“Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house; your children will be like olive shoots around your table. Yes, this will be the blessing for the man who fears the LORD.”(Psalm 128:3–4,NIV)
When God created humans, He made man and woman to become one flesh and form a family. Through this family unit, they were to bear children, be fruitful, and multiply. However, because of the sin of Adam and Eve, marked by disobedience, deception, excuses, and blame-shifting, the family began to break down. What was meant to be a community of love has instead become a place where hatred, strife, jealousy, betrayal, adultery, violence, abuse, abortion, divorce, and child abandonment take place.
According to Korea’s Special Act on the Punishment of Domestic Violence Crimes, domestic violence is defined as acts between family members that result in physical, mental, or economic harm. Because domestic violence occurs within the private and closed space of the home, it is often hidden, tends to be complex and ongoing, and, due to the unique nature of family relationships, becomes difficult to address even after cases are reported. While there is broad agreement on the importance of early detection and prevention, it is equally true that many victims have endured long-term suffering due to the very nature of such violence.
In 2020, the strengthening and continuation of social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic led to increases in domestic violence worldwide. The international community has long recognized and discussed the seriousness of this issue. In the United Kingdom, cases of domestic violence rose by more than 25 percent on average, in Argentina by 25 percent, in Cyprus and France by 30 percent, and in Singapore by 33 percent. In Korea, according to the 2020 counseling statistics from the Korean Women’s Hotline, domestic violence included emotional abuse (67.6 percent), physical violence (53.7 percent), economic abuse (22.7 percent), and sexual violence (20.6 percent), often occurring in overlapping forms.
Child abuse remains a severe problem, with deaths occurring every year. Between 2016 and 2020, the number of reported cases increased by 65.2 percent, from 18,700 cases in 2016 to 30,905 in 2020. The types of abuse included multiple abuse (two or more forms such as physical, emotional, sexual, or neglect) with 61,057 cases (48.2 percent), emotional abuse with 30,352 cases (24.1 percent), physical abuse with 17,422 cases (13.8 percent), neglect with 13,937 cases (11 percent), and sexual abuse with 3,673 cases (2.9 percent). Among perpetrators, parents accounted for the overwhelming majority at 78.4 percent.
Pastor John MacArthur of Grace Community Church in the United States stated, “God designed humanity to live within the unit of the family for the supreme joy of passing on righteousness from one generation to the next.” He went on to explain, “In God’s creation plan, children need both a mother and a father. Parents are to provide for their children’s needs but also to pass on divine truth to the next generation. As families break down and collapse, they fail to transmit truth systematically and continually, and as a result, each generation declines morally and spiritually. History itself testifies to this.”
》Prayer Point
1. God established the family to be filled with life, grace, and blessing. Yet sin has shattered the family, turning what was meant to be a place of love and care into a place of sin and corruption. The only way for the original design of the family to be restored is through the gospel of the cross. Let us pray that through the gospel, God’s will for families will be fulfilled, that they will be restored in holiness and health, and that they will fully enjoy the joy of being fruitful and multiplying through the life of Jesus.
》Scripture Prayer
Proverbs 5:15–21 (NIV)
15 Drink water from your own cistern, running water from your own well. 16 Should your springs overflow in the streets, your streams of water in the public squares? 17 Let them be yours alone, never to be shared with strangers. 18 May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth. 19 A loving doe, a graceful deer—may her breasts satisfy you always, may you ever be intoxicated with her love. 20 Why, my son, be intoxicated with another man’s wife? Why embrace the bosom of a wayward woman? 21 For your ways are in full view of the LORD, and he examines all your paths.
Matthew 19:3–6 (NIV)
3 Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?” 4 “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
Ephesians 6:1–4 (NIV)
1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2 “Honor your father and mother”—which is the first commandment with a promise— 3 “so that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.” 4 Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.
》Pray that the Word may become the Conclusion.
1. God’s design for the family is that it would be a place overflowing with love, where His presence and His kingdom can be tasted. Yet because of Adam’s sin, selfishness reigned, causing parents to respond in anger and children to act in disobedience. Let us repent and pray, confessing that the family can only be made whole in the Lord, and proclaiming that God alone is the true head of every household.
2.Satan attacked the very first family, and the sin that entered is still at work today, as culture, media, and entertainment glorify adultery, infidelity, and homosexuality. These distortions have even been legitimized by law and policy, fueling lust and immorality and destroying families. Let us pray in obedience to the Lord’s command, “Rejoice in the wife of your youth” and “Be intoxicated with her love always,” asking God to tear down every temptation and lie that seeks to divide the one flesh He has joined together.
3. The Church alone holds the truth of the gospel that can demonstrate and lead families into true unity. What the Church shows to the world is a living testimony that God is the one who perfectly designed the family. Let us pray that believers will embrace those who suffer from domestic violence and child abuse, ministering to them with the Word for restoration. Let us pray that the Church will stand as a faithful witness and become a blessed channel through which broken families are healed and made whole.
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