So the father knew that it was at the same hour in which Jesus said to him, “Your son lives.” And he himself believed, and his whole household. (John 4:53)

Saving The Household

When people heard that Jesus was in the area, they came out in multitudes to listen to His teaching and to be healed of their diseases. People sought Jesus out, hoping to find relief from their burden. A nobleman came to Jesus when He was near Capernaum to ask the Lord to heal his son before he died. Jesus told him to go to his son because he lived. When the man’s servants came to him, they told him his son lived. He asked them the time when his son recovered, and they told him it was the previous day at the seventh hour. The man’s reaction was to believe Jesus was the Son of God. Not only did the man become a believer, but also his whole household.

There are many stories of individual conversions and acceptance by those who believe Jesus to be the Son of God. What is amazing and exciting is when the impact affects the whole household. When the nobleman’s household heard the story of Jesus, they all became believers. Cornelius and his household were very devout in their belief in God but were not Christians. An angel told Cornelius to send for Peter, and he would tell him words whereby he could be saved. The apostle comes to the home of Cornelius, and the whole household is baptized into Christ. Paul visits the city of Philippi and finds some women having prayer by the river. A certain woman named Lydia heard the preaching of Paul, and she and her household were baptized.

While in the city of Philippi, Paul, and Silas were arrested after they healed a slave girl possessed with a spirit of divination. That night, there was a great earthquake that opened the doors of the prison and loosed all the chains of the prisoners. Fearing the prisoners had escaped, the jailer was about to kill himself when Paul stopped him. The apostle spoke the word to the jailor and his household, and they were all baptized. In the city of Corinth, Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, believed on the Lord with all his household. Paul later reminds the saints at Corinth that he baptized Stephanas’s household. Remarkably enough and against all odds, there were Christians in the household of Caesar.

One of the lessons learned from the story of Noah is his persistence and determination to save his household. He knew the value of his soul, but he knew the importance of saving the souls of his household. This included his wife, three sons, and three daughters-in-law. Conversion should be a family affair. It should be an issue of the household. It is true that members of one’s own family can be the hardest to teach the truth, but there should never be an attitude of complacency about who is part of the household. The stories in the Bible of households obeying the gospel should be the norm. Noah could not imagine the thought of his wife perishing in the flood or his sons and their wives dying so tragically. He prepared an ark for the saving of his household, but he prepared their hearts to enter into the ark. We can do no less.

Your household is precious, and no waking moment should be wasted in not trying to secure the salvation of your household. The individual needs to realize their responsibility to obey the word of the Lord, and it must be the ever-present need to show the need of the household to embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ. The nobleman’s son was spared death, and then eternal life came to the household. What a blessed and wonderful story.