Covenant Kinship: The Family Business of God Text: Mark 3:31-35
Introduction: The War Over Family
We live in an age that is profoundly confused about the family. On the one hand, our culture makes a sentimental idol of the family, treating blood relations as the highest possible claim on a person's loyalty. On the other hand, that same culture is busy taking a sledgehammer to the very foundations of the family, redefining it into meaninglessness. It wants the warmth of the hearth without the laws of the household. It wants the fruit of the family tree while poisoning the root. The result is a chaotic mess of competing loyalties and broken homes.
Into this confusion, as with every human confusion, the words of Jesus Christ cut like a surgeon's scalpel. When we come to a passage like this one, our first modern impulse is to be slightly embarrassed. Jesus seems rude, dismissive of His own mother and brothers. He appears to be violating the fifth commandment, to honor thy father and mother. But this is because we are reading the text with sentimental, 21st-century spectacles. We are assuming that the highest possible good is being nice and affirming everyone's relational claims.
But Jesus is not being rude; He is being radical. He is not abolishing the family; He is establishing its proper place in the order of all things. He is declaring that a new clan, a new tribe, a new family has been established on earth. This family is not defined by blood and DNA, but by the blood of the covenant and the DNA of the Holy Spirit. This is a loyalty test. Every earthly loyalty, including the deep and good loyalty to one's own kin, must be subordinate to the ultimate loyalty we owe the King. Jesus is redefining the very meaning of kinship around Himself. He is establishing the church, the household of God. And the entrance requirement is not a birth certificate, but a surrendered will.
The Text
Then His mother and His brothers arrived, and standing outside they sent word to Him, calling Him. And a crowd was sitting around Him, and they said to Him, "Behold, Your mother and Your brothers are outside looking for You." And answering them, He said, "Who are My mother and My brothers?" And looking about at those who were sitting around Him, He said, "Behold My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of God, he is My brother and sister and mother."
(Mark 3:31-35 LSB)
The Family on the Outside (v. 31-32)
We begin with the arrival of Jesus' natural family.
"Then His mother and His brothers arrived, and standing outside they sent word to Him, calling Him. And a crowd was sitting around Him, and they said to Him, 'Behold, Your mother and Your brothers are outside looking for You.'" (Mark 3:31-32)
The context here is crucial. Just ten verses earlier, in Mark 3:21, we are told that His own people, His family, heard about the massive crowds and the commotion He was causing, and they "went out to take custody of Him; for they were saying, 'He has lost His senses.'" They thought He was a madman. They were embarrassed. They were operating on the basis of natural affection and worldly concern. Their son, their brother, was making a spectacle of Himself, challenging the religious authorities, and attracting the wrong kind of attention. So they came to take Him home, to manage Him.
Notice the geography of the scene. Jesus is inside a house, surrounded by a crowd of people who are hanging on His every word. His mother and brothers are "standing outside." This is not just a physical description; it is a spiritual reality. They are on the outside of what God is doing. They are trying to exert a claim from the outside, based on blood. They send a message in, expecting that the ties of natural kinship will trump whatever Jesus is doing. The crowd, those on the inside, dutifully relay the message. From a conventional standpoint, this is a perfectly reasonable interruption. Your family is here. You should attend to them.
But Jesus is establishing a new convention. He is showing that the claims of the kingdom of God are higher than the claims of the kingdom of family. The family of God is now in session, and the business they are about is more pressing than the concerns of those still standing on the outside.
The Radical Question (v. 33)
Jesus' response is designed to shock and reorient everyone's thinking.
"And answering them, He said, 'Who are My mother and My brothers?'" (Mark 3:33 LSB)
This is a rhetorical thunderclap. He is not asking for information. He knows who His mother is. He is challenging the premise of the interruption. He is asking, "By what standard are we defining family? What is the basis of true kinship?" He is forcing everyone present, and everyone who would ever read this account, to question their deepest assumptions about loyalty and identity.
