Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript – Reformation Covenant Church
Pastor Dennis Tuuri

Special statement of Reformation Covenant Church and we’ve been talking about that portion of the statement that admonishes the signers of the covenant to raise their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. I thought it’d be appropriate to conclude the series of five talks now in this portion of the church covenant with going directly to the verse itself that we chose that language from in Ephesians 6 and talk about that passage and sort of try to sum up the last four weeks as well as deal specifically with the verses in that passage.

So, our review this week will take place in the context of what we’re talking about in Ephesians 6, the first four verses. Now, it’s important to recognize also, of course, as most of you probably know, that there’s a parallel text to this portion of scripture in Colossians 3, verses 20 and 21. And, it might be good to look at that now to see the same sort of things indicated in Colossians as we have in Ephesians.

In Colossians 3, verses 20 and 21, we read the following. “Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing unto the Lord. Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged.” And that’s a parallel passage we’re making reference to as well as some other portions of that passage as we go through the passage before us in Ephesians 6. If you have a copy of the outline, you see where we’re going.

We’re going to talk about the context of the command. First of all, we’re going to talk about the recipient of the command—who the command is given to specifically in the verse before us in Ephesians—and then the command itself and then the necessary accompaniment for obedience to the commandment. So we’ll talk first about the context of the command itself. I think this is very important. A lot of times these particular passages we’re looking at, there’s no attempt to draw in the whole point of the whole letter itself.

And I think that’s important because it serves as a backdrop to these specific instructions to fathers, to children, and also in the same context to wives and husbands and to masters and slaves. And so I think it’s important we look just briefly at the context. And it’s interesting that in both these books, Ephesians and Colossians, we have the same basic thrust of the argument made by Paul, the same context therefore for then the practical admonitions in terms of relationships that follow toward the end of each of these letters.

First of all, in Ephesians, then we look at a couple of verses here that talk about the supremacy of Jesus Christ being the first context we want to look at in Ephesians 1:20-22. We read the following, which God wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places far above all principality and power and might and dominion and every name that is named not only in this world but also that which is to come and hath put all things under his feet and gave him to be the head over all things to the church which is his body the fullness of him that filleth all in all.

Ephesians begins in this first chapter by declaring the supremacy of Jesus Christ in terms of authority and makes a big point out of that Jesus Christ has been raised now to the right hand of God the Father and all things are in subjection to him now in terms of authority and in terms of his supremacy in terms of reign. Colossians makes the same point in Colossians 1:15-18, and I’ll just read that. Colossians 1, verses 15 through 18, says the following: “Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature for by him were all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth visible and invisible whether they be thrones dominions or principalities or powers all things were created by him and for him and he is before all things and by him all things consist and he is the head of the church.”

Same statement that we read in Ephesians. There’s a parallel description here of the supremacy of Jesus Christ. An essential element of the gospel is his supremacy over all other systems of authority. Whether they be families, whether they be the economic relationships we have in our business, masters and slaves, whether they be children to their parents, or of course also the application to civil government—certainly that would fall under a principality and power.

So the first general context of these specific statements in Ephesians 6 are the supremacy of Jesus Christ in terms of authority. But he goes on to talk about the working out of that supremacy in terms of the reconciliation of all things in Christ. In Ephesians, going back to Ephesians now 2:12-14, we read the following: “That at that time you were without Christ being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.”

I would just point out there that’s a very important verse to keep in mind generally as you study all applications of the covenant of grace in the Old Covenant period. You want to talk about these? These are all part of the one covenant of grace. They were all covenants of promise. There was never a covenant of works apart from the promise of God. Okay? These are all covenants of promise. That’s important to recognize.

But the thing he’s stressing here, of course, is that whereas you were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who has made both one and broken down the middle wall of partition between us. So reconciliation—Jesus Christ—is talking about here. He brings peace between two divergent groups of the world as exemplified by the two groups Gentiles and Jews. Colossians says the same thing in Colossians 1:20: “And by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him I say whether they be things of earth or things in heaven.”

