Ephesians 6:1-9
A
Eph. 6:1-3.
a Ye children.
b Be obedient.
c To parents.
d `Right'
`Promise'.
B
Eph. 6:4.
e And ye fathers.
f Provoke not.
g Your children.
h Bring them up.
A
Eph. 6:5-8.
a Ye slaves.
b Be obedient.
c To masters.
d `As unto Christ'
`Reward'.
B
Eph. 6:9.
e And ye masters.
f Threaten not.
g Them.
h Your Master is in heaven.
Promise and reward figure more prominently here. While parents are spoken
of in Ephesians 6:1 and father and mother separately mentioned in verse 2,
fathers are specially addressed in verse 4.
One of the results of modern civilization has been the transference of
this responsibility from the father to the mother. To thousands of young
children the father is someone who appears on the scene at weekends, whose name
is held up as a kind of bogey as a last resource, but who does not come into
everyday living contact with the growing child. The mother's duties connected
with the material and physical well-being of the child often prevent the
exercise of those other elements of training that are so necessary.
Mother-love in essence is protective. Father-love is corrective as well.
Mother-love often shields the child from the due results of its own wrongdoing,
whereas father-love looks ahead and sees the dire results in the future. As
neither parent can be a substitute for the other, the child needs both, but `in
discipline and instruction' (en paideia kai nouthesia) the father is the true
agent. Hebrews 12:5-11 should be read in this connection. Paul explains fairly
clearly what he conceives to be the function of the mother and the father in 1
Thessalonians 2:7-11:
`We were gentle in the midst of you, as a nursing mother cherisheth her
own children' (Author's translation).
This motherliness is further expanded in such words as `being
affectionately desirous', `willing to impart our very lives', `ye were endeared
to us', `labouring night and day so as not to be burdensome'. Who that knows
mother-love cannot sense it here? The apostle, however, was a father to these
saints as well as a mother. So the language changes. He speaks of his
deportment as `pious', `righteous', `blameless', and that he `exhorted and
comforted and charged every one of you, as a father doth his own children, that
ye should walk worthy'. Such is the necessary combination for true child
welfare. Before the apostle says one word as to how the children were to be
disciplined, he gives a caution to the fathers, `and ye fathers provoke not your
323