Ephesians 6:1-4--Children and Parents

Children and Parents
6 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2 “Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), 3 “that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.” 4 Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

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Quite a short passage today, but an important one.  Remember that we just talked about how wives should love their husbands and how husbands should love their wives.  Naturally, the next topic that Paul is going to address in our Christian relationship is between children and parents.  We are once again going to see the phrase "in the Lord" used.  You may also want your Bible open to Exodus 20:12 and Deuteronomy 5:16 as Paul is going to cite these passages and through the Holy Spirit extend a promise that looked like it was only to the Jews to the Gentiles as well.

One of the first things we see here is that it is the duty of the child to obey and honor their parents in the Lord.  This is going to be an overarching theme of Paul's in many of his epistles--whatever earthly authority God has put you under, it is your responsibility to obey and honor that authority and to do so is to understand that the authority you are under has been placed their by God and that person's authority flows from God.  They would have no authority if it was not for God giving them the authority that they have.

This is no small thing to God as it was the first of the commandments in the Ten Commandments on how we are supposed to interact with each other.  There are four commandments telling us how we are to treat God and love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength (Deuteronomy 6:5) and then there are six commandments that tell us how to "lover your neighbor as you love yourself" (Leviticus 19:18).  (See Mark 12:30-31).  It is also the first commandment given with a promise attached to it--that those who obey would go well for them (prosperity) and they would live long in the land of the Promise (not necessarily long life).  In the Old Testament, when the children of Israel were disobedient to the laws given to them by their Father in heaven, they were separated from the land of the Promise and put under the authority of wicked, pagan kings (like the kings of Babylon and the Medo-Persian empire).  We also do see indications though in the book of Job that Old Testament saints believed there was some connection between obedience and longevity, and that this was possibly a sign to the younger generation that those who lived long had wisdom from the Lord to share which they should learn.  We'll see in some other epistles later that we are to honor not just our parents, but all of our elders and learn wisdom from them, but we are only given the commandment to obey our own parents and the other authorities put directly over us.  There is nowhere in Scripture that I know of where a child is commanded to obey the voice of every adult simply because they are older.  It is the responsibility of the parents to raise their children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord and to train them up in the way they should go.  For this reason, they are to listen to the voice of their parents as a sheep would listen to the voice of its own shepherd, because the shepherd is there to lead the sheep and to protect it, but as the sheep will not listen to the voice of a stranger, so we should not expect children to heed the voice of anyone other than the voice of their parents (at least, not until they are old enough to understand that all authority comes from God and that they are put under the authority of others when they are outside the care of their parents--such as grandparents, babysitters, Sunday School teachers, kindergarten and preschool teachers, and so on).  My personal opinion here is that the more that the parents can be involved in the raising of their own children, the better.  This duty should not be delegated to anyone else if possible and it is an important part of deciding to have children.  The world would love to get ahold of your children and fill their minds with its philosophies and worldview from a young age when their minds are very malleable and can be formed into whatever image they want.  It is incumbent on us to make sure that if nothing else, we are filling their minds with Scripture, psalms, hymns and spiritual songs at home (things they likely won't be learning at school--even at a Christian school, and maybe not even at church) so that they know the truth about who they are, who God is, and what God requires of them.  Eventually they will understand the concepts of sin and rebellion and it will also be incumbent upon parents to make sure their children know and understand the gospel.

God ordained discipleship to start in the home between parents and their children, but you can't teach what you don't already first know.  If you are afraid of not having answers for some of the tough questions that your kids will ask (and they will ask a lot of questions), there are some great resources for you that I'd be happy to point you to, but I already have some of them posted on our Discipleship Discord--namely The Gospel Project for Kids videos and The New City Catechism (there are songs for kids that go along with most of the questions to help them remember the questions and answers).  These might be great opportunities for both parents and children to learn good theology and good doctrine together.  Some of my earliest memories as a child are of watching my father have his daily devotions in the morning and eventually having him invite me to join him.  It definitely took him longer to have me read the passage and for him to explain it to me, but it was worth the extra time for him to teach me the importance of meeting with God first thing in the morning--something that I've only recently gotten into the habit of doing myself.

Let's return to today's text now as Paul wraps up with a short but important instruction to parents--specifically to fathers.  Fathers are to be careful to not abuse the authority that they have been given by God and provoke their children to anger.  Many times this comes from children seeing hypocrisy in the "Do as I say, not as I do" philosophy of parenting that fails to see parenting as a form of discipleship.  Your children will follow in your footsteps wherever those footsteps lead.  Just like how when walking through snow they may try to step in the footprints that you have left and it might be necessary for you to change your gait to match their stride.  They're also not going to be perfect in everything that they do.  Children require a lot of patience, grace and forgiveness, but there is also some discipline required and it's important to make sure that this correction is given in the right attitude.  Most importantly though, it is imperative that your children know that you love them, and the way that they know this is that you show and tell them.  Telling them is the easy part.  Saying, "I love you" and having them say it back to you is "cheap," but spending time with them--both planned and unplanned time is extremely important for a child to know and understand the love of their Heavenly Father.  If a child has a strong relationship with his or her father, they will grow and mature to a point where they don't want to do anything that would damage that relationship.  In the same way, we will grow and mature spiritually to a point where we obey not out of fear of correction, but out of a desire to preserve to good relationship we have with Father God.

Children are very emotional and can be tossed to and fro and have their emotions easily manipulated, but they should not be manipulated nor should they be used as pawns in the parents disagreements with each other or any other "politics" that involve the parents.  Jesus tells us that we much all come to God like innocent little children and that anyone who misleads a child and makes the child sin would be better off having a millstone hung around his neck and thrown into the sea because things will not go well for that person on the day of judgment.  We are all to be careful to protect our children and lead them in the way they should go and to teach them early on to obey and honor the authority that they have been put under at that time (their parents) as this is their model for how they will treat all authority moving forward--including how they will treat God.