Parent/Child Relationship
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1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.
2 “Honor your father and mother,” which is the first commandment with promise:
3 “that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth.”
4 And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.
As we come to chapter 6 Paul is continuing in the area of how our faith and calling impact our relationships. We remember that from the beginning of chapter 4 marked a turning point in this letter. In the first three chapters Paul gave us a deeper understanding of our calling in Christ. He has built the picture of our salvation stating with the fact that It was God how choose us first and predestine us to be holy.
He made us accepted, redeemed us through His blood, the forgiveness of sins. He predestine us to receive an inheritance, he sealed us with the Holy Spirit after we heard the gospel and believed in Christ.
So as Christ told His disciples you have not chosen me I have chosen you. We found in this letter of Paul to the Ephesians that the sovereign effectual election of almighty God takes precedence over our choice. His choice to call was first and and is the cause of my choice to follow. It the question of the free will of man vs the sovereignty of God we see in Ephesians that God’s sovereignty reigns supreme and mans free will subservient to God’s call.
In other words, I chose with my free will to trust in Christ only because and after God chose for me to do so.
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God,
9 not of works, lest anyone should boast.
So then
10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
So having taught us of our calling and the purpose of that calling the letter shifts to the implications of our calling in daily life.
So Paul urges us to walk worthy.
And i ch 4,5, and 6 Paul instructs us in how we are to walk worthy.
It is a process. It’s not automatic. Don’t consider the struggle to live a Christian life as evidence that you are not truely called. The very fact that Paul has devoted half of this letter to instructions on how we are to live as Christians shows us that it is not automatic and it is a struggle. Otherwise Paul could have ended the letter after chapter 3.
I say this to make a point. As we are going through how wives should live and how husbands should live and now children and parents, we will no doubt find that we are falling short. Thats not to be unexpected. I can tell you that I am not the husband i should be or the son or father I should be. But Paul is showing us the target so that we know what we are aiming for. Through the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit we can get closer and closer to that target and that is what Paul means when he says walk worthy. He means press towards the mark of the high calling of Christ Jesus.
For Children the mark is
Obey Your Parents in the Lord
Obey Your Parents in the Lord
As children we are to obey our parents.
What does “in the Lord” mean?
So see this as a limitation. Obey so long as it is in obedience to the Lord.
It could mean as unto the Lord
I think perhaps it means as those who are in the Lord.
10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
Which ties in with the next phrase “for this is right”
it is fitting or appropriate for those who are in the Lord to obey you parents.
It is right because nature itself show us that we should obey our parents. even the ungodly know that this is right. Your parents gave you life.
Paul then quotes scripture.
12 “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you.
It is a ugly thing to see a child disrespect their parents. The Bible teaches that we should honor them. An this is stepparents grand parents great grandparents adopted parents. whoever, is filling the roll of a parent in your life.
what does it mean to honor them.
Christ quoted this Scripture to the Pharisees and scribes
8 For laying aside the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men—the washing of pitchers and cups, and many other such things you do.”
9 He said to them, “All too well you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your tradition.
10 For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘He who curses father or mother, let him be put to death.’
11 But you say, ‘If a man says to his father or mother, “Whatever profit you might have received from me is Corban”—’ (that is, a gift to God),
12 then you no longer let him do anything for his father or his mother,
13 making the word of God of no effect through your tradition which you have handed down. And many such things you do.”
Paul also points out that this is the first commandment with promise. The promise being “that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you.”
Is this promise to the individual or to Israel as a whole?
“that the Lord your God has given you” Occurs 36 time in the Old Testament mostly in Deut.
every time it is reffering to Israel as a whole.
1 “Now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the judgments which I teach you to observe, that you may live, and go in and possess the land which the Lord God of your fathers is giving you.
So it probably means something like
If you will be the kind of people that obey and honor your parents then I will reward you as a people by causing you to dwell long in the land that the Lord you God has given you.
So what does this mean for the church in Ephesus or for us today?
This promise was given Israel of which as Paul has taught us we are now brought near and made fellow citizens. So now this promise is for you and your children.
What about a child who obeys their father and mother but dies at an early age?
Well the promise is that we will dwell in the land that God has given us. That’s not this cursed earth thats the land that we as God’s people will inherit. God will bring us back to the land, This earth after he makes all things new. and we will dwell long in the land
7 that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
Father’s Bring Them Up in the Lord
Father’s Bring Them Up in the Lord
Mother’s also bear this responsibility
8 My son, hear the instruction of your father, And do not forsake the law of your mother;
20 My son, keep your father’s command, And do not forsake the law of your mother.
However, father’s are the head of the home and have the primary responsibility here.
4 And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.
“Bring them up” It’s the same word that is translated nourishes in 5:29. it means to provide everything needed. We know this as father’s that all good father’s provide for their families. it’s our primary responsibility again not out sole responsibility. However, the emphasis here is not on physical needs like food and clothing but on spiritual needs.
the training and admonition of the Lord.
Training (discipline) and admonition (instruction with warning)
Admonition
11 Now all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.
Discipline
7 If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten?
8 But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons.
9 Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live?
10 For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness.
11 Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
13 As a father pities his children, So the Lord pities those who fear Him.
14 For He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust.
20 Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing to the Lord.
21 Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged.
So like me as we study this passage perhaps you feel lacking as a son or daughter or father or mother.
Lets remember God choose us for His own purpose. To make us holy and without blame not having spot or wrinkle. If He has begun a work in you He will complete it. Paul is not writing this to condemn us but to encourage us that in Christ we are new creatures. Perhaps we have behaviours that are not consistent with who we are in Christ. Paul would say put off those things. And perhaps we are not doing things that are consistent with who we are in Christ. Paul would say put those things on. Lets keep pressing towards the mark of a life consistent with who we are in Christ.