endeavors, or adjudicating disputes.

Christian families are to be biblical trustee families which serve the greater purpose of the dominion mandate. In the Gospel, in salvation, Jesus Christ is restoring his people to become effective stewards of creation who pursue Godly dominion over creation.

Serve the Kingdom of God with your family.