3-4: The Family
Notes
Transcript
Bookmarks & Needs:
Bookmarks & Needs:
B: Eph 5:22-6:4
N:
Welcome
Welcome
Good morning to those of you here in the room and those of you online, and welcome to Family Worship service with Eastern Hills Baptist Church. My name is Bill Connors, and if you’re visiting the family of EHBC for the first time, thanks for being here! It’s great to have you with us today.
You’ll find a connection card in the back of the pew in front of you, it’s this black card with “WELCOME” on the front. If you wouldn’t mind filling that out during the service and either bringing it down to me at the end of the service, or dropping it in the plates as you leave later on, I would appreciate it. We’d love to get to know you better. If you’d rather fill out a form online, you can do that by texting the word WELCOME to 505-339-2004, and you’ll get a link back that takes you to our digital communication card.
Announcements
Announcements
Time of prayer for educators. For some, they went back this week. For some, they start this week. Pray for students and parents as well.
Opening
Opening
We’re considering our church Statement of Belief as it relates to the church during this third part of our series “We Believe.” Today, our focal passage will be Ephesians 5:22 through 6:4, as we consider the biblical definition and explanation of the family. As you’re able, let’s stand in honor of God’s Word as we read this passage:
22 Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord, 23 because the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of the body. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives are to submit to their husbands in everything. 25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her with the washing of water by the word. 27 He did this to present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or anything like that, but holy and blameless. 28 In the same way, husbands are to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hates his own flesh but provides and cares for it, just as Christ does for the church, 30 since we are members of his body. 31 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. 32 This mystery is profound, but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33 To sum up, each one of you is to love his wife as himself, and the wife is to respect her husband. 1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, because this is right. 2 Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with a promise, 3 so that it may go well with you and that you may have a long life in the land. 4 Fathers, don’t stir up anger in your children, but bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.
PRAYER (Fellowship Missionary Baptist Church, Pastor Dennis Dunn)
Quick question: what do a second, a meter, and a gram have in common? They are all base units of measuring something: time, distance, and mass, respectively. This doesn’t mean that there aren’t smaller units by which to measure these categories (such as milliseconds: each one “thousandth” of a second), or larger units by which measure (such as kilometers: each a “thousand” meters). It means that these are the building blocks for evaluating these differing ways of measurement. They are foundational units.
When God created the world, following His speaking into reality everything else, He made man. But then, God declared the reality of the first thing that was not good in creation: that the man was alone. The Lord then paraded before this lone man all of the animals of the earth for him to name. And as the first human looked at the animal kingdom, he realized that there wasn’t a match for him yet. And so the Lord in His grace made woman and brought her to the man. And the man declared:
23 And the man said: This one, at last, is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh; this one will be called “woman,” for she was taken from man. 24 This is why a man leaves his father and mother and bonds with his wife, and they become one flesh. 25 Both the man and his wife were naked, yet felt no shame.
The foundational unit of society: the family, was born. How can I say that this is the foundational unit of society? Because from the beginning, before the Fall even, God meant for husbands and wives to go together. When a man and woman marry, a new family unit is formed (“leaves his father and mother...”). This new family has its own priorities, focuses, and “DNA” if you will (both figuratively and literally). It is in that relationship that God originally meant for the bearing of children, according to Genesis chapter 1:
28 God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and every creature that crawls on the earth.”
Therefore, it is from the marital relationship that God planned for the fruitful multiplication from which the whole earth would be filled. God’s foundational unit for the fulfillment of this command was the family.
Before we look at our Article on the Family in our Statement of Belief, I want to make a couple of caveats. Nothing that I say this morning should be heard as a condemnation or criticism of people who choose to live in singleness. Paul even wrote that the call to single-hearted devotion to God is a valid call, and worthy of the same honor as marriage. If you are called to singleness and you know it, that’s great. Honor God with your undivided heart, and serve others from that devotion to the Lord.
Also, nothing that I say today should be taken to mean that couples who do not have children, or cannot have children, are somehow not “families.”