There is a specific passage that talks about the fact of Jesus Christ reconciling all things in him. The gospel being taught directly must teach you reconciliation to yourself. So this reconciliation of all things in Jesus Christ, the covenant mediator—that’s the background. Now the specific context, the verses right around the verses we’re talking about, then deal with how that’s brought to pass—how that supremacy of Jesus Christ in authority and the reconciliation of relationships in Jesus Christ, the covenant mediator, is affected with specific groups.

And we see in both passages—again in Ephesians and Colossians—a movement first from the declaration of that gospel in the first portions of those books. Then the implications of that gospel for the believer himself and his own covenant peace with God. And then the implications of that covenant peace in terms of relationships with other people. And so we have a series of specific commands given to six specific groups of people—in couples of two, per each couple.

And then there’s three specific groups. The first one, of course, is the husband and the wife, and it talks about the relationship there. It talks about the relationship of children and parents, and that’s the verse we’re going to deal more specifically with in a couple of minutes. But then it talks about the relationship of masters and slaves. And I mentioned the fact that this has economic implications for us because really the context of that indicates that any relationship in terms of occupation is a master-slave relationship to the extent that relationship has been entered into according to a certain set of conditions that affect the employment.

What I’m saying is, and we won’t spend a lot of time on it now, but if you’re going to study employee-employer relationships, the place to begin in the scriptures is the discussion of master-slave relationships. If you have a specific interest in that, which I hope a couple of you would, then I’d suggest that you have a list of scriptures relating to those things that were produced by Chuck Nagel.

But in any event, we have then three very important relationships. Calvin calls from John Wycliffe’s words in his commentaries in these passages covenantal agreements, as it were, between three specific groups of individuals—three pairs here that are spoken of and given direction for to affect this reconciliation of all things in Christ. The wife is to be subject to the husband in all things. The child is to obey the parent in the Lord and the slave is to obey the master in all things.

It’s interesting that if you take the two sets of verses from Ephesians and Colossians that deal with wife, husband, child, father, slave, and master, and lay them out next to each other and compare them together, you’ll see that each of those groups—wives, children, and slaves—are to obey in all things specifically. Okay? Those words are used of each grouping if you put the two groups together.

Now it’s interesting that there is one, you might notice this, and because you might notice this, I want to just address it briefly. It does say in terms of the wife-husband relationship that the wife is to submit to the husband and it says the child is to obey the father and it says the slave is to obey the master. And there’s a couple of different words used there. The word “submit” and this is in both passages—now the word “submit” means to come under the order of or under the authority of. We’ve talked about that word before. It’s “hupotasso,” which originally has implications in military alignment under a commander.

And that’s the word for the wife. The word “obey” used of both the child and the servant or slave is “hupakouō,” or something to that effect, which means to come under the hearing of the one with the idea of course to be obedient to the voice of the one you come under the hearing to. And you may originally think that perhaps the obedience of the wife is somewhat different than the obedience that the child or the servant gives to his master or to the father.

However, I don’t think the rest of scripture supports that very well. I’ll just give you a couple of verses and I don’t want to spend a lot of time on this, but I do think it’s important because this is an area of relationships that is probably under critical attack of course throughout our nation today and it’s certainly going to affect the church as well.

Briefly in Titus 2:9, we have the word “hupotasso”—to come under the authority of or the command of—given to servants. And so servants are not different in that they come under the hearing under the authority of the master. Same word in terms of the wife to the husband is used here—the servant to the master in Titus 2:9. Additionally, that same word “hupotasso” is used in Titus 3:1. And I did want to spend just a minute there.

Well, we talked before that Titus is one of what people call the pastoral epistles. It’s given as instructions to men who have oversight over churches. And in Titus 3:1, it says specifically, “Put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers—and that’s that ‘hupotasso’ word I was just talking about—obedience. In other words, to obey magistrates—an even stronger term—to be ready to every good work.” And I bring that up first to show that word “hupotasso,” of the wife’s submission to the husband, is also spoken of in terms of the slave to the master but also of the citizen to the magistrate.

