Jesus Christ on Families

You know, when you think about it, it is really hard to come up with a quote from Jesus in the Gospels in which He praises families.

He just doesn't do it. He tells people, in multiple places, that they should abandon their families, and that families are sources of strife and division. But, apart from mentioning - in the context of divorce - that a man and woman will leave their families to cleave together, He just doesn't seem very interested in families or kids. 

If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple.

Jesus told a would-be disciple who wanted to show basic decency to his deceased father, “Let the dead bury their own dead” (Luke 9:60). He commanded his disciples: Leave parents, siblings, spouse – even “hate” them – and follow me. When his own mother and brothers came to see him, Jesus’ reaction was terse: “Who are my mother and my brothers?” Looking at those seated around him he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother” (Mark 3:31–35).

Nor was He that big of a fan of heterosexual marriage. When He gave the teaching on divorce, the disciples said to him, “If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry.”

Now, if the disciples had misunderstood him, this was a perfect chance to correct the disciples' misunderstanding. But, Jesus does not use this opportunity to go into a panegyric on marriage and how wonderful it is. Instead, he essentially agrees with them and starts praising celibacy:

11 But he said to them, “Not everyone can receive this saying, but only those to whom it is given. 12 For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let the one who is able to receive this receive it.”

That is pretty weak sauce on heterosexual marriage. He upholds the Old Testament teaching that heterosexual marriage is acceptable, and parents should be honored, but I cannot think of a passage where He praises marriage, or even praises motherhood or fatherhood.

When He wants to say something nice about mothers, He doesn't talk about human mothers. He talks about chickens. When a mother asks Him to cast demons out of her daughter, Jesus essentially calls her a bitch. 

The epistles are really not any better. The best Paul can say is to honor the marriage bed. Get married only if you aren't good enough to be celibate and you don't want to burn (in hell). Paul explicitly says that family formation is an impediment to holiness. He finds it necessary to point out that marriage is not actually a sin. That's as positive as he gets about it. What a rousing endorsement of a divinizing, deifying sacrament! "Hey guys, I guess you can do it if it is truly the only way to avoid eternal damnation, and technically, it isn't actually a sin.... so.... " 

A woman should not be enrolled as a widow if she is not at least sixty years old. In addition, she must have been married only once, 10 and have a reputation for good works by bringing up her children, offering hospitality to strangers, washing the feet of the saints,[d] helping those in distress, and being active in all kinds of good work.

11 However, refuse to enroll younger widows, for when their passions distract them from the service of Christ, they will want to marry again 12 and will incur condemnation for having broken their original vow....If any woman believer has relatives who are widows, she must assist them herself. The Church should be free of such burdens and consequently able to assist those who are widows in the true sense.

...he who marries the virgin does right, but he who does not marry her does better (1 Cor 7:38)

The Gospels were not designed to build up family ties. Quite the contrary. Jesus specifically set out to DESTROY family and tribal ties. The ancient world was rife with nepotism and tribal conflict. Every negative event generated some version of the Hatfields and the McCoys. That kind of ancient tribalism, in which every person was required to put family and tribal honor first, was not only common in every society known to man, it is also is the antithesis of the Gospel.

Jesus set out to destroy tribalism. By preaching to non-Jews, He even attacked traditional Judaic tribalism. He succeeded in His goal. Indeed, that destruction of nepotism is part of the reason why Christianity has been so successful: Christians are required to stop engaging in nepotism, stop worrying about family honor, and instead put non-family members on an equal footing with family members. 

Today, the anti-family, anti-tribal Christian message has been so wildly successful that the world suffers from the opposite problem. Family has now been relegated so far into the dust heap of history that the majority of people in the first world no longer even form families. But, because this problem was completely unknown to ancient societies, the Bible has almost nothing to say about how to improve or increase family formation.  

TLDR

Jesus only talks about works as a means of salvation, He never mentions grace at all, much less grace as a means of salvation.

Jesus' parables about wedding feasts always involve torture, punishment and death. Apart from a reference to honoring one's mother and father, he has nothing kind to say about parenthood. Apart from a statement that marriage is indissoluble, he has nothing kind to say about marriage.

In addition to his decidedly negative attitude towards marriage, Jesus never praises the begetting of children or the work of family formation. Instead, his references to family again primarily describe family as a place of combat and violence. He encourages people to abandon their families if family members sin.

For Jesus and Paul, celibacy is the highest good. If the world had been successfully evangelized, and all Christians had followed this highest path to holiness, the human race would have disappeared from the planet by 150 AD.