I also am not condemning people who are divorced for valid, biblical reasons, nor people who were divorced before coming to Christ. I’ll look at these further on in the points of my message.
Article 10 of our Statement of Belief reads as follows:
EHBC’s Statement of Belief, Article 10: Family
God has ordained the family as the foundational institution of human society. It is composed of persons related to one another by marriage, blood or adoption.
Marriage is the uniting of one man and one woman in covenant commitment for a lifetime. … The husband and wife are of equal worth before God, since both are created in God’s image. … A husband is to love his wife as Christ loved the church. He has the God-given responsibility to provide for, to protect, and to lead his family. A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ. She, being in the image of God as is her husband and thus equal to him, has the God-given responsibility to respect her husband and to serve as his helper in managing the household and nurturing the next generation. Children, from the moment of conception, are a blessing and heritage from the Lord. Parents are to demonstrate to their children God’s pattern for marriage….
This is the longest Article in our confessional Statement. So the questions that we must address this morning are: What was God’s original design for the family? What does that design mean for husbands, wives, and children? How does this point to the message of the Gospel? We’ll start where the family starts: Marriage.
1) God’s design for marriage
1) God’s design for marriage
As we have seen already from Genesis, the original design of God for man and woman is that they would belong to one another as husband and wife. This concept of “belonging” is inherent in the language that we saw in Genesis 2: “one flesh” reflects the co-mingling of persons that God intended for the foundational unit of human society. This is a part of our design as humans.
From the very beginning, humanity was declared to be a specially relational species. Humans have a special ability to relate to God Himself. The very fact that the first thing “not good” in creation was man’s aloneness shows that we are designed for relationship with each other. The remedy of that aloneness was the provision of a counterpart for the man: not another of the same kind, but of a complementary kind. And Adam knew Eve went with him the moment he laid eyes on her.
The reality of gender is a part of that very specific complementary design. Male and female were designed by God, and heterosexuality is the only intended sexual relationship for humanity. Sexual expression was designed to take place only in the marital relationship, as 100% of the first two people were married, and it was the first thing that God did after making Eve: He “brought her” to Adam as his wife. Every other perspective on gender and sex has its roots in the Fall, and must be rejected if we hold God’s original design to be the standard of what is good, as God said that it was at the end of day 6 of creation:
31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good indeed. Evening came and then morning: the sixth day.
Our issue as humans is that we have decided that what we think is good is better than what God says is good. That’s what the Fall was all about, right? God said it was good not to eat the fruit. Adam and Eve decided that it was better to try to take God’s place. We live out the Fall every day of our lives in some way, shape, or form. We fight constantly to take God’s place on the throne of our lives. God defines what is good, because it conforms to the reality of who He is, and so when we decide that we are going to reject God’s design and choose our own way instead, we always choose the lesser.
When we choose to reject God’s plan, God’s design, God’s intention, God’s perspective, God’s instruction, God’s commands, God’s ordinances, and God’s desires, we sin. Even if culture says something is acceptable, it is not culture that we have to answer to unless it is culture that we worship. Our “hearts” will tell us something is acceptable, but is not our hearts that we have to answer to unless it is ourselves that we worship. If we belong to God through faith in Jesus Christ, then He is Lord, and His standards are the ones that matter, not ours. We have been bought with a price, and we no longer belong to ourselves.
18 Flee sexual immorality! Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the person who is sexually immoral sins against his own body. 19 Don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, 20 for you were bought at a price. So glorify God with your body.
It is from this perspective that we must approach our focal passage this morning, because in it we find God’s design for both wives and husbands. We will address these in the order in which Paul addresses them in the passage, and he addresses the wife first:
2) God’s design for wives
2) God’s design for wives
Many struggle with the command that the Lord gives to wives through the apostle in this section of Ephesians. This is not because of what is written here, but because of a prideful misinterpretation of what is written. The Scripture is clear that, as we saw a couple of weeks ago when we discussed the church herself, that men and women are equal in the sight of God (Gal. 3:28). How then can we interpret our focal passage when it says:
22 Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord, 23 because the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of the body. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives are to submit to their husbands in everything.
