(1-3) The Spirit-filled life and the parent-child relationship.
Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother,” which is the first commandment with promise: “that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth.”
a. Children, obey your parents: The command is simple. Children are to obey their parents. This not only means that children have the responsibility to obey, but parents have the responsibility to teach their children obedience – one of the most important jobs for a parent.
i. We don’t need to teach our children how to disobey because they have each inherited an inclination to sin from Adam – but obedience must be taught.
ii. It is essential that a parent teach the child obedience, so that the child will grow up knowing how to obey God even when he doesn’t understand everything or doesn’t want to.
iii. This is what all a parent’s discipline for a child must come to. Disobedience must be punished, so that obedience can be learned.
b. In the Lord, for this is right: The apostle gives us two reasons for the child to obey the parent. First, they are to obey in the Lord. This means that their obedience is part of their Christian obedience, in a similar way to the wife’s command to submit to her husband as to the Lord (Ephesians 5:22). The second reason is because it is simply right for a child to obey their parent.
i. What it means to honor our father and mother may change as we grow into adulthood, but the principle always endures. The adult child does not owe the parent obedience, but they do owe the parent honor.
ii. “When the bonds of family life break up, when respect for parents fails, the community becomes decadent and will not live long.” (Foulkes)
c. The first commandment with a promise: Paul reinforced this idea with a reference to Deuteronomy 5:16, where God promised to bless the obedient child.
i. Christians have normally divided the Ten Commandments into the first four (directed towards God) and the last six (directed towards their fellow man). But the Jews divided the commandments in two sets of five, seeing the law to honor your father and mother more as a duty towards God than a duty towards man.
2. (4) How parents walk in the light: not provoking their children to wrath.
And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.
a. Do not provoke your children to wrath: Parents certainly have the opportunity to provoke their children to wrath, through an unkind, over-critical attitude that torments the child instead of training them. But Christian parents should never be like this.
i. “The gospel introduced a fresh element into parental responsibility by insisting that the feelings of the child must be taken into consideration. In a society where the father’s authority (patria potestas) was absolute, this represented a revolutionary concept.” (Wood)
b. Provoke your children to wrath: This harsh kind of parenting Paul speaks against gives an unnecessary justification to a child’s natural rebellion.
i. “When you are disciplining a child, you should have first controlled yourself… What right have you to say to your child that he needs discipline when you obviously need it yourself?” (Lloyd-Jones)
c. Bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord: This does not mean merely scolding your children in the sense of admonition. It means to train and admonish. Encouragement and rebuke must be combined with training and teaching.
i. This is a responsibility for fathers. They must not neglect their responsibility to teach and be a spiritual example for their children. It is not a responsibility that should be left to the mother or the Sunday School.
ii. Training is the same word translated chastening in Hebrews 12:5-11. It has the idea of training through corrective discipline. Admonition has more of the idea of teaching – both are necessary, though it may be significant that training comes first.
iii. Significantly, both training and admonition are used to describe the purpose of the Scriptures (2 Timothy 3:16 and 1 Corinthians 10:11). Parents are to raise their children on the Word of God.
d. Bring them up: This ancient Greek word was originally used of bodily nourishment as in Ephesians 5:29. But the word came to be used for the nurture of body, mind, and soul. The form here suggests “development by care and pains” or as Calvin translated, “Let them be fondly cherished.”
3. (5-8) How employees walk in the light: working as servants of Jesus.
Bondservants, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in sincerity of heart, as to Christ; not with eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, with goodwill doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men, knowing that whatever good anyone does, he will receive the same from the Lord, whether he is a slave or free.
a. Bondservants, be obedient… as to Christ: The words “as to Christ” change our entire perspective as workers. It reminds us that our work can and should be done as if we were working for Jesus – because we are!
i. “The Gospel found slavery in the world; and in many regions, particularly the Roman and the Greek, it was a very bad form of slavery. The Gospel began at once to undermine it, with its mighty principles of the equality of all souls in the mystery and dignity of manhood, and of the equal work of redeeming love wrought for all souls by the supreme Master. But its plan was – not to batter, but to undermine… So while the Gospel in one respect left slavery alone, it doomed it in another.” (Moule)
b. Not with eyeservice: We are not to work with eyeservice (working only when the boss is looking) or as men-pleasers (those who only care about pleasing man), but with good will (a good attitude, not complaining) doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men.
i. As to the Lord means that all our work is really done unto the Lord, not unto man. “Grace makes us the servants of God while still we are the servants of men: it enables us to do the business of heaven while we are attending to the business of earth: it sanctifies the common duties of life by showing us how to perform them in the light of heaven.” (Spurgeon)
c. Doing the will of God: In Greek culture manual work was despised and the goal of being successful was getting to the point where you never had to do any work. This isn’t how it is in God’s kingdom, where hard work and manual labor are honorable.
i. It should be said of every Christian that he is a hard worker and gives his employer a full day’s work for his pay; to do anything less is to steal from your employer.
d. He will receive the same from the Lord, whether he is a slave or free: Paul relates a final reason for working hard for the Lord. God will return to us in the measure that we have worked hard for others; He will not allow our hard work to go without reward.
i. This connects to an interesting principle. When people are born again, their life changes and they become harder workers and less wasteful, and they are blessed thereby and become prosperous. But after becoming prosperous, we often allow our hearts to grow far from God, then God disciplines us with hard times, and then we repent – and then the cycle starts again. This is not a necessary cycle, but it is a common one.