CHAPTER 14
Ephesians 6:1–4
LISTEN to the Story
1Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2“Honor your father and mother”—which is the first commandment with a promise—3“so that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.”
4Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.
Listening to the text in the Story: Exodus 20:1–17; Deuteronomy 6:1–9; Proverbs 6:20; 13:1, 24; 23:24; Colossians 3:20–21; 1 Thessalonians 2:7–12.
The second section of the household code in Ephesians focuses on the relationship between children and parents.1 This section echoes traditional Greco-Roman and Jewish teaching about family life, though Paul reshapes these cultural conventions in light of Christ. He begins by addressing children (6:1–3) before adding counsel for fathers (6:4).
EXPLAIN the Story
The four-verse section on the relationship between children and parents includes four imperatives: obey (6:1), honor (6:2), do not exasperate (6:4), and bring them up (6:4).
Children Obey Your Parents (6:1)
Each section of the household code in Ephesians begins by addressing those who had less cultural power: women, children, and slaves. This contrasts with the usual Greco-Roman practice of speaking just to the male head of the household. Paul regards women, children, and slaves as moral agents, people who can choose to live in light of God’s story in their position in society.
Children, obey your parents (6:1). The first directive for children uses the standard Greek verb meaning “to obey,”2 found here in the present imperative, which suggests ongoing obedience. That children should obey their parents was widely affirmed throughout the Mediterranean world. The Jewish wisdom tradition stated, “My son, keep your father’s command, and do not forsake your mother’s teaching” (Prov 6:20). When Ephesians supports the exhortation “Children, obey your parents” with the rationale “for this is right,” both Gentile and Jewish readers would have agreed.
In the Lord (6:1). The distinctively Christian element of verse 1, “in the Lord,” may or may not have been in Paul’s original letter. The words en kyriō do not appear in some of the oldest manuscripts of Ephesians. Text critics are unsure whether “in the Lord” was added to the original text of Ephesians, perhaps under the influence of 5:22 and Colossians 3:20, or deleted by early scribes for some reason.3 Though “in the Lord” is held to be authentic by most translators and commentators, it would be prudent not to put too much weight down on this phrase. But whether “in the Lord” is original or not, the larger context of Ephesians4 and the mention of “the Lord” in 6:4 indicate that the obedience of Christian children happens in the Lord, that is, in the realm and community of Christ the Lord.
Children Honor Your Father and Mother (6:2–3)
Honor your father and mother (6:2). Following the imperative “obey your parents” comes a citation of a portion of the Ten Commandments, “Honor your father and mother.”5 This quotation is interrupted by a parenthetical comment, “which is the first commandment with a promise” (6:2). Paul wanted his primarily Gentile audience to know that obedience to parents is not just right but also beneficial. It leads to a blessed and lengthy life (6:3).
Commentators have wondered why Paul adds a quotation from the Decalogue after telling children to obey their parents. If just about everyone in the Greco-Roman world would agree that children should obey their parents, why bolster the opening imperative in this way?
I do not believe Paul cited the Decalogue mainly to provide moral support for the imperative “obey your parents.” Rather, Paul was moving from the specific and rather passive command, “obey,” to something more sweeping and active, “honor.” The Greek verb for “to honor” means “to value, show high regard for, honor, revere.”6 Surely children honor their parents by obeying them. But honor includes much more, not just following orders but living in such a way that parents feel valued by their children and are esteemed by their community because of their exemplary children. In the honor/shame culture of the first century, one of the finest things children of all ages could do was to live so that their parents were praised by their peers.
Thus, “Honor your parents” is more than a reason for “obey your parents.” If anything, “honor” is even more important because of its favorable consequences (good life, long life). Yes, by all means children should obey their parents. But they should go beyond obedience to energetically honor their parents, both in how they treat them directly and in how they live in the world.