So what is the prideful misinterpretation that causes use to have some cognitive dissonance with this verse? It’s that submission means that wives are somehow “less than” their husbands. So let’s unpack for a minute:
First of all, in the Greek, this verse actually says: “The wife to her own husband as to the Lord.” The wife “what” to her own husband? Verse 22 does not have a verb in it. It must inherit the verb from the verse before, which says something critical about the concept of submission:
21 submitting to one another in the fear of Christ.
The Christian life is a life of submission. Jesus gave us an example to follow when He washed His disciples feet. He performed that humble act, and then came back and explained Himself:
14 So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. 15 For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done for you.
All of us should be willing to wash feet. Jesus is God Almighty, and He washed feet. If you’re not willing to wash feet, you’re not following Jesus’ example. That would mean you’re in sin. Wives, you should be willing to wash your husband’s feet. Husbands, you should be willing to wash your wife’s feet. The baseline is an attitude of submission because of Jesus. And that’s why the wife’s instruction is so important to understand. Verse 21 doesn’t negate the instruction to wives. It defines it. We can’t just say “verse 21” and suddenly verse 22 falls out of our Bibles.
No, wives: you are clearly to submit to your husband as to the Lord, meaning that as you submit to your husband, you do so as an act of love for Jesus, not simply for your husband. Your husband has been given the role of leader, or head, of the family, just as Christ is the head of the Church. He is the spiritual covering over the church (see 1 John 4:10), and the husband is the spiritual covering over the family. These things are stated as fact, not as suggestions. It’s not “the husband should be the head,” or “the husband might be the head.” He is. And as a result, as goes the husband, so goes the family. This is why fatherlessness is such a massive problem when it occurs.
So your role, wives, according to Scripture if we put this passage together with Genesis, is to be a helper to your husband as he leads the family in whatever way is helpful. Again, some recoil at this terminology, because we see the term “helper” through that same lens of pride. “Helpers” are sidekicks, lackeys, “less than.”
Nothing could be further from the truth. Consider these passages (and there are MANY like them):
14 But you yourself have seen trouble and grief, observing it in order to take the matter into your hands. The helpless one entrusts himself to you; you are a helper of the fatherless.
1 God is our refuge and strength, a helper who is always found in times of trouble.
6 Therefore, we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?
Each of these say that the Lord Himself is a “helper.” Is God somehow “less than” when He helps us? Is He our sidekick, or our lackey? No. He chooses to help because help is required, and He is the one who can provide the help needed. Wives, your husbands need help. And God has graciously provided you to be the conduit through whom that help can come. If you resist providing it, the whole family misses out. This is why he said in Proverbs:
22 A man who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord.
Two more quick notes for wives: First, your submission is a gift that you voluntarily give to your husband. Note that this section of our focal passage says, “wives...” Guys, that’s not your part to follow. Your part is coming. Ladies: you get to choose, but understand that when the chips are down, the husband MUST lead… even if you don’t want to follow. Don’t force him to lead you kicking and screaming.
Second: a last word on submission because of verse 24, where it says, “…wives are to submit to their husbands in everything.” The Greek here “in everything” is en panti, which literally means “in everything.” However, the point here is not a blind, wooden obedience. In 2 Corinthians 4:8 and 7:5, Paul used the same phrase when he said that he was “afflicted in every way,” (en panti) but he certainly didn’t mean that he had every possible type of affliction, just that he faced much trouble. The instruction in verse 24 is qualified by “as the church submits to Christ.” Christ never demands that the church sin. Christ never demands that the church do something harmful. Christ never demands that the church do something foolish. Likewise, your husband cannot demand that you sin. He cannot demand that you submit to something harmful. He cannot demand that you silently submit to something foolish. In fact, Christ used His authority on behalf of the church in order to reconcile the church to God and to equip the church to fulfill His purposes in carrying on that ministry of reconciliation (2 Cor. 5), and so submission to Him in everything that He asks the church to be and do is a blessing, not a curse. Submitting to your husband should be the same.
