Two things should be said before beginning to unpack the concrete implications, for the head of the household and his family, of God’s call to prophetic, priestly, and kingly service. The first is that, while in one sense all of the Lord’s covenant households share the same covenant identity – that is, they are all His households, over which He rules, whom He delights to bless and call His own, and through which He wills to extend His kingdom – it is equally true that no two covenant households are just alike. All of the Lord’s households share the same covenant identity, they all participate in the same covenant story and calling; yet each household has a particular identity, a particular history, a particular makeup, particular dynamics, distinctive features. Any notion that to be a covenant household – conforming to Christ, maturing as the Lord’s prophets, priests, and kings – is to fit some kind of wooden mold, is simply false. One need look no farther than the various blessings on the tribes of Israel (e.g., Genesis 49) to see that each covenant household is unique, not only in fact but also in the purpose of God. It is important that our children grow up saying with confidence not only, “I am a member of God’s covenant,” but also, “I am a Smith, a Sanchez, a Sorgen, or a Sung.” God’s call to conformity is not a call to uniformity.

Second, as we face the daunting task of leading our households in responding to God’s call, it is vitally important not to think of leadership as something we do in abstraction from who we are. Leading is an action-word, certainly, but a leader is and must be a certain kind of person; or put another way, leadership both requires and flows out of a certain kind of character. Perhaps this explains why leadership is so hard: it is not merely a matter of following a checklist. Of this we shall have more to say as we proceed.

Prophetic Objectives

In his cultic (God-ward), communal (man-ward), and cultural (creation-ward) relations, man is to be God’s prophet. The prophetic office is largely concerned with knowing what God has said and speaking what He has said. We will explore the implications of this prophetic office for the head of the household as both an individual man (a prophet before God himself) and as a familial head (one called to form his household to be prophets).

The Individual Man

In order to lead his household as a prophet, a man must himself be one who knows the speech of his God, conducts his thinking within the framework supplied by that speech, and orders his own speech in accordance with that framework. It is imperative that the head of a Christian home be seeking from God “a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him” (Eph 1:17). A head of a Christian home must be a student of scripture, a student of theology, and a student of redemptive history as it comes down to our present time (in order that he may learn from those who have listened to the speech of God before him, may imitate their knowledge and piety, and may avoid their errors and sins).

The members of a Christian family should observe in their household head a passionate hunger for knowledge (indicated, among other things, by the avidity of his reading habits) and, no less important, a definite orientation of his knowledge toward the framework supplied by the Word of God. There should never be any question that his ultimate reference point for true knowledge is the speech of God in holy scripture; nor that his certainty begins with humility and submission before this God who speaks. The Word of God is truth, precisely because He is God; the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; and a biblical leader will not blush over the fact that his final appeal in questions of truth is to the One who is the Truth, from whose mouth alone come knowledge and understanding.

In connection with this, it should be noted that an indispensable component of a biblical leader’s character is conviction. A biblical leader is passionate about the Word of his God – passionate to know it, and passionate to follow it. Lack of passionate conviction ruins would-be leaders. One who believes slightly and adheres loosely cannot lead others to faith or faithfulness. Many other weaknesses in a leader can be made up for by his profound conviction about the cause he serves. God save us from slightly convinced men! They are unworthy of the kingdom of God.

The prophetic calling, however, extends beyond one’s cultic relation to God. The prophet-leader must be a “student of everything”; he must be a student of humankind and all creation. He must be a contagiously interested man, always curious, always exploring, always wondering, always wishing to know more. He must be a man whose senses are awake, who notices things. He must not be drugged by inanities and lusts, or by self-absorption or self-importance; rather he must be oriented to all things “other,” because he is oriented to the great “Other” whose are all things.

This kind of knower will be a speaker, but it may be well to take up the issue of prophetic speech in connection with the calling and work of a familial head.

The Familial Head

In order to form his household as prophets, a man must not only be a knower, but also a teacher, an educator who directs his household toward that which he himself has learned (and is learning) and beyond.  Far more is involved in this prophetic work than mere transmission of information; it is often more a matter of gesturing toward a horizon the leader himself is pursuing. It is calling others to join an expedition, and guiding them along paths already explored, but only so far. The prophet calls his hearers to join him in pressing on to know the Lord and His works (Hosea 6:3).

A classic text that describes this prophetic work in the home is, of course, Deuteronomy 6:

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

The immediate reference here is to the law of God; and certainly every head of a Christian home must teach the whole counsel of God revealed in scripture to his family. But he must also teach his household to view all created things (as he himself does) from within the framework supplied by that Word. He may be assisted in this task by schoolteachers and church leaders, but he may not simply abdicate the responsibility for educating his family to others.

Already we have moved from prophetic knowledge to prophetic speech. But there is more to the speech of a prophet-leader than teaching. A prophet is a communicator in the broadest sense; he is deeply, passionately committed to that strange and wonderful occurrence wherein hearts and minds are “connected” through the God-created vehicle of language. It may be said that language – or more precisely, communication by means of language – is the glue that binds the household together. God is constantly speaking to His household and urging them to open their hearts and speak to Him; and the head of each covenant household is to imitate and image Him in this. (We might add to the conviction aspect of a Christian leader’s character the communicative aspect.)

It is worth pondering the simple fact that a biblical leader speaks to those who are to follow him. Men need to hear this – a lot. Men are by and large terrible communicators. For whatever reason (fear, insecurity, lack of practice, pride, self-absorption, etc.), men are very slow to open up their souls to others, and (no surprise, in view of this) they are generally quite bad at eliciting such an opening of soul from others. “Talk with me,” wives plead. “Talk with me,” children plead (until they are become so distant from their father that they are glad when little passes between them). And the husband/father goes on burying himself in his schedule, his hobbies, or his inner world.

Once in a great while, one meets a man in the presence of whom one feels deep personal interest – that he actually wants to hear what one has to say. One senses in such a man an open heart and an engaging mind; one is welcome into his soul, and he respectfully (though persistently) seeks a welcome into yours. It should be noted that such men are not simply born. They are made, they are formed in the crucible of vulnerable, difficult, conflicted, but dogged communication. Good communicators have learned to communicate by communicating. They have kept at it when it has hurt, and hurt badly. They have almost certainly had someone else lovingly beat down the door of their heart, and they have tasted how good it is to know and be known.

It should go without saying that deeply implicated in all of this is how the man of God speaks. It is possible to speak in such a manner that the result is greater distance, alienation, woundedness, and resentment. To have certain people barge in the front door of one’s mind and “rearrange all the furniture” is to devoutly wish they may never visit again. The speech of the prophet-leader is always “seasoned with grace,” even when it is confrontational. In this he images the glory of the One who spoke with authority (Matt 7:29) and yet never crushed a bruised reed or extinguished a smoking flax.