Family Relationships
Ephesians 6:1-4 - "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."
To begin his closing chapter to the Ephesians, Paul shifts from discussing marriage to discussing the family. God's command to man and woman is to be fruitful and multiply within the covenant of marriage. Children are an indescribable blessing for parents, and parents have a duty to raise them up in truth and love. Children likewise have a duty to honor their parents.
Paul begins this passage by focusing on the child's duty to his or her parents. This is fitting because while not all of us have children, we all have parents. Paul tells children to obey their parents in the Lord. We know that within the 10 commandments is the commands for children to honor their father and mother (Exodus 20:12). Paul reminds us here that this commandment from God is the first commandment that includes a promise for keeping it. That promise from God to those children who do obey and honor their parents is a long life. Rebellion and dishonoring one's parents lead to trouble and destruction most generally, especially if your parents are Christians and trying to raise up the child in the Lord.
What does honoring our parents look like? It is obedience to them when we are under their care and under their roof. Our parents make sacrifices for us that we never fully realize until we grow up, get married, and have children of our own. I was blessed with wonderful parents who gave my brothers and I tremendous instruction, guidance, and opportunity. As children advance into their teenage years, it becomes easy to rebel and think that they know more than their parents. They begin to think their parents are out of touch with the times and are trying to ruin their lives by guarding them against the evil that exists. Obedience to their desires is not only a command from God but is also what is best for you both now and in the long run.
When you grow up, move away, and begin your own life, the command to obey your parents subsides. You now are your own man or woman, and eventually when you are married, you become a completely new family. But just because the command to obey is no longer valid, the command to honor is for life. We continue to honor our parents by being selfless, loving them, caring for them, and thanking them for what they did for us. Part of this is not abandoning the faith they raised us in. We do not want to bring dishonor and shame on their name by our actions. Remember, honoring them produces a long life of prosperity, which can be either materially, spiritually, or both.
Parents are also held to their responsibility to raise their children well. We are not to lord our authority over our children in a domineering way, but to show them love and grace as we teach them the truths of the Lord. When we lead with grace, especially as fathers, we show them more about the grace and love of our Heavenly Father. Paul tells us here not to provoke our children into anger. Doing this is perhaps the quickest way to be a stumbling block to our children in their attempt to obey and honor us. When we are constantly grieving them with strict commands, condemnation, and holding them to certain performance standards, the pressure can cause them to drift from their command to love, obey, and honor us.
A few ways parents can cause problems for their children are by being overly protective, displaying favoritism among siblings, or holding their children to unreasonably high performance standards for things in this world (such as in academics, athletics, etc.). It is important to keep the first thing first, and that is God and your children's view of Him and love for Him. Proverbs 22 tells us that when we raise a child up in the way he should go, that he will not depart from it when he is older. My parents encouraged us to be our best at a number of things, but they never lost sight of the most important thing. They encouraged a culture of church attendance, Bible reading, and prayer. The result is three adult children who are married and leading their families in a way that honors the Lord.
But just because we want to lead with grace does not mean we should not also discipline our children. Avoiding discipline and adopting the culture's "soft parenting" style is unbiblical and will cause problems for your children. When the child does something that either causes harm or has potential to cause them harm, we must rebuke the behavior and appropriately discipline them according to their age, understanding, and severity of the wrongdoing. Letting the child escape punishment does not teach accountability or that there are consequences for poor decisions. Godly discipline while the child is young will produce God-honoring behavior by the child as he or she grows older. Proverbs 23:13 actually says, "Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you strike him with a rod, he will not die." Part of training them up in the Lord is spanking, rebuking, and correcting behavior in a way that encourages and produces change.
Fathers, just as you are the spiritual leader of your wife, you are also the spiritual leader of your family. The statistics all show that an involved father who actively attends church and loves the Lord will produces children who do the same. If you fail in your responsibility to your children, they will face the consequences, as will their children. It gets easy to rely on the church with a wonderful youth ministry program to do the training and discipling for our children. But it actually all begins in the home. It's never too late to get started either.
