The Family Business: Reflecting the Father’s Character, Craftsmanship, and Commitments

To illustrate how Eikons work, we told of Casper ten Boom, a Dutch shopkeeper of the early twentieth century. He was a well-loved and highly respected repairman of clocks and watches, known for the kindness and integrity of his character and the quality of his craftsmanship. His children served as his apprentices, whom he trained in the craft. As his representatives, they were to reflect his character in their dealings with customers and to reflect his craftsmanship in their work. The father could entrust his shop to his daughters because they were trustworthy to do business as he would do business. In this sense, they reflected his image, they functioned as Eikons of their father.

In a similar way, God created humanity in his image, to reflect his character and his commitments, to serve as his representatives on earth, apprentices who would run the shop as he would have the shop run. We were designed to treat customers the way God would treat them and to tend the earth as he would manage it. Adam and Eve were God’s Eikons. Luke makes explicit the family nature of Eikons by calling Adam God’s son (Luke 3:38). (Have you ever thought of Adam as the first “son of God”?)

In many cultures of the Near East contemporaneous with ancient Israel, reflecting the image of the divine was the exclusive prerogative and privilege of the King, the male King. The biblical creation account forthrightly undercuts these ubiquitous assumptions. In God’s arrangements, royal privileges were democratized to everybody. All of humanity bears God’s image. And shockingly, women here are put on the same footing as men. Given the entrenched misogyny of the day, this truly was a radical assertion.

We speak of children bearing the physical image of their parents. In the ancient world, children also reflected their father’s trade, along the lines of the ten Boom’s family business. Joseph was a construction worker of stone and lumbar (a tekton in Greek) (Matt 13:55). Not surprisingly, so was his son Jesus (Mark 6:3). Jesus was his father’s image-bearer in trade. But also in character. Jesus learned much from his parents of what it meant to follow after God, for Joseph and Mary were themselves reflecting their heavenly Father’s image for Jesus to emulate.

Other fathers like Joseph served as good models for their children. King David, despite his evident ‘blunders’ (and we all have our regrettable blunders), was nevertheless exemplary in many ways. God’s exhortation to David’s son Solomon bears this out: “As for you, if you will follow me with integrity and godliness, as David your father did, obeying all my commands, decrees, and regulations, then I will establish the throne of your dynasty over Israel forever. For I made this promise to your father, David: ‘One of your descendants will always sit on the throne of Israel’” (1 Kings 9:4-5). Solomon, however, failed to reflect his father’s character and commitments. “As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the LORD his God, as the heart of David his father had been” (1 Kings 11:4).

Eikons Reflect Light and Make Peace

A mirror can take light from another source and reflect it in a new direction. As we observed, the moon, with no inherent luminescence, can brighten a dark night as it reflects the sun’s light. Similarly, we, when attached to Jesus, the Light of the world (cf. John 8:12), become the lights of the world (see also Paul’s words in Philippians 2:14-16). Jesus encourages those who bear his Father’s image to shine their lights by doing good, by performing the gospel: “Let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father” (Matthew 5:16). When trying to navigate a way through the woods at night, one can make out the path with the help of the full moon. Credit here goes not just to the moon for serving as the sun’s reflector, but also to the sun for redirecting its light to us via the moon. And so, Jesus explains, when people who know the God who empowers us, see our good deeds, they direct their praise to the Source of our light, our heavenly Father. (Paul does this frequently. He notes the stellar behavior among the churches and directs his thanks to God as the ultimate source; e.g., Philippians 1:3; 1 Thessalonians 1:2-3)

In this world of promiscuity, it can be hard to know who someone’s biological father is. Today we can employ the latest DNA techniques to sort out paternity issues. In Jesus’ day, the paternity test analyzed not one’s blood, but one’s behavior. To see who has been born of God, one’s lifestyle provided sufficient evidence (cf. 1 John 3:9-10). Jesus said it plainly: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for these are the sons of God” (Matthew 5:9). God is in the business of reconciliation, of making peace where strife once ruled (see Ephesians 2:11-22). Those who are adopted into the family, assume the family likeness, and become peacemakers themselves. Paul explained that “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself.” Therefore, we his apprentices, are to engage in the family business of reconciliation, restoring relationships among those estranged and alienated, be it estrangement of people from God or from one another (see 2 Corinthians 5:18-20).

