Sunday, September 20 · Vineyard Cincinnati Church
Relationships | Week 4: Family
Paul takes the command to walk in love into the home, where children are told to obey and honor, parents are told to discipline without provoking, and the whole family is meant to look like the Father's own love and discipline.
The passages
Be therefore imitators of God, as beloved children. Walk in love, even as Christ also loved us and gave himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling fragrance.
Ephesians 5:1–2
Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother,” which is the first commandment with a promise: “that it may be well with you, and you may live long on the earth.” You fathers, don’t provoke your children to wrath, but nurture them in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
Ephesians 6:1–4
For they indeed for a few days disciplined us as seemed good to them, but he for our profit, that we may be partakers of his holiness. All chastening seems for the present to be not joyous but grievous; yet afterward it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
Hebrews 12:10–11
Go deeper
Why does Paul address children first in a passage about the household, and what does that order show about who God sees?
Paul could have started with husbands or fathers, the ones with the most power in a household. Instead he speaks to children first, the ones with the least standing at the table. Jesus did the same, pushing back on disciples who thought children were beneath his attention.
Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother,” which is the first commandment with a promise: “that it may be well with you, and you may live long on the earth.”
Ephesians 6:1–3
Then little children were brought to him that he should lay his hands on them and pray; and the disciples rebuked them. But Jesus said, “Allow the little children, and don’t forbid them to come to me; for the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to ones like these.” He laid his hands on them, and departed from there.
Matthew 19:13–15
But Yahweh said to Samuel, “Don’t look on his face, or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for I don’t see as man sees. For man looks at the outward appearance, but Yahweh looks at the heart.”
1 Samuel 16:7
A father of the fatherless, and a defender of the widows, is God in his holy habitation. God sets the lonely in families. He brings out the prisoners with singing, but the rebellious dwell in a sun-scorched land.
Psalms 68:5–6
Why does Paul distinguish honor from obedience, and why does honor still stand when obedience no longer applies?
A grown man in North Carolina doesn't take every suggestion his parents make, but Paul says honor isn't the same thing as compliance. Obedience can be given with a sour heart and honor can be given without receiving orders. Saul heard one line of a song and spent years trying to kill the singer, which is what dishonor looks like when obedience has run out.
“Honor your father and mother,” which is the first commandment with a promise: “that it may be well with you, and you may live long on the earth.”
Ephesians 6:2–3
“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land which Yahweh your God gives you.
Exodus 20:12
David said to the young man who told him, “Where are you from?” He answered, “I am the son of a foreigner, an Amalekite.” David said to him, “Why were you not afraid to stretch out your hand to destroy Yahweh’s anointed?” David called one of the young men and said, “Go near, and cut him down!” He struck him so that he died. David said to him, “Your blood be on your head, for your mouth has testified against you, saying, ‘I have slain Yahweh’s anointed.’”
2 Samuel 1:13–16
David’s men said to him, “Behold, the day of which Yahweh said to you, ‘Behold, I will deliver your enemy into your hand, and you shall do to him as it shall seem good to you.’” Then David arose and cut off the skirt of Saul’s robe secretly. Afterward, David’s heart struck him because he had cut off Saul’s skirt. He said to his men, “Yahweh forbid that I should do this thing to my lord, Yahweh’s anointed, to stretch out my hand against him, since he is Yahweh’s anointed.” So David checked his men with these words, and didn’t allow them to rise against Saul. Saul rose up out of the cave, and went on his way.
1 Samuel 24:4–7
He said to them, “Full well do you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your tradition. For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother;’ and, ‘He who speaks evil of father or mother, let him be put to death.’ But you say, ‘If a man tells his father or his mother, “Whatever profit you might have received from me is Corban,”’” that is to say, given to God, “then you no longer allow him to do anything for his father or his mother, making void the word of God by your tradition which you have handed down. You do many things like this.”
Mark 7:9–13
Why does the writer of Hebrews call God's discipline good when it is painful while it happens?
Earthly fathers did the best they knew, and their children came out of it with something. Hebrews points to a Father who disciplines with nothing in the way, and holds out what the pain is for: a harvest of right living in the people who are trained by it. The discipline is not the opposite of love in either case.
For they indeed for a few days disciplined us as seemed good to them, but he for our profit, that we may be partakers of his holiness. All chastening seems for the present to be not joyous but grievous; yet afterward it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
Hebrews 12:10–11
You fathers, don’t provoke your children to wrath, but nurture them in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
Ephesians 6:4
My son, don’t despise Yahweh’s discipline, neither be weary of his correction; for whom Yahweh loves, he corrects, even as a father reproves the son in whom he delights.
Proverbs 3:11–12
Blessed is the man whom you discipline, Yah, and teach out of your law,…
Psalms 94:12