Here is the third article from the first chapter of A Theology of the Family by J.W. Alexander titled, "The Nature, Warrant, and History of Family Worship." If you prefer, you can also download the PDF version of the article.

The Nature, Warrant, and History of Family Worship

J.W. ALEXANDER (1804-1859)

Family worship, as the name imports, is the joint worship rendered to God, by all the members of one household. There is an irresistible impulse to pray for those whom we love; and not only to pray for them, butwith them. There is a natural as well as a gracious prompting to pray with those who are near to us. Prayer is a social exercise. The prayer which our Lord taught His disciples bears this stamp on every petition. It is this principle which leads to the united devotions of church assemblies and which immediately manifests itself in Christian families.

If there were but two human beings upon earth, they would be drawn, if they were of sanctified hearts, to pray with one another. Here we have the fountain of domestic worship. Time was, when there were but two human beings upon earth; and we may feel assured that they offered adoration in common. This was the Family Worship of Paradise.

That religion should specially pertain to the domestic relation is not at all wonderful.²⁷ The family is the oldest of human societies: it is as old as the creation of the race. Men were not drawn together into families by a voluntary determination or social compact according to the absurd figment of infidels: they were created in families.

It is not our purpose to make any ingenious²⁸ efforts to force into our service the history of the Old Testament or to search for Family Worship in every age of the world. That it has existed in every age, we do not doubt; that the Old Testament was intended to communicate this fact is not so clear. But without any indulgence of fancy, we cannot fail to discern the principle of Family Worship appearing and reappearing as a familiar thing in the remotest periods.

While all the church of God was in the ark, the worship was plainly Family Worship. And after the subsiding of the waters, when “Noah builded an altar unto the LORD,” it was a family sacrifice which he offered (Gen. 8:20). The patriarchs seem to have left a record of their social worship at every encampment. As soon as wefind Abraham in the Promised Land, we find him rearing an altar in the plain of Moreh (Gen. 12:7). The same thing occurs in the vale between Hai and Bethel. Isaac not only renews the fountains which his father had opened, but keeps up his devotions, building an altar at Beersheba (Gen. 26:25). Jacob’s altar at Bethel was eminently a family monument and was signalized by his saying on the way unto his household, and to all that were with him, “Put away the strange gods that are among you” (Gen. 35:1-2). The altar was named EL-BETH-EL. This descent of religious rites in the family line was in correspondence with that declaration of Jehovah respecting the family religion which should prevail in Abraham’s house (Gen. 18:19). The service of Job in behalf of his children was a perpetual service: he “sent and sanctified them, and rose up early in the morning, and offered burnt offerings according to the number of them all...Thus did Job continually,” or as it is in the Hebrew, “all the days” ( Job 1:5). The book of Deuteronomy is full of family religion, as an example of which we may specially note the sixth chapter. The Passover, as we shall observe more fully in the sequel, was a family rite.