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. - Ephesians 6:1-4
Last blog entry parents were encouraged not to use Ephesians 6:1 as a whip to demand obedience from them. This poses the problem that I need to address in this blog: is it right for a parent to expect obedience from their child if it is God who addresses them?
If we look at Ephesians 5:22-33 we see that wives submit to their husbands in the Lord. We would not say that a husband has the right to demand a wife’s submission and we would look to the fact that the command is given by God to the wife. Thus, her submission cannot be demanded by her husband because it is between the wife and God as to how she exercises her submission. This begs the question, do parents have the right to expect obedience from their children when the command to obey is given to the child by God and not the parent?
In a word, yes! Here are three things to consider:
Children are Different than Wives: Even though relationships in marriage and parenting are structured in a similar way in Ephesians 5:22-6:4 there is a key difference between a wife and a child. A wife is an adult believer while a child still comes with other scriptural mandates for training (Proverbs 22:6, 15; 23:13-14; 13:24). There are other parts of the Bible that instruct parents on what it looks like to train a child while there is no such obligation placed on husbands towards wives elsewhere in Scripture. Thus, parents have a balancing act. On the one hand they must train their children to obey but on the other hand, their obedience is ultimately something God demands of them.
God’s Demand is Impossible: Biblical obedience includes honor as well. For instance, if a child is told to take the trash out they may do it, even immediately, but if they roll their eyes they are dishonoring their parents and guilty of disobedience. Voddie Baucham describes the spirit of biblical obedience this way: “do what I say, when I say it, with a respectful attitude.” As long as true obedience involves all these things I think we can all agree that children are expected to do the impossible. Paul might as well be asking them to do our income taxes. Romans 3:20 tells us that the law brings a knowledge of sin, it doesn’t justify because no one can keep it. So when Paul asks parents to train their children in obedience he knows they are required to do something they simply cannot do apart from the spirit of God (Ephesians 5:18) and the grace of Christ (Ephesians 1:7).
Hold The Standard But Give Them Grace: While parents are called to train their children in obedience they must also remember that they are doing so on God’s behalf, as fellow sinners who can’t even meet the standard of verse 4 themselves. Thus, I would suggest that Christian parents have a higher goal for their children than bringing them to obedience. What is it, you ask? It is to help them to see their need for a savior, their need for the grace of Christ so that their kids will respond to Jesus with saving faith. Here are three ways parents can extend grace to their children as they call them to obedience:
Educate your child on what kind of parent God want’s you to be. Parents should help their kids understand that God has expectations on them too. This will help children to see that both they and their parents are called to worship God and it will help children to see that their parents need grace too. A parent who forgets they themselves need grace will most likely forget their child needs grace as well. Parents may be guilty of provoking their children to anger when they simply demand obedience with little compassion for their childishness and their sin nature. When parents model their own need for Jesus, it will be much easier to invite obedience knowing they need Jesus, and he is available for them as well.
Educate your child on what kind of child God wants them to be. In light of God’s call upon parents children should learn that they too need to respond to God. In this parents will have the opportunity to paint a picture for their children of what a “city on a hill” looks like and how they play a part in bringing it about. Children will not just see that they must obey their parents but that they have the honor and privilege of serving king Jesus through their obedience. Children need help seeing that in obeying parents they are learning to respond to God by faith and this will set them up for a lifetime of joy and blessing.
Invite them to Jesus when they fail to obey. There is a difference between demanding obedience and showing them how to find forgiveness. It is crucial that parents don’t take disobedience personally. The temptation for parents to enforce Ephesians 6:1 is to do so selfishly. When parents are motivated for their children to obey because of the ways that it benefits them they should beware. A child will be able to tell if a parent genuinely wants to raise a worshipper of God rather than someone who doesn’t annoy them. It will be the difference between compassion and harshness and the child will sense hypocrisy because they will see someone who is very imperfect demanding perfection. It is understandable why a child growing up in this environment might not want anything to do with the God whom their hypocritical parent is representing. Parents should always hold the standard of obedience but it should ring with compassion and hope that Jesus was the only one who truly obeyed perfectly. When he died on the cross he paid the penalty for your disobedience and now he invites you to worship him and follow him in obedience. This is good news and it is very different than snapping the whip at them.
May God grant us the wisdom, skill and compassion as parents to hold the standard and give our kids grace that leads them to belief in Christ.
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