"The A-Word"

When I say the words “authority” and “obey”, what happens inside you? Can we all admit we have an aversion to obeying authority? What do we do when we come to passages in the Bible that command us to obey the authorities put over us? What if their authority is illegitimate? Do we still have to obey?

What if you knew that obeying authority in our human relationships was an opportunity to live out the gospel and seek life in Christ for others? And what if you could live convinced that the gospel that Jesus is the true Master of all would one day subvert all the illegitimate authorities and their unjust systems?

As we come to this passage, let’s examine the cultural lenses we bring to the text. Our culture has a real problem with the “a-word”, authority. Now, we should all have a healthy fear of authority. It is easily corrupted by sin. So, for Christians, we turn to God’s authority for help.

For the secular person, they turn to alternate authorities such as social scientists, educators, etc. What is the dominant message right now? You have ultimate authority over your life. For example, children as young as five are being told they have the authority to determine your own gender. And the authority of parents in the lives of their children is being challenged. It’s getting very confusing to know which authority to trust.

The reality is your personal autonomy does not give you the authority to determine your race, gender, abilities, or how you treat your neighbor. All of those fall to some authority greater than you. This should be self-evident. Authority is inescapable. Fruitfulness comes from obeying legitimate, God-given authority.

But we have another cultural lens to contend with. After addressing children and fathers, our passage addresses slaves and masters. Americans read passages on slavery through the filter of our history. Our history of race-based slavery is not the concept of slavery most people in the world have known for most of human history. And it might cause some to miss the severity of the problem of slavery that exists today. Currently, there are more people enslaved than in any other period of human history. More than 40 million people are enslaved to generate $150 billion worth of cheap clothes, mobile phones, electric cars, and sexual violence. Most secular people think our text condones all of that.

I would like to show you how this passage, in fact, has both strengthened families and legitimate, God-given authority and subverted systems of injustice like slavery over the centuries. Both of these lead to human flourishing.

Any healthy understanding of authority must start with the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ. The fear of Christ informs our obedience to human authority, our use of authority if we are in a position of power, and ways the gospel of Christ subverts illegitimate and unjust authority.

The historical and literary context for our passage is Paul’s version of a first century household code. But more specifically, applying the fear of Christ to our relationships in the church and in our families based on Ephesians 5:21.

Ephesians 5:21 ESV

submitting to one another out of reverence for/fear of Christ.

The Lord Jesus Christ has all authority in heaven and on earth and is head over all things to the church. The Bible explains that He received this authority because of His obedience to the authority of God the Father to suffer on the cross for the sins of the world. God vindicated His obedience in Jesus’ resurrection and ascension. So, it’s important to realize how God uses His authority. God the Father and God the Son use their power and authority to nourish fruitful life in us.

Now, how do we live under the authority of Christ as we navigate human relationships involving authority? Paul will say, sow seeds of righteousness, nourish disciples in Christ, serve with a whole heart, and overcome evil with good.

Children, Plant Seeds of Righteousness by Obeying Your Parents In The Lord

This one might be obvious, but as we’ve seen, the authority of parents with their children is being challenged. Jesus in Matthew 24 tells us that in our day,

Matthew 24:12 ESV

And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.

and Paul tells Pastor Timothy in 2 Timothy 3 that one symptom will be that people will only love themselves and children will be disobedient to parents.

What should happen in a home over which Christ is head? Paul goes back to the Ten Commandments in his household code.

Ephesians 6:1–2 ESV

Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother”

He says two things. First, to obey the fifth commandment, “this is right.” The word here is the word for righteousness or justice. To do justice to your parents, to fulfill righteousness, obey your parents as you obey the Lord. This commandment was a fulfillment of God’s plan to bless the world through a family, the family of Abraham.

Genesis 18:19 ESV

“For I have chosen him, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice, so that the Lord may bring to Abraham what he has promised him.”

God’s plan to bless the world was to use families in which the parents nurture the knowledge of God in their children, who learn to keep the way of the LORD by doing righteousness and justice. That family will be blessed and they will bless others with the knowledge of God. Children, when you obey your parents as you would obey Jesus, you are planting seeds of righteousness that will help others see the blessings of a fruitful life.

The second thing Paul says about this is that this commandment comes with a promise.

Ephesians 6:2–3 ESV

“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.”

God wants you to have a fruitful life. Generally speaking, if you honor your parents who gave you life, it teaches others to honor God, the ultimate giver of life, and your life bears more fruit. Fruit like love, joy, peace, and goodness.

When our parents are also following Jesus, they teach us to love our neighbor, take personal responsibility for our actions, be disciplined, work as unto the Lord, forgive others, and grow in faith through trials. And best of all, they teach us to trust and obey Jesus, who uses His authority to nurture your fruitfulness.

This is not the case in every family. Human nature is prone to the temptation to abuse authority. This can be true of parents. So, Paul addresses them now, specifically the father, the parent with the most power in the relationship.

Fathers (Parents), Nourish Your Children as Disciples of Jesus

Children get a paragraph. Fathers get one sentence. But is a powerful one.

Ephesians 6:4 ESV

Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

Parents have a God-given authority to nurture their children as disciples of the Lord Jesus. When fathers abuse their authority by giving arbitrary, self-serving commands to their children, they make their children frustrated, confused, and provoked to anger. Some fathers don’t practice their authority at all and provoke their children to anger through neglect, silence, self-absorption. All of us who are parents will make plenty of honest mistakes that will make your children angry. Don’t pile on by using your authority in self-serving ways.

“Bring them up” is one word, “nourish”. That is our purpose as parents. Its the same word Paul used in 5:29 to describe the way Jesus nourishes us as members of His body. So, just as the husband should do with his wife, so he does with his children. Nourish them the way you would want to be nourished - by teaching them to obey Jesus.