Fathers, Do Not Exasperate Your Children (6:4)
Do not exasperate your children (6:4). The exhortation to fathers begins with a negative.7 In the world of the early Christians, fathers assumed primary responsibility for the upbringing of their children, though mothers participated as well.8 The address to fathers could include mothers as well, but given the switch from “parents” in verse 1 to “fathers” in verse 4, it’s likely that male parents are addressed here (with implications for mothers).
The verb translated as “exasperate” appears only one other time in the New Testament and means there “to make angry.”9 Ephesians 4:26 uses a related noun translated in the NIV as “angry.”10 Several English versions of the Bible read “do not provoke your children to anger” (NRSV, NLT, CEB, ESV) instead of “do not exasperate.” The point of the text is not that fathers should never do anything to upset their children; sometimes children become angry even when their parents discipline them in a merciful and wise way. Rather, Paul is warning fathers about treating their children wrongly, thus giving them justifiable cause to be angry. What should fathers avoid? According to Andrew Lincoln, this imperative “rules out excessively severe discipline, unreasonably harsh demands, abuse of authority, arbitrariness, unfairness, constant nagging and condemnation, subjecting a child to humiliation, and all forms of gross insensitivity to a child’s needs and sensibilities.”11
Though it’s unlikely that Paul warned fathers against angering their children in response to some specific incident, he no doubt understood the potential for this kind of mistreatment of children. Fathers in the Roman world, who had ultimate and complete authority over their children, could easily abuse their power. Christian fathers were to avoid such injustice because their parental responsibility should be shaped not just by legal codes or cultural mores but mainly by the gospel of a gracious heavenly Father. Even as families (patria) derive their name from the Father (patēr) according to Ephesians 3:14–15, so human fathering should be shaped by the activity of God.
Fathers, Bring Up Your Children in the Training and Instruction of the Lord (6:4)
Given the previous instruction to children to obey their parents, we might expect the positive injunction for fathers to be something like “exercise wise authority over your children.” But Paul focuses instead on the deeper purpose of parental authority. Fathers are supposed to “bring up” their children “in the training and instruction of the Lord” (6:4).
The verb translated as “bring up,” ektrephō in Greek, has a literal meaning of “to provide food, nourish” and a related meaning of “to bring up from childhood, rear.”12 It is used only one other time in the New Testament in Ephesians 5:29: “They feed [ektrephō] and care for their body.” In the Septuagint, ektrephō is often used in a material sense, but a couple of metaphorical meanings provide a background for Ephesians 6:4. The Septuagint version of Proverbs 23:24 reads in translation, “A righteous father brings up [children] well [kalōs ektrephei], his soul rejoices over a wise son.”13 Moreover, Psalm 22:2 in the Septuagint (our Psalm 23:2) says of the Lord “In a grassy place, there he caused me to settle; he nourished [exethrepsen] me by water of rest.”14 Thus, while the English term “bring up” in Ephesians 6:4 captures in part the verb ektrephō, it lacks the nuance of nurture. This verse does not picture a father standing back and giving orders to be obeyed but rather investing himself personally in the raising of his children.15
The words translated as “training and instruction” have similar meanings in Greek.16 “Training” might carry an implication of discipline; “instruction” could be rendered as “admonishment.”17 They suggest positive instruction as well as correction when mistakes are made and warning to avoid them in the future.
“Of the Lord” translates the Greek word kyriou, the genitive of kyrios meaning “Lord” and used in Ephesians mainly in reference to Christ. The Greek genitive could mean either “training and instruction done by the Lord [through fathers]” or “training and instruction about the Lord [done by fathers].” Though arguments can be made for either interpretation, the first has stronger support. Paul certainly wants fathers to teach their children the specifics of the faith. This would be in keeping with a centuries-old Jewish conviction.18 But in our passage, Paul was not focusing only on what we might call religious education. Rather, fathers (and mothers) are participants in God’s own work of bringing up their children. This is one specific example of what we saw previously in Ephesians 4:15–16: Christ is the source of the church’s growth through the inspired efforts of each member. Similarly, he is the source of the growth of children in every facet of life through the inspired efforts of parents, not to mention the community of which they are members.