And specifically, I want to get you to see that word is not somehow different in kind from the word obedience. But at this point, I want to just diverge slightly and say that this is a responsibility of mine to put you in mind to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates.

I say that because in most churches in our country today, this verse has come from the pulpit and all the other verses about the limitations of God’s role on authorities isn’t really spoken to. Now, in the circles we run in and the circles this church is involved with—and probably most of us are reading—it’s the other way. We hear a lot about the errors of the civil government. And I spent two weeks talking about the errors of the public school system and how the public school system is creating a Moloch state where the state wants submission in all things to itself, and how we cannot turn—we cannot transfer over the covenant seed that God has given to us to the state for its training—the training of children for its purposes.

Now I want to be real clear on this though: that does not mitigate our responsibilities in terms of subjection to the principalities and powers of the magistrates. That’s the easy verse for us to ignore. The easy verse for most churches to ignore are the verses that say it has to be so that it doesn’t violate the commands of God. And then understanding the implications of public school and training to children for the state today, the easy verse for us to ignore is this verse in Titus 3:1 that says to put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers.

Now, the limitation on that, as I’ve said time after time in this church, is that when the civil magistrate would require you to do something that would cause you to disobey—that would cause you to disobey a command of God—you cannot obey him. Paul said we have to—you know, it’s said throughout the scriptures—we have to obey God as opposed to obeying man if that’s going to cause us to disobey God.

But I just want to point out that I don’t mean to imply that since the civil government is becoming a Moloch in our times, that all obedience to the civil government cannot be chocked. That’s wrong. I believe the scriptures teach what Calvin taught, and that is that you have to disobey at that specific point of the law that would require you to be in disobedience to God. But other than that, you still have to render submission to that governing authority whether he be teaching exactly in opposition to the scriptures or not, as long as that obedience would not require you to disobey a command of God.

Now, I just think it’s real important we have that balance established in our own minds. We cannot turn our children over to a state system that would rear children for itself and its own purposes. On the other hand, that is a far cry from saying that any identification of the child with the state at all is Moloch worship. It’s not Moloch worship in my opinion to get a birth certificate. Some people would hold that it is. I see nothing in scripture that says that somehow this birth certificate has now transferred this child over to the civil government for his purposes. I mean the child doesn’t go anywhere if you give us a notification of the birth of a child. He stays in your home and you continue to mold that child for the purposes of God and the state doesn’t interfere in that.

So we have to be very careful in terms of how we define these things, which I attempted to do two weeks ago with my talk on Moloch worship. And it just seemed a good point now to bring out this fact that we are to be subject to the principalities and powers.

I do not believe that notification of homeschooling is Moloch worship. I believe that for it to be Moloch worship it has to be more than a symbolic act. We talk about the fact that the passing through the fires to the civil—to this Moloch—was to transfer responsibility of that child to the civil state to be trained for its purposes. Okay, that’s what you have to be engaged with in terms of Moloch worship: to send the child to the state and say you take care of these things. You give me—you produce whatever citizen of the future you think you need. But to retain control over that child in your home or a private Christian school even though the state may require notification to that effect is in no way comparable to training that child for the purposes of the state. Okay.

Now one of the verses in this “hupotasso”—under the hearing or under the obedience—to scripture is in 1 Peter 3:6. This is an important one for you to write down. 1 Peter 3:6 says that Sarah obeyed Abraham, and it says “hupakouō”—that same word—to come under the hearing of. Okay. And so the submission of the wife to the husband is not—I don’t believe—primarily different. It’s primarily the same as the obedience of children to their parents or the obedience of slaves to their masters and our obedience by the way to the civil government as well.

All these things are characterized as the same form of obedience in all things. Okay. So the context of all this first of all is the supremacy of Jesus Christ in authority. The relationships then that are reconciled in Christ in the light of this authority structure that Jesus Christ is now supreme in. And then specifically the context is the working out of that in a set of relationships—husband, wife, child, parent, and slave, master.

