Dr. Joel Beeke explains in this video that in some ways, the church and the family are alike and in other ways, they are different. They are both ordered and structured by God in His Word and they are both to subject themselves to the Word of God.

Colossians 1:18 (NKJV) - "And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence."

Well, in some ways the church and the family are alike. Some ways they're different. They're alike in that They're both ordered and structured by God in His Word, and they're alike in the fact that they're both to subject themselves to the Word of God. Word of God is Supreme authority over the church and over the family They are different when you look at their pre-fall and their post-fall relationships Pre-fall you had marriage and family, but no church yet So in a sense there you might say the family is the priority relationship the fundamental structure of societal organization on earth. Post-fall the church is instituted already in principle in Genesis 4, then began men to call upon the name of the Lord.

And so we can say post-fall that the church, in a sense, ultimately takes the upper hand to the family.