CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES
Ephesians 6:1. Children, obey.—Until the days of discretion arrive this is the grace of childhood. If through obedience the child errs, the responsibility of that is with those who commanded. It is only a “surrendered soul” that can sing:
“I would be treated as a child,
And guided where I go.”
Ephesians 6:2. Honour thy father and mother.—As long as they are so.
Ephesians 6:3. That it may be well with thee.—If ever “that it may be” could mean “and so it shall be,” we should strenuously plead for that meaning here. For it would be a pitiable thing indeed to find a man showing filial piety as a profitable course.
Ephesians 6:4. Nurture and admonition.—The former word is more general than the latter, including everything that goes to the instruction of the child. “Admonition” is reproof, either of word or punishment, or yet again, warning.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Ephesians 6:1-4
Duties of Children and Parents.
I. The duty of children to parents is to obey.—
1. This obedience has the divine sanction. “In the Lord” (Ephesians 6:1). Both the command and the obedience must be in harmony with the relation in which both parents and children stand towards God. The parent who has not himself learnt to respect and obey the law of God is ill prepared for the grave responsibilities of family government. Natural affection and the instincts of common sense will guide the parents in the ordinary affairs of home-life, and the sense of dependence and respect should induce instinctive obedience in the child. No parent has any right to enforce an obedience which is not in harmony with the supreme claims of God. The child who submits to the will of his parents is taught at the same time to obey the higher law of God. If he defies parental authority and persists in disobedience, he is sure to be treated in the same way if he ever has children of his own. To be able to govern we must first learn to obey.
2. This obedience is in harmony with natural order and the eternal principles of justice.—“For this is right” (Ephesians 6:1). Obedience is the law of the universe, and without it everything would rush into anarchy and chaos. Law is so all-pervasive as to cover every department and relationship of life, and its breach in any sphere carries with it its own punishment. Disobedience is not only a wrong to the person who commits it, but it is an injustice to somebody else. Obedience to parents in things lawful is no hardship. It is becoming and commendable because it is right. It is the perversity of our nature when it becomes difficult to do right. Disobedience is a wilful divergence from the straight line of rectitude, and is the essence of all sin.
3. This obedience ensures the divine blessing (Ephesians 6:2-3).—It is our duty to obey irrespective of any advantage to be secured. The loyal heart looks, not to the reward, but to the duty. It is no merit to do what it is our duty to do. Yet such is the condescension and goodness of God that He attaches a special blessing to every act of unselfish obedience. Filial obedience should not be dilatory and reluctant, but prompt, cheerful, self-denying, and uniform. Obedience is the path of safety. A pointsman in Prussia was at the junction of two lines of railway, lever in hand, for a train that was signalled. The engine was within a few seconds of reaching the embankment when the man, turning his head, perceived his little boy playing between the rails on which the train was running. He stuck to his lever, but shouted to the child, “Lie down! lie down!” The train passed, and the father rushed forward to pick up what he feared would be the mangled body of his child; but what was his joy to find the boy had at once obeyed his order, had lain down, and the train passed over him without injuring him. His prompt obedience saved his life. Dutiful children secure the blessing of God. Filial obedience practised in the Christian home forms habits of promptitude, self-control, and self respect which are important conditions of success and prosperity.
II. The duty of parents to children is to exercise discipline.—
1. Not by enforcing commands that tend to irritate. “Ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath” (Ephesians 6:4). Children are a sacred trust and solemn responsibility; not to be weakly fondled or foolishly spoilt, but to be wisely, kindly, and strictly disciplined into obedience and duty. The Chinese have a proverb, when a son is born into a family a bow and arrow are hung before the gate. In Eastern books sons are spoken of as arrows of their fathers. “As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man, so are children of the youth” (Psalms 127:4). As the bowman straightens and polishes his arrow, gives it a sharp and solid point, and wings it with feathers, so parents must train and equip their children that they may go straight to the point of duty and hit the mark. The arrows that are not prepared and directed when in the hand may, when they are gone abroad into the world, and all parental training is too late, prove arrows in the heart that will rankle with unspeakable pain. The training of children is also a training of the parent. Many a hint is unconsciously given as to “training up a parent in the way he should go.” While there should be firm discipline, there should not be exasperating and tantalising severity. Rousing a child’s anger is not the best way of subduing it. A sullen submission gained, by provoking and then crushing an angry opposition, is rendered with a sense of injustice and wrong that will breed future mischief. Monod says: “Correction and instruction should proceed from the Lord, and be directed by the Spirit of the Lord in such a way that it is not so much the father who corrects his children and teaches them, as the Lord through him.” The father who chastises in wrath provokes the child to wrath and rebellion.
