Ephesians 6:1-4
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.
Welcome to Getting ready for Sunday, a podcast of first Lutheran Church. Each week, I introduced the readings for the upcoming Sunday with some notes and explanation so you can be ready for worship when you arrive. I look at the Old Testament, Psalm epistle and Gospel reading for the upcoming Sunday and offer a few notes and explanation. Hey, everyone, this Sunday, we're doing something a little different. We're starting a sermon series on raising children in the faith. So the readings are not the same as the lectionary readings. The Epistle reading that I've chosen for Sunday, October 1 is Ephesians, chapter six verses one through four. It reads, Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and your 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. Here ends the reading Ephesians chapter six is in the middle of a long section where it talks about different duties for different groups of people, husbands, wives, children, fathers. And this section really focuses in on the instruction between parents and children. So it begins with children obey your parents in the Lord, for this is write, Honor your father and your 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. So the first thing he says goes out to the to the Children, obey your parents, Honor your father and mother. This is of course the fourth commandment by the Lutheran numbering from the 10 commandments. And so what is saying is children God wants you to listen to your parents as they raise you. Now, this is not just a command to children. A Honor your father and mother is a commandment that suggests that fathers and mothers should be honorable, that the things that they tell their children are right and good and true. And the heart of that is raising children in the faith so that they can grow up in the Christian faith and have eternal life. In St. Paul points out this promise, it says that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land. Now, the interesting thing about this idea of living long in the land is not the idea that if people listen to their parents, life goes better. The idea is if you listen to faithful parents, ancient Israel, you will keep the covenant. And God will not kick the people of Israel out of the promised land. Because that's the thing that was going on. There is not that the if they listened to their parents that live a happy and full life. But God had said in the covenant of the commandments, that he would keep them forever in the land if they followed his covenant, but kick them out if they did not. Hear, here's a promise that is not about a full life, but about salvation and God's promises. And for us when when faithful children listen to faithful parents, it means that they will live long, not in a in a land or a country, but in eternal life. When God returns and raises them from the dead, that continues, fathers do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Now Roman fathers had a great deal of power over their children. In fact, children owned nothing in the household of Rome, and the fathers, the head of the household, owned everything, all land, all money, all everything. And they could tell their children to do what ever they wanted. And if you go back long enough, in Roman times, fathers could even kill their children without repercussion. Not Not so in Paul's era, but this is still part of the history and tradition of Rome. So he's saying, Don't do don't be cruel. Instead, show the kind of love that an honorable father and mother would give by bringing them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Discipline is the behavior. So it would be like doing the spiritual practices, service, love and care. And the instruction is the teaching, understanding God's word, hearing it and learning it and knowing it. And that's what God gives to parents to raise their children in the faith through the discipline and instruction of the Lord. That's it for today. We'll see you on Sunday. Bye
Transcribed by https://otter.ai