"Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right."
Ephesians 6:1
Part 3
Yesterday:
“Obey your parents,” cont.
The disobedient child is in a place of great danger before the Lord. We parents are here to help them to learn obedience.
Today:
“In the Lord:”
“Children, obey your parents in the Lord.” This phrase is similar to the thought for wives in Ephesians 5:22.
“Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord” (Ephesians 5:22).
The wife submits herself to the Lord and therefore, will submit to her husband in doing what he says. She is only bound to submit to him in requests that are biblical, legal, and moral. Any request by a husband that violates any of these, she must not heed to. The simple principle for everyone is “always obey your highest authority.” God’s decree overrides her husband’s authority. It is also like this with children. The child must obey the parent as they would obey the Lord. If the parent asks of the child anything that disagrees with the Word of God, the child must not comply. This is another reason that parents must teach their child biblical obedience. Christ is our Lord and Master, He is the one to whom we must always obey. Our children must learn this from us at home.
“It is in the school of the well-ordered Christian home that the true idea of the Christian’s position, divinely filial in its freedom, yet… “law-abiding unto Christ,” should be first illustrated as well as taught.”1
We believers, and our children ought to be obedient, “law-abiding unto Christ!” We must always obey Him!2
“For this is right.”
Why are children to obey their parents? Because “this is right!” It is God’s plan for children to obey their parents. It is His order as the Creator, for it is His plan. Barnes also reminds children of their enormous debt of gratitude they owe to their parents for all that they have done for them. This is another reason a child needs to obey his parents. And what will happen in a society where children have never been taught that they must obey? Chaos! With “everyone doing that which is right in their own eyes” (note well the warning in 2 Timothy 3). Obedience is right for the child, and also for the society in which the child lives.
“Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right.”
1. Cambridge Bible, the electronic version in eSword.
2. Paul’s thought, “To them that are without law, as without law, (being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ,) that I might gain them that are without law (1 Corinthians 9:21).