How we behave in the home, how we act at work, how we serve in the ecclesia, and how we relax in leisure are all related to the master principles of the faith. The man who worships on Sunday may be in very different circumstances on Monday, but he is the same man essentially. He discovers that what is easy in the temple is not so easy in the marketplace. This is obvious, but it must still be stressed: sometimes people are tempted to change their manner of life when they change their location or their clothes. It has happened that saints in the ecclesia are rather unsaintly in the home. The fact is that in the home people have no need to put on a performance. As they are, so they behave. It is an old saying that you have to live with people to know them. Where people live the restraint is eased, and the outward show is relaxed. The solemn truth is that when we are not “on show” the truth about us is shown more surely.

If discipleship fails at home it is not likely to be at its best anywhere else. Of all the tests, perhaps the home is the most severe. But it works both ways — it may be severe but it has wonderful possibilities for right development. There was the case of a young man who came into the Truth from an unbelieving family. One day his mother said to him: “I do not know much about your new religion, but I know this: you are much easier to live with now.”

The home is a nursery for divine service in the ecclesia. “Let them learn first to show godliness at home” is the instruction of the great apostle (1 Tim. 5:4). So the exercise of true discipleship in the home will seek for good manners, loving patience, admonition without provocation, and strength without bitterness and anger. Home is a place of safety and security, of joy and fellowship.

It cannot be expected that every form of enjoyment will make us better spiritually, but it should not make us worse. It cannot be said that every kind of play will deepen our reverence for God’s Word, but what can be said is that it should never diminish it. The Bible has nothing to say directly about the rightness or wrongness of various leisure-time activities. But it does tell us about purity and fidelity and integrity, and with these things a disciple should be concerned every day. Finally, no leisure is right if it prevents us from being where God wants us to be, or if it leads us where God does not want us to go.