2. But by judicious religious culture.—“But bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4). Children are the glifts of God to be trained for God. They are susceptible of genuine religious experience, and are often nearer the truth than grown-up people. Christ recognised the spiritual faculty in children, and gave them a conspicuous place in His kingdom. When He wished to show the type of true greatness, He did not point to stars or mountains or earthly dignities, but “called a little child unto Him and, set him in the midst” (Matthew 18:2-4). Children are capable of useful religious service, and in many ways may be little missionaries for Christ. Dr. W. L. Breckenridge once said to his mother: “Mother, I think you ruled us with too rigid a rod in our boyhood. It would have been better had you used gentler methods.” The old lady straightened up and said: “Well, William, when you have raised up three as good preachers as I have then you can talk.” The smaller magnets have proportionately much the greater power, and children have a remarkable spiritual force with which the Christian parent has to deal.
Lessons.—
1. Parental discipline should be in harmony with the law of God.
2. The rigour of parental discipline should be tempered with love.
3. Respect and obedience to parents will be divinely rewarded.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
Ephesians 6:1-4. The Mutual Duties of Children and Parents.
I. Children are to obey and honour their parents.—
1. Children owe to their parents an inward affection and regard. Their obedience should flow from love, gratitude, and esteem. The love parents bear to their children entitles them to reciprocal affection.
2. They are to honour their parents by external tokens of respect.
3. They are to obey the just commands of their parents.
4. They are to receive with decent and humble regard the instructions, counsels, and reproofs of their parents.
5. They should remunerate the favours received from their parents.
6. They are encouraged in their obedience by the divine promise.
II. The duties of parents to children.—
1. To instruct their children in the doctrines and duties of religion.
2. To endeavour by arguments, exhortations, and reproofs to form their lives according to those instructions.
3. To regulate the diversions of their children.
4. To maintain the worship of God in their houses.
5. To let their conversation be exemplary.
6. To train up their children with diligence in some honest business.
7. To commend their children to God and the word of His grace.—Lathrop.
Ephesians 6:1-2. Obedience.—The dutiful obedience of children is declared by God in the fifth commandment to be the foundation of all social happiness and of every social virtue.
I. The behaviour of a child to its parents is no such trifle as too many perverse children and too many foolish parents are prone to fancy it.—How often we hear mothers saying, “It is only the poor child’s way; it is a little pettish and fractious at times, but it means no harm by it. To be sure it does not mind me quite so well as it ought to do; but children will be children.” So the child goes on uncorrected, and grows up disobedient and undutiful—with habits and dispositions so evil that God has classed them with the very worst crimes, with false swearing, theft, adultery, and even murder. If undutifulness in children had been a mere trifle, would God have put it into this black list?
II. Observe the reasonableness and justice of the duty of children to obey their parents.—The child is helpless and entirely dependent on its parents’ care and kindness. So strong and lasting is a mother’s love that, while other animals drive their young away as soon as they can feed themselves, the love of human parents descends and prolongs itself even to their offspring’s offspring. Think of their fears, their wishes, their prayers for your souls’ welfare. Your love to them should be dutiful love, showing itself in acts of gentleness, respect, and kindness, and in the strictest and readiest obedience. Children are bound to obey, not from constraint, nor from fear of blows, but readily, willingly, cheerfully. The obedience paid for fear of stripes is the obedience of a mule, not of a son. What can a child know save what its parents teach it? Its parents for a time stand in the place of God to it; as such, it must believe them and obey them. You may be the better for their experience, you may profit by their warnings, you may learn from their lessons.
III. Observe the use and benefit of obedience in forming the character of the child.—It is in the school of home, amid the little hardships, restraints, crosses, and disappointments which every child must needs meet with, that the great lesson of obedience is best learnt. There is a root of self-will born in every man, and out of this root grow two evil and misshapen stems—pride and disobedience. You may as well expect water to burn and fire to wet, you may as well expect a barren common that has never been ploughed and sown to produce a crop of wheat, as that a child, which has gone on year after year in pride, self-will, and disobedience to its parents, will readily or easily tear off its habits and its nature, to walk humbly and obediently before God. We must cultivate obedience in the child that it may outgrow, overtop, and stifle, or at least keep under, the evil stem of disobedience. We must cultivate humility in him, that it may keep under the evil of pride. We must train and accustom him to habits of steady self-denial, which our Lord has recommended to us as the best yokes for our headstrong and else unmanageable self-will. Thus the fifth commandment is a kind of practical school where the child, in obeying its parents, learns to obey all to whom it owes obedience.—A. W. Hare.
Ephesians 6:4. A Father’s Charge.
I. The duties parents owe to their children.—
1. Children are weak and helpless and totally incapable of caring for themselves—hence arises the first duty which parents owe them, that of feeding and clothing them.
2. Are ignorant and without understanding—hence they should not only be fed but taught.
3. Are unruly, and therefore must be governed.
4. Are prone to evil, and therefore must be restrained.
II. The obligations parents are under to practise these duties.—
1. They should do it for their own sakes.
2. For their children’s sake.
3. For society’s sake.
4. For God’s sake.
Learn.—
1. The practicability of a religious education.
2. How awful is the responsibility of parents—of fathers especially.—Sketches.