Ephesians 6:1

Ephesians 6:1-4. The Christian Home: Children and Parents

1. Children Cp. Colossians 3:20.

obey The Gr. word differs from that rendered "submit yourselves" (Ephesians 6:22). It is the same as that below, Ephesians 6:5, rendered "be obedient." The child, and the bondservant, are to render an obedience (so the words seem to indicate) different in kind from that of the wife, which is so largely tempered by equality in other respects.

"Disobedience to parents" (Romans 1:30; 2 Timothy 3:2) appears in Scripture as a symptom of a state of the gravest evil. The example of the Lord stands in sacred contrast to it, for all ages of the Church (Luke 2:51). 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 (1 Corinthians 9:21) "law-abidingunto Christ," should be first illustrated as well as taught.

parents Mothers as well as fathers (see next verse). Scripture uniformly upholds the authority of the mother. Cp. Proverbs 1:8; Proverbs 6:20.

in the Lord I.e., let your obedience be in Him;rendered as by those whose action gets its reason and secret from union with Him. No doubt the Apostle assumes here a family in which the parents are Christians; but he certainly would not limit the precept to such a case, as it would be limited if "your parents in the Lord" was the verbal connexion.

In the case of Christianparentage, the children, as such, would certainly be reckoned as within the covenant, and, in this sense, "in the Lord." Cp. 1 Corinthians 7:14 ("now are the children holy"). It would be for their own consciences before God, none the less, to ask whether they were also "in Christ" in that inner and ultimate sense which is, spiritually, "new creation" (2 Corinthians 5:17).

There is some evidence, but quite inadequate, for the omission of the words "in the Lord."

right Just; not merely beautiful, or better, but according to the Law of God, both in Nature and in Revelation.

The Apostle does not deal here with the limits of filial obedience in cases where the Divine Will crosses the parental will. He has the great rule and principle wholly in view.