LIVE the Story
Living in Obedience
Ephesians 6:1 was the first memory verse I ever learned in Sunday school. Having recently moved, my family and I were visiting a new church in Hollywood, California. In my first grade class with Miss Kane, I learned to recite, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right. Ephesians 6:1.” I imagine that virtually everyone among the thousands of people attending Hollywood Presbyterian Church that day would have agreed that obeying one’s parents is indeed the right thing to do.
Fast forward thirty years. It’s Youth Sunday at this same church. Three high school students have been chosen to give the “sermon” that day. The first stands up and reads Ephesians 6:1. Then she begins her exposition, “The Bible says that children should obey their parents. But we don’t believe this anymore. We believe that children need to determine for themselves how they are to live.” As you might imagine, this didn’t exactly sit well with many in the congregation, including the high school director who had invited the young lady to speak.
As scandalous as that moment might sound to some of us, the young “preacher” on Youth Sunday articulated a point of view that is pervasive in our culture. Many of us are so eager for children to be their own people, to find themselves, to follow their dreams, and to make their own choices that we aren’t quite so sure about that “obey your parents” stuff, at least for children beyond toddlerhood. As a pastor, I have watched well-intentioned parents let their children make choices that, in the long if not the short run, come back to bite them hard. Many of these parents are so busy that they have little time for their children, and they don’t want to “waste” this time with the unhappy task of discipline. Others are so eager to be their children’s friend that they abstain from the role of teacher, guide, and disciplinarian.
Ephesians 6:1 instructs children to obey their parents and reminds parents that their children’s obedience is necessary if they are going to thrive. If fathers and mothers are going to be used by the Lord to raise their children, then they cannot shy away from giving their children guidance that needs to be obeyed. After all, our heavenly Father does this very thing with us.
Of course as children grow, they should take more responsibility for their own lives. We parents will help them do this wisely if we raise them with lessons to be learned, encouragements to be followed, boundaries to be heeded, and admonishments to be accepted. Through obedience to sensible, godly parents, children will learn how to be sensible, godly adults.
Honoring beyond Obeying
As important as obedience is for children, as they grow honoring of parents becomes even more vital. My own children are now legal adults who live away from home most of the year. Apart from our financial support for the one who is still in college, they are almost completely responsible for their own lives. They no longer honor me by obeying what I tell them because I no longer tell them to do things. Rather, they honor me by communicating with me on a fairly regular basis, receiving my advice graciously, sharing their lives with me, and wanting to spend time with me when we are together. More importantly, they honor Linda and me by the way they live their lives each day as people of self-discipline, kindness, holiness, and robust faith. We are honored by our children’s achievements, to be sure, but far more by who they are and how they love.
There may very well come a time when their honoring of me takes a different shape altogether. I’m thinking of what happens when parents get old and can no longer care for themselves on their own. If the Lord allows me to “enjoy long life on the earth,” perhaps because I have honored my own parents, then my relationship with my children will probably become the inverse of what it was when we started.
As a pastor, I have walked alongside many people who have entered this challenging, sad, sweet, anguishing, rewarding time of life of caring for their aging parents. Many of my peers are in this stage of life as well. I think, for example, of a friend I’ll call “Danielle.” From all I know of her, she was mainly an obedient daughter to her parents, who were marvelous examples of the kind of parenting commended in Ephesians 6:4. But now because her parents have enjoyed long lives, their relationship with Danielle has changed. If she were to obey everything they told her now, even things related to their own care, this would not always be best for them. So because Danielle so deeply loves her parents and because she honors them, at times she needs to tell them what they need to do. To put it bluntly, sometimes they need to obey her if their last years on this earth are to be blessed.
