Struggling with Unconditional Love and Rejection in Family Relationships

Sources

1. CCEL (Reformed) “Calvin, Commentary on Genesis, Vol. 2 (Gen 24-50), section 2.22: was it possible for the father, who was not ignorant of the oracle, to be thus predisposed in favor of the firstborn, whom he knew to be divinely rejected?. It would rather have been the part of piety and of modesty to subdue his own private affection, that he might yield obedience to God. The firstborn prefers a natural claim to the chief place in the parent’s affection; but the father was not at liberty to exalt him above his brother, who had been placed in subjection by the oracle of God. That also is still more shameful and m”
2. Schaff ANF/NPNF (Patristic) “NPNF1 Vol 1: Augustine — Confessions, Letters — CHAP. II.--STRICKEN WITH EXCEEDING GRIEF, (part 1): HE REMEMBERS THE DISSOLUTE PASSIONS IN WHICH, IN HIS SIXTEENTH YEAR, HE USED TO INDULGE. 7. But what was it that I delighted in save to love and to be beloved ? But I held it not in moderation, mind to mind, the bright path of friendship, but out of the dark concupiscence of the flesh and the effervescence of youth exhalations came forth which obscured and overcast my heart, so that I was unable to discern pure affection from unholy desire. Both boiled confusedly within me, and dragged away my u”
3. Revelation (Protestant academic) “Tyndale House on Revelation 2:4: 2:4 You don’t love me or each other as you did at first: When the church was first established, their love for Christ and for each other had been strong. Struggles with false teachers and persecution had caused that original love to grow cold. Correct theology, action, and even suffering (2:2-3) are just an empty shell of Christian life if dynamic love is absent (1 Cor 13).”
4. 1 Timothy (Presbyterian) “Jamieson, Fausset & Brown on 1 Timothy 5:8: But--reverting to Ti1 5:4, "If any (a general proposition; therefore including in its application the widow's children or grandchildren) provide not for his own (relations in general), and especially for those of his own house (in particular), he hath (practically) denied the faith." Faith without love and its works is dead; "for the subject matter of faith is not mere opinion, but the grace and truth of God, to which he that believes gives up his spirit, as he that loves gives up his heart" [MACK]. If in any case a duty of love is plain, it is in re”
5. CCEL (Reformed (Old Princeton)) “Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, Vol. 3, section 47: has this close analogy to the relation in which God stands to his rational creatures, and especially to his own people, so the duties resulting from that relation are analogous. They are expressed by the same word. Filial piety is as correct an expression as it is common. Parents stand to their dependent children, so to speak, in the place of God. They are the natural objects of the child’s love, reverence, gratitude, confidence, and devotion. These are the sentiments which naturally flow out of the relation; and which in all ordinary cas”
6. theology (Catholic (Scholastic)) “Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Supplement (Supplementum), Of the Impediment of Consanguinity, Art. 4: Article: Whether the degrees of consanguinity that are an impediment to marriage could be fixed by the Church? I answer that, The degrees within which consanguinity has been an impediment to marriage have varied according to various times. For at the beginning of the human race father and mother alone were debarred from marrying their children, because then mankind were few in number, and then it was necessary for the propagation of the human race to be ensured with very great care, and consequent”
7. theology (Catholic (Scholastic)) “Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Supplement (Supplementum), Of Legal Relationship, Which Is by Adoption, Art. 2: Article: Whether a tie that is an impediment to marriage is contracted through adoption? I answer that, The Divine law especially forbids marriage between those persons who have to live together lest, as Rabbi Moses observes (Doc. Perp. iii, 49), if it were lawful for them to have carnal intercourse, there should be more room for concupiscence to the repression of which marriage is directed. And since the adopted child dwells in the house of his adopted father like one that is begotten na”
8. Schaff ANF/NPNF (Patristic) “NPNF1 Vol 2: Augustine — City of God, Christian Doctrine — CHAP. 16.--OF MARRIAGE BETWEEN BLOOD-RELATIONS, IN REGARD TO WHICH THE PRESENT LAW COULD NOT BIND THE MEN OF THE EARLIEST AGES. (part 2): family affection a larger number. For one man would in that case be both father, and father-in-law, and uncle(2) to his own children (brother and sister now man and wife); and his wife would be mother, aunt, and mother-in-law to them; and they themselves would be not only brother and sister, and man and wife, but cousins also, being the children of brother and sister. Now, all these relationships, wh”
9. Matthew (Baptist/Reformed) “John Gill on Matthew 10:34: For I am come to set a man at variance against,.... Or "to divide a man from his father". Here our Lord opens and explains what he means by the sword, intestine divisions, domestic broils, family differences, as well as such as appear in towns, cities, and kingdoms, which are exemplified by other instances following; and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law: the case is this, a father believing in Christ, embracing his Gospel, and submitting to his institutions, is contradicted, opposed, and persecuted by his own son, ”