Which is why we now turn to them:
3) God’s design for husbands
3) God’s design for husbands
Guys, there’s no way around it: this passage is a high calling given to every man who is or who would be a husband. Paul has three times as much to say to husbands as he did to wives (40 words vs. 114 words in Greek). His admonition is more than just instruction: it tells us that marriage is a living picture of the Gospel, and calls us to that standard of husbandry:
25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her with the washing of water by the word. 27 He did this to present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or anything like that, but holy and blameless. 28 In the same way, husbands are to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hates his own flesh but provides and cares for it, just as Christ does for the church, 30 since we are members of his body. 31 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.
Husbands, let’s just think about verse 25 for a second. “Love your wife just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her.” The word “love” here (Gk agapao) is the first command since verse 18, and in fact, the husband’s command to love his wife is the only imperative command in this entire passage on husbands and wives (also an imperative in verse 33). So it’s simple, right? We are commanded to love our wives in the way that Jesus loved us. How did Jesus love us? By giving Himself for us. Giving Himself how? By dying.
What a picture! Husbands, in the portrayal of the drama of the Gospel being played out in our relationships with our wives, we play the role of Jesus, who lived a sinless life so that His death would be a sufficient ransom for our sinful lives, and He willingly went to the cross to pay that price. He did this so that we could be made right with God again, cleansed from our sins, made holy and blameless. This is why Paul wrote in verse 32:
32 This mystery is profound, but I am talking about Christ and the church.
Husbands, we are to give ourselves to the effectual loving of each of our wives, dying to ourselves in order to bless her. This doesn’t make us doormats, because loving our wives well doesn’t look like giving them every little thing their hearts desire, waiting on them hand and foot: it’s giving them exactly what they need for their greatest possible well-being and closeness with God. Jesus doesn’t give us every little thing our hearts desire. Doing so would make Him worth no more than a cosmic vending machine, a robot that does our will instead of His own. No, Jesus loves us too much to give us everything we think we want.
This is because:
4 Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, is not boastful, is not arrogant, 5 is not rude, is not self-seeking, is not irritable, and does not keep a record of wrongs. 6 Love finds no joy in unrighteousness but rejoices in the truth. 7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
When we husbands love our wives well, we promote her purity, godliness, and holiness, just as Jesus’s washing of the disciples’ feet did. Notice that Jesus didn’t lord over His disciples, even though He could have. Instead, He “emptied Himself, assuming the form of a servant, and humbled Himself to the point of death—even to death on a cross.” (Phil. 2:6-8) The best way for us to love our wives well is to live like Jesus, dying to ourselves for the blessing and benefit of our bride. We aren’t the dictators, we’re the servant shepherd leaders of our families.
But in an interesting twist, Paul says that loving our wives is actually a blessing for us as well. Notice that Jesus died so that He would “present the church to himself in splendor.” Likewise, when a husband loves his wife well, he receives a return on that investment of love. This makes sense, given the one flesh nature of marriage, but Paul goes on to illustrate this in a concrete way in verse 29: we don’t hate our bodies. We provide for our body and care for our body.
Husbands, your design from God is that you would provide for and care for your wife. Doing so promotes her well-being AND your well-being, and thus, the well-being of the family unit. In fact, since this is the only thing commanded in this passage, it is your responsibility to live out what God has commanded, and to do so regardless of how well your wife responds. As I said before, as goes the husband, so goes the family.
Application
Application
A couple of additional points of biblical application before we address the last part of our passage this morning: the biblical instruction on the importance of purity in the marital relationship, and then from that, the biblical grounds for divorce.
The Bible tells us that the purity of the marital relationship is to be protected, and the concept of marriage should be held in high esteem:
4 Marriage is to be honored by all and the marriage bed kept undefiled, because God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterers.