The Necessary Connections

To reflect as Eikons the Father’s character and commitments, we need to be properly situated. Proximity to God is required. It’s hard to reflect something effectively from a distance. We also need to be in community. A lone individual, stranded on a desert island, cannot illustrate community-minded virtues, like love, kindness, patience, forgiveness, service. Have you ever noticed that most of the character traits that Scripture encourages are community-spirited? This is why, when God created humanity in his image, he did not create an individual. He created a community. Only a community can reflect what God is all about. Pay attention in the Genesis account of creation to the plurals, ‘us’ and ‘our’ and ‘they’ and ‘them’:

“Then God said, ‘Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry along the ground.’ So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:26-28).

We cannot reflect God’s image by ourselves. This in itself stresses the importance of doing life with others, with each other, which is one reason we do the small-group thing.

Scot explains these necessary connections by saying that Eikons can only function as Eikons when they exist “in union with God and in communion with others.” Well put, Scot. We humans were designed to function as Eikons. If you want to “find yourself,” you need to find your place in the world as an image-bearer of God, connected vertically with God and horizontally with others. A human being out of place, disconnected from God and others, is not functioning as they were created to function. We will come into our fullness, and find our niche only here, as Eikons, reflecting God’s light for the sake of others and the world.

Treating Others as Eikons

To be God’s appointed image-bearer is quite an honor. It confers upon all of humanity a special status, a special role. This truth shapes how we value ourselves, and how we value others. One of Jesus’ younger brothers, James, drew out the ethical implications quite clearly:

“People can tame all kinds of animals, birds, reptiles, and fish, but no one can tame the tongue. It is restless and evil, full of deadly poison. Sometimes it praises our Lord and Father, and sometimes it curses those who have been made in the image of God. And so blessing and cursing come pouring out of the same mouth. Surely, my brothers and sisters, this is not right! Does a spring of water bubble out with both fresh water and bitter water? Does a fig tree produce olives, or a grapevine produce figs? No, and you can’t draw fresh water from a salty spring” (James 3:7-12).

Get his point? Your co-worker, or family member, or neighbor, however dull and marred her image-bearing capacity might be, has been accorded royal status by God. She is God’s Eikon, whether she knows it or not. This requires you to treat her accordingly. It will not do to speak kindly to the shop owner in one breath and then, in the next, malign his daughter. If we want our worship of God to count, it cannot be mixed with the mistreatment of his Eikons, however well or poorly they function as image-bearers.

We closed our discussion by asking, “What simple things communicate to others that we value them as Eikons?” It was suggested that we should treat others with respect, the same respect with which we’d like to be treated. This wisdom draws from Jesus’ “golden rule” in Matt 7: “Do to others whatever you would like them to do to you. This is the essence of all that is taught in the law and the prophets” (verse 12). We mentioned paying attention to people, especially those who often are overlooked. Taking time to listen to others communicates immeasurably. James, again to the point, advises us to “be quick to listen, slow to speak” (1:19).

Pastor Jim Henderson, in his refreshing book Evangelism without Additives: What if sharing your faith meant just being yourself? (Colorado Springs: Water Brook, 2007), writes this:

“People crave attention. In our cultural setting it’s like the cup of cold water Jesus referred to in Matthew 10:42, where he said, ‘If anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is my disciple…he will certainly not lose his reward.’ When we pay attention to people because we want to nudge them toward Jesus, it refreshes them. It becomes the connecting bridge between them and God. Best of all, instead of asking them for something—their time, attention, and interest—we give them something—our time, attention, and interest. We serve them a small taste of Jesus’s desire to attend to them…”

“When it comes to evangelism [or caring for people in any setting, for that matter!], we can be our ordinary selves, and it turns out to be good enough. It turns out that all Jesus needs are the five loaves and two fish of our lives—something we already have [see the story, Mark 6:3-44]. Rather than trying to escape the ordinary, we should exploit it and attempt something small for God, something ordinary” (pp. 11-13).

I love that line. We should “attempt something small for God, something ordinary,” something that communicates how God esteems those we interact with. This is a big part of what it means to embrace others in grace.