An image of the church
The Family of God
In one sentence Paul changes the address of everyone who belongs to Christ. You are no longer a stranger or a foreigner, he says, but a fellow citizen with God's people and a member of God's own household. The church is a family, and belonging to it is not a matter of visiting. It is a matter of coming home.
“Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God;”Ephesians 2:19
The image
Paul sets three words against each other, stranger, foreigner, and household. A stranger has no claim on the house, a foreigner has no place in the city. But a member of the household belongs, with the rights and the ties of family. That is the distance the gospel crosses. Those who were outside, with no share and no name, are brought inside and given both. And a household in Paul's world was more than parents and children, it was a whole company living under one roof and one father, bound to one another by more than choice. So the church is not a club you join or leave by preference. It is a family you are born into by grace, given brothers and sisters you did not pick, sharing one Father and one home.
What it teaches us
A family is not chosen and cannot be resigned from, and that changes how we treat each other. It teaches us that the people beside us in Christ are kin, not acquaintances, owed the loyalty and patience we give a brother or sister rather than the polite distance we give a stranger. It teaches that no one in the household is a guest, so no one should be left standing at the edge as if they had not yet earned a place. It teaches the older to make room for the younger and the settled to welcome the newcomer, because a family keeps adding chairs. And it teaches us to carry each other's burdens the way a household does, since under one roof one person's trouble is everyone's.
How it centers on Christ
There is only one reason strangers become family, and his name is Christ. Paul has just said that Christ made peace by his blood, bringing near those who were far off and reconciling both to God in one body. The household has one Father, but the door into it is the Son. He shares his own sonship with us, so that his Father becomes our Father and his God our God. We are not adopted alongside him as rivals, we are brought in through him, made brothers and sisters because he was not ashamed to call us his own. Every tie in the family runs through him. Take Christ away and the household scatters back into strangers and foreigners. In him, and only in him, the far and the near sit down at one table as children of one house.
Questions people ask
What does it mean that the church is the family of God?
It means believers are not merely members of an organization but members of God's own household. Paul says those who were strangers and foreigners are brought inside as family, sharing one Father through Christ. It implies real kinship, brothers and sisters you did not choose, owed the loyalty and care of family rather than the distance you give an acquaintance.
How do we become part of God's household?
Through Christ. Paul says Christ made peace by his blood, bringing near those who were far off and reconciling them to God in one body. He shares his own sonship with us, so his Father becomes our Father. We do not earn a place in the family, we are brought in by grace through him, born into the household rather than admitted as guests.