This helps us to remember, by the way, the importance as this works its way out into our lives, the child and a correct understanding of the correct obedience to God in terms of educating our children—how essential that is, as we said before, for the health of the covenant community and for the civil government as well. Remember we looked at those Old Testament verses before in terms of the civil government. We first started this several weeks ago and said that imperative to having a government that’s ruled by God according to his laws are having children of the nation that are taught the obedience to those laws as well and to that covenant.

And so we can see now in terms of this working itself out in the new covenant how that works out. Jesus says that on the basis of his authority we then have this authority structure in the family and that then in terms of the wife and the child and the wife and the husband, the child and the parent, and then the work relationship—and that then brings forth and helps to further this reconciliation being worked out of all things in Jesus Christ.

So we see there again the stress on the essentialness of this command. And by the way, again, I’m not going to spend any time on this, but it also points out the essentialness of the correct relationship of a wife and husband. That’s also essential in this very dynamic work that Jesus Christ is involved in in terms of reconciling all things to himself, working out that reconciliation that’s been affected by his blood. Okay, that’s the context.

Now, let’s go to the recipient of the command itself. And this is very important as well. I believe you’ll notice that in both these passages, it doesn’t say “parents do thus and such.” In both the passages it says, “Fathers, provoke not your children to wrath.” Both in Ephesians and Colossians, the specific recipient of the commandment is the father himself.

Now, this is important. What we see here—we talked before from the great Shema, the Shema of Israel—that the responsibility to educate children is not the church’s and it’s not the civil government’s. It’s not anybody else’s. It’s the parents’. God says to teach these things to your children. And now in this verse as well as other verses, we see an even narrowing down of that primary responsibility contact point to the father, not to the mother. Okay.

Now, hopefully we’re regaining a sense of biblical order in this country in the Christian church. I’m not sure that’s true generally, but in the churches that are hearing the word of God today, I think we start to see this happening. But we must realize the context of our society is one that has disregarded the primacy of the father in terms of education and has become more and more a maternal society.

When I was in Seattle this last week, I happened to visit a couple of bookstores and I saw this one bookstore down at the Pike Place Market. It was the Left Bank bookstore. So, I figured maybe I could find a copy of “The Feminization of American Culture” by Ann Douglas. And sure enough, I did. That book has been out of print. I spent $25 to get a hard copy a couple years ago doing a book search, and this book I got for $1.75 in paperback. I was real happy to see that, and I wanted to just read you one of the reasons why I think that’s such a good book.

I want to just read you a couple of quotes from that book in terms of what we’re talking about now. Assuming I can find it here. Ann Douglas traces what she calls the feminization of American culture over the past 150 years. And she does it primarily through novels. It’s a fascinating book. But in any event, I wanted to read this portion where she talks about the transfer from a paternal to a maternal society in terms of education of children.

She talks about Jonathan Edwards and how Jonathan Edwards in the mid-18th century kept a stern fatherly eye on his flock and on his own offspring. Samuel Hopkins, who lived for several years in the Edwards family, described Edwards’s close familial surveillance this way: “When the children first discovered any considerable degree of self-will or stubbornness, he would attend to them till he had thoroughly subdued them and brought them to submit.”

He did, okay? Not his wife. Jonathan Edwards attended to them. He was a busy man, of course, but he attended to them until they would submit. Edwards was a model of 18th-century paternal practice, although probably not representative of it. Yet, it seems indisputable that paternal authority was a waning force in the middle-class American family in the century following Edwards’s death. The American father, locked into tightening business patterns, was less and less likely to be at home.

Before the Civil War, for example, he usually went back to his house for lunch. After it, he was more likely not to. That shows some of the conditions that we certainly are the end result of today. We certainly have business practices that remove us from children in almost every household for at least lunch and frequently from dinner or breakfast as well.

The middle-class mother had an increasingly hold on her children’s time if not in their respect. In her widely popular letters to mothers, Lydia Huntley Sigourney explicated the omnipotent quality of maternal influence. This is a quote from the Sigourney individual: “How entire and perfect is this dominion over the unborn character of your infant. Write what you will in the printless tablet with your wand of love. How to your influence over your dearest friend and your most submissive servant has no bounds and obstructions. Now, however, you have over a newborn immortal almost that degree of power which the mind exercises over the body. The period of this influence must indeed pass away, but while it lasts, make good use of it.”

