The gospel infuses value into every life.

Paul’s day: Children and slaves were property.
Our day: Our society has benefited from gospel elevation; we know all humans have value.
- But, because of sin, we still objectify and devalue life.
  - Pornography and abortion say, “I am more valuable than you.” The gospel says, “we are all valuable in God’s sight.”
Today: Paul continued his vision of the new humanity of the church, the body of Christ, by teaching of the home and workplace.

Theme: The nature of Christ is to invade Christian homes and workplaces, enabling children and workers to respectfully obey their parents and leaders, parents to gently bring up their children, and leaders to gently serve their workforce.

Home

Children

1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.

Fractured order in the family is a cancer.
- One of the marks of the “times of difficulty” attached to the “last day” is that children will be “disobedient to parents” (2 Timothy 3:1-8).
Who is the “child” in this passage?
- Each culture has different definitions of what makes a person a minor.
- The church does not have to cast off the norm of their culture. For us, people shift into adulthood, to varying degrees, from age eighteen to twenty-five.
1 Obey:
- Different word than submission, which speaks of the type of following the wife gives her husband. Marital submission different than childlike subservience; it is nuanced and together.
- Primary: the one thing they must learn.
  - Like Jesus: John 8:29 (ESV) — 29 And he who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to him.”
  - In the Lord is clarified later: “Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord” (Colossians 3:20).
- Obedience prepares a child for life.
Obedience, for a child, flows from an understanding that we are endued with different roles and seasons from God.
- Parents: you have a calling and a role granted to you from your Father in heaven.
- Many parents will do everything but teach their children obedience, instead begging, pleading, suggesting, manipulating, or giving up entirely, allowing the child to decide.

2 “Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), 3 “that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.”

2-3 Honor / Commandment: The fifth of the ten commandments (Exodus 20:12, Deuteronomy 5:16).
- When you leave the “obedience” stage, you remain in the “honor” stage.
- This is the first commandment with a promise, meaning it has an attached blessing.
3 That it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land:
- What does it mean that obedience to parents would lead to a long life?
  - This promise from God is a way of declaring how a great life is unleashed upon children who learn to obey and honor their parents.
    - Perhaps modern parents could stand to be a little more afraid of what a lack of discipline does to their children.

Fathers

4 Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

Who is Paul addressing?
- The fathers, though some think the term (plural form) might include mothers.
  - Unfortunately, many times it has to refer to mothers.
4 Do not provoke your children to anger: Once again, Paul did not envision brutality or military discipline.
- Christian fathers ought to be a refuge for their children.
  - Kids are safe with a dad who fears God…
    - but not a dad who thinks he is God.
    - but not a dad who runs from God.
    - but not a dad who has rejected the grace of God.
- Ways to encourage, rather than discourage, your children:
  1. Walk with God: Proverbs 20:7 (ESV) — 7 The righteous who walks in his integrity— blessed are his children after him!
    - Read your Word / Apologize / Bring them to church / Serve God
  2. Delight in them: Proverbs 3:12 (ESV) — 12 for the LORD reproves him whom he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights.
    - Listen / Don’t play favorites / Don’t compare / Show appropriate affection
  3. Realistically discipline them:
    - Remove anger, excess, and overprotection.
- 4 But bring them up: Nurture.
- 4 Discipline: Train.
- 4 Instruction of the Lord: Scripture.

Workplace

Laborers

The situation:
- Millions of slaves in the Roman empire (some estimate 50% were enslaved).
- Many slaves were highly educated — physicians, lawyers, and teachers.
- But it was harsh, as all slavery is.
  - Some slaves ran away.
  - They were bought and sold.
  - Barbaric treatment, though not widespread and slowing by the time of Christianity, was legal.
- Many slaves came to Christ. Some masters came to Christ as well.
Paul did not come out an condemn slavery.
- Note: He did not promote it either.
- Why not? Reasons [^Stott, The Message Of Ephesians]:
  - Pragmatic reasons — Christianity was a small segment of society at this point. They did not consider the possibility of changing a whole social structure.
  - Circumstantial reasons — There is evidence that Romans were beginning to grant freedom to their slaves and that slave conditions were improving.
  - Gospel reasons — The plan of God was not immediate upheaval, but slow death, of the slavery system. The gospel does this by giving value to people.
    - Aristotle: “the slave is a tool with a soul.”
      - Only the gospel can overturn such ignorance.
      - Example: long fuse rather than a guillotine.
    - It’s death is determined by reading between the lines. For marriage and family, Paul quotes from the Old Testament to back up its divine ordinance. He would not and does not do the same for slavery.
    - The best Christian minds have understood this.
      - Calvin (16th century) attributed it to original sin, calling it “a thing totally against all the order of nature.”[^Stott, The Message Of Ephesians — quoting Calvin, p. 634]
  - Ecclesiastical reasons — Future generations of laborers must apply this teaching, for their situation is better than the original audience’s was. If he writes this to the slave, then the modern worker has no justification for ignoring the exhortation.
  - 5a Bondservants, obey your earthly masters…
5 Bondservant, obey: Okay, let’s try to pull back from the tenderness of the subject of slavery and apply this passage to our work.
- All work is to be ministry.
  - Catch a vision of a Christian workforce that lives this out. There is no way the gospel would not expand. No way at all.
  - It isn’t one set of rules for church and another for the “real world.” No, what Christ taught can blossom your life and business.

Attitudes of obedience:

5b With fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ:

Respectfully.

6 Not by way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart:

Wholeheartedly.

7 Rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not to man:

Symbolically.

8 knowing that whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether he is a bondservant or is free:

Sowingly.
- Galatians 6:7–9 (ESV) — 7 Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. 8 For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. 9 And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.

Leaders

9 Masters, do the same to them, and stop your threatening, knowing that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and that there is no partiality with him.

9 Do the same to them: How does a master obey servants? How does a leader obey laborers? This was a shocking word then, let alone now.
- Seek their welfare.
  - Praise / affirm / train / be direct / be clear / do not manipulate / do not play favorites / PAY THEM!

Attitudes of the leader:

9 Stop your threatening:
9 Knowing / there is no partiality with Him: He isn’t impressed with your title.

Close

Theme: The nature of Christ is to invade Christian homes and workplaces, enabling children and workers to respectfully obey their parents and leaders, parents to gently bring up their children, and leaders to gently serve their workforce.