Obedience

Ephesians 6:1–9 ESV

Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), “that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.” Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Bondservants, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ, not by the way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not to man, knowing that whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether he is a bondservant or is free. Masters, do the same to them, and stop your threatening, knowing that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and that there is no partiality with him.

We have been looking over the last few weeks at Ephesians 5 and God’s call upon Christians to

Ephesians 5:1–2 ESV

Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

This call to be imitators of God flows out of the overall call of Ephesians

Ephesians 4:1–3 ESV

I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

So as we talk about being the Gospel-Shaped Families, this is a part of a bigger call to live Gospel-Shaped Lives. Now Paul ties this all up by speaking of two relationships: The relationship of children to their parents, and the relationship to slaves to their masters, and masters to slaves.

Now first, let me just say that, despite what you hear from detractors to the Bible, this is not a verse in support of the chatel slavery of that we see in the 17th-19th centuries in the Americas, nor that we see today in Muslim countries and China.

In Jesus’ day, they didn’t have bankruptcy laws, and the slavery practiced in Israel was not “man-stealing” which the bible expressly condemned with the death penalty in Exodus 21:16, instead a person who owed another a debt they couldn’t pay could sell themselves into slavery for a season to pay off their debt.

Regardless, Paul’s call is not about the rightness of this institution, but rather how Christians who live in a fallen world are to act toward one another, and more specifically how we are to act towards those with authority over our lives in the verses we just read.

And hence we find this three-fold call in these verses in our relationships. So far we have looked at two calls:

The Call to Respect

The Call to Love

Now we look at a third call:

The Call to Obedience

Authority and Obedience

The first thing that we see in scripture is the fact that our lives are filled with authorities.

We tend to blanche against this as American. We are anti-authoritarians by nature.

But scripture clearly teaches that there are authorities, and more than that Authority is a gift from God.

Romans 13:1 ESV

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.

Romans 13:5 ESV

Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience.

Authority, according to Paul, is a gift from God and a call upon the life of Christians.

Two Categories - Four Authorities

The Bible clearly teaches there are two categories of authorities in our lives and in that there are four spheres of authorities in the life of every believer. God has established two kinds of authority–the spiritual and the civil –for our good and the good of all people.

Civil Authority

The first is the civil authority that Paul speaks of above. This authority is further separated into two categories.

Government

Employment

This is the sphere of the temporal, and the sphere that Paul is referring to in vv. 5-9.

Paul’s call to us to obey our masters and civil authorities for the good of the gospel.

Ephesians 6:8 ESV

knowing that whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether he is a bondservant or is free.

God’s call is for us to be subject to those in authority over us:

1 Peter 2:13 ESV

Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme,

Notice it’s for the Lord’s sake. And this is important because in our world, that phrase for the Lord’s sake makes a difference.

During the Revolutionary War, the colonists viewed the phrase “for the Lord’s sake” as a condition for obedience. The reasoning ran thus: if the authority was unrighteous and passed unrighteous laws, then following them could not be a righteous thing. In other words, one cannot obey a wicked law “for the Lord’s sake.”

This is where the rubber meets the road. As believers in work and in civil government we are called to obey for the sake of the gospel any law or any rule at work, or any calling on our lives that is good. We cannot obey wicked laws and should in fact push against wicked rulers and bosses.

This is why we cannot do some things the world does.

But we are called to, as much as we are able, obey those in authority above us.

Spiritual Authority

The second type of authority is spiritual authority and this can be divided also into two spheres:

The Church

Hebrews 13:17 ESV

Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.

1 Peter 5:1 ESV

So I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed:

1 Peter 5:5 ESV

Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”

Notice that God calls us to humbly follow our biblical leaders. The word Elder in 1 Peter is not speaking of age, but rather of the Elders/Pastors/Overseers of the Church. God gives leaders to the church for the good of the flock.

1 Thessalonians 5:12–13 ESV

We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves.

Family

And finally we find the authority of family. God’s good gift to children is the authority of parents.

We are called to honor the parents God gave us.

Proverbs 6:20–21 ESV

My son, keep your father’s commandment, and forsake not your mother’s teaching. Bind them on your heart always; tie them around your neck.

God calls us to honor our parents because family, as imperfect as it often can be is a reflection of God’s own love