That’s an indication of the thinking of mid-this particular time period leading up to our culture today—that this mother had almost limitless power over these children to teach them upon this blank slate.

Significantly, this is back to Ann Douglas’s comments. Now, mothers increasingly took over the formerly paternal task of conducting family prayers. We’re going to have more to say about that in just a minute. The mothers started to conduct family prayers. When Nathaniel Emmons announced to the Franklin congregation that his son Asa had lived and probably died stupid with sin, he clearly felt some obligation of judgment were himself. Yet, he was laying little with any guilt on his own door or that of Mrs. Emmons.

Like his predecessor Edwards, he assumed that salvation of his offspring was finally a matter between them and their Savior. He could indeed instruct, discipline, and evaluate them. Mrs. Emmons presumably aided him in the process, but they could do no more. Emmons never envisioned the last judgment scene which the theories of latter-day educators like Mrs. Sigourney, not to speak of Floyd or Dr. Spock, would suggest—a scene in which the accused Asa would pass the blame on to his family and not so much to his mother as to his mother.

The American mother of the mid-19th century encouraged or encouraged rather to breastfeed, oversee, and educate her child was theoretically assuming, for better or worse, almost godlike prominence. Now, that’s kind of an extended quote. It’s hard to listen to that kind of thing, I suppose. But the point is this: that our society went through a maternalizing influence on the part of various people. The causes of it are sin, obviously. But the point is that’s the structure we live in today, and we have to more and more regain fatherly or paternal influence over our family.

Not because it’s good culturally, although that’s true, because the word of God says, “Fathers, provoke not your children to wrath or raise them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.” The responsibility is given to you. Now, obviously, your wife helps in that task. But more and more, when we bring our kids back into the home for schooling, the primary educator there is going to be the mother because of the economic situation we’re in today. We will fall naturally. The world will attempt to mold us into the situation again of that particular time period where the mother is the maternal influence, the strong influence in the life of the child.

We cannot allow that to happen and be in obedience to the scriptures. It’s the father’s responsibility.

Now I notice that we’re going to sing a song at the conclusion here that I chose. But it is interesting to see the final thought we’re going to close with today. The words of the final song we’re going to close with are pretty good, but you’ll notice that the words are really aimed at the mother and not the father. See, verse two: “Since the blessed mother be the world’s redeemer born, thou hast crowned us with an honor women never knew before.”

See, that’s a good song as long as you realize that this was written in that period of time that Ann Douglas is writing about. And what they saw was the woman as being the primary responsible person here for the education of the child. It was a maternal society. Now, as long as you sing that song later on recognizing that the father is the one who’s given the primary instruction to do these things we sing about in that song, we’re okay.

The point is that’s a very important element of this instruction of the child that has to lie primarily with the father.

One other point there, and I won’t go through the scriptures themselves. In Ezekiel 18, we have a picture of limited liability for the father in terms of his ability, in terms of the son. And this said that the paternal biblical father ultimately saw the salvation of his children as a matter between them and God. And that’s true. And we got to realize that as much as we stress the education of children in this church, the importance of that, as much as we stress the thing that God tells us to—expressed the presupposition that child will be a part of the elect community of Jesus Christ that is a part of the visible church of Jesus Christ—and so we have necessity to baptize those children as part of the covenant community.

Yet we recognize ultimately that it’s not our efforts that’s going to make that child elect or not elect. It’s the providence of God. And they recognize that with the shift to maternal society came the idea also that the mother could bring about the salvation of the child. We have to avoid that in our church as well as we seek to act in obedience to these scriptures. And Ezekiel 18 is one good chapter that will help alleviate some of that.

