Storge Love – Family or Tribal Love
Storge love is family or tribal love. A family is traditionally a father, mother and children. It includes all extended family members, grandparents, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, grandchildren, all the greats, all the great-greats, the in-laws and the out-laws. You get the picture. Everyone that is related by blood or marriage is considered family.
A tribe is a group of people who may or may not be related by blood or marriage but have a connection and a loyalty to each other. The formal definition of a tribe states that it is unit of families, clans or other groups who share a common ancestry or culture and among whom leadership is typically neither formalized or permanent. The indigenous peoples of every continent still maintain their tribal cultures and lifestyles in varying degrees. Even in urban areas around the world, groups of individuals with the same goals and purposes have developed their own “tribal” cultures that are parallel in many ways to the tribal customs of indigenous peoples.
The Church of the Lord Jesus Christ is a family, not a tribe. We are the Body of Christ, the sons and daughters of our Father God. Jesus is our elder brother. So, we, the Church, are to walk in love toward each other just as we do with our natural family.
What does family love look like? To find the answer, we have to go to the Word of God. God instituted the family before anything else. Family is of the highest importance to Him. Anything that is important to Him should be as equally important to us as His children.
Here is what the Word says about family:
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.” Genesis 1:26
But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” Mark 10:6-9
Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), Ephesians 6:1-2
Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the unjust. I Peter 2:18
To the married I give this charge (not I, but the Lord): the wife should not separate from her husband (but if she does, she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband), and the husband should not divorce his wife. To the rest I say (I, not the Lord) that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he should not divorce her. If any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy. … I Corinthians 7:10-24
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. John 3:16-17
But Ruth said, “Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Ruth 1:16
The Lord has remembered us; he will bless us; he will bless the house of Israel; he will bless the house of Aaron; he will bless those who fear the Lord, both the small and the great. May the Lord give you increase, you and your children! May you be blessed by the Lord, who made heaven and earth! Psalm 115:12-15
So we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Romans 12:5
However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. Ephesians 5:33
These verses are just a few of the verses that speak to the love in the natural family and the love in the family of God. The love of the natural human family should be a reflection of the love God has for us, His children. The love between a husband and a wife is intended to be a picture of Christ’s love for His bride, the Church. The parents’ love for their children is to be an example to them of the Father’s love for them. Just as we may be the only Jesus an unbeliever ever sees, so, too, the love of the natural family may be the only picture of God’s love for mankind that an unbeliever will encounter.
The family relationship is valuable and precious to God. As such, it must be valuable and precious to us.