Unfortunately, this perspective of marriage being honored by all is fading in our culture. In a recent Pew Research poll regarding public views of marriage and cohabitation, 69% of adults in the U.S. said that cohabitation is acceptable even without plans to marry, and 16% more said that it was acceptable only if the couple plans to marry. That’s 85% of people in the U.S. who believe that cohabitation is acceptable.
But as I said earlier, we aren’t called to follow the culture or our desires. We’re called in Christ to follow the commands of God. And the Scriptures tell us that marriage should be held in high regard, and the marriage bed should be kept undefiled. What does this mean?
It means that sex was meant for marriage, and only for marriage. Notice that the author of Hebrews says that “God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterers.” We know that adulterers are those who enter into intimate relationships outside of marriage, when at least one of them is married to someone else. The “sexually immoral” are those who engage in any other intimate relationship outside of marriage when neither of them is married. Students and singles: your marriage bed already exists, and should be kept undefiled for your future spouse.
Consider the admonition of Solomon to his son in Proverbs 5:
15 Drink water from your own cistern, water flowing from your own well. 16 Should your springs flow in the streets, streams in the public squares? 17 They should be for you alone and not for you to share with strangers. 18 Let your fountain be blessed, and take pleasure in the wife of your youth. 19 A loving deer, a graceful doe— let her breasts always satisfy you; be lost in her love forever. 20 Why, my son, would you lose yourself with a forbidden woman or embrace a wayward woman?
If you don’t have a “cistern” yet (a marriage), don’t share what will later belong to your spouse with anyone else in the meantime. To do so is a danger: relationally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
Biblical exceptions for divorce
Biblical exceptions for divorce
The last thing I need to cover about marriage is the biblical exceptions that exist for divorce. One of the sad testimonies about the broken world that we live in is that we have to address these at all. In my understanding of Scripture, there are three: adultery, abuse, and abandonment. Note that none of these situations demand divorce, because reconciliation is possible with Christ, but I believe that the Scriptures confirm that God will not negatively judge believers who divorce for these reasons.
Adultery:
Adultery:
31 “It was also said, Whoever divorces his wife must give her a written notice of divorce. 32 But I tell you, everyone who divorces his wife, except in a case of sexual immorality, causes her to commit adultery. And whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
Divorce was never God’s plan. He hates divorce. But we are often terrible at faithfulness. While God permitted divorce in Israel, that was not what He wanted from them. He allowed divorce to prevent His people from doing even worse things, because their hearts were hard (Matthew 19:3-9).
Abuse:
Abuse:
I generally refer to abuse as kind of a form of adultery, because it is taking the one flesh nature of marriage and misusing it in such a way as to violate its sanctity and purity. Neither spouse has the right to abuse the other physically or otherwise just because you’re married. If you are in an abusive marriage, take action and get yourself safe. I know that’s a hard thing to say and an even harder thing to do. But it’s crucial that you get help if you are in an abusive situation.
Abandonment:
Abandonment:
This is kind of a special situation that Paul spoke to in 1 Corinthians 7.
In it, Paul argues that if a believer is married to an unbeliever, and the unbeliever wants to stay with the believer, then there is no ground for divorce.
12 But I (not the Lord) say to the rest: If any brother has an unbelieving wife and she is willing to live with him, he must not divorce her. 13 Also, if any woman has an unbelieving husband and he is willing to live with her, she must not divorce her husband.
However, if the unbeliever wants to leave, the believing spouse should let them leave. This is abandonment of the marriage on the part of the unbelieving spouse.
15 But if the unbeliever leaves, let him leave. A brother or a sister is not bound in such cases. God has called you to live in peace.
“But Bill, what about if both spouses are believers?” To be completely blunt, I’d really be concerned that the spouse who wants to leave isn’t actually a believer if they choose to abandon the family. If we are in Christ, we should be known by our fruit. The fruit of abandonment is failure to provide what your family needs, specifically: YOU. Paul wrote to Timothy:
8 But if anyone does not provide for his own family, especially for his own household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.
