Ephesians 6:1-4

Ephesians 6:1–4 KJV 1900

1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right. 2 Honour thy father and mother; (which is the first commandment with promise;) 3 That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth. 4 And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

Introduction

Paul speaks directly to the children in the church.

He doesn’t tell the parents to relay this information to their children.

Paul does it himself.

Even a child is known by his doings.

Obey your parents. 1

We see this phrase “in the Lord.”

It should cause us to think back to the message to wives that they would submit to their husbands “as unto the Lord.”

Remember, this was her motivation for submission not her pattern.

The same is true for you kids.

You are asked to to obey your parents for God’s sake.

A child does not have to be very old to understand what it means to love in the Lord.

This provides them with the motivation that they need for obeying mom and dad.

They don’t do it because we are worthy.

They do it for God because He is worthy and He has asked this from them.

We make a big deal out of hypocrisy among parents and adults, but what about children?

Many children will treat adults with respect and honor at school or at church, but at home they treat their parents awfully.

It is a most inconsistent thing for a child to profess to be a christian and yet be characterized by willfulness and waywardness at home.

The obedience of a child is to be the fruit of the child’s entire relationship with God.

Honor your parents. 2

Honor is the form that love assumes towards those who are placed above us by God.

It is the display of love and respect from the child to the parents.

Jesus had this kind of honor for His parents when He was a boy.

As you grow, you will have Jesus as your example or role model in other spheres of life.

As a child living under the authority of your parents, Jesus is your example in the home.

If you are a boy or a girl, you can say “My Lord was a child, tween, teenager just like me.”

He was subject to His parents.

Paul says that this commandment is the “first commandment with promise.”

What does he mean by this?

The fifth commandment, which he is quoting here, is not the first of the 10 that bears a promise attached to it.

The 1st and 2nd in Exodus 20 both read as contingents for a promise to the adherent.

It could be that this is to be the first commandment that a child should learn.

Most likely, Paul is urging this commandment on children as their top priority when it comes to their spiritual life.

It holds great promise for them.

But it is also one of the clearest and most simple authority structures that they will ever encounter.

Consider the promise associated with this command. 3

We see two parts to this.

It may be well with thee.

God undoubtedly enriches the life of the obedient young person.

If you want to unlock God’s blessings on your life, it will never be easier than it is right now.

Just obey your parents.

Thou mayest live long on the earth.

This is a bit of an adjustment from the OT promise associated with this command.

In the OT, the Hebrew children were promised stability and longevity in the promised land.

In the NT, christian children are promised stability and longevity on the earth.

There are a few things I want to say about this.

This should go without saying but, a child that dies is not an indication of disobedience.

We cannot know why God does what He does, so we should not try to assume His motivations when we are not Him.

There was, for the Jews, and there is, for us, a communal aspect to this promise.

The strength of family life and the training of children to habits of order and obedience are the means and marks of the stability of a community or nation.

When the bonds of family life break up, the community becomes decadent and will not live long.

While it would be easy for us throw stones at our nation/society, we have to look inward and remember, Paul is speaking to a local church community.

You know there is a really sad feature of Paul’s writing that was pointed out to me this week.

Romans 1, when Paul decries the wickedness among unbelievers in the 1st century, do you know what he includes?

Disobedience to parents.

But then, in 2 Timothy 3, when he prophesies about the apostasy among believers that will be present just before the Lord returns, what do find present?

Disobedience to parents.

Paul speaks to the parents in the church. 4

The greek word that is translated fathers in this passage is also translated parents in other passages.

Nowhere in the Bible is the training of children assigned to agencies outside the home.

The admonitions of verse 4 come home to everyone but seem to have peculiar emphasis on fathers.

The focus is on the christian fathers in the congregation.

The literary focus of this passage is not actually on thee children in verses 1-3.

Paul’s purpose for these words hinges upon the parents, specifically the fathers.

Let’s be honest, if we want our children to be obedient, this is something we must train them to do.

If they are not taught to obey when they are young, when will they be taught?

If they do not obey their parents in the home, how can we expect them to obey God when they are grown?

Father’s must be careful not to provoke.

Just like Paul’s marriage advice was counter-cultural for 1st century society, so is his parenting advice.

When a baby was born to a Roman family, it would be taken and laid before the father.

The father would examine the baby.

If he picked it up, then the baby was accepted into the family.

If he didn’t then the baby could be traded, sold, abandoned, or killed.

Paul writes to a world in which fathers had absolute power over their child. A power that was regularly expressed in casting female babies away and drowning sickly or deformed children. A world where children were property to be held, used, or disposed of.

Discipline is essential to a parent-child relationship.

We must be careful that we do not burden our children with unnecessary rules.

We must guard against endless, petty correction.

Fathers have authority in their children’s lives.

Natural and divine authority.

This authority is to be used to build and encourage our kids, not abuse them.

Do not lay upon your children burdens that are too hard for them to bear.

This requires us to know our kids.

Know how they are different.

The expectations that one kid can bear may not be the same for the next kid.

Don’t provoke them by holding them to a standard they cannot reach.

They must endeavor to nourish their children.

This is a process whereby we bring them up and help them to develop as whole person.

Your job is not just to keep them alive and healthy.

We must invest in raising our children body, mind, and soul.

We do this through correction and instruction.

Our verse calls these tactics, nurture and admonition.

Nurture them.

Nurture is a word that refers to education through chastening or correction.

Nurturing parents or teachers hold their students or children to a standard.

They keep them to it.

Nurturing is seen in learning through discipline.

This doesn’t always mean discipline as in correction.

It also has to do with instilling self-discipline in our children.

We need to instill discipline in light of the command from the beginning of the verse, without provoking.

Reasonable reactions from mom and dad.

One teen said, “My dad would use a cannonball to kill a mosquito.”

Consistent reactions from mom and dad.

One teen said, “I either got away with murder or I got blamed for everything.”

Clear expectations.

One teen said, “I never how far I could go.”

Admonish them.

If you have not nurtured your children, then you’ll never be able to admonish them.

Admonition is the training that takes place through words.

One counselor that I listened to a few years ago described the relationship between nurture and admonition, correction and instruction in this way.

He said that parenting is kind of like a scale with relationship and authority on either side.

Before your kid hits puberty you place the emphasis of your parenting on the authority side.

You take a more hands-on direct approach to nurturing/disciplining them.

After puberty, as your young person transitions from childhood to adulthood, you have to adjust.

Now you have to gradually move some of your weights to the other side, the relationship side.

You are slowly easing yourself into the admonishing stage.

This doesn’t mean we don’t have a relationship with our kids in the early years, it doesn’t mean we don’t nurture/discipline them in the teenage years.

It’s simply a realization of the natural progression that our parenting should take if we are doing it right.

We do all of this in the Lord.

Parents should care more for the loyalty of their children to Christ than for anything besides, more for this than their health, their intellectual vigour and brilliance, their material prosperity, their social position, or their exemption from great sorrows and great misfortunes.

What is our parenting philosophy?

We aren’t trying to raise good citizens.

We aren’t trying to raise good athletes.

We aren’t trying to raise successful businessmen and women.

We are trying to raise disciples of Jesus.

A disciple must follow their master, which means they have to know how to obey.

According to Paul, this is a lesson that is learned at home.