The Covenant Household Orchestra Text: Ephesians 6:1-4
Introduction: The Household as a Battlefield
We are in the final section of Paul's letter to the Ephesians, and it is crucial that we understand the context. He has just finished describing the beautiful mystery of Christ and the Church, using marriage as the central illustration. Now, as he concludes, he is not shifting gears to a disconnected list of household chores. Rather, he is describing the basic training ground for the spiritual warfare he is about to detail. Before he tells us to put on the whole armor of God to stand against the schemes of the devil, he first gives us the marching orders for the Christian household. Why? Because the devil's primary strategy is to attack and disintegrate the family.
A disordered household is an undefended outpost. A rebellious home is a compromised fortress. The sexual revolution, the feminist revolution, the rebellion of children, and the abdication of fathers are not just sociological phenomena. They are strategic demonic assaults. Our secular age wants to treat the family as a fluid, man-made arrangement, a social contract to be renegotiated at will. But the Bible presents the family as a divinely-ordered institution, a covenantal structure with fixed roles, responsibilities, and blessings. It is God's basic government.
Therefore, these instructions to children and parents are not quaint suggestions for domestic tranquility. They are fundamental to our spiritual warfare. A well-ordered Christian household is a potent, offensive weapon against the kingdom of darkness. It is a little embassy of the Kingdom of Heaven, a picture of God's authority and love in a world that despises both. When children obey their parents in the Lord, and when fathers bring up their children in the Lord, the gates of Hell tremble. This is where the battle is joined.
The Text
Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.
HONOR YOUR FATHER AND MOTHER (which is the first commandment with a promise),
SO THAT IT MAY BE 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 LSB)
The Child's Duty: Right Obedience (v. 1)
We begin with the charge to children:
"Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right." (Ephesians 6:1)
The command is straightforward: obey. This is not a suggestion. It is a divine imperative. The parent stands in the place of God to the young child. Parental authority is delegated authority, and to disobey the lawful command of a parent is to disobey God. This is the foundational lesson in submission to authority that prepares a child to submit to God, to civil magistrates, to church elders, and to employers. A child who is not taught to obey his parents will be a menace to every other institution he joins.
But notice the crucial qualifier: "in the Lord." This is not a blank check for parental tyranny. The authority of parents is real, but it is not ultimate. All authority is under God. This means two things. First, for the child, your obedience to your parents is part of your obedience to Christ. You are to obey them as those appointed by the Lord to care for you. Second, it sets the limits of obedience. If a parent commands a child to sin, to lie, to steal, to deny Christ, the child's higher duty is to obey God rather than man. The phrase "in the Lord" both establishes and limits parental authority.
Paul then gives the reason: "for this is right." This is not a pragmatic argument, "obey because it will make your life easier." It is a moral argument. It is right in the created order. God has hardwired the universe in such a way that the parent-child relationship functions on the basis of authority and submission. It is as fundamental as gravity. To rebel against this is to rebel against the grain of the universe. It is to declare that you know better than your Creator how life should be structured. This is the essence of original sin, and it is replayed every time a toddler stamps his foot and says "No!"
The Enduring Commandment: Honoring with a Promise (v. 2-3)
Paul then grounds this command in the Old Testament law, showing its abiding relevance.
"HONOR YOUR FATHER AND MOTHER (which is the first commandment with a promise), SO THAT IT MAY BE WELL WITH YOU, AND THAT YOU MAY LIVE LONG IN THE LAND." (Ephesians 6:2-3 LSB)
Here Paul quotes the fifth commandment from the Decalogue. It is important to see that honor is a broader category than obedience. A child may be required to obey a foolish command, but he is never required to honor the folly. Honor has to do with an inward attitude of respect and reverence for the office of parent. Obedience is for a season; a child grows up and leaves home, establishing his own household, and is no longer under the direct authority of his parents. But the command to honor them never expires. You are to honor your parents until the day they die, and you are to honor their memory after they are gone.