A spouse who has been abandoned with no hope of reconciliation in Christ should let the unbelieving spouse go, and move on as God provides the strength to do so.
Fortunately, Paul sums up his teaching on marriage in verse 33, so it is good for us to do the same:
33 To sum up, each one of you is to love his wife as himself, and the wife is to respect her husband.
Now on to our last part: children.
4) God’s design for children
4) God’s design for children
Children are meant to be the literal offspring of the marital relationship. God designed for humanity to multiply in the context of the marital relationship. However, that also means that children have their own responsibilities to the family that they belong to.
1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, because this is right. 2 Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with a promise, 3 so that it may go well with you and that you may have a long life in the land.
Paul here references the Ten Commandments, quoting the Fifth Word, the first command with a promise (Exo 20:12). When I was in student ministry, whenever I taught on parents I always had one student who would look for the exception: “What if your parents tell you to rob a bank? Should I obey them then?” To that, I have two responses: 1) When was the last time your parents told you to do that? Do you ever really expect them to? Then why bring it up other than to look for a loophole? 2) Note that, just as with submission in the case of wives, children are to obey their parents “in the Lord.” Your obedience to your parents is a gift that you offer to Christ, not just to your parents.
Ultimately, your parents are there to teach you to be an adult. Obeying them is a part of that learning process.
8 Listen, my son, to your father’s instruction, and don’t reject your mother’s teaching, 9 for they will be a garland of favor on your head and pendants around your neck.
Paul ends this section on the family with a command to fathers, specifically (and to mothers, by extension as his helper):
4 Fathers, don’t stir up anger in your children, but bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.
There’s a big thing here that we miss, and that is important: dads, you have every bit as much responsibility for the godly raising of your children as your wives do. More, in fact. This command was given to the men, not the women. They don’t get a parenting instruction. It’s on us to set the example and lead the family toward things of God.
Don’t exasperate your children, angering them to the point that they do not want to hear from you anymore. Training and instruction is discipline. Discipline and discipleship have the same root. They go together.
Bringing up our children in the training and instruction of the Lord can create generations of discipleship.
1 My people, hear my instruction; listen to the words from my mouth. 2 I will declare wise sayings; I will speak mysteries from the past— 3 things we have heard and known and that our ancestors have passed down to us. 4 We will not hide them from their children, but will tell a future generation the praiseworthy acts of the Lord, his might, and the wondrous works he has performed. 5 He established a testimony in Jacob and set up a law in Israel, which he commanded our ancestors to teach to their children 6 so that a future generation— children yet to be born—might know. They were to rise and tell their children 7 so that they might put their confidence in God and not forget God’s works, but keep his commands. 8 Then they would not be like their ancestors, a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation whose heart was not loyal and whose spirit was not faithful to God.
Closing
Closing
The reality is that we could spend weeks on this passage and not exhaust what it says. But this morning, I pray that this fly-by has been challenging and convicting. It has been for me.
But really, one of the biggest things that Paul said here is that this image is one of Christ and the church. Jesus laid down His life for His bride, the church. If you’re not in Christ, having never surrendered your life to Him, you are not a part of His bride. You’re alone, just like Adam was. And you’ve been designed for relationship with God. That relationship comes through trusting in what Jesus has done for you as Savior, and submitting to Him as Lord.
Join church (Robin Hennigh? Kathleen Del Margo and Lonnie Guffin?)
Prayer availability
Offering
PRAYER
Closing Remarks
Closing Remarks
Sundaes on Sunday next week immediately following Family Worship. Come ready to have a great time together and to ask any questions that you might have about the Building Master Plan or the Endeavor campaign.
Bible reading (Ezekiel 44, finishing later this week, then on to Joshua)
Pastor’s Study tonight on Ephesians
Instructions for guests
Benediction
Benediction
18 Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. 19 Husbands, love your wives and don’t be bitter toward them. 20 Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. 21 Fathers, do not exasperate your children, so that they won’t become discouraged.