In a culture built on clan and kinship, this was an explosive question. It was a direct challenge to the idea that blood is the ultimate tie that binds. Jesus is teaching us that all our natural relationships, good and God-given as they are, are penultimate. They are not ultimate. There is a higher relation, a deeper bond, a more fundamental family. To make an idol of the natural family is to put it in a place it was never meant to occupy. Jesus, by asking this question, is taking that idol down from its pedestal.
The New Clan Identified (v. 34)
Having asked the question, Jesus immediately provides the answer, not with words alone, but with a gesture.
"And looking about at those who were sitting around Him, He said, 'Behold My mother and My brothers!'" (Genesis 1:3 LSB)
The action is as important as the words. He looks around at the circle of disciples and listeners. He looks at those who had gathered to hear the Word of God, those who had pressed in to be near Him. And He points to them. "Here," He says, "This is My family now."
He is constituting a new community, the household of faith. The defining characteristic of this community is not shared genetics but a shared orientation toward Him. The family of God is composed of those who sit at the feet of Jesus. They are the insiders. This is the beginning of the church, the assembly of the called-out ones. We are not a collection of disconnected individuals who happen to believe the same things. We are a family. We are a clan. We are brought into a web of mutual obligation, loyalty, and love that is defined by our shared relationship to our elder brother, Jesus Christ.
This means that your relationship with the Christian sitting next to you in the pew is, in the final analysis, more permanent and more fundamental than your relationship with an unbelieving parent or sibling. The bonds of grace are stronger than the bonds of nature. This is a hard teaching, but it is a glorious one. It means that no one in Christ is ever truly an orphan or alone. You have been adopted into a family that is as vast as the globe and as eternal as God Himself.
The Family Resemblance (v. 35)
Finally, Jesus gives the defining mark, the family trait, of this new covenant clan.
"For whoever does the will of God, he is My brother and sister and mother." (Mark 3:35 LSB)
True kinship with Christ is demonstrated by obedience. The family resemblance is a shared desire to do the will of the Father. This is not a works-based salvation. We do not obey in order to get into the family. We obey because we have been brought into the family by sheer grace. Obedience is the evidence, not the cause, of our adoption.
And what is the will of God in this context? It begins with what Jesus commanded at the outset of His ministry: "Repent and believe the gospel" (Mark 1:15). The will of God is that you believe on the Son whom He has sent (John 6:29). It is to hear His words and put them into practice. It is a life of discipleship, of submission to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Those who do this are brought into the most intimate of relationships with Him. He calls them brother, sister, and even mother. This is an astonishing statement of spiritual intimacy and honor.
This means that the church is to be a community of radical obedience. Our love for one another is not a sentimental affection but a covenantal commitment that is expressed in mutual exhortation, accountability, and help in doing the will of our Father. We are in the family business, and the family business is obedience to the King.
Conclusion: Blood is Thicker than Water
There is an old saying that "blood is thicker than water." It is used to argue for the supremacy of family ties. But the original proverb is thought to have been, "The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb." Whether or not that is the historical origin, the theological truth of it is undeniable. This is precisely what Jesus is teaching here.
The blood that Jesus shed on the cross creates a bond that is far stronger and more enduring than the water of biological birth. When you were baptized, you were brought into this covenant family. Your allegiance was publicly declared. You were marked out as a member of the household of God.
This does not mean we despise or neglect our earthly families. Not at all. We are to honor our parents, love our spouses, and raise our children in the Lord. But we are to do all of it with a higher loyalty in view. Our first and ultimate allegiance is to King Jesus. And if our earthly family ever puts us in a position where we must choose between their will and God's will, we must choose God. "Whoever loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me" (Matt. 10:37).
So look around you. These people are your family. These are your brothers, your sisters, your mothers in the faith. This is your clan. Your primary loyalty belongs here, in the household of God, under the headship of Christ. Let us therefore live like it. Let us love one another, bear one another's burdens, and spur one another on to do the will of our Father in heaven. For that is the family business.