Honoring one’s parents in this season of life is itself an act of obedience. It’s doing what Scripture requires. But it is also an act of servanthood, an example of sacrificial service commended earlier in Ephesians. Making wise decisions to ensure your parents’ wellbeing might not feel like submission, but it is a telling and moving example of active servanthood that goes beyond acquiescence to a deep offering of yourself in loving service to others.
Bringing Up Children as an Agent of the Lord
As we have seen, it’s likely that the expression “bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord” refers not as much to the content of the upbringing as to its divine source. We parents can talk about raising our own children, but in reality the Lord is raising his children through us.
We are not free to do as we please when it comes to our children. We certainly shouldn’t exasperate them (6:4). We shouldn’t do to or for them anything that dishonors the Lord. On the positive side, we are to do what God commends to us through Scripture and through the wisdom of his church. We are to model our own parenting on the gracious, truthful, just, and loving fatherhood of God.
In addition to parenting our children in God’s way, the fact that we “bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord” means that God is at work in and through us as we parent our children. When we lack wisdom, God is there to provide it. When our patience runs thin, God has more available. When our hearts break because our children have chosen a path we would never have wanted for them, we know that our heavenly Father shares our grief even as he gives us faith to pray for another way. Though parenting can sometimes feel like lonely work, the truth is that we are not alone. God is with us.
Surely God is with us through his Spirit. But God is also with us through his people, the church. The household code in Ephesians doesn’t appear as an appendix unrelated to the rest of God’s story in this letter. Rather, it is imbedded in both the letter and the story. Our parenting, like our marriage, happens in the context of the church. It is an activity of the body of Christ.
I have experienced this reality many times in my life. The first came when our son, Nathan, was baptized. (Presbyterians usually baptize infants.) Though I was the pastor of the church, Pastor Larry officiated in the baptism, and we stood before him as the parents. He asked the members of the congregation if they were committing themselves to join us in raising Nathan to know Christ and be his disciple. The congregation responded with a thunderous, “We do.” I sensed more than ever before that Linda and I were not alone in this scary parenting thing. We had dozens of partners. I felt this again when our daughter, Kara, was baptized.
Today, I look back on all of those who lived out the commitment they once made to our family. I feel deep gratitude for my children’s Sunday school teachers, camp counselors, youth leaders, mentors, and school teachers. I’m thankful for the parents of their friends who provided places of safety and fun as they grew up. I’m thankful for those who continue to support Nathan and Kara in adulthood, who visit them at school and take them out for dinner, who converse with them on Facebook, and who pray for them regularly. I’m sure Linda and I have contributed in no small measure to who our children are today. But there is no doubt in my mind that God has been bringing them up from the beginning, working through Spirit and church. For this I am filled with gratitude.
1. For discussion of the household code in Greco-Roman society, see “Listen to the Story” for Chapter 13.
2. BDAG 1028–29 (hypakouō).
3. Metzger, Textual Commentary, 541–42.
4. See 1:9, 13; 2:6, 10, 13, 21; 4:17; 6:10.
5. Exod 20:12 LXX.
6. BDAG 1004 (timaō). The Hebrew verb in Exod 20:12, kabed in the Piel, means “to make heavy, to honor, to glorify.” See BDB 457–58.
7. This is similar to Colossians 3:21, “Fathers, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged.”
8. See Cohick, Women in the World, Chapter 4, “Motherhood.”
9. parorgizō, Rom 10:19.
10. Greek parorgismos. In the NT it is used only in Eph 4:26.
11. Lincoln, Ephesians, 406.
12. BDAG 311.
13. My translation of Prov 23:24 LXX.
14. My translation of Ps 22:2 LXX.
15. See 1 Thess 2:7–12.
16. Greek, paideia and nouthesia.
17. BDAG 748–49 (paideia); BDAG 679 (nouthesia).
18. See for example Deut 6:1–9.