Prevention in the Home - Moral Laws

 

Does Bible law have an impact on your family? For instance,  Leviticus 18:6 reads: "You people must not come near, any man of you, to any close fleshly relative of his day to lay bare nakedness.  I am Jehovah. Similarly the Christian congregation today enforces strong laws against all forms of sexual abuse. Anyone who sexually abuses a child risks being disfellowshipped, put out of the congregation. - 1 CORINTHIANS 6:9, 10. 

All families should know and review such laws together.  Deuteronomy urges: "And these words that I am commanding you today must prove to be on your heart; and you must inculcate them in your son and speak of them when you sit in your house and when you walk on the road and when you lie down and when you get up.  Inculcating these laws means more than occasionally lecturing your children.  It means a regular give-and-take discussion.  From time to time, both mother and father should reaffirm God's laws on incest and the loving reason for these laws.

You might also use such stories as that of Tamar and Ammon, David's children, to show children that in sexual matters there are boundaries that no one-close relatives included -should ever cross. - GENESIS 9:20-29; 2 SAMUEL 13:10-16.

Respect for these principles can be shown even in practical living arrangements. In one Oriental country, research has shown that much incest occurs in families where children sleep with parents even wen there is no economic necessity for this.  Similarly, it is generally  unwise to have opposite-sex siblings  share a bed or a room as the grow older, if this is at all avoidable. Even when cramped living conditions are a fact of life, parents should use good judgment in deciding on where each family member should sleep.

Bible law forbids drunkenness, suggesting that it can lead to perversion.  (Proverbs 23:29-33) According to one study, some 60-70 percent of incest victims reported that their abusing parent had been drinking when the abuse started. 

Next time: Prevention in the Home - A Loving Family Head

From the jw.org publications