I know that my wife has—I think many wives in today’s society, particularly those who are homeschooling now—have this great pressure upon them to do things right, to give their kids a godly education. Hopefully the husband’s going to help a little bit, but they have this tremendous weight on their shoulders, and they know this presupposition of the electness of the child. They have a tremendous obligation to bring the child up, make him be good and everything. And so they can start to feel like the outer responsibility for that child is theirs. But it isn’t, of course. It’s God’s.

Ezekiel 18 is a good corrective, a good counterbalance against the idea that we can somehow bring kids to salvation on our own. I won’t read that for you now, but it’s a good chapter to remind yourself of that the child will be judged for his own sins, not the sins of his father. Okay. So that’s the recipient. The command is the father himself.

Now the command itself begins with first a negative. It says, “Fathers, provoke not your children to wrath.” I’m going to tell you two different ways to look at this. The first way is the common way of understanding this verse that you’ll read in most commentators. I have a little different twist on it that I want to put on it, but the first way is basically the fact that you should not exasperate your children. Don’t fret your children, don’t overcorrect them or vex them somehow. Don’t irritate them. Don’t make them exasperated or rouse them to resentment.

Now, those things are probably all good things to avoid within bounds. You don’t want to, you know, which you could do with your younger children, put tasks in front of them that are impossible for them to do, which would exasperate them. You don’t want to certainly be unjust with them. If you’re teaching them biblical law, you have to teach them the requirements of biblical law and justice. You want to teach them to have an absolute standard. We go to the scriptures, not some rubber yard stick in terms of what’s right or what’s wrong. Those things are always to exasperate your children. And you’ve probably heard all that before, but I want to tell you something that I came up with this last week.

And I think this is a little bit more specific in terms of what you should or shouldn’t do in terms of the education of your children. It’s interesting that this word used—to provoke to wrath—and that’s one word in the Greek. It’s only used in two other occurrences. One is the Colossians passage, the parallel passage, and the other, as you have in your notes there, is in Romans 10:19, which quotes from Deuteronomy 32:21.

That gives us a link back to the Old Testament concept of provoking to anger. In Romans, it’s talking there that God will provoke the unbelieving Jewish nation by another nation. And specifically, the context there says that the Jews are going to be provoked by the coming in of the Gentiles. God will turn his back on them, go to the Gentiles instead. And by doing that, God will provoke Israel to anger. That’s what’s being said there.

And if you go back to Deuteronomy 32, he says that same thing in Deuteronomy 32. He says, “But he gives us a little more information. He says, ‘Since you provoked me to anger, I’m going to provoke you to anger by turning to another nation.’” And the primary use of that word in the Old Testament—provoked anger—deals with the people of God provoking him to anger by either idolatry or specifically disobedience to his laws. Okay?

When we are idolatrous to God or break his law continually and rebelliously, we provoke God to anger because we have a relationship with God and he is jealous as it were for us. We provoke him to anger. And one thing that God will do—not always, but one thing that he can do—as it said in Deuteronomy 32, quoted in Romans 10, and other passages, is he’ll turn around then, and remember a lot of biblical judgment is “eye for eye, tooth for tooth.” He’ll turn around and provoke us to anger. He will, you know, Israel will put her affections on Moloch. God will then put his affections on another nation. Okay? And provoke them to anger when he does that.

Now, that’s the specific activity that’s talked about in the Old Testament when you talk about provoking anger. And you’ll find it continuing every occurrence of that word that’s then quoted in the book of Romans. And so, I think what God is telling us here—I don’t think he’s telling us not to be like the Israelites; don’t provoke God to anger. He says don’t provoke your children to anger because the whole image of these relationships is that the husband represents God to the wife, the father represents God to the child, the master represents God to the slave, and all that obedience is conditioned. It says that you have to obey these people because you’re in doing that you’re obeying God.

So the analogy between the father—the father is in analogous relationship to God in this relationship to his child—not the child. So I think what he’s saying here is that your children will provoke you to anger. They will disobey. They will be in ethical rebellion against you for periods of time. And I think what God is doing is he’s saying there’s a boundary to how much judgment you can bring forth on your child at this time.

