Nigel’s sermon began by looking at Pastor Johann Wyss’s desire to teach his four sons how “the peaceful, industrious life of a cheerful and united family [leads] to the formation of strong, pure, and manly character.” Adopting the popular genre of “robinsonades” (after Robinson Crusoe) he imagined his family shipwrecked on a tropical island. Themes of self-reliance, teamwork, stewardship and humility emerge – but threaded through them all, faith in God and gratitude to him.
The wisdom of the Book of Proverbs deals in a few fundamentals to help families living in an alienating world, where cultural values don’t make family life easy, and cultural influences threaten marriages and children. It presents “family” as the cornerstone of orderly society, emphasising three dimensions: parental instruction, child discipline, and marital fidelity.