“Discipline and instruction”, Paul says in other letters, come from God’s word. When we teach our kids to listen to the voice of Jesus in the Bible and obey His words, he will strengthen and train us together in righteousness and fruitful living.

In the same way we want to nourish our kids with healthy food, good books, healthy activities, and educational opportunity, nourish their soul by teaching them to be satisfied in the Lord. Many parents have found reading The Jesus Storybook Bible, scripture memory through songs, family worship, and thanksgiving to be simple habits that can give their kids an appetite for the Lord Jesus. But more than that, setting the example in your own life of joyful, fruitful obedience to Christ.

With so many people, and maybe you are one of them, who has been abandoned or abused by a father, maybe this whole conversation is fraught with fear and trembling for you. But this is where the church can play a bigger part than ever before. You may not have had the father you needed. And you may not have children of your own. But if Christ is in you, you can nourish the children in your church in their life in Christ. Children need spiritual parents. Could you be that for a kid in our church?

But now that we have a nice, homey picture of families and the church in our minds, Paul directs our attention to the one of the ugliest authority structures in human relationships.

Slaves, Obey Your Masters with a Whole Heart for Christ

Many people use this passage as an attempt to discredit Christianity. “Why didn’t Paul use his authority as an apostle to condemn slavery and demand the freedom of slaves? The God of the Bible must not value every human person if He condones slavery.”

Let’s clear that up why that is a misunderstanding and misuse of this text. We won’t clear it up, as some try to do, with the argument that slavery in Paul’s day was a different kind of slavery than race-based slavery, so it wasn’t as bad. Any time one human owns another human as property, this is outside of God’s plan for human beings created in His image.

We also can’t say this passage applies to any employer - employee relationship. That isn’t what this passage is about. While employers have authority that must be honored by a Christian employee, this is not the same relationship as the master - slave relationship. And to redefine slavery as employment will miss the gospel in this passage. We want to get to the gospel and we have to walk through slavery to get there.

First, Paul begins to subvert the institution of slavery by referring to “earthly masters”, literally “masters according to the flesh”.

Ephesians 6:5 ESV

Bondservants, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ,

Your human master can only claim ownership over your body, your flesh, while you are on earth. Paul contrasts what our eyes can see to an unseen reality. You as a person do not belong to that master.

Paul tells the slave to honor the authority of the master, even if it is an illegitimate authority with “fear and trembling”. But not fear of the human master. This is the same word Paul uses in 5:21 for the fear of Christ that causes all of us submit to one another. Apply your fear of Christ to your fleshy master.

Everyone else will be focused on what the eye can see,

Ephesians 6:6–8 ESV

not by the way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but as bondservants (“slaves”) 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.

But you focus on the unseen reality. What is the unseen reality? You are a really slave of Christ. Give Him your whole heart. Serve Him, do His will, by treating your master better than he will ever treat you. Treat him as you would Jesus himself. And do it with a whole heart, as you would Christ.

Finally, Paul drops the bomb that turns the world upside down with the gospel.

Masters, Overcome Evil with Good and Obey Your Slaves Under the Authority of Christ

Ephesians 6:9 ESV

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.

When Paul says, “do the same to them,” what is “the same” he is talking about? Well, we have to go back to verses 5-8, which are all one sentence. The one main command in that sentence comes in verse 5, “obey”. Obey your slave. And everything that follows. Serve your slave as you would serve Christ. Do good to them. Love your slave in such a way that people would not know they are your slave. Can you imagine being the one master on your street that asks your slave, “would you please?” and “how can I help you?”

You have a Master in heaven and He does not favor you because of your social status. Whatever authority you have been granted by your society, legitimate or illegitimate, you and the one under you are both under the authority of Christ. If you have some human authority, use it to overcome evil with good.

Paul’s plants a radically subversive seed in his command to masters. It would beg the question for anyone reading that letter, “If I am supposed to obey my slave as I would Christ and serve them with the good will of Jesus, how far does that love extend? Would I seek their freedom in Christ to the degree that I would give them their liberty to pursue Christ and His service wherever He may call them to go?” In his letter to Philemon, Paul tells him to receive his runaway slave Onesimus as a brother.

Our Master in heaven, Jesus, the head over all things, who lays claim to all of our lives, our bodies, our spirits, when He chose a social status, chose to identify with the enslaved.

Philippians 2:5–8 ESV

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

He always identifies with the poorest, weakest, most disenfranchised. He has compassion for both the slave and the master who need to be freed from their sin. He doesn’t change your social status. He changes our hearts so that we will overcome evil with good, like seeking freedom for slaves, trafficked women and children, and the generationally poor.

It was Jesus’ obedience to His authority, God the Father, to be nailed to a cross that gives us freedom. How are we using that? Are you sowing seeds of righteousness, nourish disciples in Christ, serving with a whole heart, and overcome evil with good for someone in Jesus name?

Communion

Questions for Discussion

What is your earliest childhood memory?

When you hear the words “authority” and “obey”, how do they affect you?

Why do we have problems with authority? Which problems are legitimate and which are illegitimate?

What do we learn about God in our passage?

What is God’s heart for vulnerable people such as children and the enslaved? How would you show that from our passage?

What do we learn about ourselves in our passage?

Where is the gospel in our passage?

How can we help strengthen families in our own circles to nurture disciples of Jesus Christ?

Even if you have never been an enslaved person, what are some principles Paul uses in verses 5-8 that would apply to any of us?

How does obeying God-given authority in our lives lead to human flourishing? Can you think of examples?

How can we overcome evil with good in our own communities?

How will you respond to this passage this week?