You don’t want to provoke them to anger. Although that’s a proper activity for God, it may be a proper activity for men in general. But you don’t want to provoke your children to anger because it says in Colossians, they’ll become disheartened—without heart, without spirit. So specifically, I think here what’s being talked about in this verse—which is extremely important—is that we’re not to provoke our children to anger in response or in a deliberate attempt to bring them back to repentance.

God says that’s a proper tactic for him. It’s not a proper tactic for you in relationship to your child. Why? Because your child is weak. It says in Psalm 103 that as a father pities his child. So God pies us. He knows our frame. God’s judgments against men are still modified by his understanding of our frame, our makeup, how we’ll respond, and what we can take and what we can’t take. And he compares that to a father pitying his own child.

As fathers now, we’re commanded to understand our children, and that means to understand their limitations as well. And our actions—corrective actions toward our children—must be tempered with the understanding of that weakness of the child and specifically because of that weakness we are not allowed to use that form of God’s judgments. One of God’s judgments which is to provoke somebody to anger—as a corrective measure—we can’t do that with our kids.

So if you’ve got a couple of kids there and one child has been disobedient and rebellious and you think I’m going to bring this child back by showing a lot of love and affection to this other child and provoke this child to anger them because they’re going to feel that I’ve left my affection from this child and gone to another—God’s saying don’t do that. Don’t use that tactic specifically. The reason is because the child says in Colossians will become disheartened—without heart. It’s interesting too that word. I won’t get into a long study of it, but the word that means the only thing I’ve come to so far in my understanding of that word is it means the child will become without the spark of life—without a lot of spirit or high spirit.

The word that says he won’t be is really a word that usually is translated wrath but it has the indication of a high spirit. And so this is probably the source of much teaching you probably heard in terms—you have to be careful not to break a child’s spirit. That’s what the implication is here: that if you use that specific method of judgment, which is perfectly proper for God, maybe proper in terms of nations, in terms of the child relationship it’s improper because the result of that will be your child will become totally broken and disheartened and he will lose his fervor or his spirit for life.

I think that’s specifically what’s being talked about. There’s not a great deal of difference, but I think one talks about a specific tactic and then helps us to understand that in terms of what God does himself. But this is further pointed out I think in the next—as we turn down the next part of the outline—to the positive conditions of this commandment, which is to bring them up.

That’s the positive condition. Then we’re taught that to bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. To bring up children is the positive side of this commandment. We’re not to provoke them. And by the way, the Colossians passage doesn’t mention the positive side. It just mentions the negative one: don’t provoke them to wrath. That’s how important it is. Double witness there. And in Colossians, it’s the only specific command given to fathers.

Don’t walk away forgetting that today. Don’t provoke your children to wrath in that way. But in any event, the positive side is stated in Ephesians—is that we’re to bring them up, which has implications of training or feeding or nourishing somebody. Calvin in his commentary on this passage says that undoubtedly that part of the connotation of that word “bringing them up” is a goodness and forbearance in relationship to your children. It doesn’t mean just to, you know, somehow get them to maturity fast. It means to be forbearing and good toward your children, to be kind-hearted toward them.

And fathers have to remember that it can be easy to get exasperated with your child and then to exasperate him in return. But that’s not what we’re to do. This idea of forbearance then fits in nicely with that idea of not provoking them to wrath by using this tactic, which is not in itself wrong but is wrong in using it toward children. And so I think that’s further indication that is the correct way to look at that—not provoking to wrath. But in any event, whichever one of those two ways you see of using that word, the idea is that we are to be longsuffering toward our children, forbearing of them.

And we have that statement in our communion service where fathers are to examine their children and we say in that community service in the form there: you’ll notice “making allowances for the foolishness of their hearts,” and that’s what the scriptures are getting at here, I think—that children are not to be judged at the same level or measure of judgment as adults are to be judged. Incidentally, that same thing is true of wives and husbands. In other places of the New Testament it tells us to be gentle with your wives and longsuffering, recognizing that they’re the weaker vessel—they don’t have the same capabilities as a man. They can’t be judged in that way. We have to understand them as well and then modify our own actions toward our wife on the basis of God’s creation of the woman in her particular state in life.