Paul makes a parenthetical note that this is "the first commandment with a promise." This is a significant observation. The Ten Commandments are the bedrock of God's moral law. The first four deal with our duty to God, and the last six with our duty to man. This commandment is the bridge between the two tables of the law. Honoring our parents is the first step in learning how to honor our neighbor. The family is the school of love. If you don't learn to honor the authorities you can see, you will never learn to honor the God you cannot see.
And the promise is glorious: "that it may be well with you, and that you may live long in the land." In the Old Covenant, this was a specific promise of blessing and stability in the land of Canaan. For us in the New Covenant, the principle is transposed. The "land" is the sphere of God's blessing, the kingdom of Christ. This is a covenantal promise. It means that a culture that honors parents will be a stable, prosperous, and enduring culture. A society where children despise their parents is a society on the verge of collapse. We see this all around us. The breakdown of the family is the precursor to the breakdown of the nation. This is not just a promise to individuals, though it applies there. It is a promise to societies. A culture of honor is a culture of life.
The Father's Duty: Formative Paideia (v. 4)
The command is not one-sided. Paul immediately turns to the head of the household, the father.
"Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord." (Ephesians 6:4 LSB)
The address to "fathers" is deliberate. While mothers are certainly involved in child-rearing, the Scripture places the final, ultimate responsibility on the father. He is the head of the household, and God will hold him accountable for how his children are raised. He sets the tone, the vision, and the spiritual direction for the family.
The command comes in two parts, a negative and a positive. First, the negative: "do not provoke your children to anger." This is a crucial check on paternal authority. A father can misuse his authority and exasperate his children. How? Through hypocrisy, inconsistency, favoritism, neglect, abuse, unreasonable demands, or constant criticism. A father who disciplines in anger, who is never satisfied, who belittles his children, is a father who is provoking them. He is making righteousness odious. He is tempting them to despair and bitterness. This command requires fathers to be self-controlled, just, and loving in their exercise of authority.
Then comes the positive command, which is the central task of fatherhood: "but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord." The Greek word here for "discipline and instruction" is rich. It is the word paideia. This is not just about teaching them Bible verses, though it certainly includes that. Paideia refers to the entire project of enculturation. It is the comprehensive shaping of a child's soul, mind, affections, and habits. It is the transfer of a whole way of life. The Greeks used this word to describe the process of making a child into a good Greek citizen. Paul baptizes the term. He says that the father's job is to oversee the complete enculturation of his children into the Christian faith. He is to raise them to think like Christians, to love what Christ loves, to hate what Christ hates, and to live as faithful citizens of the Kingdom of God.
This is the father's great commission. It involves formal instruction, yes, but also discipline, correction, training, and, most importantly, example. The paideia of the Lord is not something you can outsource to the Sunday School or the Christian school. It happens at the dinner table, in family worship, in how you treat your wife, in how you work, in how you handle conflict. The father is the lead pastor of his little flock.
Conclusion: The Symphony of the Home
So what we have here is not a list of rules, but a description of a well-tuned orchestra. The conductor is the Lord Jesus Christ. The father is the concertmaster, leading his section. The children are musicians who must follow his lead, playing their part in submission. When each member fulfills his God-given role, the result is not a cacophony of competing wills, but a beautiful symphony of order, love, and grace that glorifies God.
This is the gospel applied to the family. Children, you are sinners who naturally rebel against authority. You need the grace of Christ to have a heart that delights to obey. Fathers, you are sinners who are tempted to be harsh or negligent. You need the grace of Christ to lead with loving, sacrificial authority, just as Christ leads the church.
The world sees this divine order as oppressive. They call for the liberation of children from parents and the overthrow of paternal headship. But this is a call for chaos. It is a call to smash the instruments and burn the sheet music. The Christian household, when it functions as God designed, is a powerful apologetic to a watching world. It is a testament that God's ways are right, good, and beautiful. It is the place where the next generation of spiritual warriors is forged. Let us therefore commit ourselves to building such households, for the glory of God and the advance of His kingdom.