So that’s what he’s saying here. I think we move on to the positive side of this—what we’re doing to bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Let’s give you the word. The first word is “nurture.” That word we’ve talked about before. It has the idea of teaching, of course, in 2 Timothy 3:16. This is the word that’s used where it says that the word of God is “profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.”

The word “instruction in righteousness” is what’s being talked about here. That has to do then with an informal training up, of course. It has to do and the book of Hebrews makes it quite clear—with the same word—to nurture our children—has also a disciplinary action to it, a corrective action. The use of the rod would fall under the term “nurture” as would the instruction of the child in the word of God for the positive. All of education can be kind of wrapped up in this portion: nurture.

Moses—it said of Moses in Acts 7:22 that he had learned, he was “learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.” That same word there is translated “learned.” We want to bring our children up to where they’re “learned” in all these things. This, of course, should remind us of the great Shema—that all of life’s activity should be geared toward teaching our children. And that’s what it’s saying here. We’re going to nurture our children. We’re going to apply the principles of God’s word. We’re going to teach them “rising up sitting down when you go to bed and in the way” as well.

At this point I’d like to just take a brief minute out and say one specific thing that’s important to do in the context of your home today is the idea of family devotions. I mentioned this lots, I think over the last few years, and yet I continually have people come to me and say we’re not exactly sure how to do this. So I wanted to just briefly sketch out some of the things you can do. I would also like to stress that family worship is an important way to provide just nurturing of the child. It’s a great method for doing that, and it takes into account the covenantal nature of the family.

It’s interesting. I had a conversation with Reverend Jones. He was out a couple of weeks ago, and it’s interesting how he’s had conversations with various non-reformed people—Baptists—who don’t usually have family devotions. And apparently it’s not that stressed in churches that are baptistic. And one of the reasons for that is that they kind of feel like the child should either fly or die on his own, you know, and that he should have his own faith.

And so the father’s got his faith and his private time with the Lord. And the child is encouraged to have his private time with the Lord, but there’s never an idea of family worship. The reformed faith has always taught the family is a covenantal unit—an important part of God’s structure in society. And the family should worship together. It should be the first and best church a child has. And so it’s important to have family worship times, maybe even discuss those in the beginning before a child goes off and has his private worship.

You give them the model for what worship is by teaching him through the family devotion. Don’t just give him a Bible and say, “Go pray about it in whatever corner.” That won’t do it. Teach him what worship of God is by using the idea of family devotions. I stressed before and I’ll mention it again that I think that one good mechanism that we have is the pattern that’s laid out in Deuteronomy 6.

In the morning when you’re sitting down—which is normally a meal time—and then in the evening, it says that’s—three specific times as well as “the way”—that the scriptures in Deuteronomy 6 tells us to teach our children the law of God. I think it’s good to try to get just a minute or two, if that’s all you can do, in the morning first thing with your family. Soon as the family can get together, first thing in the morning before everybody takes off—just a very short time of thanking God for the day ahead and having children understand that we see every day as a gift from God.

We see it as—we see the communion bread that we eat downstairs—we see that day had to be taken to be used for the purposes of God and his kingdom and to be governed by his law, to thank God for whatever happens in that day. It’s an important thing. Just a minute or two in the morning, it’ll be fine. Then sometimes during the day to have an actual little more extended time of devotion when you’re sitting down with the kids prior to bedtime—when you’re sitting, because you don’t want them too sleepy when you do this—sitting down with kids and having a time of family devotion.

I would mention just briefly that there probably are three important aspects to that family devotion. The first is there should be a time of prayer. There should be some singing—probably be a good thing—and not any length at all, and then some exposition of the Bible. Now the important thing to remember here is—you know your own children best, of course—but the tendency of almost every father who gets zealous about doing family devotions is to make the thing too long, too complicated, and the child just cannot hang with it.

You got to keep these things short. Maybe sing a chorus that your children know. Maybe sing a little bit of the catechism song from—can’t remember her name now, but from Atlanta, Georgia—the church down there.